Three
Garbled words through a field of odd static played in Dan’s ears, speaking of sweet dreams. His eyes opened slowly to a world that appeared to be smeared by a film of Vaseline, that trick used in old movies to create a soft, dreamy effect. As he cast around, assessing the situation, he realized he was lying on the ground with a bank of heavy fog obscuring his view. Figuring it was the fog causing the Vaseline effect he planted an arm and pushed himself to a sit.
As he did so a melodious voice, neither male nor female but somehow both at once, intoned over the sound of the lyrics which continued from all around, amplified in odd ways by the fog. “Welcome Character Eight. Designation Dan.”
Dan’s gaze went to the left where Prairie’s head was slowly emerging from the fog then right to see Gwen and Kim rising from the mist. A movement behind Prairie revealed Ben leaping to his feet and looking around wildly. Ivan and Siobhan came walking out of the fog a moment later to join the group.
“Did anyone else hear Welcome Character Five?” Kim asked as she rose and adjusted the straps of her backpack.
“Character Four,” came from Gwen.
Siobhan said, “One.” Ivan, “Two.”
They all looked to Dan but it was Siobhan who asked, “Any idea what happened?”
Dan shook his head. “An idea? Yes. A certainty, no. I think we’ve been absorbed into the story. Or Story.” His emphasis capitalized the word to make them understand his suspicion that this was the work of Biblio Magicks. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve read some theories that this is possible but no one has ever been able to make it happen.”
“So, what do we do?” Ivan asked.
“My best guess is we follow the story and when it ends, hopefully, it releases us.”
“Hopefully?” Ben imbued the one word with a wealth of question.
“Yeah,” Dan rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s my best undereducated guess.”
“Sweet.” Gwen shrugged when Ben turned to glare at her. “What? it’s kind of cool except for the whole ‘potentially doomed’ thing.”
While they were talking Kim had wandered off a bit into the fog-shrouded landscape. Like she did. Because “Big Button, I’ll push it!” Her voice echoed oddly when she called out, “I found something.”
Ivan called out, “Is it something deadly that wants to fight us?”
“Yes,” Kim’s tone was dripping with sarcasm, obvious even through the fog’s distortion, “because if it was I would definitely be calmly calling out instead of screaming “Motherfucking Son of A Bitch!” to the sound of fireballs flying.”
She had them there, Dan thought on a snort.
At her “get over here,” they all did, walking slowly through the swirling fog, testing their steps as they went. The sound of the Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams” continued to emit from everywhere and nowhere, providing a soundtrack for the surreal scene. They’d walked a short distance when Kim’s figure resolved from the fog, grasping what looked like a giant beanstalk and holding something white in her hand.
When she saw them she called out, “I think I know where we are. Listen to this,” she looked down at the white thing in her hand and read “…where a Beanstalk is climbed.” Drawing near Dan saw the white thing was a placard, like the one of the title cards in old silent films, hanging from a golden cord from what was definitely a big ass beanstalk.
“Because the beanstalk wasn’t a dead giveaway.” Ivan murmured from beside Dan.
“I’m going to go out on a limb, or a beanstalk, and say that we’re in Jack and the Beanstalk.” Kim looked over at Dan and cocked her head in query. “Explain?”
“Can’t,” was Dan’s response.
Gwen had moved next to Kim and was testing the beanstalk. Wrapping her hands around it, her fingers nowhere close to meeting around the circumference, she gave several experimental tugs. “Seems pretty sturdy. Siobhan?”
Siobhan joined Kim and Gwen and eyeballed the beanstalk. “It appears to be several varietals of bean. Snake and Winged Beans, I think.” She cocked her head. “Maybe a hybrid. Very interesting.”
“Is it strong enough to climb as that seems to be our next step?” This from Ivan.
Siobhan shrugs. “Seems to be.” She stepped back and tracked her gaze up the stalk. The fog was thicker here, going from the ground hugging cloud cover they’d woken in to a dense, ‘can’t see a damned thing’ peasoup that obscured the height of the stalk within several feet.
“Well, guess that’s my cue,” Ben said. He checked the buttons on his jacket, securely tied his bootlaces, and stepped up to grasp the stalk.
“Here goes nothing,” he intoned and started to climb the stalk like it was a rope in gym class. His upper body quickly disappeared in the fog. Clouds, Dan corrected. Ben’s upper body quickly disappeared into the cloud bank that wreathed the beanstalk. While his legs and feet were still visible he called down, “There are really big leaves on this thing. Like I’m standing on one and it’s holding my weight.”
“Will it hold mine, you think?” Ivan called up through the cloud cover.
“Huh?” There was a moment’s pause then Ben called, “I just jumped up and down on this one. Things like concrete. I’d go with a solid maybe to your fat ass being supported.”
“Why you been looking at my ass?” Ivan called up, getting a chuckle from Kim and Gwen.
“Less quipping more skipping,” Ben called down.
“Let me,” Prairie said, stepping up to the beanstalk. “I’m the lightest. I’ll get up to a leaf and test Ben’s theory.”
That said she scampered up the beanstalk like a wiry opossum, quickly disappearing into the clouds. Her voice came down, slightly warped, “Totally safe. This cloud stuff is weird though, gotta warn you. Like maybe it has some kind of mind distorting thing going on. Trippy!”
“For Science!” Kim declared as she grasped the stalk and started climbing.
“Because we’re stuck here otherwise!” intoned Gwen, following behind Kim.
Prairie’s voice, warped by the clouds, came drifting down, “Hey, I know this one!” She then followed with starting to sing the first line of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide.
Her singing voice was beautiful, mellifluous and clear, and they rarely heard her use it because something in her said “not enough” when it should say “dayum”.
Kim’s and Gwen’s voices joined in on the line about the mirror in the sky. Their voices rose on the air, curliques of sound like ribbons lancing the clouds.
Where Prairie rarely sang in front of others Kim never did. Something about a childhood experience in chorus convincing her she sounded like a cat who’d had it’s foot stepped on when she did so. Based on the sounds suspended in the fog it wasn’t true but childhood experiences went deeper than the bone and surely deeper than logic and intellect. Her husky intonation of the line about changing was another argument that there was something to the fog.
Trippy indeed, Dan thought as he strained his eyes to see them as they ascended through the clouds. “We’d better join them before we lose them to the landslide.”
Siobhan shrugs, “Gotta love them.”
“Seems like,” Dan agrees.
Ivan looked at Dan and Siobhan, gesturing at the stalk. “I’m the heaviest. I’ll go last. In case I fall I won’t take anyone below me out.”
Siobhan nodded and started to climb. Dan followed. As he reached the first leaf, sturdy as Ben had declared, he heard a “fuck!” from above. The clouds continued to distort sound so he’d swear Prairie, Kim, and Gwen were right beside him singing. Their voices weaved around him and combined with, yes, another curse from Ben.
“There’s something in this damned mist. Kim, can you get me some light?”
Kim paused the singing and hollered, “Afraid to light it up, my dude. We’re on a flammable plant and I can’t see squat in this cloud cover. Oh, crap! There is something here!”
Dan doubled his efforts to climb the stalk, quickly closing the distance to Siobhan who seemed to also be climbing double time.
“Gwen?” Kim called out.
“Got it!” Gwen’s voice echoed out of the clouds. “Let’s see just how sturdy these leaves are!”
There was a distinctive thwack sound, like a bat impacting a baseball, and then Gwen’s satisfied, “Take it!”
Kim called out, “Prairie?”
Prairie replied. “Got it! Only had one fly at me!”
“Yeah,” Ben’s voice called out, “I haven’t had another one. But stay aware.”
Random snatches of conversation drifted out of the fog.
“Does no one else thinks it’s weird our adventure has a soundtrack?” Ben’s voice, low and velvety and somehow complimentary of the fog hung in the air.
“I find it weird that you didn’t sing along to Landslide.” Prairie quipped.
“That is suspect.” Kim’s smile was clear in her agreement.
“I was singing in my heart.” Ben’s tone suggested the opposite.
“The jury is out on your having one.” Hollered Ivan from below Dan.
“Shut up, you!” Despite the words Ben’s voice were flavored with his usual smile. “Or I accidentally drop a dagger.”
“And stab me?” Prairie’s tone throbbed with quiet woe, the heartsick girl in high school who sat at the top of the bleachers at games and pretended she was only there because she had to be.
The quips paused as the air was filled with the sounds of wings. Out of the fog loomed a creature with bat wings and a long proboscis, like a cross between pterodactyl and a bat.
In the time it took Dan to pull one of his crossbows from it’s thigh holster and sight the creature got close enough he could see the individual feathers on it’s body. Damn these things are fast, he thought, releasing a bolt that took it in the chest and sent it spiraling back into the fog.
Another creature, another bolt. Then nothing. Dan stayed tensed, feet planted on the leaf he was standing on, waiting for something else to fly from the fog. When after a few moments it didn’t, and the sound of fighting from above and below him ceased to be replaced by familiar lyrics of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” Dan started climbing again.
Kim sang the line about being held tight, her voice giving a hitch which suggested she was climbing as well. Siobhan came in on the next line, weaving her voice with Kim’s.
Their voices blended from above Dan on the next line and then Prairie and Gwen joined in.
The line echoed back from the mist, warping and weaving on the air.
Fucking weird, Dan thought, but also kind of amazing. Around him the fog thinned and he caught the tapestry from the corner of his eye again. He jerked his head to the side, swaying as he nearly lost his hold on the beanstalk. Firming his grip he focused on the tapestry. At first the weft and weave seemed loose but as he watched, and his group sang, the threads began to tighten, pulling together as if his group’s integration with the story was lending it cohesion.
Testing that theory he joined in when the women hit the line about being in the dark. And the threads not only tightened but started to sparkle. Son of a bitch.
“Keep singing,” he called out. They replied with the next line.
When they hit the dramatic crescendo of the chorus Kim called out, “Gwen, do NOT let go of the beanstalk to dramatically gesture!”
“It calls for it!” was followed by Gwen loudly proclaiming the line.
Dan dug in, going as fast as he could up the stalk until he was standing just below Siobhan who was singing in a soft contralto. In the short pause before the next verse he grunted out his theory, “The singing along is strengthening our connection to this place. Don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“I’ll go with good until we know otherwise,” she murmured then smiled as Kim’s voice rang through the fog, the others going silent as if in agreement to let her sing.
They joined again on the last line and Dan watched a spark glide along the weft of the tapestry. Damn that was beautiful. For a moment he forgot to breath, then he jerked his head upwards to encourage Siobhan on her climb.
She started up again, singing as she went. As the women hit the refrain with feeling Dan looked back and called down to Ivan.
“Sing along, man!”
Ivan’s face loomed out of the fog as he pulled up to just below Dan. “I don’t know the words. This is a chick song.”
“So I’m a chick,” Dan’s smile was mocking.
“You said it.”
Dan set his mind back to climbing and singing. It seemed endless. The climb, not the song; although did the Magick have to choose one of the longest songs in his memory? He’d suspect it was going to pull out In A Gadda Da Vida next but that thing was instrumentation heavy so hopefully not. He did not know if his grip would fail should the fog suddenly start hammering out some heavy organ chords.
It didn’t happen but he smiled fondly as clapping beat out a familiar tune and then from the fog came the first line of John Mellencamp’s Jack and Diane. With a grin he started mutter mumbling along with the song.
“Longest beanstalk ever.” Gwen put some whine in her voice.
“Because you have a lot of experience with beanstalks.” Kim’s droll reply poked fun at her friend.
A few moments of silence underwritten by the words to “Jack and Diane”, making Dan reflect that this was one weird soundtrack, then Ivan called out, “Are we there yet?” to which Siobhan paused in singing and replied, “Don’t make me turn this car around.”
The humor made the long climb with it’s sense-distorting fog and songs that carried on it eking into their skin more bearable. That was the beauty of this group. Sure they were all competent, focused, dedicated to whatever task they set their collective mind to but they weren’t afraid to laugh while doing so.
There was another interlude as a wave of creatures flew from the fog. Before they struck Dan had a hot second to notice that where they flew the tapestry thinned, the threads pulling apart. Well, shit, looked like they might be dealing with two things here, one helping and one opposing. He didn’t have another moment to consider this as he fell into defending himself from the reaching claws and the snapping tooth-lined beaks of the things trying to tear pieces out of him.
Tearing pieces. Weaving together. Yeah, that made a kind of poetic sense, he thought as he fired off bolt after bolt. Whatever it was trying to stop them was putting in the effort this time.
He heard Ivan swinging his sword below him, the steel of it singing as it cut air stopping with dull thuds as he made contact with flesh. Above him fire burst in spurts, turning the fog shades of sunrise as Siobhan flung potions at the encroaching creatures. Pieces of the things filtered down from above, shredded by Prairie’s blades. Others came tumbling down whole with heads caved in from Gwen’s plunger.
One of these hit Dan in the head, making him see double for a moment. He shook off the effect then blinked his eyes. Maybe it was the head hit, maybe it was his Magick, but now as the pieces tumbled past they began to unravel as if they were made from fog and shadow. It was beautiful in a terrible way. The threads or strands of the things filtered through the weave of the tapestry that blinked in and out of focus in the fog. Again, beautiful.
As a Bibliomancer Dan believed in Story but to see it, to actually witness the reality of what had always been theory, was amazing. He had no idea if this was the work of a Bibliomancer with Magick exponentially more advanced than his or if this tapestry or something like it only bigger and broader and more incomprehensible existed underlying all of reality. All he knew was he was awed and thankful he got to see it.
As quickly as the attack began it died off. Dan shook off his thoughts and continued to climb.
“Hey,” Gwen called out, “This is my jam.” Her words wove into the fog as she began to sing the first line of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’.
Kim’s voiced joined hers in the fog, then came Prairie’s voice blending with Siobhan’s as they hit the line about the midnight train.
And then they were all singing along with the fog garbled soundtrack that has been playing below their climb, Ivan’s voice coming from below Dan and weaving together with the rest until the fog and the world was their voices.
A trick of the fog made them all seem next to him and inside of him, filling Dan’s chest with a feeling of connection that swelled with the words.
They climbed with renewed energy, singing about strangers and shadows searching the night.
From the fog another swarm of creatures flew. Dan prepared to snatch his crossbow but then something happened. The swarm seemed to hit a wall feet from them, like the combined sound of their voices had created a barrier that was impassible.
“Keep singing!” He yelled into the fog and then did just that. As their voices swelled on the chord of “night” the creatures exploded into fog and shadow and were sucked out of the tapestry. Yes!
There were yips of excitement from above Dan and Ivan let out a manly grunt, suggesting they’d witnessed what Dan had.
“I think I see… yep, I see the top,” Ben’s voice echoed from the fog.
Enter The Woods 