Keeping Holiday (11 page)
At last, in despair, Dylan heard himself say, “I’m going to be all alone forever.” Suddenly, he was no longer in the crowd, but watching again from above. Only this time, he could see himself down there, still walking alone. Mr. Smith spoke again. “Don’t worry, Dylan,” he said, soothingly, “it’s just a dream.” Then his voice developed an ever-so-slight edge to it. “But it’s a dream that shows you what real life is like. In real life, every person cares first of all about his or her own pointless little life. Any interest real people have in each other is only on the surface. It’s just to be polite, to mask the fact that all that really matters is what
I’m
doing, what
I
want. People tell each other all their thoughts and feelings, but, in the end, no one really cares. Everyone is too busy thinking about his or her
own
concerns to really listen well to someone else.
“You should have been content with your vacations in Holiday, young man,” the voice added. “Everyone’s nice to each other while they’re there, and all this ugliness doesn’t show. If there
is
a real Holiday,
you
can’t live there. Neither can anyone else. Remember the first thing on that list? Look out for others’ interests, not just your own. Do you see any of that going on down there? Did you see any of that on your way here today? And what about you? What about you and choosing sides for baseball, you and an old man who moves too slowly, you and your parents at church on Sundays? Forget it, young man, there can’t be a real Holiday. No one fits the requirements for living there.”
When Dylan awoke, he felt like he had never slept. “Good morning,” said Clare. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
Dylan did not respond to Clare’s greeting. He merely said, “I’m going home.”
“What?” asked Clare. “Why? What about Holiday?”
“There can’t be any such place,” Dylan said flatly. “There aren’t any people who would meet the requirements for living there. And even if there
were
people who met the require ments, I wouldn’t be one of them.” He pulled the list out of his pocket. He looked it over once more and snorted in disgust at himself. “I don’t meet any of these requirements, let alone all of them.”
Clare did not know how to answer him. Then Missy’s clear, sweet voice chimed in. “I’m not listening in on purpose,” she said, “but it’s a pretty small park, you know. It’s hard
not
to hear everything that’s said. I’m not sure you’re reading very carefully, young man,” she said to Dylan. “Do you see anything on that list in your hand that says a person is required to do all these things before he can be authorized for Holiday?”
“Sure, it says right here,” and Dylan read from the paper, “Authorized Personnel will look out for the interests of others, pay back evil for good . . .” and Dylan went on to read the whole list.
When he had finished, Missy asked, “Did you read the whole paper?”
“Yes,”
Dylan answered.
“Well, I didn’t hear anything about requirements for being authorized, did you?”
“Yes,” Dylan replied impatiently, “it says ‘Authorized Personnel will—”
Missy interrupted. “Don’t read it all again. Pay attention to what you’re reading. All it says is, ‘Authorized Personnel
will
’ do those things. The question is: will they do them in order to
become
authorized? Or will they do those things once they
are
authorized?”
Dylan looked again at the paper in his hand and realized she had a point. “Let me tell you a thing or two about the Founder,” Missy continued. “He knows what people are like. He knows it much better than people themselves know it.
That’s why everyone’s first trip to Holiday includes a stroll through those parts of town you passed through yesterday. He wants the travelers themselves to see that there is nothing about them that makes them good candidates for authorization. If anyone ever
is
authorized for Holiday, it’s because the Founder is just good enough to authorize them, that’s all.”
Dylan felt the faintest twinges of renewed hope. “I don’t get it,” he said. “If that’s right, then what’s the point of this list at all?”
“For one thing, it’s a reminder,” Missy explained. “The Emperor does indeed have his list of requirements for what his subjects must do and be. But they’ve so hopelessly botched things that none of them could ever meet those requirements. The Founder not only paid what they owed the Emperor, he also offered himself to the Emperor as the one who would meet all those requirements for them.
“Then, the list also tells you what authorized personnel
will
be,” Missy explained patiently. “The Founder doesn’t leave people the way they are; he changes them. There are none who fit that list before he authorizes them, but once they’re authorized, they become, little by little, what that list describes. And there you have another good reason why people hang me, Missy Mistletoe, in every part of Holiday! Its authorized personnel were reconciled to their Emperor,
and
they were reconciled to each other.”
“So it’s really not about me meeting a list of requirements?” Dylan said. (You may think it was taking him a long time to get the point, but the idea was such surprising good news to him that he almost felt he must have misunderstood.)
“No, dear,” Missy said with deliberate patience, “it’s all about the Founder. Now, you two need to eat some breakfast and get on your way. You have places to go and things to do.”
“And people to meet,” Dylan added. “Do you think we’ll find the Founder soon?” For as much as Dylan wanted to see the real Holiday, and as badly as he needed the Founder’s authorization in order to do that, he had begun to want to find the Founder for his own sake, just to meet this wonderful hero who kept showing up in every Holiday story.
“You don’t find the Founder; he finds you,” Missy answered, in those same words Dylan had heard several times before.“He’s not just the Founder; he’s the Finder too.” Only when Missy said them in her sweet clear voice, they sounded serious and exciting.
“Where should we go?” Clare asked just as Dylan was saying, “What should we do next?”
Missy laughed her tinkling laugh. “Breakfast first,” she in-sisted. “I know it’s what your mothers would want. Then, go back out the gate and turn at the corner. You’ll find yourself in the Village of Holiday, where the candlemaker has his shop. I’m sure you’ll find him more than helpful.”
C
lare’s anxiety about leaving the park to go back to the streets where ill will flowed so freely proved unfounded. No sooner had she and Dylan turned the corner, as Missy had said, than they found themselves in a picturesque village street. Homey, inviting shops lined the narrow lane. Flowers smiled from window boxes. Delicious odors floated from bakery doors to tickle their noses. “Now we’re on the right track,” Dylan announced.“This is beginning to be like what we could see of Holiday.” “
This must be the outskirts of the city,” Clare agreed. “Everything’s ‘Holiday Village’ this or that. There’s Holiday Village Flowers, Holiday Village Toys, and, mmm, Holiday Village Bakery.” Clare drew in a deep breath filled with the fragrance of baking bread.
“Well, then, Holiday Village Candles must be around here somewhere,” Dylan said. They continued past the Holiday Village Gift Shop, Holiday Village Home Décor, and the Holiday Village Café. Fresh fruit stands, hardware stores, bookstands, and clothing shops—Holiday Village had it all!
But where was the candle shop? As the cousins walked down the main street, the shops became fewer and fewer and were finally replaced by farm fields. “We must have missed it,” Dylan said, and they returned the way they had come.
“Maybe it’s on a side street,” Clare suggested.
“Maybe,” Dylan replied, “but I thought I looked down every one we passed. They didn’t seem to have anything but houses.” Dylan lit up. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe the candle shop is in someone’s house.”
The cousins went back and walked up and down each side street. They found nothing but cute little houses in cute little yards—no shops at all. So they walked all the way down the main street again, peering carefully at every sign and into every store window. No candle shop.
“I guess we’ll have to ask someone,” Clare said.
“There was a stand back there that said ‘Visitor’s Information,’” Dylan said. Back they went to look. Dylan studied the map posted at the stand. Every shop was listed and numbered in the margin, with the numbers placed on the map. Pointing to the candle shop’s number on the map, Dylan said, “That’s funny. I’m sure we’ve been by there, but we didn’t see a candle shop. I guess we’ll just have to go look again.”
One more time, Dylan led the way back. Clare saw Holiday Hats, a shoe store, and a pet shop. No candle store. “Hey! Here’s a little sign!” called Dylan, who had been searching carefully. He pointed to a sign in the shape of an arrow. The sign was not as high as Dylan’s knee. A bush partially hid it.
“No wonder we missed it!” said Clare. “But what does it mean? I don’t see a candle shop that direction either.” The sign was on the corner of a street and seemed to be pointing at Holiday Hats on the corner.
“Maybe there’s something
behind
Holiday Hats,” Dylan suggested. “Maybe that’s what it means.” He was already moving off around the corner to see. Once around the corner, Dylan and Clare discovered a narrow winding alley. Another small arrow-shaped sign pointed down the alley to “Candles.”
“Odd place for a candle shop,” Clare muttered, following Dylan down the alley and around a turn. That brought them face to face with a brick wall. The alley angled off in another direction. Then it twisted, and turned again. Clare chuckled. “It’s better than a maze!” she said.
They continued down the alley, twisting, turning, winding. Each change of direction forced Dylan’s eyes to work a little harder to be able to see. After several minutes of increasing darkness, he said, “Why is it so dark?”
“Because it winds around so much,” Clare answered. “All the walls block out the light from the street.”
“But what about the light from the sky?” Dylan asked. “There wasn’t any kind of roof over the alley. There should be light from the sky. It wasn’t even noon when we came in, but it’s as dark as night in here.”
“That’s right,”
said Clare glancing up. “I was thinking we came in under a roof, but we didn’t. Why
is
it so dark? I can hardly see.”
The two went on in silence for a few minutes. Dylan’s head had begun to hurt from staring so intensely into darkness. He had been walking very slowly, to keep from tripping or from bumping into anything, and now he stopped altogether. “I can’t see a thing,” he confessed.
From what seemed far away, he faintly heard Clare’s startled answer. “Dylan, where
are
you?”
“Where are
you
?” he answered, wondering how she could have wandered so far from him in such a narrow alley. In the end, Dylan had to keep calling to Clare while he groped his way through the darkness in the general direction of her answering voice. Even when he had finally drawn close enough to her to touch her, he could not make out her form in the dark.
Clare clutched at Dylan’s arm. “I’m scared,” she said. “I’ve never seen darkness like this before, not even in the Cave. You can
feel
this darkness, like it’s pressing down on us. It seems like if you stayed in here long enough, it would crush you. I think we should go back.”
Dylan shook his head, then realized that was pointless since Clare could not see his head. “No,” he said, “it was really scary in the Cave and we wanted to go back, but that turned out okay. It was just part of getting to the Forest of Life. The sign pointed into the alley, so I’m sure we’re doing the right thing. All we have to do is get back to the wall, then feel our way along it to the end of the alley—and the candle shop.” Abruptly, Dylan returned to the subject that was puzzling him. “Clare, how did we get so far apart when this alley is so narrow? Anyway, it
was
narrow. . . .” His voice trailed off into a puzzled, unspoken question as he inched his way forward, one arm outstretched (Clare held on to his other one), feeling for the wall. His hand met nothing but empty darkness.