Lost in Silver Chapter Four: The Place

Chapter Four

The Place

Linda was, to put it simply, having trouble dealing with all of this. In the past fifteen minutes she’d seen her brother kidnapped by some maniac who was stalking him on the playground, barreled through the forest she’d been terrified of her entire life and fallen into a pond that zapped her to some other… place like nothing she’d ever seen before.

Her Friday afternoons were usually not this eventful.

As soon as their heads cleared enough to start processing this… this… whatever this place was, theories started to flow about how to get out.

“We’ve got to go back,” Gail said.

Linda sputtered. Her legs still hurt. “Where?”

“The same pond we came from. Maybe it’ll take us home.”

“Or maybe it’ll take us some place even crazier.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I know that we need to find my brother, and even if that pond will take us back to the forest, I don’t think the guy who ran off with him did it just so he could take him home.”

Linda sat down and covered her face. For a second, it looked as though she was going to begin crying, but she was too mad and too scared to produce any tears.

Kevin, staring up at the blank sky, slowly nodded. “She’s right,” he said. “We’ve got to at least try to find him.”

“Kevin, it almost killed you just getting here,” Gene said.

“It took me by surprise, that’s all! I’ll be fine!”

“Fine?” Gail asked. “Look at where we are? How can we be fine? And how do we even know where to start looking?”

“The ponds,” Linda said. “They’ve got to be going to one of those ponds.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Who knows? Why did he take Benny in the first place? Do you have a better idea?”

Gail was forced to admit, she did not.

“So let’s start looking,” Linda said. “And who knows, maybe someone will find us. They’ve got to be looking now. What time is it?”

“Hard to say,” Gene said. “My watch is back in the forest.”

“All right, then, we won’t worry about the time. Let’s just go.”

“Go where?” Gail said. She had a point. In every direction, no matter where they looked, they were treated to the same vision – pool after pool after pool of perfect silver water, each with a single tree (or tree-like object) growing on its banks. Aside from the endless variations and varieties of trees, there was nothing that made any particular direction stand out from any other.”

“That way,” Linda said, pointing in the direction of something that looked rather like a Douglas Fir, except its needles were shades of purple and orange, rather than green like any respectable tree would have been.

“Why that way?” Gail asked.

“This looks like a direction that a nutcase in a black coat would run with an 8-year-old, don’t you think?” Linda said, starting to walk.

Kevin, grunting a little more than he should have, forced himself to his feet. “Hard to argue with that,” he said, walking after Linda. Gene and Gail looked at each other. He shrugged, and they began to walk too.

“Everybody remember where we left the pond,” Gene said.

*   *   *

Gene wished he had a camera with him. This place, whatever it was, was still sort of frightening, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t also be one of the most incredibly beautiful things he’d ever seen. It was the trees that demanded his awe. Each of them was unique. He felt like he’d found an infinite catalog of all the trees that could possibly exist. They passed up one that was covered in brown fur instead of bark. Another resembled a cactus, but each needle ended in a small, red berry of some kind. One was gray and dismal, with no leaves left in its dead branches, and another bore small, puffy flowers with red, black and gold petals in rings.  Gene’s father was the leader of his Cub Scout Den, and was always teaching them things about trees and plants in the woods. He wished his father could be here to see this – he’d never run out of new things to learn.

“Wow, look at that,” he said, pointing to another impossible plant. They had been walking a very long time now, and he kept celebrating each new sight he was awarded.

“That’s the tenth time you’ve said that,” Gail said. “What is it with you?”

“I’ve just never seen a tree with buckets hanging from the branches before, have you?”

“Do trees in the movies count?” Kevin asked.

“No,” Gene said. “I know your taste in movies.”

“How long have we been walking?” Gail asked.

Linda shrugged. “Who knows?” She had hoped the walk would revitalize her a little, but she felt as weak and achy as she did when they climbed out of the pool. In fact, she felt exactly as weak and achy as she did when they climbed out of the pool. She wasn’t feeling rested, she wasn’t hurting any more… nothing seemed to be changing. Her legs still ached, her forehead was still sweaty – it was as though her body had stopped all functions on the inside, even as it continued to allow her to move on the outside.

Kevin huffed a little. “Are we looking for anything in particular?” he said. “A certain tree or a certain color or a big, neon sign that says ‘They went this way’ or anything?”

“Nah,” Gene said. “Why would they make things easy on us?”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Gail asked.

“I don’t know. But there’s got to be somebody, right?”

“Is anyone else still tired and achy?” Linda asked.

“Me,” said Gene.

“Me,” said Gail.

“Huff,” said Kevin.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Let’s take a break.” She stopped at the next tree – a gray-barked giant that resembled an elm, only with very, very soft-green leaves. The color was so soft they were almost yellow, in fact. She sat down with her back against the tree and propped up her knees. “We’ve got to come up with something better than this.”

“Yeah, the wandering-in-a-random-direction plan isn’t working very well,” Gene said.

“There’s got to be something specific we can look for,” Kevin said. He plopped down next to Linda and began breathing heavily.

“Like what?” Gene asked, kicking at the big, gravelly sand. “We don’t even know who we’re looking for.”

“We’re lost,” Gail said, even though all three of them were thinking that very thing.

“And tired,” Kevin wheezed. “I can’t believe this. Why haven’t I gotten my breath back yet?”

“Maybe we need to see a doctor.”

“A specialist,” Gene said. “We can ask for the guy in charge of kids lost in the woods with no sky.”

“This is like every stupid book Benny’s ever read, you know that?” Linda said. “All of ‘em – The Wizard of Oz, A Wrinkle in Time… they’re all about kids who get swept up into some crazy magic universe or something.”

“Anybody got a pair of Ruby Slippers?” Gene asked.

“Silver,” Linda said.

“What?”

“In the book they were silver. They changed it when they made the movie. Just one of the fascinating facts you learn when Benjamin Watson is your brother.”

Gene was perched at the edge of the closest pool, the one with the elm-ish tree on the bank. “Maybe we should just try one of the pools,” he said.

“We don’t know what will happen,” said Gail.

“No, but it’s got to be better than just walking in a straight line for a million miles with hurt legs and burning lungs.”

“Maybe we’ll find someone who can help,” Kevin said.

Gene looked over at Linda. “What do you think?”

“Me? Why are you asking me?”

“Your brother,” he said. “Your call.”

She sat up and crawled to the edge of the pool, next to Gene. Her reflection gazed up at her, looking tired and red-eyed. She looked naked without her baseball cap. The girl in the pool was barely familiar at all. She reached out to touch the girl, but held her fingers just barely over the surface of the pool. It looked like she would just be touching a hard, solid mirror, but she felt somehow that if she actually made contact, the water would grab her arm and pull her under, making the decision for her.

She was worried about Benny. Very worried. She wanted to save him from the horrible man in the black coat.

But she knew she wasn’t being any help to him out here.

“Let’s try it,” she said.

Gene nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Kev?”

Kevin lifted his head. “In for a dime, in for a dollar, I guess.”

“What?”

“Something my grandpa says. I think it means I’ll do it.”

They all looked at Gail, who was leaning against the tree and appeared to want to blend right into the wood.

“I guess we don’t really have a choice, do we?” she said.

“You want to try this one?” Gene asked Linda.

“It’s as good as any,” she said. “How do we do it? Just jump in?”

Gene didn’t answer. He stood up and held out a hand to Linda, helping her up.

“Kevin?” Gail said. “Hold my hand when we do it.” He nodded. He wouldn’t have said it, but he was very glad to be holding onto someone. Linda still had Gene’s hand. With her free hand, she took Kevin’s, and all four of them were linked.

“On three,” Linda said. “One… two…”

She closed her eyes and did not remember saying “three,” but she must have, because all three of them took a deep breath at the same time and jumped forward, hitting the water in a chain. Then, just like a steel chain, they all sank into the depths.

*   *   *

It was cold again, so cold. How could any water be this cold and not turn into ice? Linda trembled as she fell deeper into the pool, concentrating all of her energy into her hands. She was determined not to lose her grip on Kevin and Gene – if she were cut off from them she didn’t know what she’d do.

A blast of current from somewhere below her made her lose her bearings again, tossing her around in the water. She lost her sense of up and down, she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything but water sloshing around in her ears.

Gene’s grasp on Linda’s hand grew tighter as the water around them grew more violent. In her other hand, Kevin was wavering. She relaxed her hold on Gene, whose hold on her was tight enough on its own, and concentrated on maintaining her contact with Kevin. She hoped that Gail, on the other side of him, was doing the same.

This time it was her face that broke into the air first, and the instant she opened her mouth and inhaled she knew she was somewhere else. She wasn’t sure where – it may have been home, it may have been some other realm entirely, but the air was full of smells and tastes she did not even realize had been absent in the other place. She tossed her head, flinging water droplets in all directions.

“Did it work?” Gail was saying.

“I think so,” Kevin said. “Look!”

They paddled to the shore, looking at the world that they had emerged into. They were in an ordinary forest now – not Kane Forest, it wasn’t nearly as thick or as dark as all that – but a regular forest of normal trees. There was, as far as they could see, only the one pool, and the sun burned in the clean, blue sky above them.

“It’s still daylight,” Gene said. “We must have been there for hours. It should be dark by now.”

“Who knows how it works over there?” Linda said. “Or over here, for that matter.”

“Where do think we are?” Gail asked.

“Not where we came from, that’s for sure. I’ve never been here before.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said, “but before it’s like we weren’t even on the planet Earth anymore. Now we’re at least someplace normal, right? We can find our way out of the woods, figure out where we are, get to a telephone and call someone for help. We’ll find someone who knows what they’re doing so they can find Benny.”

“I’m sorry, Linda,” Gail said. “Right now, I just want to go home, and if we can get there from here–”

“Who says we can?” Gene said. “Just because we’ve got the sun back doesn’t mean we know where we are.”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Linda said.

“Um, Linda?” Kevin muttered.

“What?”

He pointed up into the air and they all looked. A trio of shadows crossed over them and, for a second, they thought they were looking at birds. As the figures moved past the sun and they got a clearer look, though, they realized they couldn’t have been more wrong. There were people in the sky. Three kids, in fact, probably just a few years older than they were, wearing pads and helmets and what looked like thin parachutes on their backs. Beneath their feet were slender planks of wood that looked like skateboards with the wheels removed, only a bit longer, with a back fin like a surfboard. They were gliding through the air, well above the trees, laughing and enjoying themselves, much like Linda and the others may have been doing, only at a lower altitude. One of them got daring and cut his board down, zooming at the pond, and for a moment it looked as though he would splash into the silver water. He cut back up at the last moment, though, buzzing the surface, causing only the smallest ripple when he headed back into the air. One of his friends laughed at him, calling him a showoff, a badge he seemed to wear with pride.

As the skyboarders drifted on past treetops and out of Linda’s range of vision, a fourth shadow followed them – a smaller child peddling a device that looked like a tricycle with no wheels. The pedals were connected to a small fan attached to the back of the vehicle. The harder she peddled, the faster she went. She was small, though, and could not peddle very hard.

“Guys, wait up!” she shouted as she, too, drifted through the sky above their heads.

“We know one thing, Linda,” Kevin said. “We’re not home yet.”

They stood silent, amazed for a long moment.

“Man,” Gene said, “I want one of those things.”

Next: Chapter Five-The Town

Advertisement