The Spirit Boy: Chapter Two

TWO

I was not allowed to attend the funeral. I was too young, apparently, to say goodbye to the one who was far too young to die. I stayed in my room. They left me with the next door neighbour, an old woman who fell asleep as soon as the key turned in the lock.

I sat on my bed, holding carefully Maria’s doll. I sat like that for a long time. It had a large smooth crack in its side, which I fingered. I held it to my chest, and I cursed the day that I had for the first time been born into the Living World, I had wasted my time in only now deciding to Return, and I had killed Maria. My sister.

Unconsciously I squeezed the doll, tight, too tight; it shot across the room and fell down the stairs. I jumped up and ran after it, but it did not stop at the bottom, instead it rolled to the Storage Room door and stopped in front of it. I bent down and retrieved it, but it was undamaged. I stood still in front of the door, and then I heard somebody calling my name. Not Artem, but my True Name. Without hesitation I entered the room, and went behind the door; I crouched in front of the old mirror. In one swift motion I uncovered it. It was dusty, and my reflection was grainy, like an old film. I held the mirror by its worn frame, and I heard my Name again. I pressed my left index finger against the glass; it was cold, like a snake bite just before the pain and delirium. It was one of the many portals back to the Other World, my true Home. The Living World fell away with a loud crack; it fell away in broken pieces like shards of glass.

When I awoke, on the cold hard ground, I still held Maria’s doll. I sat up, and I looked around.

I was on a platform of marble suspended in the midst of a black nothingness. At the other end of the platform across from where I sat, a lone door stood. Beside the door was a large boulder, and sitting atop it was a stone bear cub.

I got up and went to the door, but I did not open it. Instead, I went beside it and leapt from sure footing unto darkness.

Sunlight blinded me for a fraction of eternity, and then I stood once again on the edge of the platform, beside the door.

I turned towards the rock, but the bear was nowhere to be seen. I stood at a loss for some time, still holding the doll, before I heard the voice of a young child behind me.

“Don’t you want to go on an adventure?” When I turned around, the stone bear stood before me. It seemed a statue still, and I was unsure if it had spoken, but when I looked into its eyes, stone though they were I perceived wisdom beyond years even.

I did not want to go on an adventure. I wanted to find a path amongst one of the many which would lead me Home.

The bear went away from me, it faced the door.

“We must all go on adventures sometime,” the child’s voice said, as the bear stood on its hind legs, “For how else will we discover our true selves?” The bear pressed a paw against the door, which I noticed had no handle or knob. The door shimmered, and disappeared, and I followed the bear, with only little hesitation, through the light beyond.

*****

We stood on a dusty path in the midst of an empty plain. The bear loped forward and started down the path, as I followed I noticed that the stone on its paws had cracked and fallen away; I saw its brown fur underneath.

“This is the Land of The Singing Spirits,” the child’s voice said. “We are going on an adventure.”

We walked on, and after we had walked for some time, slowly due to the bear’s stiff form, we saw ahead a baby sitting on a stump by the roadside.

“Hoopla!” It cried in the voice of an old man as we approached.

“Hoopla!” It cried in the same voice as we passed by.

We walked far and for long, turning my head to look about it seemed that the road never changed, and we did not get any closer to wherever we were going. And then as I turned my head back, we suddenly came upon a fork in the road.

Two different paths went in opposite directions, and the bear cub stopped. I stopped beside it, still holding Maria’s doll. There was a thicket between the two paths, and a fox spirit emerged from it. Climbing onto a boulder which suddenly appeared before it, it turned to stone.

It beheld us, and spoke.

“Travellers, I am the Guardian of the Roads, harken my advice!” And it began to sing.

“Beware wanderers, this dilemma,

Partake in my advice.

The left path, dangerous enigma,

The right, tales of sweet entice.

The left path, death and danger,

Beware those of pleasant voice.

The right, plenty safer,

Now please make your choice.”

The bear spirit stood still, and cocked its head to the side. The child’s voice spoke quietly, so that I was sure the fox spirit could not hear.

“There is something, something that all know about a fox, whether they be spirit or flesh.” I thought, and I was sure I understood what the bear tried to say. The fox’s eyes were not stone, they were dark and beady, and suddenly words that had been spoken to me in an eon long ago surfaced in my mind: Never listen to a fox. As he faces you with lying snout and speaks sweet words, remember that his view is not your own.

Hesitating a little, I walked towards the path to my left. The fox growled, but said nothing more, and the bear followed me. The fox looked after us with a forlorn expression on his face.

We walked for some time before I was spoken to again, and then I noticed that the stone on the bear’s eyes and legs had fallen away to reveal more fur, it looked slightly more alive.

“You were correct. The fox meant to trick us. As it spoke of left and right, it purposely spoke of its own view. Its own left and right were our own right and left. We walk down the Right Path.” I felt pleased with myself, but then the child’s voice added, “We are still in danger of course, in every lie there must be one shard of truth. Do beware of the singers. They lie.”

We went ever on, and soon we came to a bridge. Grey water flowed under it, and I saw a golden fish leap out of the stream; when it fell back down and its head touched the water, it shattered into a thousand glass shards which turned into pebbles floating on the clear water.

We started across the bridge, and as I removed my foot from the fine wood and set it again on the earth, I heard music. So sweet it was, a harmony of Higher Beings. I stopped, and the bear, just ahead of me, turned around.

By my side, a beautiful nymph appeared, dressed in leaves. She had been a pebble in the water, but now she was a nymph.

She sung of the sun, and the forest, of faeries dancing by the firelight, of rituals to the Spirit King under watch of the moon.

The world changed around me, and I stood in a forest of golden leaves and silver bark. The nymph sung now with her friends, dryads and water sprites. Before me I saw a window, as they sung of my power in my Home, of my riches, of beautiful rhymes of my spirit companions, I espied it all, in the mirror, all the spirits of all the lands dancing an eternal dance for me. My mind was in a state of nympholepsiac euphoria, and as the first nymph opened her arms to me, singing songs of sweet lies, I moved forward to embrace her and forever leave the Living World, to leave my mortal body and return Home.

And then the child’s voice called my True Name, and I was suddenly aware that I still held the doll. I was so close to the nymph now, I could smell the dew drops on her leaf skirt, smell the essence of summer on her sweet lips. But still I was aware that I held Maria’s doll, it weighed me down like a dead weight, and I stopped. The child’s voice called my name once again, and I thought of Maria, with her gentle face and brown pigtails, the one thing that had kept me in the Living World. But she was gone now, the nymph sang, and I saw her at the bottom of the stairs again, lifeless; my heart ached with pain and sadness. Perhaps these overtly human emotions were the undoing of the nymph’s spell, for I heard the child speak, far more clearly than before: “No, not gone,” and in the beautiful forest, seemingly a ghost amongst the still singing nymphs, I saw the bear cub, its head cocked to the side as it watched me. I heard my True Name again, and then, unconsciously, I ran my finger down the smooth crack in the doll’s side.

I made my decision, and I stepped towards the bear, away from the arms of the nymph. Instantly, her spell broke, there was a loud crack, and the forest fell away. I was on the path, and the bear stared at me still, the world was silent. I noticed that the rest of the stone on the bear’s head save his mouth had fallen away, and its brown fur shone in the sun, while its eyes seemed a mysterious blue.

The bear turned away from me as a door appeared in the middle of our path. As it sat on its hind legs and raised a paw, the child’s voice spoke again.

“My name is Katsa.” The door shimmered and disappeared, and together we stepped forward into the shining light.