Chapter the 15th
Kevin tried to tell Edmund that he didn’t really want to eat him up, but the high-pitched yips that came out of his mouth sent Edmund running away through the grass. Kevin barked one more time after the boy was long gone and then gave up. With the golden grass growing way above his head, there was no way that Kevin in his animal form could get any kind of view of where he was or where the field might end. The only encouraging sight was the crinkly star that still hung far above the field. Cautiously, Kevin ran about in small circles, but something tugged at him. It was the shawl once again! Kevin tried to shake it off but his clumsy efforts only further entangled the shawl with the grass. He barked loudly and angrily to express his frustration at being so lost in so utterly strange a place and in the form of a diminutive boar on top of that. His barking received no answer. Kevin howled at the star like a little coyote. Again, there was no response. Kevin decided that his only hope was to trot aimlessly through the grass and hope that he came upon some sort of civilization before he starved to death. But when he tried to trot away, he was so thoroughly snagged in the grass that he couldn’t move anywhere. Kevin barked angrily once again and then decided to stop and think.
As he thought about everything that had happened on his strange journey, Kevin remembered that at every stage, he had worked on his painting that some rather strange people had already proclaimed a masterpiece. With that being the case, it seemed then that his best bet for finding a way out of this field was to continue with his art work. But how? A boar with four hooved feet was hardly equipped to handle a paint brush of any kind. Not that he had a paint brush anyway. Then Kevin remembered the knitting needle. He had dropped it when he turned into a boar but it had to be close by. Not knowing what he could be able to do with the needle as a boar, Kevin sniffed around in search of it. A sharp sting on his now sensitive nose provoked a loud yip. This was hardly the best way to find a knitting needle, Kevin thought to himself, but at least he had found it. Out of force of habit, he tried picking it up with his fore paws, but it was obvious that was not going to work. His only chance was to see what he could accomplish by holding the knitting needle in his mouth. Kevin closed his jaws over needle and tried manipulating into drawing motions of some sort. It was unspeakably awkward at first, but Kevin could think of nothing else to do with his time, so he kept at it. For quite a long time, Kevin produced only random golden lines that looked like a scribble of threads through the grass. With practice, he got a firmer control of the knitting needle and finally, the scribble of threads began to coalesce into a ribbon that cut a path through the grass. When he realized that the path stretched further than he could see in both directions, Kevin thought it might be worth while to walk along the path to see where it took him. So, with the knitting needle in his mouth, Kevin mentally flipped a coin and trotted off in the direction that won the toss. The shawl still pulled him back, but the path gave him room to maneuver and he was able to move forward.
He hadn’t gone far when four walls covered with crawling roses sprang up around him like mushrooms. Suddenly the golden path was flecked with gem-like figures as it snaked through a lush garden where flowers of all kinds were in full bloom. Sitting on a bench decorated with ornate carvings was a richly-dressed adolescent boy who looked as if he had just died of boredom. Kevin stopped where he was and eyed the youth carefully. The youth when he finally noticed the presence of a puppy-sized golden boar, treated Kevin to a look of withering contempt.
“Have you come to inflict on me yet another lesson in the appreciation of royal harp music?” the youth asked Kevin.
Kevin tried to explain that he had never given a music lesson in his life and hoped he never would, but his words only came out in a volley of yips as the knitting needle dropped out of his mouth. Kevin leaped on top of the needle and cradled it between his fore hooves, but the boy slid the needle out from his grasp and turned the needle round to point it at Kevin.
“Well, Master Bard,” said the youth with a wicked smile that Kevin did not like, “it seems that you have sent the golden boar from your harp to come and torment me. Maybe I will just have to do a little tormenting myself.”
Now Kevin knew how Edmund must have felt when he aimed the knitting-needle-turned-spear at the boy who bragged about his singing, but there was no time to meditate on that. A sharp jab in his side sent Kevin lunging at his attacker, but he missed and landed in a flower bed.
“You’re not much of a boar without the rest of your harp, are you?” the boy taunted Kevin.
Kevin pawed the ground and growled, hoping he could frighten the boy, but the growl was so high-pitched that the boy only laughed at Kevin’s ineffectual boar.
“Let’s hear you sing to this,” said the boy aiming the knitting needle spear straight at Kevin’s throat.
Not willing to wait for more, Kevin charged. He did not reach his taunter, but neither did the knitting-needle-turned-spear reach him. Everything slowed down as if the two were fighting a battle in thick mud. Kevin quickly realized that the shawl that had intervened. The knitting needle was threading itself through a series of loops in the yarn and the yarn had wrapped itself about Kevin’s hooves.
“Thunder and lightning strike the royal latrines!” cursed the youth as he tried to regain control of his weapon.
Thin golden lines crisscrossed in the air and through the yarn as the boar and the boy struggled more and more vigorously to less and less purpose. As if answering the boy’s curse, a frigid wind filled with snow struck the garden. A blanket of snow covered the flowers in a matter of seconds. The golden lines multiplied exponentially and wrapped themselves around the two assailants.
“Why don’t you choke on your own harp strings, Royal Harpist?” asked the youth.
Kevin barked a retort but he was beyond even thinking of what words he really wanted to say but couldn’t.
The golden threads squirmed and wound their way through the yarn. Dark round shadows and small sparks of light danced in the snow. Then Kevin realized that the shadows were pairs of snakes’ eyes and the sparks were the flicker of snakes’ tongues. Kevin asked a question, but not he did not know what he was asking.
“Ssssssilly question.” “Ssssssilly question.” “Ssssssilly question.” “Ssssssilly question.”
“What was that?” the youth asked Kevin angrily.
Kevin tried to tell the boy that he did not know what question he had asked but the serpents thought that whatever the question was, it was a silly one.
“Ssssssilly question.” “Ssssssilly question.” “Ssssssilly question.” “Ssssssilly question.”
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Edith held her note on the flute for a long time, savoring it all the more because she this was the first time she had found it since the blizzard began. Then she let the note fade away and stared into space. Martin continued to sustain a low note on the cello.
"You aren't still worried about the children, are you?" asked Martin.
"Oh, no,” Edith replied. “I'm only scared silly that they'll get lost in the tangles of royal and artistic rage and never find their way back home.”
"A few notes have come back."
"I've noticed."
"So their mission must be going well."
"But it isn't over."
"You're aren’t trying to keep me from being too optimistic, are you?"
"You're aren’t trying to keep me from being a pessimist, are you?"
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"Galloping Griffins!" cried Roger
"And prancing porcupines!” exclaimed Samantha.
Karen stood speechless before a pair of mountains filled with red pulsating rivers. Just up above her was a mushroom-shaped growth made out of red fluff. Below her was a wall of little crystals shaped like bunches of grapes. Everything added up with what Karen knew about physiology, but it was hard to believe that Roger and Samantha were right about the clam shells riding through the bloodstream. She also found it difficult to feel at ease with what she knew had to be chromosomes slithering about at the bottom of the coracle like little serpents. She decided that the only way for her to retain any sanity was to stick to her scientific bearings.
"It—seems to me that we are—inside a human being—and we are traveling—very close to the brain," Karen stammered.
"I wonder whose brain this is," mused Roger.
"Could be anybody’s," said Samantha.
"It doesn't matter," said Roger, "you can connect with anybody through anybody."
"And what are we doing inside of whoever this is?" asked Karen.
"My science teacher says that usually you find out what to do when the time comes after you get inside a person," Roger replied.
"You mean some little guardian angel is going to just come along and tell us what to do?" Karen asked acidly.
"Something like that," Samantha replied.
Karen recognized the large mushroom-like structure just ahead, and felt as awed by the sight as if she had wandered into a cathedral the size of a city.
"See that thing that looks like a mushroom?" asked Karen.
"Yea!" both children chorused.
"That's the pineal gland."
"What's that?" asked Roger.
"It's a gland in the front of the brain. We don't know for sure what it does."
"Maybe it does the same thing any other mushroom does," said Samantha.
“Mushrooms just grow where there’s almost no soil at all, and they don’t do much," said Karen, still finding it hard to conceal her contempt with the way these two children understood reality.
"Yea," Samantha replied. "Maybe it just grows out of the seeds from the cosmic tree."
"And then what?" asked Karen wearily.
"Why, then it helps us grow just about anywhere, whether there's any soil or not, just like a mushroom," Samantha replied.
"Actually, I only said it looks like a mushroom," said Karen, getting near the end of her patience.
"And Samantha said it is a mushroom," said Roger. "It takes a mushroom to help us be like a mushroom. Get it?"
“You’re the ones who don’t get it,” said Karen
She turned away and looked at the river flowing into an underground cave underneath the two mountains. The loose end of her shawl dragged along in the river behind her but it was not hindering her movements.
"Where does the cave lead to?" asked Samantha.
"That's the—the cerebral aqueduct," Karen replied, relieved that the children still gave her credit for knowing something. "It conducts the cerebral fluid into the brain."
"Ah, right where the most important seeds are," said Roger.
“There are no seeds in the human brain,” Karen insisted.
“But there have to be,” Samantha replied just as insistently.
“What do you mean there have to be?”
“If there aren’t any seeds in the brain, how can anything grow?”
“Yea,” said Roger. “How could any violin concertos grow inside my head if they didn’t grow from seeds?”
“You children still don’t understand,” said Karen.
“We don’t understand what you have against clam shells and seeds,” said Samantha.
Karen sighed and redirected her attention to the strange sights around her. The river suddenly nudged the boat into a side passage, much narrower than the aqueduct. The children had to sit down in the clam shell to keep from scraping their heads against the ceiling. The clamshell traveled along a light blue shore where fibers crawled along the ground like so many tree roots. But there was not a tree to be seen and the fibers connected with gelatinous masses all around them.
"These are the nerve cells I was talking about," said Karen, "and these fibers are the synapses that convey messages from one nerve cell to the next."
"And those are the seeds from the cosmic tree I was talking about," Roger returned.
"I hope the strings of your harp come unwound and strangle you!" cried a boy, who popped out of nowhere on the shore right next to the boat.
For a startling instant, Karen thought the boy was Kevin, but she then realized it was a boy she had never seen before wearing a colorful medieval costume.
"What's wrong with the harp?" asked Samantha, trying to be helpful.
The boy screamed like a wild animal, jumped up and down on the neuron shore and landed right in the clam shell with the children. The clam shell rocked violently for a moment and then the top snapped shut.
Samantha thrust her candle into the face of the boy who had just jumped into the clam shell.
"Identify yourself," Roger demanded.
"Perezvon," was the reply, "the crown prince of Carelin."
"So I see," Roger replied. “You’re the king now.”
“And you’re going to be the king,” added Samantha.
“I know that,” said the boy scornfully.
“Are you inside yourself, or are you an invader?" Roger asked him.
“I belong here," said Perezvon. “How dare you question me?”
“Not even the crown prince, not even the already crowned king has the right to invade one of his subjects,” said Roger. "Karen, please step aside."
Although there was hardly any room for her to move, but Karen, squished herself against Samantha to clear the space that Roger asked for. Roger stood before the prince as if he intended to challenge him to a duel.
"Serpents of the rightful soul of this body,” Roger announced, “Show us if the human standing before you is here by right or if he is an invader.”
Roger slid over, crushing his sister and Karen against the clamshell's side and top. Prince Perezvon turned suddenly pale as one of the serpents attacked him and swallowed him whole. It was over so quickly that Karen could hardly take it in that the obnoxious boy was already gone.
"Solves that," said Roger with satisfaction, as he moved away to give Samantha and Karen some breathing space.
Karen started to feel sick.
“But—do you let people get killed, just like that?” Karen asked.
"Don't feel bad about it," Samantha said, noticing Karen's pale look, "he wasn't a human being or anything; he was just an invading memory."
“He looked pretty real to me.”
“Invading memories usually do,” said Roger.
The children sat quietly in the dark with only Samantha’s candle to give them any light.
“How do we get out of this clamshell?" asked Karen.
"We don't," Roger answered, without showing any serious concern about it.
Karen was already feeling claustrophobic, all the more so since the shawl was trapped by the shell.
"You mean—we’re just going suffocate in here?" Karen asked.
"I suppose we could if we wanted to," Roger replied. "But I'd rather not. If we keep going further in, we should get out okay.”
"I don't think Karen understands," said Samantha.
“You’re right, I don’t understand you,” said Karen.
"Just follow me," said Roger, "and then I can follow you."
Samantha took Karen with one hand, and held the candle with the other. Then, to Karen's horror, Roger stepped right on to the gold serpent that had just swallowed the invading Prince Perezvon. Worse yet, the serpent closed its jaws on Roger, and swallowed him. Samantha held Karen's hand more tightly and gently pulled her towards the serpent, which grew larger by the second. If the clam shell were still open, Karen might never have taken the step, but with no other avenue open, she allowed Samantha to guide her over to the serpent's mouth. To her surprise, the shawl’s slack did not run out the way she thought it would. Karen lifted a foot gingerly above the serpent's mouth and fainted. Next thing she knew, Karen was staring into the candle-lit faces of Roger and Samantha.
"Good, got you living again," said Roger. "Now, do you know where we are?"
Karen gave herself a few seconds to clear her head. The flickering candle showed the foot of a double-twisted stairway.
"How far do the stairways go up?" asked Karen.
Samantha lifted the candle as high as she could.
"Pretty far," she answered.
“Do they both keep on twisting?"
"Yes."
"See any connecting links between the stairs?"
"Yes,” said Samantha, “they’ve got bars, like on a jungle gym, going back and forth."
"Boy, can we have fun on this one!" Roger exclaimed.
By this time, Karen could see for herself what Samantha had described.
"A double stair—a double helix," Karen replied, awe-stricken, "we're inside a DNA molecule!"
"What's that?" asked Samantha.
"It's hard to explain," Karen replied. "But if that—that serpent—was what I call a chromosome, then there should be DNA molecules inside the chromosome, and we seem to be inside one. The serpent is made up of thousands of these chromosomes. These molecules give us our script—like stage directions in a way. We're—we’re awfully close to the secret of life."
"Then we did get further in," said Roger.
“Let's see where it leads," urged Samantha.
Roger charged ahead up one of the stairways of the helix. Samantha and Karen hastened to follow. Just as the girls were catching up with Roger, he stopped and put an arm out to keep them from passing him.
"What's the matter?” Samantha asked.
Roger pointed to a broken stair. Karen's hands shot up in horror.
"The—molecule is broken!" she cried.
Samantha stretched the candle over the break, but its light revealed nothing in the darkness of the breach.
"Now what do we do?" Samantha asked.
"Karen," asked Roger, "what's in the break of one of these stairways?"
"I—don't know—“ Karen stammered. "Something—something broken in this person’s life—I guess.”
"Do you mean, it's not supposed to be broken like this?" Samantha asked.
"No. There's something wrong."
"Uh—what do you know when of the these DNA's gets broken like this?” asked Roger.
"I—don't know what we can do about it in here without any lab equipment or anything. Basically what you do is snip out what you don’t want and put in what you do want. It’s kind of like cut and paste when you’re revising something you’ve written.”
“Do you mean you throw out the clams that have the bad thoughts and put in a clam that’s got better thoughts?” asked Roger.
“Well, it doesn’t work like that,” said Karen. “You can’t just fix a human being like that.”
“I know,” said Roger, suddenly looking very serious, even forlorn.
Samantha leaned over the broken stair and peered into the darkness below.
“If we jump,” said Samantha, “what will we land on down there?”
“Probably nothing that will hold you up,” Karen replied with a shudder. “Molecules are made out of atoms and atoms aren’t very solid. There might just be a few sparks and a nucleus and there’s no telling what will happen to us inside of the electromagnetic forces down there.”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t jump down there?” asked Samantha.
"MAY THE GOLDEN THREADS ENGULF YOU AND CHOKE YOU!" cried a man from below the broken stair.
“Ah!” cried Roger, “That’s where he is! We’ve got to get down there.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Karen warned the children.
“Do you have any better ideas for how we can help Dornal and get him out of here?” Samantha asked in return.
Karen thought back on the route she and the children had taken thus far and realized there was no way they could come back the way they had come. If jumping off the broken stair was going to be fatal, staying where they were was likely to be just as fatal. And Karen had to admit to herself that too many impossible things had happened for her to be too sure of what to expect.
“No, I don’t have any better ideas,” Karen admitted.
“MAY THE GOLDEN BOAR DEVOUR YOUR SCORNFUL HEAD!” cried the man from below.
“Ready?” asked Roger.
“Ready and willing!” Samantha answered.
Karen wrapped her shawl more tightly about the shoulder as if that could protect her from whatever was in store for her.
“I guess so,” said Karen.
"You can both hold me by the hand," said Roger, putting on as brave a front as he could.
Mutely, Samantha and Karen each took one of Roger's hands.
“Okay,” said Roger. "One—two—three—jump!"