Silverwood Read online

  “I stared at him. How could he know that?” The woman held up her finger. “I’ll tell you how. Because for centuries, people from our village have been traveling through time with the help of the silver tree and its leaves. This is why they seem to disappear. This is why you never see them again.”

  The old lady paused a moment to let this information sink in. “And this man, the man in the tavern, he said that he was a member of the Guild. Do any of you know what the Guild is?”

  She looked around. The older members of the crowd appeared startled to hear a term that had not been used in the village in such a long time. But they looked down to hide their recognition; no one wanted to admit that they knew anything about the Guild.

  “Well, the Guild is a group of guardians. They are artists. They watch, and they draw the future. They see what others cannot see. And they create fantastic scenes, like the ones you see here on the ground.” She gestured around her at the chalk drawings. “This man, in the tavern, he was a member of the Guild. He was the first person I encountered on my long journey, and he made sure that I got off on the right foot. The rest, as they say, is history… although in the future. Future history.” The old woman smiled at the thought.

  “Now,” the woman said, “I am back here where I started. I have lived a very long life. I have seen many things. But I am here now to warn you and to share the truth with you.”

  “Warn us?” said a man in the crowd. “Warn us about what? Why are you here now, at this particular moment? Why hasn’t anyone else ever came back? How are we to know that you are not just making this all up, an old lady looking to gather a few tips as she travels from place to place?” A few heads nodded; the crowd certainly was not of one mind in their opinions about this strange woman. Why had she come, especially on the day when they were to choose their next sacrifice? What if she were an infiltrator from another tribe or kingdom, come to learn their secrets?

  “I am here to warn you. The silver tree and its powers are secret no longer,” the woman said, raising her voice for everyone to hear. “I am telling you this because many others already know. And they will be coming. Like it or not, you are the keepers of the tree, and the portals, and the power that they represent. For generations, the secret has been kept in order to unburden you and with the hope that it would be forgotten. But your sacrifices, sending your people to travel through the portals, have kept the tree alive. It was only a matter of time before the tree and its powers became known again. There is a great desire in the world for power, and a hunger to dominate others. I have seen this hunger, and the suffering it creates, with my own eyes. I have fought many battles to protect you. The others you have sent up the mountain, they too have battled to keep you safe. It is your turn now to take your place as protectors of time and space.”

  The old woman bent down slowly and picked up the heavy Book of the Future.

  “And what is that?” asked the skeptical man who had spoken earlier.

  “Insurance,” the old woman replied.

  Quizzical looks crossed everyone’s faces.

  “This,” she said, “Is The Book of the Future. It is unique in all the world. Uncounted multitudes of people would like nothing better than to get their hands on this book. But it is destructible, like any book. It is made of paper, and leather, and ink. And so, I give it to you as insurance. Should you find yourselves besieged, you must threaten to destroy the book. This will stop any invasion in its tracks and send the aggressors into retreat.”

  “What does it do?” someone asked.

  The old lady smiled. “Patience, patience,” she said. “Suffice it to say, that in combination with the portals from the silver tree, this is a very powerful book. But I am not convinced that everyone here believes what I am telling you, and I need to keep a little bit of information to myself.” She smiled. “As insurance.”

  The crowd erupted into conversation, with everyone shouting out their opinions to everyone else. Questions flew. Hands waved. No one was sure whether to go forward with the sacrifice. The chalk drawings were blurred under everyone’s feet. The ritual had lost its rhythm, and the people were restless and frightened.

  “Be advised,” the woman shouted, “your sacrifices have not been in vain. Every person you have sent up the mountain is at this very moment doing battle, somewhere in time, to preserve your secret. The Guild, in turn, are protecting and guiding them. But soon, our enemies will make it through and you will be called upon to defend yourselves. You are the only people who can protect the Clan, and the tree, and all they stand for. You can no longer go through your lives ignorant of who you really are.”

  She paused and took a good look around at the crowd, which had hushed at the sound of these words. Those who had appeared startled to hear of the Guild, looked downright horrified at the mention of the Clan.

  “You don’t know what the Clan is, do you?” the woman said, looking straight into the eyes of person after person—especially the children. “Of course not, the Clan has been hidden away from you. Well, it is time that you know. You are in battle, right now. Your Clan members are out there, right at this very moment,” she waved her finger out toward the forest, “are fighting for your survival. The least you can do is carry your part of the burden. For too long your responsibility has been buried in time and space.”

  “You, all of you,” she declared, “are the Clan Silverwood. Sworn protectors of the tree of silver. Your purpose, your reason for existence, is to protect the tree from those who would use it only for their own selfish purposes, and to dominate and terrorize others. You are the keepers of peace.”

  “Rubbish,” an old man cried. “This is all rubbish. This woman was sent here to trick us. These are all lies. All of it.” He jutted out his toothless jaw in defiance.

  The woman stood before the old man and looked into his eyes. “I have not battled all my life, and fought my way back here, so you can just stick your head back under a rock and pretend you don’t know about the Silverwood Clan and its duties,” the woman said. “Jack. Jack Silverwood.”

  The old man’s knees buckled as if he had been struck by lightning. “Wh-What did you say?” he stammered.

  “You heard me, Jack,” the woman said. “You don’t recognize me, do you? I am afraid the years of battles and hardship have not been very kind to my face.”

  He peered into the woman’s eyes. After a long pause he said, “Anna?”

  “That’s right Jack, it’s me,” she said, “Anna Silverwood. Anna Helena Silverwood.”

  “That’s a pretty cool story, mom,” Henry says, handing back the small, paperbound journal and popping another bite of waffle into his mouth. “Is there more?”

  “Yeah, I think there’s more. Your dad gave this to me,” says Kate. She takes it from Henry and turns it over in her hands. “He got it from some other relative. I think there’s a whole series of these little notebooks. He always said this story is how we got our name, but I think somebody was just good at telling stories. It’s nice somebody took the trouble to write it down.” She flips through the well-worn, handwritten pages.

  Helen is occupied using a straw to move water drops from her glass around on the formica table and stacking up miniature pyramids of non-dairy creamer containers.

  It is 4 am at Stan’s Diner Supreme, a cheery establishment situated behind a twenty-foot neon sign standing at the side of the highway. Across a gravel parking lot from Stan’s is the Golden Motel, a long and squat two-story structure with a car parked outside every forth or fifth room. The motel’s own, smaller neon sign blinks, “O V C NCY.” There are definitely vacancies. There’s also free cable TV.

  “Are Jack and Anna related? Like brother and sister or something?” Helen asks.

  “Yeah, or are they husband and wife? And how come Anna is still the same age?” Henry wonders. “Do you age when you travel forward in time? Do you lose years when you go backward? How are you supposed to know how old you are?”

  “I bet you a
ge the same way,” Helen says, “It’s just that you don’t know how old you are until you go back to where you came from. Something like that.”

  “Okay, or maybe if you add up all your traveling back and forth, you get your age. Except that doesn’t make sense, since she was old when she got back… ” Henry says. “Mom, do you age the same even when you travel in time?”

  “I… have no idea,” Kate says, taking a bite of toast.

  “Did dad used to read that to you?” Helen asks without looking up from her project. She has now collected the salt and pepper shakers, and small containers of creamer, in front of her. Using some wiring and a battery she pulled from her pocket, she has the creamers walking around in tiny robotic motions and clambering over the salt and pepper. Around and around, up and over. But she’s listening to every word.

  “Yes, he read it to me many times,” Kate says. “I remember the whole story. Gave me the idea to name you Helen, actually,” she adds. “I don’t really believe any of it, though.”

  “The Guild part is real,” Henry says.

  Kate stares at her son. “What?”

  “The Guild. That part’s real. My friend Rosie, she’s a member. She told me. Right before we left the city. Rosie says we’re both in the Guild. She said she’d see me again. I think she was serious.”

  “Henry,” Kate sighs, “Look. I realize our life feels way out of control right now. With all of this discussion of Tromindox and our apartment getting shot up, and now we’re on the road to California. I am well aware that this is all pretty much—a big mess. Okay? And your drawings, there’s no denying that your drawings are… special. But this story, someone wrote it in this little book to explain things to a young child. That’s all it is. A legend from your dad’s relatives. ”

  She pauses. “I think.”

  Helen and Henry are still staring at her. “As far as I know,” she adds. Around and around go the tiny robots, wire feet clicking on the formica.

  Kate looks at her kids, and considers that actually, it doesn’t matter whether the story is real or not. Reality has been, at best, negotiable lately. She decides, here at the table in the diner, that from this point forward she’s going to tell it like it is. Bounty hunting or not. Shape-shifting, human-eating creatures or not. Whatever happens, this family all need each other. And they have a long way to go to finally find the father of her children.

  Kate lays some money down with the bill on the table. “What do you say we head down the road a ways and find someplace glamorous to get some sleep,” says Kate, eyeing the motel across the parking lot. A device in her pocket buzzes, but she doesn’t respond to it.

  Helen and Henry slide out of the booth. Kate gives a friendly smile to the lady wiping the counter and they all shuffle out the door, the robots on the table left to climb up and down and go around in circles.

  As the glass door of the diner swings shut behind them, the device in Kate’s pocket buzzes again. “Hold on,” she says, fishing it out and looking down. She reads the message, and lets out a sigh. “You guys go to the car; I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Helen and Henry stand there without moving. This is standard procedure, when their mom says something unexpected, to pause until she feels it necessary to repeat herself. This feature is built into all kids. After a pause, Kate repeats, “Well go on, I won’t be a minute.” She turns and heads across the gravel lot toward the Golden Motel, pulling up the collar of her coat. The walls of the motel glow orange in the neon light. Helen and Henry lean on the car to wait.

  Kate’s form grows more distant until she is right up against the motel wall. They can see her look down again at her device and then back up. She reaches into her coat and pulls something out. She takes up a position outside the door of one of the rooms. Blue television light escapes the window from inside, dancing across the curtains.

  Kate shuffles sideways toward the door and hunches over the knob. She waits a beat, then two, and then bursts inside.

  A silhouette leaps up, large enough to reach the top of the window frame. Maybe the person inside is a giant, or maybe the television light is casting a distorted shadow. Kate’s silhouette joins it in a flash, and the two struggle in a brief shadow puppet show. Shortly, the larger figure appears subdued and sinks toward the floor, changing shape—or melting—in the process.

  Kate re-emerges from the motel room. The television’s light flickers. She walks back toward the car without looking up, a device in her hand. She shoves a portal into the side of it. Another hunt complete, another payment made. They have gas money now. And a little extra for supplies.

  “We’re going to need to stay somewhere else,” Kate says simply as they climb into the car.

  Miss Posey Van Buren of Brokeneck, California is a former great beauty, as evidenced by her perfect posture and hair and the way she carries herself with the self-assurance of a television super star. During her career she thrilled audiences worldwide with her performance in television’s most popular soap opera, and after she retired from the show she went on to make impassioned pleas for viewers to sponsor needy children in faraway countries for only a few dollars a month.

  Miss Posey’s character’s demise was one of the most-watched events in daytime television. Not an eye was dry across the globe as she tragically succumbed to the injuries received when she threw herself in front of a bullet meant for her daughter. Her dying speech from the hospital bed, her tiny frame surrounded by tubes and beeping machinery, is still studied in acting schools today.

  But that was a long time ago.

  Miss Posey shuts off her tiny video camera. She has just finished filming a conversation between Eleanor Woods and an unfamiliar man in a black hat out in the middle of the street. This recording makes up the latest entry in Miss Posey’s meticulous documentation of all that occurs in her town. She has an unobstructed view of the street from inside the front window of the Brokeneck Bookstore. The only disadvantage to this position is that she is too far away to hear—or record—their voices.

  Posey is well-aware that the townsfolk call her “Miss Nosey.” Or they say, “Miss Posey keeps you on your toesies.” Which she does. Everyone knows that Miss Posey’s lens can’t be far away, particularly when something interesting is happening. Or something uninteresting is happening. They count on it. This is the closest thing they have to journalism in Brokeneck.

  Miss Posey turns away from the window. “Well, now, I just wonder who that man was,” she says, her voice a cross between old Hollywood and a Southern drawl. Miss Posey has never lived in the South. She turns Southern charm on and off like a button, a tool from her acting arsenal. She feels that this helps her to maintain genteel relations with the public. “And,” she continues, “I wonder what that man gave to Mrs. Woods.”

  “Don’t know. Nice boots, though,” says the young man perched behind the counter. Had he not spoken, he might have remained unnoticed amongst the precarious stacks of books and periodicals, the posters covering the wall, the very large metal antique cash register, and the enormous collection of stuffed animals arranged around him.

  Daniel Brush, seventeen, doesn’t own the bookstore. The store belongs to his uncle, a gentleman known as Mr. Brush. Mr. Brush went away suddenly about two weeks ago. Now the only sign of Mr. Brush in the bookstore is a pasty photograph staring out from the wall behind the counter. He has a bald-head, and suspenders, and he is scowling. But the sun must have been in his eyes, because it is not like Mr. Brush to scowl. Mr. Brush isn’t a mean person at all. He’s kind of jolly, actually.

  Daniel Brush, Mr. Brush’s nephew, is supposed to be finishing up the school year back at home. Well, he did all the work already, so there wasn’t much for him to do at school anyway.

  Daniel is all dreadlocks under a rainbow-colored crocheted cap, legs and bare feet folded up under him on the creaky wooden stool. His sandals, made of natural non-animal materials, sit neatly on the floor next to him.

  “What will you do with this place now
, Daniel? With your uncle gone?” Miss Posey asks.

  “I don’t know,” Daniel replies. “First, I think I’ll try and get it organized. You know, sort through all this stuff. Half of it isn’t even books.” Daniel is right. Items like antique typewriters and canisters of film and even a gramophone top many of the stacks of literature. Daniel casts a kind of hopeless look around at the forest of clutter. It’s clear he doesn’t know where to start. This is what keeps him propped on the stool behind the counter.

  Posey lets her video camera hang from a loop around her wrist and picks up a particularly dusty, leather-bound volume from the table nearest to her. She flips through a few pages and then quickly puts it down so she can let out a series of dainty sneezes. Daniel takes the hint and gets up to start sweeping. Sweeping is at least a start. The heavy smell of old books, which he loved as a kid hanging around here with his uncle, just feels oppressive now.

  “Could I ask you something?” Posey Van Buren asks.

  “Sure,” Daniel answers, without looking up from his sweeping.

  “Where did Mr. Brush go, exactly?”

  Daniel stops sweeping, takes a deep breath and looks up at Posey. He appears faintly sad.

  “I don’t know,” Daniel says. “I got this letter from him all of a sudden, a couple weeks ago. Said he had to go, could I come look after the shop right away. I said okay—it sounded important. By the time I got here, he’d already gone. Left the key right in the lock.” The afternoon sunlight shifts, and the window-panes throw neat, slanted squares of light onto the bookstore wall. Mr. Brush’s picture stares out from one of them.

  “So, no hints? He wasn’t sick or anything?” Miss Posey asks.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Now, Daniel, I don’t want to seem, well, forward,” Posey says in her artificial charming drawl, “but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least tell you what I think… ”