Chapter
1. Voices in the Walls
Historians have written chapters or even books about the night Selbis
fell to the cliff faun armies. However, few historians devote more than a
couple of paragraphs to that night a hundred years before when Selbis almost
fell to the Durian wolves and wolflings. Lack of information partially accounts
for their silence. It was a curious event—perhaps more legend than fact.
However, some part of the story must be true, for the Endless Wood derives its
name from this incident.
Some
say the city floated. Some say it gathered about it a moat of blue flame. Some
say that Gabalon polluted the air of the wood with a deadly plague. All agree
on this: Durian wolves and wolflings entered the wood alive—and disappeared
forever.
--Capricia Sor, A Concise History of Panamindorah
Corry
ran a hand lightly along the library wall. The director’s office was above this
spot. He pressed both hands against the plastered cement blocks. Sometimes he
could do the thing he was trying to do, and sometimes he couldn’t. Please
work today.
No
one had ever let him read his file. Corry thought that was unfair, especially
since he couldn’t remember half of the events it contained. He could remember
coming to the children’s home, but that was back when his mind was still
slipping. He knew he’d arrived almost a year and a half ago.
That’s almost all I remember of my whole life. But somewhere there’s a file that tells more, and somewhere up there, someone is going to talk about it to strangers.
“A
potential foster home,” the director had said. These people were not looking to
adopt him. Corry didn’t care one way or the other. What he wanted was that
file.
Corry
pressed his hands harder against the wall, probing for the tiny vibrations that
would form…words.
“…has never been physically violent to our staff, but I cannot promise that he will not become violent, which is another reason I will understand if you refuse.”
Corry
thought that was the director, because he’d listened to her in her office
before. He couldn’t be sure, though. People’s voices sounded different when he
listened to them this way.
“What’s
his name?”
“He told us his
name is Corellian. We’ve been calling him Corry.”
“What’s
his last name?”
“We
don’t know. He can’t remember.”
The
voice grew faint, and Corry shifted his hands.
“…wearing strange clothes …symptoms of shock.” The voices steadied and grew clearer.
“His
condition improved with regular meals and a calm environment. A few days after
he arrived, he began trying to speak to us, but he spoke a language no one
could understand. Now he seems to have forgotten it.”
Corry
held his breath. Yes, that seemed right. He remembered being frustrated with
people when he first came because they wouldn’t answer his questions.
The foster parents
asked about abuse. The director said she thought it certain. He waited
impatiently while the people upstairs speculated about cults and children kept
in solitude who invented their own languages. That’s not what happened to
me, he thought.
Finally,
the director said. “His records are full of incident reports. You can read
them.”
No,
don’t read them! Corry almost said aloud. Talk about them! You’ve got to
talk!
“…no
idea how to use zippers…behaved as if all foods were strange to him. Electronic
devices… He loves books, and I think he’s learned a lot of what’s normal from
reading. He asked me one day how we got all the letters to look the same shape
and size. He’d never seen typeset.”
Corry
sagged against the wall. He could vaguely remember some of that. For a moment
he couldn’t hear them and thought they might be reading.
“What’s
synesthesia?”
“A sort of cross-wiring in the brain that causes some senses to trigger others. It’s a rare condition. With Corry, his sense of smell seems most effected. It’s mixed up with his other senses, particularly with his sense of sight. He talks about smelling and tasting colors.”
Corry
bit his lip. He didn’t really think he had synesthesia. At least, he’d never
been able to find a description of the condition that matched his own. For one
thing, his ability to smell and taste colors came and went in a way that he
could not always control. And hearing vibrations? He hadn’t been able to find
any information about that.
They
were talking about boring things now, things he already knew—how he didn’t get
along with the other children, how he liked animals, how he was small for his
age, how they didn’t really know his age for sure, but placed it between twelve
and fifteen.
Corry
felt an intense wave of disappointment. He took his hands from the wall. They
hardly know any more about me than I do. He was still staring gloomily at
the bookcases when the library monitor came to tell him the director wanted to
see him in her office.
* *
* *
He dreamed of a wood
beneath a crescent blood red moon. Wolves. A pack? An army! Thousands, tall as
ponies, preparing to rest now as the suggestion of dawn fanned across the
horizon. Two-legged creatures walked between them, moving supplies, setting up
tents.
A
figure appeared—taller than the rest. In the pre-dawn darkness he presented
little more than a silhouette with the suggestion of a cape and boots. “Where are
you, Corellian?”
Corry
moaned as he woke. He felt an aching in his sweaty hand. Bringing it close to
his face in the dark bedroom, he saw that he was still clutching the cowry. His
foster mother had given it to him. He’d seen the shell in a display when he
walked into her house, and he couldn’t help but stare. It was specked orange
and white, commercially glossed, and she’d laughed when he told her he couldn’t
accept it. Too valuable. She said it was worth only ten dollars. Corry felt
foolish, but he’d taken it greedily and clutched it during the strangeness of
supper in a new house with two other foster kids. The shell calmed him.
Corry opened his hand
wide and saw the red indention of the shell’s little teeth in his palm. He sat
up on his elbows, dropped his head in the pillow and clutched the shell in both
hands as though in prayer. He could almost taste the acid frustration.
Dreams
often troubled him, but it had been months since the images had been so vivid.
Corry looked at the cowry again. Each time his eyes rested on it, something
jumped inside him, and he could almost remember. When he first came to
the children’s home, his dreams had been clearer. He had had a strong sense
that some wrong had been done him, that he’d suffered some terrible loss. They
said I spoke a different language when I came, but I can’t remember it now. I
know that I’m losing something important. No matter what I do, it just keeps
slipping away.
Corry
rolled over and sat up. The glowing clock on the table read 6:30. Faint
sunlight filtered through the blinds. The lump under the covers in the other
bed was still rising and falling rhythmically. Corry could hear pleasant
sizzling and clinking coming from the kitchen, along with warm smells of
biscuits and coffee and eggs.
He
rose and dressed, then tiptoed into the hall, through a door into the garage,
and then outside. A five-foot chain-link fence ran along the back of the
property, bordering an orange grove. Corry inhaled deeply, drinking in the
scent of orange blossoms and the blue of the
He stepped onto the
cool concrete sidewalk. Corry could not remember seeing orange groves until the
drive yesterday from
At that moment one of
the Tembril’s cats came strolling through the back garden to have a dust bath
on the sidewalk at Corry’s feet. He smiled and crouched to pet her. Bent close
to the ground, Corry could look beneath the first row of trees. To his
surprise, he saw a pair of dainty hooves and slender legs. They looked quite
small, and Corry wondered if it might be a baby deer.
Slowly he stood up. Although he
could not see the hooves from this angle, he fancied he saw a trace of brown
fur between the leaves. Corry maneuvered the gate open and stepped onto the
sugar sand.
“Corry!”
He turned toward the voice. At the
same instant, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shape bolt from behind the
tree and away through the grove.
The voice was Patrick’s, one of the
other foster kids. “What are you doing?”
Corry said nothing.
Patrick eyed him with a frown. “Mrs.
Tembril says to come in and help with breakfast.”
Corry gave the grove another long
stare before moving away. He was almost certain the shape had fled on two legs.
*
* * *
“Mrs. Tembril, who lives in the
grove?”
“I don’t think anyone lives out
there.” She glanced at her husband.
He shook his head. “A juice company
owns it. Pickers harvest the oranges, but they’re gone now. I don’t want you
wandering around in the grove, Corry.”
Corry kept his expression neutral.
“I thought I saw a deer out there this morning.”
Martin, who’d stayed in the house
several summers, spoke up. “You’ll see plenty more if you keep your eyes
open—raccoons, rabbits, armadillos, foxes. This area has a lot of wildlife.”
Corry nodded. “Wildlife. Yeah.”
* *
* *
The Tembrils said Corry needed to
earn his room and board, and they had an endless list of small maintenance items
for their foster kids to complete. Patrick called it slave labor, but it was
still better than summer at the children’s home, so nobody complained very
loudly.
An hour or two before sundown,
everyone was usually permitted free time. Patrick and Martin liked to watch TV,
but Corry wanted time alone. He went for long walks, explored palmetto and
scrub oak thickets, examined gopher turtles, startled armadillos, and chased
the occasional snake through the long grass.
Every day Corry carried the cowry
shell in his pocket, and he did not know why.
*
* * *
One evening Corry wandered to the
lake east of the house. It was an attractive spot, smelling of pine and leaf
mold. In one direction a trail ran to the edge of the orange grove, where a
break in the palmetto hedge gave a glimpse of the orange trees.
As Corry walked, he thought he heard
faint music, like a flute or recorder. He thought it might be coming from the
direction of the grove, although it was so faint he could not be sure. Soon
after he reached the lake, the music ceased.
Corry paused on the shore, watching
the minnows dart. As he squatted, his eyes strayed upward, and he froze. Above
his own reflection, he saw a girl’s face.
“Thul
This girl was older than he and had
a wildness about her that was at once charming and intimidating. Her ears
appeared to be pointed, though it was difficult to tell because they were also
tufted with long, soft fur around the upper rim. A few locks of her thick hair
cascaded over one shoulder, and she wore a delicate chain around her neck that
dangled in a sharp V.
After a few seconds Corry reached
out to touch the face in the water. Instantly it vanished. He scrambled to his
feet, only to find she was already about ten yards away towards the grove.
The girl wasn’t human. Her legs were
covered in thick cinnamon fur and ended in split hooves. She wore a long tunic
of brown cloth, belted at the waist. Corry was so interested in her hooves that
he hardly noticed the rest of her. They were, in fact, deer hooves, as her legs
were deer legs. Her skin was about the same color as her fur. For an instant,
she remained as still as some delightful painting, one hand gripping the end of
the chain about her neck.
At last Corry stepped forward.
The girl whirled with the fluid
grace of a wild animal and bounded toward the grove. As she turned, Corry
caught a brief glimpse of a six-inch deer tail beneath the flying skirt, snowy
underside turned up in alarm. Before he could run four steps, she was beside
the break in the palmetto hedge. She hesitated, watching Corry as he raced
towards her. Then she turned without a sound and vanished among the trees.
* *
* *
The creature was called a faun.
Corry found pictures of the mythical beast online. He lay on his bed for a long
time that evening, still fully clothed, thinking. Patrick came in and got ready
for bed. The lights had been out for five minutes when Corry terrified his
roommate by leaping suddenly to his feet. “It means fauness!”
Patrick sat up grumbling, but Corry
had already gone into the bathroom and begun getting undressed. “For just a
moment,” he muttered, “I was thinking in that other language.