“It’s clear the direction has been laid out for us. Shall we?” he asked as he offered for Crush to go first.
“Weird place,” Crush grumbled as he put the clover back in his pocket and set out for the mountain.
“How far away do you think that peak is?” asked Pound.
“Ten miles at least; four hours of walking guaranteed. Do you think there will be someone waiting for us when we get there?”
“Perhaps. I am still puzzled though. The tunnel must be some sort of portal, though I can’t guess what triggers it to open and close. Can you?” Pound queried.
“I’ve got a hunch, maybe.”
“Care to share?”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” said Crush, which sounded funny coming from a guy with cat ears. “Besides, there’s someone up ahead, and I don’t think its Calvin.” A quarter of a mile ahead, a man stood in the center of the path. As they drew closer, the stranger called out to them in warning.
“Aye, you best be turning back, my friends!” the kilted man called out to them.
“We don’t want any trouble. We’re just looking for a friend who we believe is lost out here,” Crush explained.
“I expect that if you’ve lost a friend here, you should go back home and make a new friend. Forget about the old one,” the foreigner advised as he crossed his arms.
“Calvin Smith is his name, and his family is worried about him,” Pound explained as he stood his ground. “He’s an elderly gentleman with an oxygen tank. Have you seen him?” asked Pound of the bearded stranger wearing a kilt and highland boots. With his arms firmly crossed in defiance, the stranger shrugged his shoulders in reply and blocked the center of the clover path. Crush and Pound were given the impression that they would not be allowed to pass.
“We don’t want any trouble, mister. I am Crush, and this is Pound,” he said in polite introduction. “We just want to find our friend and take him back home.”
“They call me Garbhan. Feel free to turn back while you still can,” he replied as he spit in the palms of his hands and reached down for a stone. Garbhan raised the stone up to his waist and measured its weight with his forearm. Drawing back the stone with lightning speed, it appeared that Garbhan was prepared to launch the stone like a rocket at the field agents. Pound was the first to react, and he rushed forward at the stranger in a blur of movement. Just as Garbhan released the stone, Pound lunged at the highlander and clipped his knees from beneath him, bringing him to the ground in a rumble of tartan. The stone however continued its flight, striking Crush with a direct hit to the forehead, and the agent crumpled to the ground in a heap.
Meanwhile, Garbhan and Pound were wound in a ball of violence, each one scoring one hit after another until they finally separated in exhaustion. Garbhan crawled away on hands and knees to the center of the pathway and waited for Pound to try to pass. Pound stood to his feet and when he turned back to look for help, he saw that Crush had been knocked unconscious. Spinning on his opponent, Pound flexed his muscles in anger.
“So that’s how it’s going to be,” Pound murmured.
“Go back where you came from,” replied Garbhan as he wiped away the blood that dripped from his chin. Reaching down for another stone, the highlander awkwardly lifted the rock over his head and let it fly at Pound’s head. Pound ducked just in time to escape what surely would have been a dead shot to his cranium, and the rock bounced harmlessly down into the adjacent meadow. Garbhan wavered, and Pound took the brief opportunity to use his abilities. Bending over to reach the ground, he grasped a handful of clover and merged his essence with the living plants, sending a mental command into the plants through his touch, one by one, the flora then passed the signal along from root to root. Before Garbhan could regain his composure from the missed throw, the clover wound itself into fibers, and the fibers then wound into ropes that lashed out at the highlander. Wrapping around his body, the ropes restricted his arms and pulled him to the ground where he was restrained in a vice of clover.
Crush moaned to himself as he lay in the field of clover, and Pound made his way back to help his friend. Leaning over him, Pound noted the deep gash on Crush’s forehead as he grasped his hand to pull him to his feet. Staggering to gain his balance, Crush spread out his hands and feet for a moment as the world around him spun.
“Man, I feel stoned . . . ,” Crush blurted out as he reached down to retrieve the rock that had struck him. When his eyes could finally focus on it, Crush wiped the blood off the surface of the rock and then tucked it under his arm.
“You look it, too. Come on, let’s keep moving,” replied Pound as he tied a handkerchief around Crush’s forehead. Crush raised his hand to touch his head as Pound steadied him.
“Is that a dirty hanky?” he asked as Pound tied it around his cat ears to stop the bleeding. When the makeshift bandage was sufficiently tight, they started toward Garbhan.
“If it wasn’t dirty before, then it is now,” Pound answered with a grin as they made their way along the road. “Are you sure you don’t want to turn back? That’s a pretty nasty wound that you have.”
“Nah. Let’s keep going,” said Crush as they passed by Garbhan. The assailant was restricted by the ropes of clover, and Crush stopped to look down at him. Garbhan returned a look of amazement that Crush was still alive after the attack. “Do you want your rock back?” he asked as he held it over his head and then dropped the stone a hair’s breadth from Garbhan’s left temple. “We’ll be back soon,” Crush warned as he looked down at his enemy.
“No worries, Crush. He’s firmly planted,” replied Pound as they continued along the path of clover.
Two hours passed and still the mountain seemed as far away as when they first began. Pound looked ahead and then back. Garbhan was far out of sight now so they knew they were making progress. The pace was just not fast enough however for them to reach the mountain by nightfall.
“That is, if there is a nightfall in this place,” Pound thought to himself.
“By the look of things, we may have to rest tonight before we make it to the mountain,” said Crush as he glanced back. “Preferably off the road so that we don’t get any more surprises.” Pound agreed, and they stepped off the path and down a meadow toward a forest. Off the path, the ground was covered in a short grass, and the stroll down the hill was tranquil until they reached the edge of the thick, dark forest. Full of old oak and gum trees, the woodland was hobbled and gangly in contour. They hesitated at the border, and after much discussion, they decided to enter just deep enough to be hidden from any scoundrels that may traverse the road of clover. They were not alone however.
Chapter 2
*
Under the Cover of the Forest
*
Crush and Pound sat on logs across from one another under the canopy of the forest, each with a handful of beef jerky and a canteen of warm water. Their conversation had been at low volume and abbreviated for fear of attracting unwanted attention. Crush’s head wound had brought about a slow pounding migraine, and he chose to lay down to rest as the multicolored sky turned to a dark sunset. Although bruised himself, Pound was thoughtfully concerned over his partner’s condition, and he kept a close eye on him while he rested. In all their years of service, he had never known Crush to succumb to such an injury without healing rapidly, and though the wound did appear to be healing, the progress was much slower than in past experience. Some strange magic was at work in this place, and they would need to tread more carefully while they were in this world. Pound did not verbalize his doubts, but he felt uneasy about the probability of finding Calvin and taking him back through the tunnel to earth. During their service with the Department of Adventures and Mysteries, there had been cases where other agents had not returned from lesser assignments. To his credit, Crush was viewed as the toughest agent in the force, and there had never really been a concern about whether he would return from a case. With the ap
parent negativity of the magic at work, Pound could not rule out the possibility that they could be stuck in this dimension forever.
As Pound had taken the first and only watch, he covered his injured partner in a thin pile of dry leaves to act as camouflage. Sitting down at the trunk of a nearby tree, Pound sat as still as a statue and listened to the wind as it blew over the canopy above. The treetops swayed, and the stars peaked out between the leaves in a twinkling display of light. This was the first time that he had relaxed all day, and his own bruises and scrapes throbbed as the silent tendrils of sleep crossed the lids of his eyes. In his mind he knew that he should stay awake all night long, but the sleep of the old forest was calling as it pulled at him to let go of the anxiety of his duty and become one with his surroundings for a night.
**********
When Pound awoke, the stars were all out, and the forest was as dark as a cave. Clicking the button on his pocket watch, the time was 3:06 a.m. If he could believe the time of day in this dimension was the same as home, then it was way too early for him to get up for the day. As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he also realized that he should never have fallen asleep, that he should have kept watch all night. Pound suddenly felt a twinge of guilt at his slip-up, and he leaned over to check on his injured partner. Crush was still breathing as he lay on his side, and the half-man-half-cat was purring in his sleep of reclamation. He was tough as nails, and if past experience was any indicator, Crush would be ready for anything at dawn, or at least 6:00 a.m. by his pocket watch.
The cold air had made his back stiff throughout the night, so Pound stood to his feet and stretched his arms and legs to relieve the tingling. His eyes were still heavy from the sleep that had overtaken him, but when they came into clear focus, he settled back down at the base of the tree to count the stars in the foreign sky.
All was quiet there in the forest until the sound of a snapping twig echoed through the trees. Pound froze for a moment, and his body tensed as he waited for the next sound to reverberate in the wood. No sounds followed as he paused for a time, and when his muscles ached with the unease, he decided to relax and move his head ever so slightly to peak around the side of the tree. The stillness of the night was all that he could detect in the dim reflections from the stars, and Pound let his shoulders drop with ease at the revelation that all was well.
“It was probably just a squirrel or a chipmunk stirring with the cold,” he thought to himself as he turned his back around and froze. There, not a foot from Pound, stood a translucent and smoky figure. Shaped in the form of a man, his hazy hair wisped in the cool night breeze as the ghostly silhouette stepped over Crush’s sleeping form and walked out of the woodland into the open meadow.
Confused and unsure of whether to be afraid, Pound hesitated long enough for the apparition to turn and motion for him to follow with a wave of his hand. Swallowing a gulp of chill air, Pound rose to his feet and stepped out of the protection of the woods into the meadow to join the spirit in the night. The ghost then turned and led Pound down a hill to a narrow stream which was situated in the valley of a field. Crossing the trickling water with ease, Pound moved forward and found that the land was no longer a smooth contour. It had become an uneven set of hundreds of mounds that lined a rising hillside, and Pound recognized what this place must be.
“A graveyard,” he whispered to himself as he realized that his feet were planted on a grave site. Out of respect for the dead, Pound stepped to the outside edge of the mound and watched as the spirit hovered over the center of a freshly dug grave. Slowly descending into the loose clay, the spirit wailed out in a desperate scream of anger and vengeance as its form disappeared below the ground. The screech of rage was deafening, and though Pound covered his ears with his hands, the excruciating sound penetrated his fingertips and rattled his eardrums. Then the wail ceased as quickly as it had begun, and Pound lowered his hands from his head for a moment. When he was convinced that the noise would not return, he knelt down to the ground and placed his hand on the fresh dirt. Pound commanded all manner of plant life, and he watched as grass covered the top of the mound to seal and protect the fallen spirit like a shield.
“I don’t know what happened to you, but I wish you peace,” he whispered to the ghost’s grave. “A very strange event, and I hope it doesn’t happen again. If that scream didn’t alert the entire countryside, then I’ll be surprised,” Pound thought to himself as he made his way back up the hill and into the forest. Returning to his spot by the tree, Pound knelt down once again to check on Crush’s condition. Despite the scream, Crush thankfully had not moved an inch. Settling down against the trunk of the tree, Pound found his mind deep in thought, and he began to believe that this mystery was much more complicated and dangerous than when they had first set out.
“Maybe I should wake the poor fellow before another banshee appears,” Pound thought but then decided against it. As he rested his head back against the stiff bark, he peered out into the night sky and watched a swirling fog pass between the treetops and meander through the upper limbs. When it reached the tree that he was resting on, the fog snaked down along the bark and began to take human form in the space above his head.
“Not again,” Pound whispered with dread.
“Weren’t you going to wake me?” came a familiar voice, and Pound jumped with a jolt. He felt relief when he looked over at his partner and found that Crush was sitting up on one elbow and staring at the apparition.
“I was letting you get some beauty sleep,” answered Pound. “Though I don’t think it did you any good. How long have been awake?”
“Long enough to hear that screaming teapot down the hill. What was that anyway?”
“Oh, you heard that, did you?”
“Are you kidding? I’ll bet Shelley Smith heard that scream back on earth,” replied Crush.
“Yeah, it was loud. All I can say is that it was a spirit like this one in front of us, and there’s a graveyard in that direction, too,” answered Pound as he pointed out into the meadow.
Crush looked up at the spirit and asked, “Where are we?” The spirit opened its mouth, and a blood curdling scream escaped. Crush reached up and covered its mouth with his hand and remarked, “Sign language would do better, if you would be so kind.” The spirit then reached out one hand to the tree bark, and with the tip of its finger, the specter etched a burning image into the wood. Crush and Pound both recognized it on sight.
“A four-leaf clover. What does it mean?” asked Pound.
“I don’t know yet,” said Crush, and then he laid hands on the apparition and pulled the spirit in close. “Thanks,” he offered sincerely as he released the ghost to float gently away out of the forest. With the spirit gone, the two agents were at a loss for what this all meant. Crush gently outlined the seared image with his fingertip, and then he placed his hand into his pocket and retrieved the four-leaf clover he had found earlier at the stream. Eerily, the image was nearly the same as the artifact that he kept in his pocket. “That’s interesting,” he said as he placed the clover back into his pocket and laid back down for the night.
“Do you think we’ll see any more ghosts tonight?” Pound asked with a smirk.
“Only if I can see through my eyelids,” joked Crush as he closed his eyes.
“How’s your head?” Pound asked.
“Swelled. Look, I’m going to rest a little longer. If you can, keep the conversations to a minimum,” Crush said with a wink as he sprawled back out on the ground.
“I see you’re in better spirits,” Pound quipped. “Get some shut eye while it’s still dark. I have a feeling we will need it.”
**********
The next morning Crush was as cranky as ever, and the fact that they were running low on food made matters worse. Fortunately his wounds had healed significantly from the day before, and he was ready to get moving again. They crept quietly out of the forest down to the creek to refill the ca
nteens and to investigate the unmarked graves more closely.
Upon exiting the forest into the meadow, they noticed that the grave sites spanned a hundred yards along the creek and up the hill. Each one was grown over with grass, and Pound had to carefully retrace his steps in order to pick out the one that he had covered with grass the previous night. There were no grave markers and no evidence of who was buried there, but there was one thing that they did know. The spirits were restless. Somehow that was all that they needed to know.
“I think that when we find Calvin Smith, we’re also going to find a stiff challenge,” said Pound.
“No doubt,” Crush agreed. “There is a civilization here that we know nothing about except where they bury their dead. And the dead aren’t happy.”
“Nice gloomy thoughts to keep us warm. If the road is clear, then we should finish this journey and get back to our world,” Pound offered.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” said Crush. “Come on,” he said as he stepped up the hill toward the road of clover and motioned for Pound to follow. A few hours of walking passed, and they reached the base of the mountain. At the end of the road, there appeared to be an entrance to a cave. Crossties of wood stood upright as if to hold up the entire mountain, and above the entryway, a wooden sign displayed a three-leaf clover burned into the grains of the timber.
“What do you think is down there?” Crush queried as he looked into the pitch black entrance of the cave.
“I doubt we’ll find clover like the sign says,” replied Pound. Just then three highlanders stepped out from the shadows of the cave. Each one held a spear and a dirty smile, and they recognized one of them. “Garbhan,” Pound announced. He did not know how the scoundrel had escaped, but he had brought back-up with him this time.
“Kitty come to play again, hmm?” Garbhan provoked as he pointed his spear toward Crush.
“Yeah, puss puss. Are you looking for a litter box?” said another with laughter as they surrounded the two agents and placed their spears to their backs.