PART 9
Silver motions to Gold. The man nods somberly.
He trails around the side of the home they’d silently approached, where a ladder reaches all the way up to the roof of the two story house. He watches a portly man work diligently to pound shingles into place. Gold approaches the ladder, and locates a screw near its base. Materializing a screwdriver out of thin air, he loosens it. Then, he nods to Silver, and the two walk away.
*****
Jack overcame his shock, and his mind began to settle.
“That’s really… that’s really you, isn’t it, Tyler?”
The guard who’d thrown him on the floor gave him a firm kick to the ribs with his steel boot. “Address the king properly, scoundrel!”
“Forgive him, guard,” Tyler said disinterestedly, “he is new to this land.”
“Of course, sire, my sincerest apologies.”
Jack wheezed in an attempt to catch his breath. The guard grabbed him by the shoulder, and stood him up. Tyler spoke, his voice echoing through the room.
“I’ll deal with you shortly, assistant tutor, however there is a more pressing matter to attend to,” he said, then shifting his attention to a guard near a door in the back of the chamber. “Guards, bring them in!”
Tyler looked behind him, and through another set of double doors, a group of three footmen led a young man and young woman, each no older than twenty five. Their hands were shackled, the guards led them by a chain which bound them. Jack examined their tear-streaked faces, both of which wore expressions of fear. The group reached the center of the room. Tyler remained seated, his disinterest unchanging.
The centermost guard in the trio spoke, his voice boomed.
“Your majesty, we bring before you the scum who have spread false rumors of you throughout the kingdom.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Are we sure these are the two?”
“We’re certain, your majesty. The two were found in their home, working with an unlicensed, unregistered printing press. These are the ones we’ve been searching for, sire.”
“Alright then, we’ve already reached a verdict, haven’t we?” Tyler asked, turning to his mother, seated behind him. Mrs. Lacy was a tall, sturdily built woman with graying-blonde hair. She gave him a slight nod. Tyler turned back around, and raised his voice, doing his best to deliver a proclamation.
“I, Tyler Lacy, the first of his name, hereby sentence the two traitors before me to hang at the gallows!”
Jack’s eyes widened in disbelief. What did he just say?
“As you wish, sire,” the lead guard said calmly. He turned to the other two guards, signed a hand gesture, and led the procession back through the doors.
Jack spoke up. “Hey, uh, T-Tyler? You didn’t really just-”
“This time, guard,” Tyler interrupted, “he knows the rules. He should know better than to speak out of turn. Punish him accordingly.”
Without a wasted moment, the guard near Jack floored him with a strike to the back of the head. Jack’s world spun uncontrollably. He reached back, and even through his blurry vision, he detected bright red blood on his hand.
If this is a dream… Jack thought, no, I’m sure. This is real. Somehow, some way, this is real.
“Now, lesser tutor, you may be heard.”
The assembled group turned to Jack, the faces which weren’t covered by helmets were equally cold and expectant. A few moments of silence passed, Jack waiting for his vision and sense of balance to settle. He tried to eek out a question through the piercing pain shooting through his head.
“Why… no, what is this place?”
“My kingdom, of course. And you, Jack, are currently an unwelcome guest. Now, either swear fealty to me or be taken to the dungeon.”
“Swear fealty… wait a minute. I’m not crazy, right? Could someone just tell me where I am, how I got here? One minute, I was giving Ty- ah, his majesty a lesson, and now I’m here. I have no idea what’s going on, I swear.”
“Oh, I’m aware, subject. You’re here because for some reason, you’re supposed to be. Not that I understand it…”
“Forgive me, your majesty, but could you please explain?”
For the first time, Mrs. Lacy spoke up. “At some point about a year and a half ago, the king’s fantasy began to merge with reality. As it stands now, this place exists somewhere in between the two. I think that this place will continue to move further from fiction by the day, coming closer and closer to our everyday world. I could be wrong, of course, but I tend to have a nose for these things.” Her voice was loud, yet not overbearing. It exuded total control, her words airtight enough to leave no room for doubt.
“So… what does that mean for me? For the three of you?”
“It’s a tricky situation, and unfortunately you’ve been drawn into this. It was never our intention for this to occur, but certain sorts of people tend to be pulled to this place.”
“What sorts of people?”
“Those with… already embellished ideas of reality. Completely normal people are never taken here. It’s only people like us, who have a reason to reject the world we know. So, Jack, if you’d like me to help you, then explain yourself. Your story.”
“My…” Jack trailed off, allowing himself a moment to come to his senses. “No, I don’t want to do that.”
Mrs. Lacy tapped her heel on the stone ground, and the sound echoed through the chamber. This sprung Tyler back to attention, who had occupied himself with studying the intricate art painted on the ceiling.
“Subject! You will do as you are told, or you will perish,” Tyler said.
The feeling that shot a bolt of fear straight to Jack’s core didn’t arise from the choice of words, but rather the fact that Tyler seemed to mean it.
“You… you’d really do that, Tyler?”
Tyler held his head high, staring at Jack with an upturned nose. He snapped twice, and the guards closest to Jack lifted him up by the back of his shirt. One of them removed a sword from its sheath, placing it directly under Jack’s throat. The point moved closer, eventually making contact with Jack’s neck. He felt a drop of warm blood trail down his Adam’s apple.
“Alright, alright! I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Over the next few minutes, Jack explained how he’d come to interact with the woodland spirits, from the very beginning. He left out the details of the events too painful to recall.
“I see…” Mrs. Lacy said. “So, if I’m understanding correctly, you’re only here in the first place because you needed me to leave a certain tree untouched? Is that it?”
“Yeah, that about covers it.”
Mrs. Lacy thought it over for a moment. “Jack, have you heard of my… reputation?”
“What in particular?”
“Answer the question.”
Jack was long past playing coy.
“I’ve heard you’ll do whatever it takes to get your way, no matter who you need to step over to get there.”
“Ah, so you’ve heard correctly,” Mrs. Lacy said, chuckling to herself. Her tone turned patronizing. “Allow me to reframe this idea for you. Jack, the reason I’m so successful is because I’m opportunistic. What that means is I leap on opportunities when they present themselves. Second, I’m persistent. This means that when I find such an opportunity, I bite down as hard as I can, and I don’t let go.”
Jack tried to make sense of this.
“What I mean to say is that if I was presented with an opportunity, right here and now, I’d be willing to pounce on it. Even if that opportunity was a delusional fourteen year old boy. Fortunately for the both of us, this is exactly where we find ourselves.”
“I’m still not sure I understand, Mrs. Lacy.”
“That’s alright. I’m going to propose to you a very lucrative deal. It will require a little something from the both of us, and if it’s completed as planned, we both will leave all the better for it. Here’s how I see it: on my end, it wouldn’t be much trouble to leave that tree unscathed. Of course, to you, that tree is everything, it’s the whole reason you’ve gotten into this mess. So sure, should you help me out, I’ll give you what you want. Additionally, if you come through with your end of the bargain, I’ll build you whatever you want out in those woods. Chairs, tables, a treehouse, you name it. You’ll be able to make it feel like home.”
Jack eyed the woman suspiciously. “Alright, what do I have to do?”
Mrs. Lacy allowed a full bellied laugh to disperse amongst the open space of the chamber.
“Oh, it’s simple. Even you could understand. The best part is, you have no other choice. Jack, your job is to take any means necessary to destroy this place once and for all.”
Jack’s eyes widened, and he noticed a similar degree of surprise reveal itself upon Tyler’s face.
“Even,” she continued, voice trembling, “if it involves putting my son in danger.”
*****
Toby crawled into the air conditioning vent serving as his passageway.
“I’ll be back in a few hours, most likely. I’m sorry, I know what we’re doing here is supposed to be the most important thing in the world… but-”
“It’s your Dad, Toby. Our Dad, actually. It’s alright, go to the hospital. We’ll be here working when you come back,” Buzzcut said.
“Thank you, I appreciate that,” Toby replied.
With that, he gave the two a nod, and ducked down back into the vent.
Toby popped the grate back onto the vent outside, grabbed his scooter, and accelerated into town. He didn’t see the oddly dressed couple watch him leave.
As Toby traversed the sterile white hallways of the Sleepy Grove Medical Center, he realized it was the first time in his life he’d been inside of a hospital. He’d never had an injury or a major illness; at worst his parents would call the pediatrician over, and even that was only for truly worrisome sickness. He began to feel the beginnings of anxiety creep into his mind, as though it was slowly, yet surely bubbling to the surface.
He pushed through his unease and headed straight for his father’s hospital room. As he was about to open the door, a nurse exited the room, carrying an empty transparent bag of some sort of anesthetic drip. As Toby entered, he was met with a worrisome sight.
His father laid unconscious on the hospital bed, his right leg in a cast, held up by a sling. His skull was wrapped in gauze, and extra bandages were attached to an area on the back of his head. Toby’s mother nearly jumped out of her seat, and ran to Toby. The boy took note of the redness of his mother’s eyes and cheeks. It was clear to him that she’d only recently recovered her composure.
“Has he… has he woken up yet?”
“He’s been in and out a little,” Toby’s mother said optimistically, “they say he should be fully conscious some time tomorrow! They say the ladder… they say it broke. I just… I don’t understand, that’s all.”
Toby respected the facade his mother was attempting to make use of to disguise her fear. Her smile was… shallow.
“I’ll stay as long as I need to, at least until he’s awake.”
“No!” Toby’s mother exclaimed. Then, she steadied herself, speaking much more calmly. “The thing is… well, they may be doing another surgery, and that could take hours. You don’t need to be here for all of that…” she said, her voice trailing off.
“Well, at the very least I could-”
“No, you shouldn’t be here. And that’s final. Please go back home, you should get out of here, take your mind off things. I’ll call you when I think you should come back.”
Toby examined his mother’s eyes. There was something there that he couldn’t identify. Toby had seen his mother angry, jubilant, embarrassed… but never scared. Somehow, he knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Alright. I’ll go, if that’s what you think is best. But if you need anything, let me know, and I’ll come right back.”
“Thank you. You’re a good son, Toby.”
Toby and his mother hugged again, then he backed out of the room. He took one last look at his father, and headed back to his lair.
*****
“I need the full Patterson file, Dad,” Ace said, slamming her hand on her father’s desk.
“No need to be so dramatic about it, honey. I’ll see what I can do, but you may just need to work with what I’ve given you on it. It’s already against protocol to allow you to see what you’ve already seen.”
“Great, then we’ve already broken the rules,” Ace said. “Can’t get much worse, right? I’m sorry for being so excited, it’s just… I got a break in all of this. I found the end of a thread. I don’t know where it leads, and it very well could be a dead end, but it’s something. And that’s great in and of itself, right?”
“I suppose,” her father said, organizing the papers on his desk. “I go down to the station tomorrow, I’ll see what I can do about bringing the full file back for you. And… about the other thing, I-”
“Did you do it? Please tell me you did it.”
“Well, if you let me finish…” her father said, clearing his throat. “Ms. Rawlings, you’re now officially pardoned from school. For the time being, you’re a contracted private investigator of the Sleepy Grove Police Department.”
Ace smiled from ear to ear, then leaped into her father’s arms, squeezing him as though hanging on for dear life. She jumped back, nearly skipping around the study.
“So, does that mean I get a gun? And a real badge? And permission to buy alcohol, and cigarettes?”
“No, no, and hell no.”
“Eh, getting out of school is good enough, I guess.”
Ace’s father sighed. “Well, Stacy, if it wasn’t already clear, I should say it. We’re counting on you. Give this thing your best shot.”
Ace nodded resolutely. “If there’s an answer to all this, I’ll find it.”
“If?”
“We’re talking about some strange stuff here, Dad. This isn’t a normal case. But then again,” she said, flipping her hair back, “that’s why you hired the best in town,” she said with a wry grin.
Odds and Ends 
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