Sagaria (8 page)

They were bobbing near a clump of reeds when a little green dragonfly landed on Sagandran’s knee, right on top of the patch his mom had sewn on last night. He made to wave it away, but Grandpa stopped him with a raised palm.

“Leave it be, lad,” the old man said softly, plucking absentmindedly at the gold chain around his neck. Sagandran had often wondered what was on the end of that chain, hidden under Grandpa’s shirt. Was it a stone, like the one that hung on his chest? Somehow, he’d never liked to ask.

“It’s not doing you any harm,” Grandpa was saying, “and maybe it’ll do you some good. Take a good look at it, Sagandran. See how beautiful it is?”

Sagandran peered at the little insect. It was beautiful. Its body was like a twig that was a different shade of shiny dark green, depending on how you looked at it. The wings were flakes of gauze.

“You know they live only a single day?” murmured Grandpa, leaning over so Sagandran could smell his hot dog and mustardy breath. “That’s why they’re always so busy. They have just a single day to accomplish everything they’re ever going to accomplish in life.”

But my life is going to be so many thousands and thousands of days
, thought Sagandran, knowing what Grandpa was telling him without having to hear all the words.
So I don’t have to be busy all the time, like this tiny insect does. Sometimes, you get the most out of life when you’re not busy doing things, like now
.

Grandpa nodded, as if hearing Sagandran’s thoughts.

“This little fella,” he continued, “decided it was important that he come and show off to you, so you could admire him all dressed up in his best and brightliest-colored gladrags.”

They watched in silence for a minute or longer as the dragonfly carried on preening. Then, as if obeying a signal only it could know, it lifted off the knee of Sagandran’s jeans.

But it didn’t fly away, not immediately. Instead, it hovered for a few seconds in front of his nose, as if it were studying him, committing his face to memory.

A breeze took it and it flew industriously away. Sagandran had the inexplicable feeling that it was looking back at him over its shoulder as it went.

There was a sudden
snap
from the far side of the reeds, breaking the spell.

“What was that?” said Grandpa, coming alert.

Sagandran knew what the sound was. He’d heard it often enough at school. He’d have recognized it anywhere. It was a bubble of bubblegum bursting.

Webster’s bubblegum.

Oh, no. The one-boy ruination of everything that was good in life was here, ready to wreck the afternoon.

A volley of small stones came from behind the reeds. One of the ducks veered in panic away from the barrage of splashes that suddenly erupted around it.

“Webster,” said Sagandran weakly. “The boy I told you about.”

Grandpa stood up in the boat, his lean face becoming thunderous.

“Hey! You!”

There was instant silence from the other side of the reeds. Webster mustn’t have known that they were there.

“Little vandal!” yelled Grandpa, shaking his fist. The boat rocked beneath him, but that didn’t concern him at all; he kept his balance with effortless instinct.

“I know your name, Webster O’Malley!”

Sagandran heard the abrupt sound of crackling branches and loud gasps – the sound of a bulky boy in full, panic-driven retreat.

“And
stay
away!”

Grandpa lowered himself easily back down onto his seat.

“Coward,” he muttered.

Sagandran wanted to explain the sudden insight that he’d had into Webster back when they’d heard the boy’s dad yelling at him, but now didn’t seem to be the time.

Instead, he said, “Sometimes, I wish him and his family would just move away. A long,
long
way away.”

“You mean that?” said Grandpa, gazing at him earnestly.

Sagandran stretched his arms with a lazy expansiveness he wasn’t sure he really felt. “All the way to the other side of the world wouldn’t be far enough, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Other side of the world, eh?” Grandpa thought for a moment, digging his pipe out of his pocket and peering into the bowl, as if he thought there might be more tobacco left in there than there actually was. He tamped the blackened remnants in with his thumb, then looked back up at Sagandran.

Sagandran had never seen those wise old blue eyes so solemn.

When Grandpa spoke, his voice was almost careless. “Be careful what you wish for, young feller-me-lad. Just be careful what you wish for.” Then he was swinging up the oars and settling them in their rowlocks. “Time we were getting on home, anyway.”

“What did you mean by that, Grandpa?”

“It’s late and—”

“No, not that. What you said just before. About me being careful what I wished for.”

“Oh. That.”

Grandpa rowed for a while without a word, keeping his lips clamped shut even though Sagandran kept pestering him with questions – well, the same question over and over, only that the words changed from time to time.

“What did you mean?”

Sagandran knew Grandpa hadn’t given him that warning lightly, even though he’d tried to make it sound as if he had.

“What did you mean?”

At last, Grandpa relented. He muttered something like, “don’t care what the boy’s mother thinks,” and swiveled the oars clear of the water.

“You’re old enough to be told, that’s what I say, and Helen is just going to have to live with that.”

Infuriatingly, he started rowing again, his mouth once more a tight line with his unlit pipe jutting out from it.

“Old enough to be told what, Grandpa?”

“Old enough,” said the old man at last, his words tangled up in the pipe stem, “to be told something I’m not going to tell you out here in a boat. Chances are you’d go leaping around and we’d both end up in the water. Now hold your wind until we’re back home.”

And Sagandran had to be satisfied with that.

For now.

Once they were home, Grandpa Melwin did a few odd jobs around the house, then peeled some potatoes and put them on the stove for their supper. They were to go with some chops he would grill later on. By this time, the birds had hushed in readiness for the setting of the sun, which couldn’t be long away. Sagandran felt that if his curiosity got any stronger, he’d probably catch fire. He couldn’t settle to doing anything; all he could think about was this tremendous secret he was finally grown-up enough to be told. He tried guile on Grandpa; it didn’t work. He tried being so irritating that Grandpa would give in just to get some peace; it didn’t work. He tried bluster; that
really
didn’t work. He tried charm, but all it won him was an affectionate, sympathetic smile that he’d have willingly torn up and trampled into the lakeside mud.  

He set the table for dinner without being asked.  

He was that desperate.  

What had induced him to think that he actually loved this frustrating old curmudgeon?  

It was only when they were sitting in front of plates of chops and potatoes, the steam rising between them, that Grandpa condescended to put him out of his misery.  

“I’ve been living for nearly fifty years out in the forest,” he began. “Do you know what it is I’ve been doing?”  

“Yes,” said Sagandran impatiently. “You were a forest ranger for
thirty-something
years, and since then you’ve been living out here and …” He waved his hand vaguely, unaware that it was holding a fork with a lump of boiled potato pronged on its end. He hadn’t thought much about what Grandpa did. If someone asked Sagandran, he’d probably reply something like, “Oh, just being a forest ranger still, I guess. Only an unpaid one these days. Means he doesn’t have to do everything the bosses tell him to.”  

That didn’t seem like the kind of answer Grandpa was about to tell him.  

“Well, yes,” said Grandpa, seemingly to the chop he was just about to cut in half. “That’s true in a way, and it’s probably what your mother told you. That’s the official version, if you like, but it’s not the whole truth.”  

Sagandran, agog, had forgotten all about his supper.  

“You see,” his grandfather said, “the whole time I was a forest ranger – and still today, as much as I ever was – I was doing something else as well.

“I’ve been guarding a … well … I suppose you could call it a gate, or a portal. But it isn’t just any ordinary gate or portal. It’s a …”

He put a forkful of pork chop in his mouth and began to chew thoughtfully.

Sagandran squirmed in his seat, but knew better than to say anything. When Grandpa went into one of his reflective moods, it was best to leave him be until he was finished. Sagandran took a mouthful of his supper, but it wasn’t until he was swallowing it that he discovered it was potato.

“No,” said Grandpa at last. “That’s not the way to tell it. You eat up your meal, my hero, and I’ll start my story from the proper beginning.”

He gave a gentle belch and looked toward the forest, as if he were seeing across to the far side.

“It was a year or two after your grandma had died, God bless her soul, and I was out walking in the woods feeling kind of lonesome, I suppose, when …”

CHAPTER 3

G
RANDPA'S
S
TORY

t was a year or two after your grandma had died, God bless her soul, and I was out walking in the woods feeling kind of lonesome, I suppose, when I fell down an old well. If I hadn't been feeling so sorry for myself I wouldn't have done anything so foolish, but grief does funny things to a man.

I was lucky the well wasn't very deep because, though landing on the dry bottom took the wind out of me and made the world go round in circles for a while, if I'd sprained my ankle I would have been in serious difficulties. As it was, I sat up and looked around and saw there was little chance of climbing the well's smooth walls back to the open air. The little circle of sky overhead seemed a long way away.

But when I pushed out with my hands, I found that there was an opening leading off from the bottom of the well. I had a little flashlight in my pack, so I dug it out and took a closer look. The opening was just big enough for me to crawl into and beyond it was a tunnel. The beam of my flashlight showed the tunnel curving around to the left after a few yards.

If I'd been thinking right, I probably wouldn't have crawled into the tunnel, but I was so unhappy in those days about your grandma, wasn't I? In I went.

I tell you, I was breathing hard by the time I'd got round that bend in the tunnel, squeezing through the tight passage with my shoulders rubbing against the bricks. With every movement forward, my flashlight created a thousand new living shadows that danced on the tunnel walls ahead of me. It was probably those shadows that got me spooked out, because I was pretty frightened even before, about twenty yards past the bend, I came to what looked like a dead end: a moss-covered brick wall. I realized how stupid I'd been crawling into the tunnel in the first place. How was I going to turn round and get out again? The passage was too narrow for that.

I tried crawling backward. The bricks jammed against my rear end. It was as if I'd got myself into one of those Chinese finger-trap toys, easy enough to put
your finger into, almost impossible to get it out. What I was going to have to do was go flat on my face and slither back out.

It was going to take me hours, and once I reached the bottom of the well again, I was still going to have the problem of clambering up the walls. If I could do it at all. It looked like I could be trapped underground forever.

I don't mind telling you, I began to panic.

Then the wobbling beam of the flashlight caught the mossy wall in front of my face at a different angle, and I saw that there was something fixed onto the brickwork. Bumping and scraping my elbow, I was able to wipe enough of the moss away to reveal a little sign. It was hard to read the inscription because the letters were written in an ancient style and because my heavy gasping was making the flashlight beam jitter and jerk around, but at last I made it out:

Well, that didn't mean much to me, as I'm sure you'll understand. Much later I'd decide that the name Sagaria was important enough that it would make me want to ask your mother if she could call you after it – yes, that's where “Sagandran” comes from. But lying there, puffing and gulping at the end of that weird little tunnel, I hadn't a clue what or where Sagaria could be.

The biggest word on the sign was “gateway.” If this was a gateway, then maybe it wasn't a dead end after all. It had to be some kind of door. Maybe it was a door that didn't open any longer, but I didn't allow myself to think that dismal thought as I scraped and scratched away at the moss. I didn't even notice the pain when I broke some of my fingernails, I was that keen.

But, once I'd got the moss off, it still looked like a brick wall. I closed my eyes tight to stop myself from bursting into tears. I was just going to have to snake my way backward out of the tunnel, and hope for the best when trying to climb out of the well.

When I opened them again, I saw that, just to add to my troubles, the light of the flashlight was beginning to go a little yellow. The batteries were starting to run out. Even if I'd had spare batteries in my pack, I wasn't sure if I'd have been able to reach round and take them out. I tell you, Sagandran, it was really tight in there. Even as I watched, the light got dimmer and dimmer.

Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly spotted something gleaming in the top right corner of the brick barrier. I reached for it and with the tips of my fingers, I touched a tiny key hanging on a small hook. Maybe it's because it's easier to see some things in dim light than when it's bright, that I hadn't noticed the key before, but I don't think that's the truth of it. I think the key
really
wasn't
there before – that the gateway had been looking me over and had at last decided it was going to let me through.  

I banged the flashlight on the floor of the tunnel and, as sometimes happens, the biff made the light shine more brightly again. It wouldn't last long, but it was enough for me to take a proper look at the key. The head of it was no bigger than a penny, but I could see that on one side there was an engraving of a rising sun and a rainbow while on the other, there was a set of lines zigzagging across each other.
Sort of like a road map,
I thought, and then wondered why I'd thought it.  

The light was already beginning to go yellow again, so once more I tapped the head of the flashlight on the floor.  

My tummy growled, reminding me that I'd been down there a long time. I tried to ignore it. Yes, Sagandran, I can see you beginning to snigger.
That
was beginning to be a problem as well, and I did my best to ignore it too.  

Anyway, wherever there's a key there should be a keyhole, right? But when I was scraping away the moss from the brickwork my fingers had gone over every last square inch and I hadn't found a keyhole. Yet, when I looked up this time, there was a keyhole right in front of my eyes. See what I mean about the gateway having thought for a while before it decided that it was going to let me through?  

In less time than it takes to tell, I had the little key in the keyhole and was turning it.  

It was getting airless in the cramped confines of the tunnel, but that wasn't why I was finding it difficult to breathe as the brick door swung open easily, as if it were on freshly oiled hinges. I pushed it back until it was fully open.  

On the other side of it, perhaps a yard or so from my nose, was what I thought was a mirror at first. Then I realized what I was seeing wasn't a silvery surface at all. Instead, it was glowing with all the different colors there are – far more than you'd see in any rainbow. Strands of those colors, like the fringes of a woven woolen rug, were constantly shifting and overlapping each other – steely blues, rusty orange-reds, polished metallic greens and other hues I couldn't recognize and wouldn't be able to describe, even if I wanted to. All of them pulsing with their own chilly light.  

The surface didn't seem to be solid like a mirror's surface. You've seen mercury in dishes in your chemistry classes at school, Sagandran, with the shiny liquid spread across the bottom of the dish. Well, it was like that.  

Looking back on it, I guess it was foolish of me to reach out and touch the surface when I really hadn't the first idea what it was, but that's what I did anyway. My fingers went right into it as far as my palm. It felt like cold water against my skin, only thicker, as if it were honey, but not as sticky. Once again,
it's difficult to describe, but it made my skin tingle, like there was a very faint electric current in the liquid. I jerked my hand back. Electricity! It was only a tingle now, but how was I to know it wouldn't suddenly strengthen and burn me, perhaps even kill me? I just watched those restless shifts of almost invisible color for a while. Then I began to think. Yes, Sagandran, I can see you grinning again. Your old Grandpa hadn't done a whole lot of thinking since he'd fallen down the well, and it was well past time that he got started.

I began to think about the sign on the brick door. “Gateway to Sagaria,” it said. Maybe someone cruel had put the sign there to deceive anyone who chanced across this place, and it wasn't a gateway at all. But I didn't think that was the truth. The chance of anyone discovering the doorway was almost nonexistent. The key hadn't been there on its hook until the time was right for me to find it. The keyhole hadn't been there, either, until I thought to look for it. Maybe the gateway hadn't appeared until I'd come along to discover it. Maybe if I hadn't tripped over and tumbled into the well, I'd have found the gateway somewhere else – somewhere that was secret and hidden, like this place was.

The more I pondered this, the more possible it seemed. Someone or something wanted me to go to Sagaria, wherever that was, so they'd put the gateway where I – and only I – could find it. They'd waited until an opportunity came along to catch me where no one else could see me, where no one else would ever come. Even my falling down the well possibly wasn't the clumsy accident I thought it was.

You can see where my thoughts were leading.

Yet, how was I to know that the “someone” who was so keen for me to go through the gateway into Sagaria wasn't vicious and malevolent? There are many strange tales about the secret places of the forest, and the creatures who are supposed to live there – weird bogles or fey tricksters; all of them only too ready to snare a person and carry them off to their doom. Had I dropped into a trap set by one of them? I didn't think so. I didn't get any feel of evil hanging around me, but I didn't know.

On the other hand, I could just go back. It would be difficult going through the tunnel again and out of the well, but I should be able to manage it. What was more important, though, was the thought that, if I did so, I'd never find out what was on the other side of this shimmery surface – I'd never discover Sagaria. I had the feeling that if I turned away from Sagaria now, I'd spend the rest of my life regretting it.

And what was there for me to go back to? Your grandma was dead, and my world felt pretty empty without her. I didn't have a job. Your mother, Helen,
seemed to be getting along just fine. Perhaps I did her an injustice in thinking she'd not really care if I was gone, but that's easy enough for me to say now, when I'm not crammed into a sweaty passage looking at something unlike anything I'd seen before. You, young fellow, hadn't even been thought about at that stage. If you'd been around I'd have got out of that well somehow, have no fear. But you weren't.

So, I felt I had nothing to lose by trying my luck. If I died finding out what was on the other side of that portal, well, that was just the way it would have to be. I pushed myself up onto all fours again and I started crawling forward. At first, as I pushed my face into what felt like honey-thick cool, water, I thought maybe I'd made a big mistake. I was going to drown in this stuff. I tried to pull my head back out again, but … too late! The liquid seemed to have seized hold of me, and it wasn't going to let me go. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see anything. I struggled, kicking my legs behind me. I tried pushing against the surface, but my arms went into it and were captured as well.