John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

My teeth wanted to chatter, but I made myself speak. “OK, attention, everyone! I know we are all cold and afraid. But we have something we have to do. We have to remember our Tales.”

I do not remember a time when I had not been the unofficial Keeper of the Tales for our group. It had always been my task. Colin used to joke that I was to be the Tale Keeper because my memory was so good. (“Whenever I do something wrong, she always remembers to remind me, eh?” so he would say.)

I spoke gently to young little Quentin. “The Tales are the only thing we know about our home. Our real home. Quentin, you start.”

“I-I’m t-too cold.”

“Quentin, you must start. We can’t lose our Tales. You have to tell.”

But Quentin simply whimpered and did not answer.

Colin said, “C’mon you great booger. Talk! You don’t want them to win, do you?”

I felt Quentin’s cold body stir in my arms.

He spoke in a voice so weak and thin that I could barely hear him, even though my ear was but inches from his mouth. “I remember my mum. Her hair is gray. She’s blind. I remember how I would run and she would spread her arms and say, ‘Where’s my little shadow? Where’s my little shadow?’ and I would run and jump into her arms, and mum would hug me, and give me a kiss, and she would say, ‘I know you, little one. I will always know you.’ And I would say, ‘How’d’ you know it’s me? How’d’ you know it’s me?’ and she would say, ‘My soul knows your soul, little one, my heart knows your heart.’ That’s what I remember.”

I said, “Tell us more. Tell us about the giant. You’ve got to remember the whole of the Tale. It is your Tale.”

Quentin said, “My dad. He lives in a room with statues. Statues and chessmen and dolls. His beard is gray and comes to the floor, and his hair is gray, too. He has a harp that sits in his lap. And when he plays, the statues dance. Once upon a time, he took me and took his harp, and sat on the statue of a big crow, and he played, and the crow flew up in the air.”

Vanity said, “That couldn’t really happen, could it?”

Victor, from somewhere in the gloom, said, “Maybe it was an airplane. Only looked like a crow.”

I said sternly, “Stop! You can’t talk back to the Tales. You can’t change them or make fun of them! That’s the rule! If you start changing the Tales, they might go away, and then we won’t have anything!”

Victor said, “She’s right.”

I said, “Go on, Quentin. Tell us about the giant.”

Quentin was quiet, and then he spoke in a sad whisper. “I don’t know the rest.”

“Sure you do! Your father took you to see the Shining Mountains! Instead of snow, the mountains all have light, silver light, all along the tops. Do you remember what he said? He told you, ‘This is the place where the falling stars fall whenever stars fall down.’ ”

Quentin said, “I don’t remember. I don’t. Leave me alone.”

I said insistently, “In the dark valley between the mountains of light, your father the magician took you to see the giant, who was trapped up to his neck in the ice. There were dwarfs all digging and digging, chipping away at the ice, to get him out.”

Quentin said, “It was cold. It was so cold. I saw his hand. It was a mile below me. Under the ice. The fingers. I thought it was five rivers coming to a lake, it was so big. So cold.”

I said, “Yes! Yes! And the giant said—do you remember what the giant told you—once he was free, the bad people would be punished, and the good people would all live happily ever after? The Golden Age would come again. Do you remember?”

“It was so cold.”

“Quentin, maybe the giant has gotten out of the dark valley! Maybe he is coming to save us, right now!”

Quentin sniffled and shivered, but did not answer.

Vanity spoke up next: “I remember my Tale! Me next! Oh, pick me! Oh, me!”

“OK. It is your turn, Tertia.”

“My house is in fairyland,” Vanity said primly. “There is a gold dog who sits by my front door, and a silver dog, too. They come to life when you want them to, and fetch a stick or chase away someone making fun of you. When you don’t need them, they just sit still. There is a singer who sings to me, and he sits in the sunlight in his chair of ivory, and beats the ground with his stick when he sings. He sings of wars and ships and deeds of kings. There are bowls made of silver that hop on three legs like bugs. Hop! Hop! Hop! They walk around and give you fruit and candy. If you’re good. It is always springtime there. My mommy has red hair like me. My daddy is the king there, but Mommy is the one who actually runs the kingdom. My brothers play out in the green field, and throw spears and throw disks. And they run. Sometimes Daddy takes me sailing, and our boat is faster than the wind. Sometimes Mommy plays hide-and-seek with me, and she pops out of the floor! Pop! And she puts her arms around me. She tells me to be good, because she loves me. That’s all.”

I said, “There is another part. Something about being watched.”

“Oh, that. It is not like here. Nothing pays you any mind here. The rocks and the wind and the grass. It’s all dead. Where I come from, they are all friends. They are all alive. You can feel them watching you, like a tingling all over your skin. It is like being at the recital, when everyone applauded. Like being on stage. Remember how nice that was? It tingled. It wasn’t lonely. I am always lonely here. I want to go home. I don’t want to be alone any more. When can we go home?”

Victor said, “I will get you home. I promise. I will get us all home.”

I said, “You next!”

Victor said, “Let Quartinus go first.”

Colin said, “My story is better than his. My turn. I climbed up the pole of my da’s longhouse, all the way to where it holds up the sky. That’s where he keeps his cloak, in the North Star. My brothers all sent me to get it, because I was the youngest and lightest, and the roof pole wouldn’t break under me. They said I would not get punished for stealing it, on account of I was too young.

“I put on the cloak and told it to make me into a wolf. A big, ferocious, giant wolf. So I turned into a wolf, and jumped out the window, and I ran through the forest. The trees are so tall there that sometimes the stars get caught in them. The stars are these beautiful women with lanterns, and when their robes get caught in the branches, they sing, and the trees feel sorry for them, and let them go. Anyway, I remember I was running to this spot my brothers had told me about. This black cave where my uncle lived, guarded by this big three-headed dog. I figured I could take on the dog, seeing as I was a big wolf. Then a storm came, and the clouds fell down through the trees, and it was my ma. She took me around the throat and yanked da’s cloak clean off me. I thought she was going to be mad, but it was weird, because she just cried and cried and held on to me. Like she was afraid. And she pushed my hair back and she said, ‘If ever you go away from me, oh my beloved son, on that day sorrow surely will slay me.’ She took me home and fed me from this big pot we had over the fire in the middle of the house.

“I sat in the middle of the pot and ate stew, and da beat the tar out of my brothers. I have three. One wears a mask. One wears an animal pelt. The third has leaves and twigs in his hair. And they were right. I didn’t get punished. They did. That’s all I remember about it. Cool, huh?”

Colin was silent for a while, shivering in the cold. Then he said, “You don’t suppose my ma’s really dead, do you?”

I said, “No, she is not dead. No one is dead. My father told me.”

Victor said to me, “Your turn.”