Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Four
Verse Two: Threshold Guardian
Harley listened to Maia as she sat on the dirt by the cold campfire quietly crying. He couldn't blame her, she hadn't even hit puberty, and now her mother was dead, her brother was catatonic. She was running for her life from her father on the advice of some possibly mythical witchdoctor, and the one her protectors was unconscious and mumbling prophetic nonsense while the other was clueless. Marion had said he preferred this life to their old lives. Harley didn't agree. Harley liked the world to make sense, and maybe if he could make this world make sense, maybe then he would agree with Marion. But not until then.
Maia wiped her eyes and looked up at Harley, "Mr. Harley. Mr. Walker. What do we do?"
Harley shook his head and gently put a hand upon Maia's shoulder, "When you fall down, get up." He said, "When you can't stand, rise to kneeling."
Maia wiped her eyes and looked up at Harley.
He stood and gently pulled her back to her feet, "When you can't rise, face skyward. And never admit you've been beaten."
"But we did stand." Maia said to him.
"Precisely." Harley answered, "We always think we're beaten long before we really are. When our minds and our hearts tell us that we're finished we need to train ourselves not to listen and to carry on."
"Mr. Harley, you talk about being reasonable and I don't understand. That doesn't sound reasonable."
Harley smiled, "The great secret of the reasonable man is to continue doing small things, rather than giving up when large things stop working. We continue to try reasonable things long after the process has stopped being reasonable to us. That is how the ocean wears away the shore."
"You sound like a storyteller Mr. Harley."
"Well, being reasonable, means you do what you have to do. And you don't complain about it. Let's get in the Cricket and figure out where to go."
They piled into the Cricket and Harley started the engine and then let the van idle as he flipped through a road map looking at the surrounding area.
I don't know this area well. We're right on the border of two counties: Linwich County and Howard Country, there are maybe four towns total in the two counties with more than five houses and a pig." Harley paused, "But who knows if witches live in small towns or big cities or off in the woods. We need something useful, a clue or a hint or we're just going to spin our wheels until we're caught."
From the back of the van, Marion spoke in a voice that wasn't his, wasn't even a man's voice, but the voice an old woman.
"The wheel keeps turning." He said.
"That sounds like Mrs. Trilby, Marion's crazy old neighbour with the cats." Harley's voice faded away into a stunned silence, "It was Mercer that saved us from the Hound the first time. Mercer is Mrs. Trilby's cat. Mrs. Trilby is a Witch. Mrs. Trilby is a witch. We had help right where we began and we didn't know how to look for it! Mrs. Trilby, can you hear me? Marion can you hear me? You helped us with that move against the hound before. Can you hear me this time? What do we need to do? What do we need to know?"
"Your life is not only yours dear. We merely tell a story to each other, we just play the parts as needed. Some of us play heroes. Some of us play mentors. Some of choose to play villains, often mistaking these roles for the role of hero. We retell our stories to each new generation. The story changes, but the the story remembers the previous tellings. And the new story rhymes with its ancestor self."
"I mean about the story. What do we do in the story?"
"All cultures tell stories dear. All peoples belonged to the lands that birthed them. That one people have been trapped in one mad little story means nothing on the scale of humanity. History is merely his story: the Story of the Locust King, and when it ends the cycle will continue and the wheel will remain whole. I hope you realize that his story was not humanities story. the story of humanity is a wheel, and his story was just a stone that caused a slight bump."
"How do we reach you? If you're a witch and we need a witch, how do we reach you?"
"You need local help dear. Not me. The nearest coven is in Linwich County, led by Agnes Bladder. They're nasty things though, so be careful. They'll try to use you to their own ends, so be ready dear. You're big. The big pieces on the chess board and until you learn how to play the game, people are going to move you around to suit their needs."
"Should we even deal with them if they're that bad? They sound like villains." Harley said.
"Dear, one of the big mistakes the Locust King made was to try and divide things into good and evil, pure and impure, holy and unholy. Everything is sacred dear, especially the profane. And all powerful things are dangerous, and so you have to deal with dangerous beings. The Locust King wants us staying away from powerful beings, because then we might have power that didn't come from him, we might be able to act without his story. So seek out dangerous things and make you own deals with them. The devil's bargain is propaganda, dear. "
"How do I find them?"
"Linwich Crossing is the only town of note in Linwich County dear, get yourself there and they'll find you. You four are spraying, well I guess I'd call it narrative radiation. Either way, anyone who is paying attention to the story can't help but feel it. Four main characters travelling together and carrying the plot, the old story to boot. Oh yes, those old vipers will find you so fast it will make your head spin. Just don't let them fleece you too bad."
"Thanks Mrs. Trilby, Now, how's Marion doing? Marion are you alright?"
Marion spoke with his own voice this time, "I'm in that other land I told you about. The Shadowlands, I think it's called. It's hard to interact with you like this and I know I'm drawing attention by doing it, so I need to stay brief. But I'm okay. I learned how to do this from the bad guys, but I'm on the run here too. So I need to keep this brief. Say, what does my body look like there? Am I there at all, because I'm still not sure what happens when I enter the Shadowlands. Did I just disappear or am I like all sleeping beauty?"
"There is no reality where I am going to call you sleeping beauty," Harley said, "It's more like coma patient with occasional lapses into schizophrenic prophet."
"Dear," Mrs. Trilby said, speaking through Marion again, "You really need to get going, or you're both going to get caught. Harley dear, find the coven- get them to train you. Marion has enough skills he's figured out that he can manage, but you seem to running without any of the powers associated with your role- you need them dear. You've got all sorts of unfair prophecies to fulfill."
Harley shook his head, "I hear you Mrs. Trilby. Okay Maia, let's write a story where we get to win."
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