Chapter the 6th
Out of the confusion of music and dancing, a tall woman wearing a golden crown stepped in front of us, the same woman I saw having a big argument with the crowned bearded elf after the oddball baseball game. Up close, the woman’s crown looked like it was made out twigs with little golden buds growing out of it. She wore a long gown that flowed to the floor and trailed behind her. Its material was a little like that worn by Marakel but it also looked different. It was kind of blue and kind of gray with a hint of a soft red. I assumed she was the queen of this group of elves. She sure acted like it. At a nod, the music stopped except for a few soft taps on drums and an occasional plunk on a harp. The elves crowded around us and stared at us like we were animals in a zoo. But then, if they had come to my condo, I would have stared at them the way they stared at me because although the elves kind of looked human, they looked freaky with their funny ears and the slightly odd shapes to their faces.
“It is good to have you with us as special guests,” said the tall woman,
I wasn’t so sure it was good to be with them, but I said nothing. I figured that as long as they treated us like guests, they wouldn’t torture us to death or something, but I didn’t want to be lulled into a false sense of security because of that. Besides, being a guest didn’t mean I wasn’t a prisoner, too.
“Thank you for inviting us,” said Gwen,
I hoped she was being polite to lull the elves into a false sense of security, but I was afraid she was just being too naive to realize that we might be in deep trouble. We seemed to be inside a house of some kind surrounded by walls made of bright wood panels with thick knots in the wood. The panels had grains running in little streams that almost looked like long, slender worms wriggling on the walls. The high ceiling was a confusion of tree branches and leaves dotted with sparkling lights. They were kind of like lanterns without the lanterns, if you know what I mean. There were windows that gave me a good view of the same type of forest as I’d already seen in the elves’ land. The light outside wasn’t exactly bright; it kind of looked like it was early evening or something, the way it did before.
“You are most welcome to have received our invitation and I am most pleased that you have accepted it,” said the queen, smiling so sweetly I wasn’t about to trust her.
“Why did you invite us?” I asked her.
The queen smiled so sweetly I wanted to puke.
“Why, we invited you to our venerable home because we want your help in a matter of great importance to us and to you.”
The queen paused, seeming to wait for one of us to ask her what the important cause was. I wasn’t about to do it, and I didn’t.
“What is cause you want us to help you with?” Margot asked.
The queen’s smile got sweeter still.
“I have been told that you came here by way of the computer of Kerry Blake,” said the queen. “Is Kerry Blake the cause that brought you here?”
“Yes!” Gwen cried. “Is he here?”
I couldn’t believe my sister! Hadn’t she watched enough TV to know better than to spill the beans like that to Kerry’s kidnapers?
“It displeases me to tell you that Kerry Blake is not here among us at this time,” the queen replied.“It is a great misfortune that Kerry Blake is a prisoner of the Meladimen, our most bitter enemies. It is our noble hope to free Kerry Blake from that evil tribe. If it is your hope as well that Kerry Blake be freed from the Meladimen, than our hopes move as one and we can work together for our common purpose.”
Loud cheers and sung shouts and drums and blasts on trumpets and pipes greeted those words.
“With our three guests of the Menarinen, we will soon have the power to rid our fair land of the foul enemy once and for all,” said an older elf, who had a longish, thin beard.
More cheers and sung shouts and drums and blasts on trumpets and pipes answered those words.
“We wish to greet our guests with a celebration,” said the queen. “I now request that our guests please accept our finest chairs and sit in them and allow us to serve them our finest candy and other delicacies.”
The music started up again, sounding like a jam session gone mad.
“Don’t eat or drink anything,” Gwen whispered in my ear.
We were separated just as Gwen finished saying those words. Two elves maneuvered me over to a chair that looked like a bird’s nest with a silk cloth draped over it. It wasn’t the sort of chair I would have chosen but I didn’t seem to be given any choice about sitting in it, so I sat. It was more comfortable than I thought it would be. The woven twigs had just enough give to them that they fit my back without jabbing it in any way.
I looked for Gwen and saw her sitting in a chair that looked like it was made out of leaves. She chatting so freely with three elves, you’d think she’d known them all her life. It took me a little longer to find Margot, but I finally located her a few chairs down from mine and she was listening intently to the two elves who sat down next to her. I looked about for Marakel and there were some five or six times when I thought I saw him but, each time, it turned out to be another young elf. I guess that shows that all elves look alike until you get to know them. I finally came to the conclusion that Marakel was not anywhere in this room unless he was hiding and that got my suspicious of him growing by leaps and bounds But being right when Gwen and Margot were wrong was a small consolation for falling into Marakel’s trap.
A small elf-boy played a pipe close enough to me that I could get a good look at his instrument. It looked like it was carved out of a narrow piece of wood. His playing sounded like it was pretty far off-key, but maybe that was because the music was more strange than most anything Kerry ever made me listen to. Elsewhere in the room, I saw a woman play a harp that could have been made out of woodshavings. A couple of elves played string instruments that looked like they were made out of flower stems and leaves and a couple other elves played small trumpets that looked like sea shells. Scattered throughout the room were drummers pounding their instruments with the palms of their hands or with sticks that were as rugged and twisted as tree branches. As the music played, other elves danced all over the place. Some of them seemed to dance as couples, others in small groups and some seemed to dance in worlds of their own. It was the same way with their music. Some of the elves played by themselves with no reference to anybody else and others played in small groups. No wonder it sounded like a lot of different pieces of music being played at the same time. That’s exactly what it was. Seeing these elves whooping it up the way they were, I couldn’t help but think of what a stiff Marakel was compared to these guys. No wonder they kicked him out. Who likes a party pooper?
Playing music and dancing weren’t the only thing that elves were doing. Lots of elves were busy sewing clothes, sharpening arrows, polishing bows, reading books with pages that looked like thin pieces of bark, or writing on similar pieces of bark. Other elves worked at laptop computers much like Marakel’s that they had propped up on their knees. Little holographic images rose above the computers as they typed on the chips of wood they used for keys. When talking among themselves, they spoke in their own language that I couldn’t understand at all.
“What’s your name?” asked an amazingly beautiful girl-elf who sat down next to me.
“Gwion Williams. What’s yours?”
“Perlinda,” the girl answered.
“I am Santorall,” said a young man-elf who sat down on the other side of me.
“Pleased to meet you,” I mumbled.
When I looked back at Perlinda, my memory got quite a rude jog. I was quite sure that she was the fighter who was wounded by an arrow during the battle following the baseball game and then was healed by another elf’s flute playing. If this was the same elf, she looked pretty good for someone who had been hurt that bad.
“Are you the one who got injured during that battle?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Are you recovered from your injury?”
“I should have died,” Perlinda said flatly.
My jaw just about dropped to the floor.
“Did you want to die?” I asked her.
“No, but I should have died.”
“The battle was neither won nor lost because she was healed of the wound that should have lost the battle for us,” Santorall explained.
“Isn’t a tie better than losing the battle and losing Perlinda?” I asked.
“It is not,” said Santorall. “The unlost, unwon battle is all the worse because one of the Meladimen saved Perlinda’s life that should have been lost.”
Ever since Gwen started going to church with a friend of hers, she’d been talking about loving your enemies, which was obviously going too far, but I couldn’t figure out why these elves were so upset at being helped by an enemy.
“Is it that bad if an enemy does something nice for a change?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Perlinda.
In the midst of all the confusion around us, several elves cut through the crowd with trays piled high with food. There didn’t seem to be enough room for them and the dancers both. There almost wasn’t. One of the elves almost dropped a trayfull of food when a dancer backed into his elbow.
“Will you please accept this candy, fresh from our foodmaking programs?” asked the cute girl holding the tray that had just escaped a disaster. Close up, the tray looked like a giant leaf, and on that tray, various candies were piled high. I picked out a light orange piece and eyed it suspiciously, but as soon as I got a whiff of it, I couldn’t have been cautious for the world. I popped the piece of candy in my mouth and reached for several more.
“Thank you very much for accepting our candy,” said the girl as she sat down beside me with the tray well within my reach.
“Thanks for offering it,” I said, my mouth already full.
I was instantly thirsty, but a young elf-man offered me a flower cup filled with a sparkling liquid before I had time to fret about that.
“Please accept this drink that is fresh from a source that is ever running.”
“Thanks,” I said as I grabbed the cup.
I almost spilled the drink because the cup was as delicate as a flower, but I got control of it and gulped down about a third of it in one swallow. It was pretty sweet, like soda pop. Already my head was spinning a little, making me wonder if it was spiked with alcohol or something.
“Are you liking our food and drink?” Santorall asked me.
“Very much,” I replied, “much better than the microwaved dinners I get at home.”
Home. Gwen. Only then did I remember Gwen’s having just told me not to eat or drink anything. I looked in her direction, hoping so catch her violating her own orders, but I could no longer see her in the crowd.
“Are you interested in finding Kerry Blake?” Perlinda asked me.
“Sort of,” I answered. “It was the girls’ idea really to go after him. I wasn’t so keen on coming here with Marakel. I didn’t think I could trust him and now I know I can’t.”
“Well, Marakel is one of the Meladimen,” said Perlinda. “We’ve known for centuries that you can’t trust any of them.”
“You can say that again,” I replied.
“I congratulate you for your astute judgment of character,” said Santorall.
“Gwion, What do you think of your soul?” asked Perlinda. “Is it a good one? One, worth having?”
“A soul?” I asked. “I hardly know what that means.”
I remembered Gwen once telling Cynthia at the dinner table that the soul is the part of you that belongs to God and that it decides between doing right and doing wrong but I wasn’t buying any of that.
“Are you thinking that you do not have a soul?” Perlinda asked me.
“My sister told me I don’t.” I said. “She was just mad at me for not helping her take care of our little sister and brother. Why do you want to know about souls, anyway?”
An elf came by to fill give me another fistful of goodies and another elf gave me another refill of the drink.
“We were Just wondering,” said the young man. “Are you saying you are tired of running after Kerry Blake?”
“Yea,” I said. “He’s always off in some dreamland. I think we should let him live with the elves if he wants to.”
“Are you meaning you are not his ally?”
“Oh, once in a while I am,” I said.
I was surprised that I was so free with these elves about the way I really felt about Kerry. Before I knew it, I found myself telling them all about the time Kerry sang at a student talent show at school. You know how that is. You have to listen to kids play boring stuff on the piano, or play worse stuff on an accordion and then, worst of all, a few kids just have to sing at you. Kerry Blake is one of those. It’s pretty embarrassing when somebody you know decides to make a fool of himself. It would have been bad enough if he’d played some boring piece on his flute like he sometimes does, but this time he sang some piece he said he’d learned in church choir—in a foreign language no less! The best I can say for it is that he sounded like a girl crying for help. When he finished, there was a bit of applause and a lot of catcalls. I was with the catcalls all the way. The principal jumped on the stage and gave us quite a good dressing down for not being a courteous audience. Fortunately, he had some words for Kerry, too. He reminded Kerry about the school policy against doing anything religious at a school function. Kerry looked pretty hurt when the principal said but, after having to sit through his performance, I wasn’t in the mood for feeling sorry for him. The principal gave the whole school a half hour detention and we had to spend it in the auditorium right where we are. I don’t think the student body had ever been as united as we were during that half hour, with all of us feeling the same way about Kerry Blake.
After detention was over, Ron, John and I kind of gravitated together. We didn’t have to say anything to agree that we absolutely had to teach Kerry a lesson he wouldn’t forget. We went outside at the door where our group usually meets and waited for Kerry. Karen Lang joined us, too, knowing full well what was expected of her. Before long, Kerry came out, walking slowly with his head down. I might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t wrecked everybody’s day.
“Thanks for getting all of us into trouble!” said John.
“If you didn’t have to howl like a cat in front of everybody, we wouldn’t have gotten detention,” said Ron.
Kerry kept on walking, his head down. A few more kids, including some who were usually our enemies, fell in with us.
“We had to make some catcalls fit for a wounded cat!” yelled a boy.
“You sounded like a cheerlie about to be strangled by Dracula,” was my first contribution.
“You sounded like brakes screeching on a Mack Truck going five hundred miles an hour!” Karen shouted.
“Thanks for the air raid drill!” some other kid cried out. “Do it again next time enemy planes are coming!”
The insults came in hot and heavy. We had Kerry surrounded so he couldn’t just walk away. He had to stay there and take it without breaking down and crying in front of us. I had to give Kerry one good mark for fighting off the tears.
ENOUGH!” a girl yelled, cutting into the fun like a knife.
It was Margot. I should have known she’d wreck the fun. She went into quite a tirade about what a rotten bunch of kids we were. I wasn’t interested in what she had to say and neither was anybody else and so shrugged our shoulders and walked away from her. On the way home, we discussed the demands Kerry would have to meet before we would acknowledge his existence again. Kerry never gave in to our demands and Margot hassled us about that. Being a girl, she just doesn’t understand what it means to be one of the guys. You can’t let a kid like Kerry get away with unacceptably freaky behavior. For some weeks, I didn’t see Kerry, but the day came when I had a problem with my computer and he was the only one I knew who could help me. Believe it or not, he sounded like he was my friend and came right over and fixed the problem.
“That is a most interesting story,” said Santorall.
“Yes, most interesting,” added Perlinda.
“I’m glad you think so,” I said. “You see, Kerry’s the kind of kid who thinks he’s better than everybody else. Kids like that have to be taken down a peg or two once in a while.”
Loud shouts from some elves hunched over their computers got everybody’s attention and most of the music stopped. The queen rushed over to the elves and listened to their frantic yelling. When Perlinda, Santorall and the other elves looked alarmed at what was being said, I wished I could understand them. Next thing I knew, the queen had forged her way through the crowd straight to me. It was enough to make me think I was the problem. She spoke sharply to Santorall and Perlinda and they nodded in reply. Then the queen turned to me.
“Gwion Williams,” she said, “we now learn that you cannot help us with our mission. You must leave in the crack of an instant. Santorall will lead you away. You must follow him. NOW!”
Santorall immediately pulled me out of the chair and pulled me by the arm through the crowd. The singing and dancing started up again hesitantly, as if they were waiting for me to make my exit before throwing themselves into their partying ways. It didn’t seem possible that we could cut through all the gyrating elves without getting knocked over, but we did it. Before I knew it, I was tottering at the top of a stepladder.
“Hurry!” Santorall called from the ground some twenty rungs down.
I didn’t see what the rush was about and the ladder was pretty flimsy, but I had to humor the elf as best I could and so I climbed down as fast as I could. Once on the ground, I looked up at the house I had just been kicked out of. It looked like some gigantic tree fort built in the branches of one of the larger trees of the forest.
“Hurry!” Santorall called again as he slipped in among the trees.
I felt like saying something to the elf but I restrained myself. I knew I would be pretty helpless in this place if I got Santorall too upset and he left me. Before I had time to move, I saw Gwen and Margot scampering from branch to branch like little monkeys, moving in the direction of the tree house. I opened my mouth to call out to them when I saw the horrible misty cloud following them and dematerializing every tree in its path. The dark shadow batted about inside the cloud, looking like a thunderhead trying to break out.
“Hurry!” Santorall called again.
This time I was as frantic to get away as he was. Santorall ran over to a nearby tree and tapped on it the same way the traitor Marakel had done to get me into this place.
“Just go straight ahead,” said Santorall.
It looked like he was telling me to walk straight into a tree but I decided to do what I was told. He was trying to get rid of me after all. So, with some misgiving, I stepped forward and hit my nose against a large leaf of a plant. Beyond the plant, I saw a washed-out pink tile floor leading up to a beige wall. Along that wall were the elevators. I turned around slowly and saw Mike the porter in profile. Beyond him, the security guard was standing near the door. I was tempted to try to sneak a look at the clock over Mike’s station, but then realized that wouldn’t be any help. I didn’t even know what day it was any more. With sunlight coming into the lobby and Mike on duty, I knew had returned during the day and not in the middle of the night.
I took a little bit of time before doing the one line of action that made sense which was to go home. With any luck at all, Mom and Dad would be out and I wouldn’t have to answer any awkward questions until I at least knew what day it was. I waited for an elevator to open up and let out an old couple. Then I slipped in and punched in my floor. A couple of long minutes later, I had my key in the door.
“Who is it?” Cynthia asked.
“Me.”
“Gwion!”
That was Sherman cannonballing across the living room. I stiffened my legs to keep myself firmly on my feet when Sherman wrapped his arms around my legs. Cynthia was sitting at the dining table, giving me a pretty odd look.
“Is that you, Gwion?” Cynthia asked.
“Don’t you know your own brother?” I asked in return.
I noticed that the dining table had three plates laid out with half-eaten hamburgers on them. With a great flood of relief, I saw Gwen sitting there with her back to me. That had me wondering why Gwen didn’t even turn around to greet me. I guessed she was still upset over my leaving her in the lurch at the elves’ house. I couldn’t blame her for that.
“Gwion, how did you get back?” asked Cynthia.
“I got back through a fancy computer program,” I answered. “Disappointed?”
“No,” said Cynthia. “We’ve been so worried about you.”
“How long was I gone?”
“Two days.”
My stomach lurched at that, but at least it wasn’t a hundred years like in Rip Van Winkle.
“Where’s Mom? Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“The usual places,” said Cynthia wearily.
“Is that all they care about me after missing all this time?” I asked.
For all my relief that they weren’t home, it gave me a real sharp pain to think that they were carrying on as if nothing had happened.
“They spent the first day at the police station. But Kerry’s mother was there all day, yelling and screaming at everybody. Mommy said she couldn’t stand another day of that, and Daddy had an important case to work on. The police promised to call if they found either of you. Do you want to call them, or should I?”
“Skip it,” I said. “Gwen? How did you get back?”
The girl turned and faced me. My knees buckled when I saw her. She wasn’t Gwen at all!. She was a total stranger!