The Legend of Gwerinatha: Branwen's Garden
by Brad Parnell
Smashwords Edition
Copyright ©2009 by BlackWyrm Books and Games
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All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.
The characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A BlackWyrm Book
BlackWyrm Publishing
10307 Chimney Ridge Ct, Louisville, KY 40299
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 978-0-9820067-6-4
LCCN: 2009927032
Cover by Brad Parnell
Interior Illustrations by Brad Parnell
Edited by Dave Mattingly and Jason Walters
First edition: July 2009
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedicated To:
My wife Amy,
who believed I could finish the project
and listened to every chapter along the way.
Our sweet little cat Padme,
who was with us for far too short a time.
She was very much inspirational to this story.
Special thanks to:
Simon Ager, for going above and beyond.
Dave and Jason, for making it happen.
Chapter One
The Last Road Trip
I used to get anxious a great deal when I was a teenager. This was mostly due to the fact that I was afraid of the future. I guess most kids go through that. My particular problem centered on a lack of identity which, in turn, led to an unclear desire of what I wanted to be when I grew up. My good grades were no consolation to me. It could be that my problem was that I was overshadowed by my older siblings. I was born several years after they were and spent much of my childhood in the shade of their accomplishments. My oldest brother John had spent several years in the Peace Corps helping families in Asia and Africa. He went on to become a pediatrician. My other brother William had been an Eagle Scout and, by his senior year, was the starting quarterback for his college football team. Then there was my sister, Margaret. She was always volunteering for something. She was a candy striper, spent time ringing bells for the Salvation Army and spent most holidays at a homeless shelter, serving meals. She was also a history buff and spent countless hours tracing our genealogy. In fact, it was one of her discoveries that led to the most amazing adventure I have ever experienced, one that not only changed my life but that send me on a journey of self-discovery few are fortunate enough to experience. Unfortunately, it also took from me my best childhood friend.
Margaret had invited me to lunch so that she could share some of her latest discoveries about our family history. At that time she was living in an apartment across town with a roommate named Candace whom I had a mild crush on. Of course at fifteen I had a crush on a different girl each week: not counting, Marcia Brady, Laurie Partridge, or any other innumerable television personalities. I didn’t know it at first, but Margaret had an ulterior motive in mind for me that day. It turns out that, besides the fascinating history lessons, she also wanted to lecture me on my future… or seeming lack thereof. She loved illustrating how learning about the past helped us to shape our future; presumably including mine.
I had just finished locking my bike to her deck when she ran up and greeted me with a hug. I shrugged a bit and, in youthful embarrassment, looked around to see if anyone was watching. “Sorry, little brother. I forgot that you’re too grown up for hugs now,” she said.
“It’s not that,” I said trying not to sound too sarcastic. “It’s just embarrassing out in public and everything.”
“You know, one day you’re going to be grateful that you have family members who want to hug you,” she told me.
“You’re not going to lay a guilt trip on me are you?” I whined. She gave me a look that made me sorry I had asked that question. We went into her apartment where piles and piles of research papers were spread out all over the place.
“Macaroni and cheese okay?” she asked. Macaroni and cheese was pretty much the only palatable dish my sister could make, so I eagerly responded in the affirmative as we sat down to her kitchen table. She added to the plate a garden salad, and some iced tea rounded out the meal. The lack of a meat dish was due to economical considerations rather than any sort of vegetarian ideals.
“You won’t believe what I’ve uncovered now!” she exclaimed.
She sounded more excited than I’d ever heard her. So I tried to act interested while I hungrily wolfed down the macaroni.
“Well, as you know, I’ve traced our family all the way back to the 1600s. That’s when the first of the Moore clan came over from England. Back then they spelled it with just one ‘o’ though, that tripped me up a little bit. Are you listening?” she asked sternly.
“Absolutely,” I stammered. I’d probably seemed a little distant while munching on the salad, but I quickly turned my gaze towards her to get my ruse of attentiveness back on track. We men learn these things young.
“It gets better, I promise,” she said. “Anyway, I had recently contacted some distant relatives back east and they sent me a very exciting package.”
“Are there cookies in it?” I asked, “Because we could use some dessert.”
“Give me a break here,” she demanded a bit impatiently. “I’ve got some chocolate cupcakes I made for Candace when she comes back. You can have one of those.” Now she’d really distracted me by mentioning my most recent crush and cupcakes. It became increasingly difficult to keep up the façade of interest at this point.
“Now listen,” she continued. “This package has a lot of family artifacts in it. When they found out that I was doing all this research, they sent it to me to help me along. They’d like to know more about our roots as well. There are copies of wills and birth certificates. Copies of death certificates. Even some mementos and knick-knacks. They also passed down some stories that have run through our family for generations. There’s actually a legend that one of our ancestors just vanished without a trace.” I had heard enough to know that was a cue to stop looking for those cupcakes and add to the conversation.
“Vanished?” I said, in a most convincing tone. “You mean like in to thin air or something?”
“Well, yes,” she answered. “But I’m sure he ended up somewhere. People don’t just vanish. His name was Samuel More and he was supposedly very revered by his community. The weird thing was this difference of opinion he had with his son, Artemis Richard More, who was an early pilgrim. They argued over whether or not the family should immigrate to America. Artemis obviously did since we came from his line, but he never spoke with his father again. The story goes that his son William tried to visit Grandfather More in England, only to find no clue as to his whereabouts.” Her face changed from excited to a bit glum. I probably should have guessed what was coming.
“It’s sad how some negative things repeat throughout a family’s history,” she said with a quieter tone. Now I knew what made her change expressions. She was referring to my rift with our father. My father, Peter, had split with mom a few years back. All the other kids were already living on their own so it didn’t affect them as much. But for me it was a really big deal. I had to choose who to live with and was caught up in a competition for attention between mom and dad. It was terrible and, as far as I was concerned, dad was pretty much just trying to buy my love with trips and gifts. He wasn’t really concerned with me any more than I was concerned with Margaret’s genealogy search. Throughout it all mom was a rock. I’ve never regretted choosing to live with her. But at that particular time I completely resented my father and had rejected his attempts to bond.
I leaned over the counter peeking around for those pesky cupcakes which I could smell but still eluded my grasp. “Look, Mags, I didn’t come over here to get a lecture about seeing dad. So if that’s what—” she interrupted my angry speech with both hands upraised.
“No, no,” she said. “I just think it’s sad you don’t spend more time with him, that’s all. I won’t mention it again. And the cupcakes are in the last cabinet on the right. I’ll get them in a minute. They’re not iced yet.”
She went over to a box and pulled out what looked to me like some really old dusty junk. “Look here,” she said, “I have no idea what some if this stuff even is. There’re some key fobs, ribbons…” Her voice trailed off in my mind as my eye was drawn to one of the items she thought was a key fob. It was the strangest looking thing I’d ever seen. It looked like it was made of petrified wood with some really drab jewels encrusted in a metal setting. The metal was like something I’d seen on a field trip to an old-fashioned blacksmith. The wood part resembled two entwined arms that ended in hands of a sort that held the metal with the jewels. They were dark and cloudy, with a reddish hue that hinted of blood. It looked like they may once have been radiant, but were now dim and lifeless. I was so interested in the strange item that I’d actually forgotten about the cupcakes.
I leaned over to examine it. “What’s this again?” I asked, this time with sincere interest.
“I’m not really sure,” she said with a puzzled look on her face. “But if you’re interested in finding out more about it, be my guest. The more information I have on these heirlooms, the better I can put together our family’s history.”
She was pleased that I had taken an interest. Besides the lecture on dad, I’d feared there was going to be another lecture on my “intellectual laziness,” as my sister referred to it. What she was really talking about was my lack of interest in anything other than television, comic books, or cupcakes. My hobbies weren’t the type that either bettered myself or helped others, unlike the extracurricular activities of my older siblings. I suppose I seemed lazy to them, but I just didn’t share their interests. It didn’t help matters that our parental upbringing was different. I know she was worried about my future, but she stopped bringing it up because she knew how much it bothered me. I guess she saw my interest in this family artifact as a chance to get myself into something with a positive spin for a change. And, of course, it was a chance for some family bonding. I told her I would take a look at it to see if I could come up with something. It really was fascinating. The more I stared at it, the more I wondered what it was.
After we spent some quality time icing and eating cupcakes, we poured over some of the writings in the package. I found some pages that referred to the story Margaret had told me about concerning Samuel’s disappearance. I asked her if I could take them home along with the artifact and, after some pleading and promises that I wouldn’t let any harm come to them, she begrudgingly obliged.
That night I poured over the texts I’d gotten from Margaret. The stories about Samuel disappearing were stranger than I had first expected. According to the legends, what William discovered was not only that his grandfather, Samuel, had disappeared but that several other people from the town vanished at the same time. I had to know more; but a three hundred-year-old mystery had far too many clues lost forever to the ages. I don’t know why, but I was certain that the strange “key fob” had something to do with the vanishings. I’d read nearly everything Margaret had given me. She still had the bulk of the papers, but most of them were just cemetery listings and the copies from various certificates and licenses. There was only one other piece of text that remained: a copy of a really old piece of paper. Well, I guessed that the original must have been old from the way it was written. But I hadn’t given it much thought because it wasn’t written in English, at least not modern English. Fortunately, there were innumerable books in our library. My dad had always loved to read and his collection had been added to by my siblings. I remembered that there was a book in there about old languages, so I did some quick checking and found it. Sure enough, the words on this old letter were not English but Welsh. Margaret had told me that some of our family was from Wales and, since it was mixed in with everything else, it seemed likely that the original was part of our family’s history.
I spent the next few hours trying to decipher what I could of the letter. I was certainly no linguist! But I’d spent a lot of time using code languages. Cameron and I used to go back and forth with ones we’d find in magazines and old books. We even made up some of our own. So I figured if there was enough to go on in the book, it couldn’t be too different from deciphering a code, could it?
Since it reminded me of old times with Cameron and I hadn’t heard from him in quite a while, I thought he might get a kick out of helping me. I hesitated calling him at first, remembering how we were spending less time with each other and how he might laugh and think of it as kid stuff. Then again, so what if he did? At least I would feel better for making an effort to keep our friendship going. I called to find out he was in fact at home and was bored to tears. He came over a few minutes afterward. I wondered idly whether the fact that he got there so quickly was due to excitement towards the task at hand, or simply having nothing better to do.
It took a little convincing but, after I showed Cameron the artifact, he decided to help me. After a few hours we came to a perplexing conclusion. It seemed that Samuel had believed he’d discovered a doorway into another dimension and was determined to settle in this new world, rather than go to the “other” new world in America. He had written a letter to persuade his son to come with him and had given him the key to get there in the form of this artifact.
After a rather bemusing discussion, we decided to try and use it ourselves… even though there wasn’t much to go on in the way of instructions. All we could figure out was that it had something to do with using a natural doorway and the rising sun as a way to open a portal to another world. Of course neither of us expected it to work, but it gave us an excuse for a road trip. We decided to go to the nearest natural doorway we could think of: the rather aptly named Natural Bridge.
Like several other states, ours has a Natural Bridge and a state park to go around it. It’s really nothing more than a large hunk of rock with a big hole in it. But this seemed to be absolutely perfect for our needs. Samuel emphasized a natural doorway in his letter to Artemis. I didn’t realize until much later that we were making the whole process a lot harder than it needed to be, but that was something that came naturally to me. Needless complication was the hallmark of my youth. But, since we’d been there on a field trip in the fifth grade, Natural Bridge was the first place that popped into our heads. We didn’t even stop to think of what we’d have to do once we got there before we started planning the trip.
We sneaked out of the house and managed to get a ride from one of Cameron’s older friends. Cameron didn’t tell him what we were doing. It did sound ridiculous, after all. For my part, I was paranoid because I knew Cam and his friends had done some experimenting with drugs. I worried throughout the drive that this guy might be high. (I was fairly naive about such things.) It turned out I didn’t have anything to worry about. I caught a few alarming words of their conversation in between naps – mostly about people I didn’t know and things I’d never considered doing – but his buddy got us safely to the park in plenty of time.
Unfortunately, we hadn’t figured out exactly what the next step was going to be. We arrived a little less than six hours from sunrise, which is when the letter told us we needed to use the key. We’d thought that would have given us more than enough time to figure out our next move, so we headed off toward the natural bridge: the opening we needed to form a portal to another world. (Or so I quietly hoped.) Then the adrenaline began to wear off from our late night escapade and I began to get sleepy again. Cameron said he’d look out for any park rangers in case I wanted to doze off. I took him up on the offer, and found a nook several yards from the opening where I threw down my backpack and used it as a pillow. Despite the uncomfortable surroundings and the excitement of the morning’s adventure to come, I fell into a deep sleep.
The next thing I knew I was being shaken violently. It was Cameron… and he looked quite agitated.
“Dude! Wake, up!” he whispered urgently.
“What’s wrong? Did I miss sunrise?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. “But your snoring is really loud, man. I was afraid you’d wake up a ranger or a bear or something. Have you always snored like that?”
“No, I… how should I know?” I said grumpily. “I’m always asleep.”
“You might want to get that checked out,” he offered. “It’s pretty bad.”
“Yeah, well, maybe,” I grumbled. I began to sleepily get my bearings when, suddenly, my attention turned to what we had come for.
“What time is it?” I asked groggily.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Don’t you have a watch?”
“No. I thought you had one,” I told him. It was yet another reminder at how unprepared we really were. I’d thrown what I could into my backpack, but I never was much for watches. We would have to estimate for how long it was until sunrise.
“Well, which way is east?” I asked as if Cameron would really know.
“What do you mean?” he shot back. “I don’t have a compass. All I know is the sun comes up in the east. So, until the sun comes up, that question is pretty much moot.”
“Great,” I said, barely hiding my sarcasm. “So we have to be in position for this thing to work and we’re pretty much going to do that by guesswork. That’s just great. How long was I sleeping?”
“Again…” he said pointing to his wrist. “No watch. But it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours.”
I didn’t really trust Cameron’s estimate, but I had nothing else to go on. “Well, we’ll just have to keep watching the horizon and see where it starts to get lighter. Then we’ll make sure we’re on the right side of the opening to get the doorway to work.” I felt like I had gotten more than a couple hours of sleep and, judging by the sky, it didn’t look like we had too much longer to wait.
Even though I didn’t really expect anything to happen, as we waited I couldn’t help but wonder if there weren’t some really important parts to the message we had missed. Could there have been some warnings about what to expect? Maybe there were warnings about wild animals or aggressive natives on the other side. We didn’t even know what the weather would be like. Were we wearing the right clothes? What were we thinking? We certainly weren’t prepared. I shared my concerns with Cameron, but he chalked it up to me always worrying – especially since nothing was actually going to happen. He was right. With nothing but time and silence while waiting for the sun to come up, I’d predictably let my mind run away again.
Why was I even there? The whole thing was crazy. I began to question my own sanity for the first of what would be many times to come. I don’t believe I would even have gone on that trip if it weren’t for Cameron. By this point I couldn’t even remember whose idea it was to come out here. Did Cameron twist my arm? No. But left to my own devices I wouldn’t have made the trip. I needed him to make it happen. Without Cameron I’d be too afraid to pursue the whole crazy idea any further than a library. And what of Margaret? Was I just doing this to prove something to her? Did I want to make her think I wasn’t a lazy kid without a future? Or did I just need to prove something to myself? Either way, I was here and determined not to back down now, no matter what happened next.
After I’d calmed myself down, mostly by balancing my fears against the more logical thought that nothing was going to happen anyway, I noticed the sun breaking over the horizon. It was time. I yelled over at Cameron, who was standing a few yards away “Cam! The sun’s coming up! What should I do?”
He looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.
“What do you mean, what should you do?” he asked. He ran over to my backpack, grabbed the key, and threw it over to me. “Hold it up!” he yelled. “Keep moving it around until something happens.”
I wasn’t really sure what to expect, so I did as he said. I kept moving it around at different angles until it caught the sunlight.
“There!” he screamed, getting genuinely excited. “That’s where you want it. Don’t move!”
“Now what?” I asked.
“Well, give it a few minutes. If nothing happens we’ll give up, go home, and never talk about it again.”
If he knew then how accurate the last part of his statement would turn out to be, he might have wished we’d never made that fateful trip. I stood there for what seemed to my aching arms to be several minutes as more and more sunlight inched its way up the key. Then I saw something; or at least thought I saw something. The jewels seemed to get brighter… and then something happened in front of me. I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of it. I guess I was expecting some far-out Hollywood special effects with loud hums and colorful, blinding lights. Instead, it was just a subtle difference in the opening of Natural Bridge. The dawn was still too dim to be sure if my eyes weren’t just playing tricks on me. I asked Cameron what he could see.
“I don’t see anything Bobby,” he replied, sounding disappointed. He also sounded pretty certain, so I blinked hard a few times and had another look.
“Something’s definitely happening, Cam,” I told him, not quite believing the words even as they emerged from my mouth. “I can see something. I’m sure of it.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t see anything,” he said with an exasperated tone.
It was as if I was seeing two places at once. I could see the dirt and rocks on the other side of the opening. I could also see some grass taking up the same space that wasn’t there before. There was a slight blur around the grass, like the kind you see from heat waves on the roads on a hot summer day. But they were different too. The blurring was subtler and seemed to radiate in an ellipse. I still wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if it were growing larger. I began to see more and more of the grass, and less of the rocks and dirt, than was there before.
“Cam, get over here!” I yelled. “It’s happening! It’s really happening!”
“All right, all right. Hang on,” he said impatiently.
He came rushing over as I pleaded. A quick change came over his voice.
“Holy cow!” he exclaimed. “I see it too now. I thought you were just sleepy and seeing things; but something is definitely happening. Who would’ve believed it?”
I had decided that the portal wasn’t visible from other angles and needed verification from Cameron. “Go ahead and step back to the side again.” He did so and I continued, “Do you still see it?”
“No! It’s like it’s completely gone,” he told me. He ran back behind me and was able to see it again. “That is the weirdest freaking thing I have ever seen. It’s real! The whole thing’s real!”
I got a little nervous as the portal began to widen to the point where it was as half as large as a hula-hoop, but slowly getting wider. “So, should I try to step through?” I asked, half hoping he would talk me out of it.
“Duh,” he replied sarcastically. “We didn’t come all this way for nothing.”
“M–Maybe you should go,” I stuttered nervously.
“No way, man,” he replied. “It’s your family’s history after all.”
That sounded reasonable enough. But I was still quite frightened. Despite the fact that the letter had indeed been written by someone who was supposed to be my distant ancestor, the invitation wasn’t really intended for me. And even if the invitation was extended to all of Samuel’s descendants, how sure could I be that it hadn’t expired at some point over the last few centuries? I tried one more time to get talked out of it.
“Well maybe we should both go,” I suggested.
“No way again, dude,” he responded. “What if you don’t come back for a while? Somebody’s got to be here to go for help.”
On the one hand, that made perfect sense. On the other hand, it was self-evidently ridiculous. But I wasn’t thinking clearly in the excitement. His remark calmed me down: probably because I didn’t stop to consider how foolish it was. It was only later that I realized that there hadn’t been any way for him to get help. Unless park rangers were issued trans-dimensional portal opening devices along with their bear repellent and green pickup trucks I was pretty much on my own.
“All right,” I said at last. “I’m going to do it. Tell everybody where I went and that we were right about the letter and everything.”
“Don’t sweat it,” he said. “Just step in and then come right back out.”
Step in and then step right back out. I hadn’t even considered that. Once again I was glad Cameron was there with me. I had been worried that this may end up being a one-way trip or something; but surely Cameron was right. All I had to do was step in, look around for a couple of seconds, and then step right back out again. I would still have accomplished my goal of proving the other new world that my ancestor had written about existed. There wasn’t any reason to be afraid. Then I stared into the portal. By now it was just slightly larger than your average hula-hoop and still gradually increasing in size. I felt the same paralyzing fear I had as a small child testing how far I could leap down a flight of stairs. First I’d take one step, then two, and finally three; but up on that fourth step I just couldn’t move. I knew I could make the leap to the floor, but something held me back. The same thing was holding me back now. Just like jumping off that fourth step, I assured myself. I could do it. But it was just a little too much to take in all at once.
I looked back at Cameron. He was motioning for me to go forward. “Maybe I should take my backpack,” I suggested.
“What do you need that for?”
“Well, I’m not sure,” I answered. “Any number of things.”
He stepped behind me to where my pack was laying and reached for it. “Here, just walk through and make sure you can come right back. Then I’ll hand you your backpack if you want to go in again.”
“Make sure I can come right back?” I echoed. “Now you’re not sounding so sure.”
“Well, I mean… well, we really don’t know too much about this, do we?” he was beginning to waffle. “But it sure looks like you can walk right over there and back again. I don’t see any problem with it, really.”
I clearly remember not feeling all that reassured. However, I figured that as the sun rose and the portal began to slow in its increase that my time might be running short.
“Hurry up!” Cam yelled. “The sun is almost to the middle of the opening.”
“You’re right,” I told him. “If I’m gonna go and come back, then I’d better go ahead and do it.”
“Just stick your arm in if you’re scared,” he said condescendingly.
This was yet another sensible idea that Cameron had come up with that I may have overlooked on my own. I tried his suggestion, slowly raising my arm and putting first my fingers, and then my hand, through the portal. There was no awkward sensation or anything. I put my whole arm through and waved it around over the grass that was by now every bit as clear as any I’d ever seen, completely masking the dirt and rocks that I knew to be on the other side of the opening.
“Seems okay to me,” I said confidently.
“There, see?” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”
At that point I gathered my jangling nerves together, inhaled a deep breath and took a quick, confident step through the portal. I felt no tingly sensations. No weird hum in my ears. No nausea. It was just like walking through a regular doorway. I exhaled with a profound sigh of relief.
Then I looked up and down and saw no signs of the natural bridge.
The terrain around me was quite different from that of the park. I turned around to walk back, but was shocked to see there was nothing to walk back through. I yelled out, “Cam! Cam! Can you hear me?” There was no response. I wondered what he could see and if he was trying to get through to me. I looked up at the sky and down on the ground. I did a complete sweep of the area with my eyes and found there was no trace whatsoever of anything resembling a portal. I looked at my hand, which was still firmly grasping the key. I raised it up towards the sun and maneuvered every way I could think of. Nothing happened. I realized that the sun was no longer on the horizon but, instead, was high in the sky as if it were midday. I slowly looked around again. Wherever I was, I realized to my horror that I was going to be here for a while.
Chapter Two
Another New World
A sense of dread overwhelmed me. I had thoughts of never seeing home again. I thought I’d never again see any of my family or friends. It was possible even that I would never again hear another human voice. My thoughts raced, thick with worry. Only this time there was a logical reason for it. I had no idea where I was. No idea of how to get back. For an instant I fervently hoped that the whole thing was a dream, and that at any moment Cameron would wake me up so that we could try to open the portal. I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to wake up.
But it wasn’t a dream. The portal had opened up and I had crossed through to the other side.
After a while I simply gave up and accepted my fate. What else could I do, really? I was in an unknown land; the other new world my ancestor had journeyed to with his fellow townspeople so long ago. There was no denying it. So I checked myself over. There seemed to be no ill effects from making the crossover. Everything seemed intact and healthy. In fact, instead of a nauseating feeling that I had surmised would take hold of me, I actually felt pretty good. With less than normal sleep and no breakfast I should have been fatigued; but I actually felt remarkably energetic. I took in a deep breath. The air was rich and clean. It filled my lungs like… well, like a breath of fresh air. I don’t know any other way to explain it. I’d read somewhere that thousands or millions of years ago the earth’s atmosphere was more saturated with oxygen than it is today. I thought this must be what that felt like. After breathing the thick air a bit more, my mouth began to feel tingly. It was like I’d just brushed my teeth with a brand new toothbrush after having used an old one for far too long.
Reassured by all this, I decided that I’d better take a look around and try to figure out what to do about food and shelter. I started walking, slowly at first. My feet felt lighter than normal. I had that ‘brand new shoe’ feeling. The stress from my worrying began to gradually fade; though the worries themselves didn’t fully go away. Despite my newfound energy, I realized I would have to find something to eat before too long. But what to eat, and where to find it?
The grass around me seemed just like the grass from the world I left. The rocks and trees were similar, if not exactly the same. The sky was blue enough. I felt a sweet, flowery-smelling breeze in the midday air. Yet this new world was still somehow different. At first I couldn’t put my finger on why. It was just the creeping sensation that things were somehow “not right” in the back of my mind. Then I noticed the first thing that seemed out of place.
At first I thought it was a sponge. As I got a little closer to it, it seemed as though it must be some sort of plant. The spongy part was a golden color and it had a long, green shaft rising from its middle like a cattail. It seemed to jiggle when I knelt down to get a better look. Thinking it must be the wind, I reached toward it when, all of a sudden, it jiggled more violently. The flowery portion at the top of the shaft opened up and squirted a gelatinous substance straight at me!
I quickly darted to the side as the ooze splattered on the ground beside my feet. I surmised it must be a self-defense mechanism: probably poisonous. There were several of these gel-spewing plants spread out over a large area before me, some much larger than others. Simultaneously they all began to start quivering like the first one. Reasonably enough (or so I thought at the time), I took off running… until I tripped over my feet and started rolling down a hill.
My descent was broken by what I at first took to be an old, rotted log; though it had a bright scarlet hue quite unlike any tree trunk I’d ever seen before. It was certainly softer than a log should be. Bruised and startled, but otherwise uninjured by my fall, I stood and looked inside of it to verify that it was hollow. Two large eyes blinked back at me. Startled, I stepped back; but when I did, a tentacle slithered out of it and wrapped itself around my ankle. Then six legs emerged from the underbelly of what I had decided now was not a log and stampeded off, dragging me behind it.
I tried to grab on to something but there was nothing around. The speed of the thing was shocking. I remember seeing spiders that could run fairly rapidly, but something its size shouldn’t have been able to move half that fast. I was being battered and bruised by the ground blurring by around me. Then I saw a large mound like a giant anthill. Clearly that was where the creature was taking me.
I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance if the “log” were able to get me underground. I had to think fast. I remembered watching trick riders on television that were able to do amazing things dangling from a galloping horse. I would have to try something like that. We were going to rocket past a fairly sturdy looking tree before we got to the mound. I knew I’d only get that one chance. I began to bounce off the ground with my hands and my one free foot until I was able to right myself somewhat. Just as we came under the tree, I was able to bounce up and grab the limb. I swung around as hard as I could and tried to shake the creature free of my foot. The tentacle’s grip became tighter, but I wouldn’t let go of the tree for anything. I knew my life depended on it.
Using my other foot I began to violently kick the creature, feeling the flesh of its trunk give way a bit under the sole of my sneakers. I was determined that it would not drag me underground to where an undoubtedly grisly fate awaited. Though not a violent young man by nature, I struck at the things with all of my might. Finally, I felt its grip loosen and, with a disturbing hiss, the tentacle was sucked back into the creature. It ran off and slunk slowly, disturbingly down into the mound.
I had encountered my first dangerous animal life on this new world and survived.
If there were plants and animals here, I figured there could very well be human life as well. I reasoned that, if this was indeed the place my ancestor Samuel had come to with his group of like-minded pilgrims, their descendents could have built some kind of civilization somewhere on it. The thought also crossed my mind that Samuel and his group may not have survived. Certainly, this new new world contained dangers they would never have encountered back in Wales.
At this point either scenario was plausible.
All I’d seen of this land were lush green meadows and rolling hills. They were all that was visible from where I stood. Pretty, but devoid of food or human life. If I was going to find out if I was alone in the land, as well as sate my hunger, I knew I’d have to start moving. The most pressing question was: which direction should I head? Obviously, I wanted to get as far away from that mound and the creature within it as possible, but beyond that I wasn’t sure which direction to go.
I decided to follow the sun. That would give me as much daylight as possible, plus it would allow me to go in the same direction day after day. Also, I wanted to put off the darkness of night for as long as I could. I was afraid of the unknown enough as it was in the light. The thought of nightfall in this strange land terrified me.
I assumed that the direction I was heading must be west. But how could I be sure? After all, this place was clearly not home. Was it somewhere on Earth? Was it in another solar system? Was it even in the same dimension as “my” Earth? Who knew how this place orbited its sun? The only thing I knew for certain was that the sun was setting. I had no idea how much time it would be before it disappeared behind the horizon, plunging the land into darkness. And I feared darkness on the open face of that alien land more profoundly than the tree-thing that had just tried to pull me under its surface.
My pace quickened. Precious time passed. But as I walked, the landscape on the horizon began to shift from rolling hills into a welcome jagged tree line. The closer I got to the trees, the more densely packed I realized they were. I was looking into a forest.
At first I couldn’t decide if it would be a good idea to enter it or not. On the one hand, there could be some food and shelter within. On the other hand, there could be any number of horrifying creatures there as well. I simply had no way of knowing. I looked around and saw nothing that could be edible in the meadows unless I wanted to take up grazing. So it was into the woods for me.
Cautiously, I crept into a large opening in the trees and tried to keep close to the edge of the forest as I walked. After a while I became surprised, and then intrigued, by the large variety of trees that comprised it. In a fairly short distance I could see at least two-dozen distinct varieties. I figured somewhere in its depths there had to be a tree which produced fruits that I could eat.
Suddenly, there was a rustling in what had otherwise been a quiet canopy. Leaves and branches shook in the distance. The noise became louder and louder. I could see trees swaying closer and closer. I wanted to run, but I didn’t. I was afraid to look up, but I did anyway. And when I did, I had my second animal sighting.
It was what I can only describe as a giant monkey. Its proportions were exactly that of a little monkey, like the kind you’d see dancing awkwardly in front of a hurdy-gurdy man. Only this monkey was at least eight feet tall. It made its way rapidly through the trees and, when it got close by me, stopped. I held perfectly still as several leaves fell all around me, hoping its stopping here was merely a coincidence. Then I heard the monkey shriek. The branches above started shaking violently. The noise was deafening, at least in contrast to the quiet I’d known before the monkey’s appearance. I stared straight ahead, denying it eye contact and hoping it might ignore me.
By this time all hope of the monkey stopping being coincidental had completely evaporated. I didn’t stand a chance on its turf. I thought that maybe I could make a dash for the meadows, where I might possibly be able to outrun him. But before I could move a muscle I was pelted with a large fruit, which knocked me straight to the ground. I decided to play dead. I had no idea how intelligent the creature was, so it was a huge gamble that it wouldn’t call my bluff and simply take a bite out of me. As I lay there I heard the monkey utter a few loud, excited sounds that half resembled human speech and then he threw a few more fruits at me. I bit my tongue, trying not to scream in pain since the fruits were large and heavy. But if I was going to fool the creature I had to keep still and quiet. I heard it get a little closer. It swung down a little bit lower, sniffed the air, and let out a few more screeches. Then took off in the direction in which it was originally headed.
Terrified, I waited several minutes after the last screech had faded from my ears before I moved again. Groaning, I slowly rolled over and got to my knees. I checked for any bruises left by the large fruits, but didn’t find any. Then I noticed that they smelled quite sweet and I decided to give one a taste. Some of them had erupted into mush when they hit the trees. I picked one of the more colorful ones that hadn’t burst. It was nice and round and had a peach-like hue. The size was that of a large grapefruit and it was soft but firm. It seemed as though I could easily break the skin, so I carefully took a small bite out of it. My lips instantly puckered; the taste was quite bitter. But there was also a faint aftertaste that wasn’t so bad.
The ones that had opened up smelled very sweet so, after a moment’s thought, I decided to rip this one apart and investigate further in hopes of finding something more appetizing closer to the core. When I did this I discovered a sort of bright reddish-orange ripple or swirl like you’d find in ice cream. The center itself was as sweet as I’d hoped. It also had a sort of spicy tang to it, almost like cinnamon or ginger. All in all it was quite tasty. It occurred to me that if I ever found a way back home I should definitely take some of these with me. Unfortunately, the fruits grew on the tallest of the trees. I never would have even noticed them if it weren’t for the monkey passing by. I rested for a moment, thanking God for the monkey who inadvertently fed me.
The next question that came to mind was which direction to go next. I could head in the direction after the monkey and see where it was going. Or I could go towards the direction the monkey came from. In the end it hardly mattered, as I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. I could hardly be expected to know a dangerous direction from a safe one. I simply prayed that, whichever direction I went, I would find someone or something to aid me. I’d already been provided with food. I figured shelter should be next. So that is what I would be seeking.
I picked up a couple of the better fruits, picked out a direction and traveled on. As I walked along I heard what sounded to me like harp music. I looked about but saw nothing that seemed responsible for the sound. Then I heard it again; but this time it sounded more like birds chirping. Up to now I had yet to see a bird of any kind up close in this strange new land. I still couldn’t see one despite the sounds. Several minutes went by as those melodic notes haunted my ears. The only things I could see around me were trees, yet that sound had to be coming from somewhere. Then I stopped for a minute and just stared at the trees. When I heard the sound again I noticed a subtle vibration in some of their branches. The trees themselves were making music whenever a breeze blew through their limbs! Certain trees gave off a more whistling noise like the bird sounds. Others sent out stringed instrument sounds; like the harp I thought I’d heard earlier. It was quite amazing and gave a whole new dimension to the term “woodwinds.” I felt very relaxed whenever I’d hear the sounds from then on, but I always wondered what it would sound like if the there were fierce winds blowing.
Spongy plants. Music making trees. Exotic fruits. Giant monkeys. I’d realized by now that this place was a little more than just a destination that my ancestor had drawn on a map somewhere. I obviously wasn’t anyplace on earth. I wanted to know how he had discovered it – and where it came from. But first I still needed to find some kind of a shelter. And I still needed to be careful. Just because things were looking up with the good fruit and nice music didn’t mean I was safe.
I needed to find a place that could keep me protected, from both exposure and any dangerous animals that might mistake me for a meal. I knew that there wasn’t much daylight left. I saw nothing that resembled a cave so I thought I might make a lean-to. It wouldn’t be much, but if I covered it up well it might at least keep me hidden from predators. I looked around and saw a nice, level piece of ground situated conveniently right next to a large fallen tree. I examined the area around it to make sure nothing was actually living in the tree. I didn’t need another surprised creature taking off with my roof! I gathered up as many logs and thick branches as I could, building a makeshift shelter just slightly larger than what I needed for sleeping. I leaned the sticks and small logs across the fallen tree and piled up as many of the smaller branches, twigs, and large leaves as I could across the top, covering it completely. I felt quite proud of it when I was done. I’d seen my cousins make lean-tos in the woods near my grandfather’s farm many times. I even helped out with several of them, but this was the first time I’d made one all my own. I was pretty sure it would keep me dry and warm, and that it was just camouflaged enough to keep away any prying eyes, ears and hungry mouths. Or so I hoped.
By the time the work was finished I was getting pretty tired. The sun had almost set, so I decided I might as well get comfortable for the night. I gathered my fruits together and scrunched myself into the lean-to, covering myself up as best I could. But before I was able to fall asleep I began to worry again. The darkness had come, bringing fear with it. I fretted about some animal detecting my scent or the scent of the fruits. I despaired over the fact that I had no idea how long the night would last or how cold it would get. Despite the juice from the fruit, I worried that I couldn’t go on too much longer without water. Basically I worried myself to sleep. But sleep did come, and with it the most bizarre dreams, as if my current reality wasn’t bizarre enough. I dreamt of talking trees from the Wizard of Oz to the Lord of the Rings to H.R. Pufnstuf. They were all there having some sort of conference over what to do with me, a stranger who had dropped in on them uninvited. The Oz trees wanted me stoned, the Pufnstuf trees wanted me banished, and the Ents didn’t care. Then the scene morphed into a cage as I was on display in some sort of zoo meant for monkeys like a bad scene out of Planet of the Apes. Yet, in spite of these bad dreams, I actually slept rather well. When I awoke, the sun was just over the horizon. I was pleased to see that whatever kind of cycle this world was on matched my own. Refreshed from sleep, I decided to eat one of my fruits for breakfast and then begin a new day of exploration.
By this point I really wished I had gotten my backpack from Cameron. It would have made my night’s sleep more comfortable. I also would have had something other than strange fruit to eat and, most importantly, I would have had a canteen to fill up with water once I found some. That was my next order of business: to find water. I stretched, yawned quietly, and began looking around for a direction to walk in. I suddenly regretted not following in my brothers’ footsteps and becoming a boy scout. Those camping trips and survival lessons would have more than come in handy right then! But I’d never bothered with the outdoors before. There were cartoons to watch and comic books to read. Who had time for scouting? Still, I knew that I couldn’t go back into the past and change that, any more than I could go home in the present. It was no time for regret.
So I picked a random direction and started hiking.
I’d completely forgotten which way the giant monkey had gone. I didn’t know if I was following his lead or not. Thinking of him again once more, I decided it would be a good idea to pick up a large branch to be used as a weapon. Just in case. I found a perfect one several yards into my hike. It was about the length of a yardstick and four inches in diameter at its thickest point. It wasn’t exactly a Louisville Slugger, but it would do.
After an hour or so of walking in the same direction seeing nothing but the same types of trees, I heard what I thought might be running water. At first I wasn’t sure that it might not be another tree noise, but there was no breeze and the branches were quiet. By this point I was quite thirsty and, as I got closer to the sound, I prayed that it would be a babbling brook. Sure enough, as I started over a hilly portion of the forest I could hear it clearly. I ran over a small hill and down the other side to where there was a small river. Now I was in business. I knew where I could get some food, as long as I could annoy another passing monkey, and I could even build a shelter. Now I had running water! I was becoming a regular Robinson Crusoe in no time! I reached down to cup my hands and took a long cool drink of water. Fortunately for me there was nothing wrong with the water. I was too thirsty and ignorant to worry about bacteria that could tear through a digestive system like a banshee. I also hadn’t considered the idea that animals probably used it for a bathroom. It just felt good to be hydrated again. I thought it would feel even better to be clean. So I washed up as best I could in the river.
Now clean and refreshed I was beaming with confidence. I had survived the night outdoors, and not just any outdoors, but in a wild forest in some strange, otherworldly dimension! I hadn’t felt this good about myself since I was seven years old and helped a neighbor who had forgotten their keys get into their house. I hadn’t actually volunteered for the job but, since I was the smallest person around, it was decided that I’d crawl through an open bedroom window and go in and unlock the front door. It went fairly smoothly, except for the part where my shirt got caught on the bedpost and I hung there awkwardly for a few seconds until I could free myself. But after that I felt like a hero. Sure it wasn’t feeding starving kids in Africa or anything, but in my book it had been quite an event. Now that feeling stirred within me again. The worries of yesterday were like a distant dream. One without talking trees.
It was time to make another decision. I could go back to the lean-to or continue my search for civilization. It was still early in the day, so I figured I’d have plenty of time to make another lean-to before nightfall. So I decided to follow the river for a while. I guessed it would lead to a larger river, or possibly even an ocean! Somewhere along the way I hoped there would be some sign of human life. Either way, I wouldn’t be thirsty anymore.
I started walking parallel to the river with a jump in my step and a tune in my head. I decided to sing out loud. Good Day Sunshine I think it was. It seemed an appropriate choice for my mood. Then a slight breeze came up, causing the trees to begin their music again. It didn’t go along with what I was singing and I lost the tune. I tried to sing again in between the breezes, but it became too confusing so I stopped. It was then that I heard another voice other than my own for the first time since Cameron had urged me through the portal.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” the voice said.
“Who said that?” I replied, stopping dead in my tracks.
“I can tell you’re not from around here. Your clothes are like nothing I’ve ever seen on a human before,” the voice continued. This bothered me for several reasons. The first was that I had no idea where this voice was coming from. The second was that it referred to me as “human,” as if it were not. As for my clothes, I was wearing an old pair of blue jeans, a hand-me-down Wings concert tee shirt from one of my older brothers, and a pair of basketball shoes. This was pretty common casual wear where I came from. The voice went on.