Root (22 page)

I plopped down on the bed, not bothering to
wash or turn on the lights or TV or anything. I buried my face in a
pillow.

As I lay there thinking, this barrier eroded
in my head, and suddenly it was like a dam breaking. All the fear
that had been gnawing at me washed away. Why should I care who came
after me, as long as they didn’t torture. A quick death promised
relief. Why not welcome it?

Such feelings had visited me before, but this
time I was serious. This time it hit me like a blazing epiphany. I
wanted out. I wanted to blink out like a candle, tune out all of my
senses, end my worries. My path was not sustainable. So let them
come.

And wouldn’t you know, that damned bedspread
wasted no time in unraveling its threads into a thousand strands
that rose up and twined into larger cords that tangled themselves
around my limbs like a goddamned Wisteria. Here it comes, I told
myself, my heart ticking faster in anticipation.

***

Again I was tangled in roots, dangling from
the roof of a dim tunnel. But this time I was glad to be here. I
smirked in anticipation of busting out of the pod and making my way
to Karla’s hooch, which was beginning to feel more like home than
anything I had left on earth.

Problem was, the roots entangling me had other
ideas. These were tougher and wirier than those that had confined
me before. They were aggressive little buggers, attacking me,
wrapping back around as quickly as I could peel them
off.

I took a long, deep breath and concentrated on
a few key strands, applying what Karla had taught me about
Weaving—focusing my intense desire that they crumble away or turn
to slime. But nothing happened. At most, I managed to tinge one of
them blue.

What the fuck?

Something felt way different this time—way
wrong.

I panicked and flew into a tantrum, writhing
and flailing at the roots. They held firm and pressed their
advantage at every opportunity, until I had no choice but give in,
like a rat in the grip of a python.

I settled back and caught my breath, listening
with dread to distant groans and rumblings, hoping they remained
far below.

Something rustled behind me. I squirmed around
to see a bald head poke through a patch of frayed roots along the
wall. A man crawled through an opening, got up and looked up and
down the tunnel. Satisfied, he smoothed the roots back into place
with a long caress. He brushed himself off and started to walk
away.

“
Hey buddy! Can you give me a hand?
I’m stuck.”

He glanced up, perking his ears like a bird
watcher who had just heard an interesting call. He had a huge beak
of a nose and a mustache to match. He was dressed like a biker with
tight padded leathers top and bottom.

“
It speaks,” he said.

“
Listen, I can usually get myself
out of these pods, but this time … I don’t know why … I’m having
trouble.”

He puckered his face in distaste and turned
away.

“
Wait! Can’t you help
me?”

He shook his head. “No meddling. Luther says,
if you are not free, you are not meant to be.” He had a lilt to his
English that sounded Scandinavian.

“
But I’ve been down, twice already.
I’ve met Luther. He won’t mind. I’m sure.”

The man turned up his palms and
shrugged.

“
We do not intervene. That’s now how
things work. It is survival of the fittest.”

“
Aw, come on!”

He squinted up at me and something his
expression changed. “You. You’re the young fellow who wears
dresses. The one who made the glass giraffe.”

“
You were there?”

“
Ach. You don’t need any help. You
are a Weaver.”

“
No. I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve
tried. Nothing seems to be happening.”

“
Well … you had better figure it out
quick,” he said. “Because I am off. Best of luck.” He strode away
up the gently pulsing floor of the tunnel.

“
Please! At least ... tell Karla I’m
here. Can you do me that?”

He continued on, not even bothering a
glance.

“
Please?”

I twisted back around, struggling to find a
more comfortable position. The nasty things were giving me hardly
any breathing space. I jabbed them with my elbows, nudged them with
my knees. They were as dense as oak and about as pliable as
steel.

Another pod hung in the dimness, about fifty
feet down tunnel. An arm, pale and delicate protruded from a gap,
dangling limp beside a cascade of long, blonde hair.

“
Hey!” I said, perking up. “Anybody
home down there?”

The pod rustled. A girl with narrow, mousey
features squeezed her face into a cleft and stared. She couldn’t
have been more than twelve years old.

“
Hey, what’s your name?”

There was a long pause. “Sheila,” she said,
sluggishly.

“
You should get out of that thing if
you can. Go up tunnel, where it’s safer. There are people who will
help you. They’re not all like that guy.”

“
What for?” she said. “What would be
the point?” She had an odd accent. South African or something. I
couldn’t place it.

“
The point? Well, the point is you
can’t stay in these tunnels. There are nasty things in here. Don’t
you hear them?”

She shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m quite content
just hanging out here, thank you.”

“
Sheila. You need to get out of that
pod. You’re too young for this place.”

“
Too young for what place? My own
head? I
wish
I
could get out. That’s why I took mum’s pills. But it’s only made
things worse. Maybe I should take some more … maybe I will … when I
wake up.”

“
This ain’t your head, hon. This is
real.”

“
Yeah, right. So who are you? My
fairy Godfather, or a phantom?”

“
Sheila. You’re too young. You
shouldn’t be here. This feeling you have … you might outgrow it. It
might just be puberty doing this to you.”

“
Of course. Hormones. That’s what
they all say.”

“
But it’s true,” I said. “That’s
what it could be.”

“
Everyone’s a bloody therapist,” she
muttered. “Even the phantoms. So tell me, Mr. Phantom, why are you
here? Did you not outgrow your hormones?”

“
Well, I’m a … I’m a late bloomer.”
I sighed.

“
Who the heck
are
you and what are you doing in my
dream?

“
That’s what I’m trying to tell you,
Sheila. This ain’t no dream.”

“
Pfft. What else can it be but a bad
dream? But I’m not impressed. I’ve had worse.”

The tunnel floor heaved and bulged. Something
scraped against it from beneath. It thumped along in spurts, as if
pausing to track a scent. It was close. Way too close.

“
Listen. You don’t want to stay in
that pod. You need to get out, and get out of this
tunnel.”

“
Whatever,” she said. She gave me
this cold fish look as if I were a parent trying to get her to do
her chores.

“
I mean it. Squeeze out if you can.
If not, focus your mind. Stare at them. Make softer, looser. Make
them fall apart. It can be done. You just need to convince them
that they need to be something else. It worked for me …
once.”

“
You’re daft.”

“
Come on, Sheila! Give it a
shot.”

The Reaper pounded closer. I honed my gaze
onto a strand gripping my left arm. I reached inside myself,
conjuring all the intensity I could muster. Cotton candy. I wanted
to turn it into shreds of cotton candy.

Something released in the pit of my stomach.
The strand transformed, not into cotton candy but into dozens of
finer threads that held me just as firmly.

I clawed my fingernails into them and plucked
them away, one by one.

“
Sheila. Trust me. We don’t want to
stay here. Give what I said a try. At this rate, I’m not gonna get
out in time to help you.”

“
Please … just … shush. Can’t I have
some peace and quiet for once? That’s all I ask of you,
phantom.”

Something between a bellow and a belch erupted
in the darkness. A foul breeze reminiscent of road kill and swamp
muck billowed up the tunnel. A prehensile whisker as thick as a
garden hose uncoiled out of the darkness, tapping its tip against
the tunnel walls, probing. Another whisker appeared and hooked
around the stalk from which Sheila dangled.

That finally got Sheila’s attention. “Excuse
me, but what exactly is happening here?”

“
It’s a Reaper. You need to get out
of that pod. Now! However you can. Get out and go!”

I tore my way through sheath after sheath of
the fibers enveloping my legs. The less force I used, the less they
seemed to resist. I was barely touching them and they slipped away,
almost on their own.

Sheila tugged at the strands, twisting her pod
around and around, one way and then the other, like a child messing
around on a swing.

“
I can’t!” Her voice was panicked
now. “I can’t get out.”

A ring of pale, anemone-like tentacles waved
and curled behind the longer whiskers. A sphincter opened at their
center, exposing a dark and toothless maw. Stubby, clawed
appendages thrust out and gripped the walls of the tunnel, muscling
forward a bloated body covered in sleek, black fur.

She struggled like a moth caught in spider’s
silk. I pressed my face against an opening in the roots and tried
influencing her pod from afar, without much effect. But on her own,
Sheila managed to wriggle her shoulders through a part in the
roots.

“
Attagirl! Keep at it!”

Her arms and torso slipped free of the pod,
but her hips got hung up. She looked up at me, trembling, her eyes
like open windows.

“
Drop and run! Left past the ledge.
There are folks up there who can keep you safe.”

The Reaper pounced. Tentacles closed around
her pod like fingers around a grape and plucked it.

“
Oh no! Oh Christ,” I said, through
spasms of disgust and fear.

The tentacles shuttled the pod back and
stuffed it into its orifice. The creature sucked at the pod with a
horrible, whistling wheeze. Sheila shrieked like a hurt puppy. With
a dull pop, she and the pod disappeared deep down into the gullet.
The sphincter slammed shut. The tentacles snaked forward and probed
the air in my direction.

I cringed, certain I would be next. But the
Reaper hung back, lurking in the shadows, its moves deliberate.
Something was making it cautious.

A man in a bowler hat appeared atop the ledge
below the split. He leaped down, bracing himself with his cane and
reached up to help a woman with orange, frizzy hair bound up in
ribbons. They hesitated at the bottom of the ledge. Bern looked at
the Reaper and then looked at me, dumbfounded.

“
Bloody hell! What are you doing up
there? Get yourself down, boy. My Lord, don’t you see
it?”

“
I can’t. I’m stuck.”

“
Nonsense.”

“
Bern, he’s backslid,” said Lille.
“He needs our help.”

“
The boy’s a Weaver!” said Bern. “He
has to learn to help himself.”

“
This is not the time for a Weaving
lesson!” She strode forward, her arms reaching towards my pod,
fingers stretched. “Damn that Harvald to hell for leaving him
behind.”

The roots enclosing me relaxed their grip.
Some went limp. Others grew brittle and snapped. I yanked them
apart and rammed my head through the gap.

“
Careful, James! Here it
comes!”

Nine yellowed claws on three stubby limbs dug
into the tunnel wall and thrust the Reaper forward.

A skein of whiskers came whipping at Lille’s
feet. She barely evaded them with a nimble leap. Bern whacked them
impotently with his cane as they swept by.

“
If we’re going to tango, I’ll need
a better weapon than this,” he said, cupping his hand over the
cane’s grip. He lifted his palm and the shaft lengthened and
thickening into a staff. With a swipe of his thumb and forefinger,
the end flattened into a blade, and just like that, he had himself
a potent lance.

Lille ripped a root out of the wall and
swirled her arms in a graceful curlicue as if playing air violin.
Her root became a long bow nearly as tall as her. Another swipe of
her hand and the brittle detritus at her feet became arrows. She
strung one up, set it aflame with a glare, and sent it flying into
the face of the oncoming Reaper.

“
Get your tuckus down here, boy,”
said Bern, advancing beneath my pod, jabbing at any tentacle that
probed too close. “What are you waiting for?”

I swung upside down beneath the pod. “It’s got
me by the ankle!” One pesky clump of fibers refused to let
go.

“
You’re a Weaver, boy!” said Bern,
slapping at a swarm of whiskers that harried him like a nest of
cobras. “Show them who’s boss.”