Chapter the 10th
“You’ve done it now!”
I recognized that voice, the voice of a mean old cop. I felt a headache throbbing somewhere, but it seemed to be somewhere off to the side. Much closer to the center of me was an intense pressure on my neck, right behind my jaw bone.
“Yes, we have done something,” said a child, the elf girl Ralindera.
“What are you doing?” asked another child, the elf girl Ralindera.
“Don’t you know anything about first aid?” asked the mean cop. “I’m squeezing the pressure point that will control the bleeding.”
“May I help you squeeze this pressure point?” asked another child, the elf boy Marakel.
“No,” answered the cop. “No, I know what I’m doing and you don’t. What you can do is call an ambulance.”
“Ambulance?” asked Perlinda.
“An ambulance is a small truck that will rush this kid to the hospital before he bleeds to death,” said the cop.
“Hospital?” asked Marakel.
“Don’t you know anything?” asked the pretty exasperated cop. “A hospital is a place where they take care of sick and injured people, like Gwion, here. Just go to that phone there and dial 9-1-1!”
“We will cure the injury,” said Ralindera.
“No, you can’t.”
“You do not understand,” said Marakel. “We know how to heal Gwion.”
“YOU ARE THE ONE’S WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND! GET TO THAT PHONE AND DIAL 9-1-1!”
“No,” said Perlinda. “You are not understanding. We are the ones who caused Gwion’s red water to flow because Gwion spoke what was true. We are the ones who must play the tune of healing for Gwion.”
I had a vague sense that the elves and the cop were talking about me but mostly it felt like they were talking about somebody else. I was kind of wondering who would win this argument and I didn’t seem to care who won it. If I did care, I could not have said anything anyway. The argument stopped and I heard the sound of piping.
“PUT THOSE THINGS AWAY!” yelled the cop. “Serenading him won’t do any good! WILL YOU PLEASE CALL 9-1-1!!!”
It seemed that the cop couldn’t win the argument because he couldn’t stop pressing my pressure point and make the elves do anything. I kind of thought I didn’t want to go to the hospital because there was something important I had to do and I couldn’t do it if I went to the hospital. The elves were playing different tunes but this time they seemed to go together, even when they sounded kind of off-key. My headache seemed to get smaller, like a kitten curling up in a ball for a nap. Then the tune made me feel like my blood was dancing. That’s silly; blood doesn’t dance, but that’s what it felt like. I heard the cop say something about the wound looking better. I was feeling better by the minute, but I still couldn’t say so. The elves kept on piping and I felt my headache oozing out of my head. After a while, I heard another voice, a nice-sounding voice. I thought maybe they’d called a doctor after all, but I didn’t feel the poking and prodding you get from a doctor. After another while, my blood stopped dancing and settled down to swimming through my veins the way it’s supposed to. All this time, my headache dissolved like a spoonful of salt in water until finally, it was gone. I opened my eyes. An overhead light almost blinded me for a moment. A man looking down on me, the cop.
“How’re you feeling, Buddy?” the cop asked me.
I could hardly believe my ears and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw Officer McDougall’s face. This time he looked like the most caring person in the world, and this right after he’d treated me like a hardened criminal until I got attacked by the elves. I realized, too, that he had probably saved me from bleeding to death before the elves started their piping to heal me. I decided that my first good deed wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Not—too bad—I think,” I answered, through the haze lingering inside my head.
“Thank God!” cried another man. Then I saw Mr. Kirkpatrick looking down on me. “Gwion, we were so worried about you!”
I sat up and took a look about me. Marakel was sitting close to where my head was lying and the two elf girls were just a little off to the side. All three elves were still holding little pipes in their hands. The expressions on their faces just about blew me away. It’s like the stone of three statues had gotten scraped away, leaving behind real, live anxious faces of real children. Seeing book tables in every direction told me I was still in Parchment Place well enough. Through the front window, I could see the first bit of dawn lighting up the street.
“I told you we didn’t have to take him to your house of healing,” said Perlinda.
“I’m not so sure about that,” said the policeman. “There could be hidden injuries. I still vote for taking him to the hospital.”
“There are no hidden injuries when you play the right healing tunes on the pipe,” said Ralindera.
“Gwion,” said Perlinda. “We are sorry that we attacked you for saying what was true only because we did not want to hear it.”
“It breaks us inside to know we were designated and are no longer among either the Meladimen or the Panlorimen,” said Ralindera, “but we should have let our insides break instead of breaking your head.”
I managed a grin at that way of saying it.
“I should have known better,” said Marakel. “I am being here long enough to know I should let my inside break and not break your head. But—it seems we must always fight a battle and when the battle came, I forgot what I should be knowing.”
“Do you mean fighting is habit-forming?” I asked Marakel.
“A habit is something you do when you know you should not be doing it?” Marakel asked.
“That’s right,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick.
“Fighting’s a habit for lots of people,” said Officer McDougall. “I see this sort of thing all the time. Chicago is riddled with gangs who seem to live only to fight their favorite enemy gang. Lots of people get killed senselessly every day because of that. And that includes lots of people caught in the middle, like Gwion.”
“I got some sweet rolls from the bakery and coffee and hot chocolate for breakfast,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick. “Are you hungry, Gwion?”
I asked my stomach what it thought and it gave me it’s answer loud and clear. If I had that good an appetite, I had to be in pretty good shape.
“Yea,” I said.
Mr. Kirkpatrick bent over and held out a bag. I took the nearest sweet roll and took a big bite out of it. It really hit the spot.
“I’ll bet the rest of you ready to eat,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick to the elves and Officer McDougall.
They were and we all had a little feast together.
“I guess you had a little surprise when you came in this morning,” I said to Mr. Kirkpatrick.
“There’s no guessing about that!” Mr. Kirkpatrick replied with a chuckle. “Good thing Chip McDougall was right there and Marakel, too. That assured me that things were under control while I sorted out the details.”
“Are you ready to read the books and find the way to save Kerry and Gwen and Margot?” asked Perlinda.
“I think you’re being a little hasty in pushing a young man who is recovering from a serious injury,” said Officer McDougall.
“I think there is no injury now,” said Ralindera.
“I told you I feel a lot better already,” I insisted. “My headache’s gone and everything.”
The policeman took another look at my head wound.
“Hmm. Well, I have to admit it’s not much more than a scratch now. I don’t know how you guys do it.”
“We just play the right tunes in the right way,” Perlinda explained.
“I guess so.”
The front door rang and Mr. Kirkpatrick hastened to the door to open it. A Fed. Express truck was parked outside and a delivery man stood at the door. A minute later, Mr. Kirkpatrick dropped three packages on the counter and he held up a fourth one for Marakel.
“This should be the book you found on that search and ordered,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick excitedly.
“May I see it?” Marakel asked.
“Of course you can.”
Marakel tried to look calm as he watched Mr. Kirkpatrick open the package, but he couldn’t hide his eagerness altogether. The book looked real old. It had rings around the spine and a gold-and blue illustration of a group of elves on the front.
“Is this it?” Mr. Kirkpatrick asked Marakel.
Marakel took the book into his hands.
“It is the book I asked for. Let us see if it has information that we are needing.”
“This store opens in just a few minutes,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick, “and if any customers wander in, they might wonder if they see you guys on the floor discussing the matters you are discussing. Might you want to adjourn to my office?”
“We would,” said Marakel. “We may need to use the computer again.”
We all piled in to Mr. Kirkpatrick’s rather small office in the back of the store. It would have been easier to find room to sit if there weren’t so many books piled up everywhere but I guess that’s what the office of a second-hand bookseller is like. I got wedged into a tight spot that had me hugging a stack of books on the floor. Mr. Kirkpatrick found a chair for Officer McDougall but there was hardly any room for him to stretch his legs, and his legs are pretty long. It occurred to me that Mr. McDougall could have gotten away from all this but I got the idea he really wanted to help us if he could. And then, maybe he didn’t want to go back to the police station and tell them he fell down into a computer program like Alice falling into a rabbit hole. Mr. Kirkpatrick sat in the chair in front of the desk and Marakel perched himself on top of some papers on the desk, next to the computer. Mr. Kirkpatrick didn’t seem to mind. Marakel ran a hand over the book and fanned the pages. The he flipped through the pages, stopping to look at only a few of them. After looking at one page for quite some time, he frowned. I was afraid he was disappointed and the book wasn’t going to help us in our quest.
“This book says here what the three books I found yesterday in this house of books also said. Those books said that all Menarinen believe that the Lorakhienoi do not have souls.”
“You can’t always believe what you read,” I said.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” said Mrs. Kirkpatrick.
“My designated mother said even Gwion really has a soul and that we must have souls, too,” said Perlinda. “She said somebody sold us a bill of goods that were not good.”
“Bill of bad goods?” Marakel questioned.
“Mrs. Rainer means somebody told us the wrong thing and got us to believe it,” Ralindera explained to Marakel.
“This is exactly what people do when they prefer to be prejudiced or racist,” said Officer McDougall. “It’s hard to trample on somebody if you think they’re human, so people always have to find an excuse to say they’re not human. That’s why slave owners denied that black people had souls.”
“This book I am reading says something, I think, about this bill of bad goods we were sold,” said Marakel. Then he read from the book:
An incident reported at St. Cuthbert’s Parish in Butterwell in East Anglia offers further evidence of the coexistence, for a time, between humans and the fairy folk. Unfortunately, this incident also helps explain why this coexistence may have come to an end. In 1722, the Rev. John P. Redman came to this parish to serve as the new vicar. A month later, he wrote to his bishop, asking for guidance in handling a delicate situation.
I have made a most alarming discovery here in my new parish! On my first Sunday here, I was struck by the strange appearance and odd clothing of almost half of the congregation. When I spoke to them, they replied in a foreign accent that suggested that they are not native Englishmen. Discreet inquiries resulted in my learning that the provenance of these people is more foreign than I thought. It seems that the people here who do not look strange or speak in strange accents do not have personal relationships with these alien creatures, but they admit that they leave bits of butter and other foods out for them, and this food is consumed in short order. This information has led me to the conclusion that these odd members of the parish are not human, but are creatures descended from the Tuatha te Danann, commonly known as elves or fairy folk. One day, however, I caught one small boy speaking to one of these supposed elves or fairies in a friendly way. I promptly took the boy aside and reprimanded him. I am sure he will never do it again. It seems to me that these fairy folk are not meant to benefit from the saving acts of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ because Jesus died for men and not for the fairy folk. I have a sermon planned to explain this matter to my queer congregation, but I wish to receive your counsel before proceeding with my plan.
The bishop’s reply is not extant, but we can hazard a guess that the bishop encouraged the vicar’s intention to remove the fair folk from the congregation for fear that they might corrupt the entire village and further, corrupt the whole of England with their ways. Evidence of this result can be found in the diary of Miss Penelope Dougal. In one entry, she notes that the parson preached a sermon to the effect that all fairies and other peculiar creatures of that sort are descended from the angels who did not take sides either for God or for the Devil during Satan’s rebellion against God when St. Michael the Archangel routed Satan. As a result, the descendants of these neutral angels are sentenced to live on the earth as creatures who have no souls, as they are not worthy of having souls. Since the peculiar people do not have souls, they are not eligible to receive any of the sacraments and, likewise, are not capable of being converted by holy preaching. Therefore, they should be denied access to preaching which cannot, in the nature of things, convert them to God. Moreover, their example will have an unwholesome influence on those humans who have souls. As a result of this sermon, notes Miss Dougal, only half of the normal congregation showed up the following Sunday. Presumably it was the human half of the congregation that returned. As for the supposed Fair Folk, they were never seen again, although many a housewife still continued to find that things went better for the household if a bit of food was left out every night for those folk who were driven out of the church.
“That turd brain!” I exclaimed. “What right did he have to tell those elves they didn’t have souls? And what right does God have to give souls to humans and not to elves?”
It’s kind of funny I would say something like that when I didn’t believe in God, so how could God I believe God did anything unfair?
“No right, whatever,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick. “There is no church doctrine that says Christians must believe that elves have no souls and are thus excluded from the possibility of salvation.”
“What’s that rebellion in Heaven all about?” I asked.
“In the Bible, there is a very short reference to a war in Heaven,” Mr. Kirkpatrick explained. “The archangel Michael led the faithful angels in a battle against Satan and those angels allied with him. Human imagination since then has greatly embroidered the story. The idea that the Lorakhienoi were angels who remained neutral during the battle is one of the fanciful notions that has no biblical foundation but it still has an effect on human attitudes towards the Lorakhienoi.”
“Did that minister think humans were given souls when they were born?” I asked.
“This book is not saying if Rev. Redman believed the Menarinen were given souls at birth or not,” said Marakel, “but so far, I have read three hundred-and-six books in this house of books that say something about a soul. They all say that every Menarinen has a soul.”
“That’s what Mrs. Rainer thinks and she thinks elves are given souls, too, just like us,” I said. “I guess that means she thinks you guys had souls all along and just didn’t know it because people like that minister said you didn’t.”
“I’m with Mrs. Rainer one-hundred-percent,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick.
“Some books are saying it is possible to destroy a soul,” said Marakel.
“I guess that’s what I did,” I said.
“Some books say you can fix a destroyed soul,” said Marakel, “unless you are dead. I am thinking you are fixing your soul, Gwion.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, and I wasn’t being sarcastic either. That destroying cloud and the shadow that was me was pretty frightening and just thinking of it was still driving every beejeebie out of me. “Marakel, I think you already have a soul and I think you’re starting to get your’s fixed pretty good, too.
Marakel looked at me and his face got brighter in a way that gave me the chills, really good chills.
“Thank you,” said Marakel.
“What about me?” asked Perlinda.
“I think you and Ralindera are fixing your souls good, too.”
“Thank you,” said Perlinda.
“Thank you,” said Ralindera.
“Were you guys kidnaping children to steal their souls because you thought you didn’t have any? asked Officer McDougall.
“That is the reason,” said Ralindera.
“But if you steal somebody else’s soul,” said Gwion, “then it still isn’t your’s and you still don’t have a soul.”
“That is what I am thinking,” said Marakel. “I think maybe we acted like people who do not have souls because we were convinced we are not having them.
“And I guess I acted like I didn’t have a soul because it never occurred to me that I might have one,” I said.
“But you were having a soul all along and now you are acting like you have a soul,” said Ralindera.
“Gwion stood up to the destroying cloud that tried to suck us into its nothingness,” said Perlinda. “One must be having a soul to do that, does one not?”
This sudden praise for what I’d done just about knocked me flat, considering how I’d given up any hope of getting any respect from these elf girls.
“Is this cloud you are talking about the same cloud that escaped from Kerry’s computer?” Marakel asked.
“Yea.
I went on to recount our strange adventure with the destroying cloud, my talk inside the cloud with Slurpy Gurvey, who told me Kerry Blake needs help, and then how two other elves came along to help us out. Marakel listened carefully, his brow furrowed.
“Are you telling me that the empty file that is the destroying cloud is a photograph of you?” Marakel asked.
“Yes.”
“Was the one you call Slurpy Gurvey another photograph?”
“No, it was a computer graphic created by Kerry.”
“Then the graphic has Kerry’s soul as much as the photographs have Gwen’s soul and Margot’s soul and your empty soul,” said Marakel. He caught my hurt look when he said those words, and added: “I know it’s not empty any more but the empty file might not know that.”
“You don’t believe that old superstition about cameras stealing the souls of the people they photograph, do you?” scoffed Officer McDougall.
“Superstition?” asked Marakel.
“A superstition is a false belief not grounded in science,” the cop explained.
“Does science know when a soul has been stolen or not?” asked Ralindera.
“Well, no,” the policeman admitted, “but people get their pictures taken every day and they don’t lose their souls over it.”
“The souls of Gwen and Margot were stolen from photographs and Kerry’s soul was stolen from the computer graphic,” said Marakel, sounding very sure of himself.
“But if Slurpy Gurvey is on the loose, then Kerry’s soul is on the loose,” I said. “Except Slurpy Gurvey told me Kerry wasn’t on the loose at all.”
“I think the computer graphic is having only a small bit of Kerry’s soul,” said Marakel. “I think maybe photographs only steal a small bit of somebody’s soul. I think maybe that is why you think people are photographed and they do not lose their souls.”
“You know,” said Mr. Kirkpatrick, “there might be something to all this. Maybe it’s just because I don’t like being photographed, but when somebody takes a picture of me, I do feel as if a bit of my self has been taken away.”
All this stuff we were talking about kept swirling about in my poor little head until it suddenly exploded into the shape of a little light bulb flooding my brain.
“When those two elves—“
“Lorakhienoi,” Perlinda corrected me.
I wasn’t meaning to be disrespectful; I just had trouble remembering the strange word.
“When those two guys came and helped us out,” I persisted, “you said they weren’t acting like true Lor-ken-ie.”
“I said they were not acting like true Lorakhienoi,” said Perlinda.
“And we owe your lives to that,” I reminded her.
“That is true,” said Perlinda.
“And Marakel,” I went on, “when those two guys healed Perlinda when she was wounded after the baseball game, you said that kind of thing had never happened before, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I was saying that,” Marakel admitted. He picked up the book he read from before, fanned through a bunch of pages until he found the place he was looking for. “I think we have a clue like the clues Gwion is talking about.”
Then Marakel read from the book:
Some two or three months after John Redman delivered the sermon that drove the elves from his congregation, a little boy named Jamie Manning disappeared. The parson insisted that the soulless Fair Folk were to blame and everybody believed him. All of the people of Butterwell searched high and low, but the boy was not found. However, strange events occurred soon after. An old woman was carrying a bucket of water from her well that was too heavy for her. A small boy came along and carried it for her. There was another time when the parson himself lost his way coming home in the middle of the night after ministering to a dying man in his cottage. A strange boy came along and guided him back to the parsonage. These were the kind of deeds that Jamie Manning was wont to perform when he was alive and many thought his ghost had returned to help people in need.
Some time after these incidents, a group of men returning from the local fair thought they saw something floating in a bog they were passing by. They went to investigate and they found the body of Jamie Manning, lying face up in the watery soil. The body was still well-preserved and—hard to believe as it is—Jamie was breathing just enough to keep his body going. The body was taken home where his poor mother took care of him year after year even though Jamie did not wake up all this time. Then one day, she spilled a kettle of soup all over her kitchen. Her joints were too stiff for her to get down on her hands and knees and clean the mess. While she was crying over her fate, a small boy entered the kitchen and cleaned the mess for her. After that, the boy walked into the bedroom where Jamie’s body lay and then Jamie himself came out of the bedroom and fell into his mother’s arms. But of where he had been and what he did while he was gone, Jamie told nary a soul.
“I hope we don’t find Kerry and Gwen and Margot in a swamp,” I said with a shudder.
“If we do, it will be a swamp composed of digital commands,” said Ralindera.
This story was igniting light bulbs all over my head and they weren’t about finding bodies in swamps. The things these light bulbs might mean to me were setting off alarm bells like crazy.
“If the souls stolen from humans can effect the actions of the Lorak—Lorakhienoi,” I said, “then maybe a few more stolen souls can rescue the ones they’ve stolen already.”
There was a dead silence in the crowded office.
“I am thinking that is true,” said Marakel.
The next silence was longer and deader. I hid my face in my arms for quite a while. I knew what I had to say next but I didn’t want to say it. I also knew that what repairs I’d gotten done on my soul would fall apart if I didn’t say anything. And besides, I’d promised Slurpy Gurvey I’d go get Kerry. When I looked up, I saw the three elves looking at me with a lot of sympathy and a lot of hope. There was only way I could respond to that.
“I’ll go,” I promised.