“Father Haslop told me you came from somewhere else … that you just appeared here. I guess they are just being real stupid … right?”
Charlie’s brow took on extra wrinkles as he internally debated exactly what he should tell. “Well, in truth … I used to live somewhere else, somewhere kind of like the Land, but quite a bit smaller.”
“There are other places like this out there!” Aleck jumped to his feet in excitement.
“There was … one, at least. I was the youngest there, a young man living in a village full of the old. Everyone died, leaving me alone. Don’t remember everything … just that your mind kind of goes away when you’re that lonely … that frightened. I lived like that for years … just me and a handful of wisps and pigs … a few chickens, until I noticed the Land was shrinking. It had never been that big, not as big as here, but it seemed to close in around me, eating up the buildings, pastures, animals. Soon it was just my house, then the walls went away, and I was just sitting on my chair on a little patch of tile, surrounded by desert and dust devils.”
He paused to refill his mug. Aleck didn’t speak, but just stood in openmouthed amazement.
“That day, I just stood up and walked. Didn’t expect to survive as I crossed the boundary … maybe I didn’t. I always figured I was some kind of ghost, wisp or dust devil that just thought I was a human, but I walked away, just me and the sand for days on end. The dust devils seemed to guide me; I felt them nudging, corralling me along as if they had somewhere for me to be and I wasn’t in any position to object.… I just walked.
“Then, one day I saw the lights of Tattledale, like a fiery dome in the sky, and heard the church bell ringing. It sounds dull and muffled when you’re on the outside, I do remember that much. I was so tired, thirsty, hungry beyond anything you can imagine. I stumbled across the barrier and all the sights, smells and sounds of life just overwhelmed me. I walked a while and fell into a hedgerow. I survived there for some time, living off berries and ditchwater, until I ventured out into town and stole some food from others.”
“So they caught you eventually.”
“Eventually. Haslop never liked me right from the start. He wanted to burn me, like in the old days—said I was a warlock when I told him I came from outside. Luckily others were not so dumb, and after a long trial and plenty of time locked up in those cells, I was let go. I took over old Charlie’s potato patch that was left empty after he vanished a year or so earlier.”
“There was another Charlie Potato?”
“The one and only, the original. I never really remembered who I had been. Something was lost from my mind when I crossed the barrier and left my town, so I took on his identity and became someone new.”
“How did you survive crossing the perimeter?”
“Don’t know. I’ve lost a few fingertips testing to see if I could cross back to the desert. Seems whatever watched over that town decided to let me go. I like to think there is something different about me; maybe the software in my wisp is special, as I worked for the company that made it, or maybe it just wanted me to come here and check you all out. Perhaps I’m some kind of snooping device to record what happens in here, and I’m expected to check back into the collective sometime.”
“Do …” Aleck’s jaw began to quiver. “Do you think you’ll survive riding out?”
“I doubt it.” He waved his stubby fingers in the air. “My fingertips never survived the trip. Bodies probably don’t survive, but the wisps might … kind of a homecoming for them. I’ve made a point of learning everything I can about you all, of filling my head with positive thoughts and ideas, so if they take a look inside my head, just maybe they’ll find something useful, something that can help you all out. There are problems with the Land, you know, problems others don’t talk about.”
“What problems?”
“Water. You don’t really think those tiny desert clouds keep our wells full, do you? We’re lucky the Land is over a large underground reservoir. The boundary is actually a spherical bubble, so it goes under the reservoir, leaving it intact for us to drink, but it’s running low; maybe a few more decades of water left.”
“I didn’t know that—”
“No, people try not to think about it. What can they do? Everything that evaporates goes up and out across the boundary. Then there’s the loss of nutrients, of living diversity … of people. How many people are there going to be in your coming generation, Aleck? You and Martha better get real busy, or you’ll be very lonely.”
Aleck blushed. “Now you’re really scaring me.”
“Sorry, but it’s important that you know the things that you face, lad. Knowledge is power. It’s passed on like those bike chains, but you have to keep using them, fixing them, finding new ways to survive; otherwise they just turn to rust and everything is lost.”
The loud bell from the church began tolling. They sat and listened to it for a few seconds, as if it meant nothing. “Guess the word’s out.” Charlie eased to his feet. “They’ll come here next. I should go hide somewhere where a bunch of superstitious old men will never dare to look.”
“Take some more grog.” Aleck reached for his mug.
“I’m grogged well enough, lad. In truth, speaking with you has been the best pain relief I could have wished for.”
They embraced in the firelight before dousing the flames and pushing the bikes outside. “You watch out for that Father Haslop, lad, he’s a dangerous man.”
“He just seems kind of angry all the time, not really dangerous.”
“Let me tell you one last thing about wisps. They’re complex networks that were designed to live inside a human and monitor and control their biology. That meant they watched and listened and felt the world through our senses. They remembered the things we did, and what we became. There’s a trace of the actual person inside each wisp, and sometimes they can connect with each other or even with you. You can learn a lot from just sitting and letting the wisps come to you, lad. There’s much wisdom in those little minds. I was in that ditch a long time when I first came here, that ditch over by Lowdown.”
Aleck felt that old familiar shiver of fear at the name Lowdown and its single, haunting wisp.
“Of course, the most painful, poignant memories are the ones most likely to get encoded in the wisp and passed along to anyone around long enough to listen. I learned a lot from the original Charlie about potato farming and the simple life he’d led, but the most vivid memory was of being beaten nearly to death by a red-faced, drunken Father Haslop for trying to steal some of his grog. I almost made it home in a terrible state … but the ditch seemed a comfortable place to rest. The real Charlie is still there, but a lot of his memories are in here.” He tapped his temple with a stubby, half-length finger.
“Father Haslop is a murderer?” Aleck could hardly believe the words leaving his mouth.
“Bones are still down there in the mud if anyone cares to look.”
A rattling calamity crashed down the lane toward the group of dark houses as Praetor Jones and his legion hustled along in a torchlit procession. Aleck could hear the shouts of orders and clanks of armor and shields suddenly dangerously close by.
“Looks like we’ll be going the other way,” Charlie chuckled as their pedals turned and the ancient bikes creaked off onto the lane.
They watched the sunrise from Pilot Hill, its splendid array of colors lighting up the sky and the tops of distant dunes.
“It looks like bacon,” Charlie said, gazing up at the streaks of color, licking his lips.
“Bacon? But it’s got blue bits in i
t.”
“Old Trotter’s bacon has blue bits in it.”
“Yuck!” Aleck said, although at that moment his stomach would have been happy with any sort of bacon, with or without blue bits.
“Time to go,” said Charlie, creaking to his feet. “People will be heading for church this way soon. Best not scare them any more than I have to.” He picked old Farthing’s bike out of the hedge and gave it a final inspection before easing himself onto its saddle.
Aleck sensed that this was the moment for a great speech, an inspiring outpour of emotion drenched with hope and meaning, but no words came and instead he found himself silently repeating his mother’s words, “Legionaries don’t cry. Legionaries don’t cry.…”
“Well … goodbye then, look after the Land won’t you, and …” Charlie gave Aleck a huge slap across the back, sending him staggering into a juniper bush. “Be good to that nice young lady of yours.”
As Aleck picked himself out of the bush, he saw Charlie teetering down the dirt road on his way to oblivion. For a few seconds the bike and the road seemed to resist, the wheels spun in the grit, and he fought for balance, but gravity came to his aid, and Charlie began to roll down and along toward the sunrise.
“Goodbye, Charlie …” Aleck was up and running, almost catching him, but Charlie’s legs started working the pedals. He hit a smooth patch of road and lurched forward and careened off downhill.
Charlie glanced back, waving, his face alive and smiling. “Goodbye, lad.”
Aleck kept running, but Charlie was bouncing along so fast that his legs couldn’t keep up with the pedals. A second before the perimeter, he took his hands off the handlebars and flung his arms over his head as if to greet the rising sun.
Aleck covered his eyes, but kept running and stumbling downward.
There was no sound, no cry of pain … nothing … followed by silence.
When Aleck looked up, the desert was empty, still, with a puff of dust where some minor disturbance had occurred.
He stopped at the edge and looked outward, hoping for a sign, anything. The dust settled, and through the utter desert silence, he heard the soft music, the sound of the breeze playing the dunes like an Aeolian church organ.
In the sand, he saw an object; it looked like a small black snake, just curled there on top of a miniature dune. He strained for a closer look, his toes creeping nearer the fatal edge, but dust wafted up and obscured his view. He watched as the sand twisted and circled into a small vortex that revved up and darted toward him.
He backed away, trembling with fear as a dust devil crossed the perimeter. Aleck’s eyes widened as it coalesced into what looked like a stubby human figure.
The creature stumbled on, its stout cylindrical arms waving as it tried to balance on two legs, seemingly for the first time. The legs grew longer as it gained in confidence, taking on more human proportions. Bumps and pits appeared on its face in a childish parody of human features.
“Charlie?” Mastering his fear, Aleck stood his ground and let the figure approach until they stood face to face. He searched the sandy features for any sign that Charlie Potato was somehow still in there. The face rolled and swam as it mimicked his expressions: fear, concern, wonder, and then a smile.
The sand creature reached out a hand, and Aleck realized it was holding the snakelike object from the desert. It was Charlie’s bicycle chain.
“Thank you,” Aleck said, taking the gift.
The desert music grew suddenly louder, as if the barrier between the Land and the sand had vanished. The creature turned and walked back onto dunes, dust billowing around its feet. Suddenly it was a dust devil again, spinning away, parting the sand in a wide, shallow furrow across the plain. The new pathway solidified, the grains of sand melting together into a solid sheet—a road.
It joined onto the truncated Pilot Hill road, snaking out through the desert like a memory of some long-forgotten highway.
Aleck watched as the sand road curved away over the horizon, cutting a path between distant dunes. He found himself wandering after the dust devil, reaching out, wanting to know more. Where did this road go? Was there another town out there? A new water supply?
With a shock, he realized he’d stepped over the perimeter. He winced, waiting for the pain of destruction, but nothing happened, just the flinty air rustling his hair.
Alone, he stood, maybe the only living thing in the entire desert. As he turned back, he saw the Land as never before— from the outside, and even though only a few feet away, it looked so different, so precious and vulnerable.
He turned and walked a few steps along the road, the new road to a new understanding. Many problems needed overcoming, but maybe this strange intelligence was talking to them now, or at least understanding what they were. A great adventure lay ahead, stretched out before him, right now.
No … not just yet.
He turned back and stepped into the land he knew so well. Ahead and back over the hill, he had a lot of explaining to do, but after that there was a new home, and a new life, and maybe … even a wife and family. Now that the world felt huge and full of possibilities, he needed that security, that anchor—a base to work from. Before, he had been confined, caged with everything predetermined, but those boundaries had fallen, and now, everything just seemed right.
He turned, smiled at the sun, and breathed in the freedom, “See you soon, Charlie.”
He headed back toward home, and with the greasy chain swung rakishly over his shoulder, he began to ascend Pilot Hill. Soon, Father Haslop would open the church and the pushbike legion of Tattledale Town would gather for their morning patrol. A new life lay ahead for them all, and the unbroken chain of knowledge would pass down through the ages, driving the growth of civilization ever forward over bumpy, frosted roads.
Memories Bleed Beneath the Mask
written by
Randy Henderson
illustrated by
Vanessa Golitz
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Randy Henderson was born in the states of wonder, awe, and Washington. He quickly learned the joy of escaping to fantasy worlds, from Middle-earth to Earthsea, from Amber to Pern, from Valdemar to Midkemia. He took some amazing vacation photos of these places (in his head) that he shares with all the friends he made (also in his head). His head has become rather cluttered.
After toying with such impressive creative pursuits as latch hook and recording really clever answering machine messages, Randy realized that what he wanted most was to write. It was not as easy as it looked.
Many years of dabbling followed, during which Randy studied social sciences and worked at a variety of jobs, such as weight-loss counselor, Alaska factory-boat worker, and writing tax sob stories for CPA clients (his first paid fiction), before he finally settled into IT.
Randy decided to get serious about his writing, and attended the Clarion West writing workshop where he learned things … dark and mystical things about the art of fiction, things best left unspoken. Ask him, and he’ll gladly speak of them.
Randy then wrote new stories—faster stories, stronger stories—and began to publish in wondrous places such as Realms of Fantasy and Escape Pod before winning Writers of the Future.
He has since sold additional tales to editors with excellent taste in fiction, as well as a humorous urban fantasy series to Tor. The first novel in his series Finn Fancy Necromancy is forthcoming in February, 2015.
Visit Randy on his website at: randy-henderson.com.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Vanessa Golitz was born in 1988 in a small town in Germany. A
s a child she sometimes watched her mother draw and paint with pastels and watercolor as a hobby and continued to draw and paint into her teens.
At age 16 she received her first graphics tablet and started to learn digital painting in Photoshop Elements. Some personal issues during that time, including bullying and the divorce of her parents, led her to give up painting a few times, but she eventually went back to it.
After graduating from high school, she considered attending art school, but as there are no art schools in Germany that teach the classical art fundamentals needed for mastering realism, she decided to enroll in English and Spanish courses at the university instead, since she has always enjoyed learning languages.
At the same time it became clear to Vanessa that the market for fantastical realism and fairy tale illustration is a very small niche, where only a handful of artists make a living. (Most do not, and the pay doesn’t even come close to the equivalent of minimum wage.)
She struggled with personal problems and dropped out of university, working small jobs, and today holds a steady day job while working on her painting skills in her spare time.
She plans to soon make a portfolio website for her work. Her goal is to become a better artist and to reach a skill level like that of her favorite artists, such as Donato Giancola, Cynthia Sheppard, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, James Gurney and others.
Memories Bleed Beneath the Mask
Grandfather lay in his giant bed like a rescued baby bird tucked into a shoebox full of towels, his frail body swallowed by blankets and pillows. Machines of brass, glass and steel whirred and clicked and chimed, and yellowed tubes and braids of wire ran from them to Grandfather’s nose and arm. Mother stopped me just inside the bedroom door, and leaned down to whisper, “Say your goodbyes, Trystan, and remember what we practiced. You’re twelve, and need to be a man now. Your future depends on this.” She nudged me forward as my aunts, uncles and cousins all watched from the edges of the room and whispered among themselves.