Chapter 13

  Elmer Sky

  Sometimes Elmer sat up front with Alan, who had taken over the driving of the vehicle and navigated with the aid of that splendid bouncing ball. Alan would sit in silence while Elmer gazed happily into the genesis mist, marveling at the various peculiar landscapes, shrouded in fog, through which their excellent vehicle traveled. Sometimes the ALL-Rover crunched over fields of flaky shale. Sometimes it plowed through knee-high glass beads, smooth and colorful. Sometimes they drove on grass, sometimes metal, sometimes paper, often in strange colors, accompanied by peculiar scents. None of this bothered Elmer, not in the least! But it unnerved some of the others, this reinforcement that they were not on the world they knew, not as they knew it.

  They stopped eventually, not because it was evening but because Alan grew tired of driving and they had all been cooped up inside the vehicle for several days. Dwayne Hartman suggested a campfire outside to relieve them all of the restricted confines of the ALL-Rover.

  “A campfire!” Elmer declared. “Splendid!”

  They piled out of the vehicle and listened to Alan’s careful instructions about not straying away into the mist. Amelia fetched wood for a fire. She made quick work of the nearest tree, dissecting it into logs, kindling, and a variety of stumps for seating.

  “Extraordinary,” commented Rebecca Carter, who stood with them all in a cluster just outside the exit ramp of the vehicle. She said it in her normal disinterested way, but Elmer thought she was really impressed. And why shouldn’t she be? Amelia was wonderful!

  Dwayne Hartman started a fire with his lighter while he hummed old songs to himself and smoked a cigarette. Elmer watched until a small flicker of flame appeared. He gave Dwayne what he imagined to be a hearty, companionable clap on the back in congratulation. Dwayne grunted in response and carefully stacked kindling against the tiny flame.

  Elmer then sought out his fellow traveling companions in search of good cheer, as he had often done since the commencement of their marvelous voyage.

  He found Alan Sheppard behind the ALL-Rover, showing a handgun to Michael Whyte. Their conversation faltered when Elmer approached. “Please, don’t mind me!” said Elmer. He positioned himself next to Michael, curious.

  “…right,” said Alan, giving Elmer a strange look before proceeding to ignore him and speak to Michael. “Like I was saying. Revolver. Simple. Six shots.”

  “Are you sure…” Michael trailed off. He shook his head, scratched at the scattered stubble growing on his chin. “No, I get it. Just in case.”

  “We don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Alan. “None of us.” He cleared his throat, but his voice was just as rough when he continued. “You have things to protect. Might need to protect them.”

  Michael took the firearm carefully, almost reverently.

  “I don’t have much practice,” said Michael. “None, actually.”

  “I know,” said Alan. “Maybe we’ll get a chance to try it out. Better not do it with the others around. Don’t need to make them nervous.” They both glanced at Elmer. He smiled back, endeavoring to appear helpful and encouraging.

  Michael accepted a small handful of bullets from Alan. “What if I need more?” he asked. “Just in case.”

  Alan smirked. “If you need more than six bullets, you’re in more trouble than this tool can get you out of. Remember, Michael: it’s just a tool. And its greatest power is in its threat. Do everything you can to avoid actually firing.”

  Michael nodded as he pocketed the six bullets. “Oh yeah, I think I’ve got that one down.”

  Alan turned to go, hesitated. “If you do have to shoot,” he said. “Get close. Hold it with both hands. Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull. Don’t miss.”

  “Don’t miss,” said Michael. “I’ll write it down.”

  “I got ammo in my pack, and there’s more in the stash,” said Alan. He seemed to think for a moment, as though he had more to say, then decided against it. He left Michael, then paused to put a hand down on Elmer’s shoulder. “No need for the women to know about this, right Elmer? Don’t need to worry them until there’s something to worry about.”

  Elmer saluted smartly, smacking himself on the forehead with the blade of his hand. “You can count upon me, Sir Alan!”

  Alan sighed, patted Elmer’s shoulder, and continued over to the fire.

  When Elmer looked back at Michael, the revolver was nowhere to be seen. Michael watched him curiously. Elmer noticed a camera hanging at his hip. “I say!” Elmer declared. “Been taking any excellent photographs there, good man?”

  Michael raised the camera to his face without comment; a faint flickering flash illuminated the mist around him. Elmer blinked away the afterimage. He beamed at Michael. “How is it? May I see?”

  Michael nodded, but instead of showing the camera to Elmer he adjusted a few settings, aimed it at the wall of fog nearby, and snapped another picture. This time the mist swirled violently as it collapsed into a figure.

  Elmer gasped in astonishment. It was he! Himself, Elmer Sky, standing bewildered in the mist, dressed in an identical blue tracksuit. The other Elmer spotted him and Michael and gave them a friendly wave. Elmer returned the greeting on instinct.

  The other Elmer began to say something, but swiftly dissolved apart into mist.

  “Egads! How remarkable.”

  “Painting with light,” said Michael. He sounded weary. “Speaking of which. I noticed that Amelia Shape can make, well, shapes out of light.”

  Elmer nodded. “She’s rather excellent, isn’t she?”

  “Jimothy could do that, too.”

  “Of course! He’s the Hero of Light, after all!”

  “The what?”

  Elmer’s eyes widened. “A memory! Ahaha! Another one for the ol’ book, eh?” He withdrew his notebook from his breast pocket and searched about on his person for a pen.

  Michael stepped forward and caught his arm. “What does that mean, Elmer? Hero of Light?”

  “Well, he’s the painter, isn’t he? Color, light, all that. It all goes together, you know!”

  Michael opened his mouth to say more, but appeared to think better of it. “I’ll ask Amelia.”

  “Capital! Have you a pen?”

  He did have a pen. He gave it to Elmer and disappeared around the corner of the ALL-Rover.

  Elmer jotted down a note: Jimothy White—hero light—colors—painter—hyperion—quite ill—wolf guardian (rather unfriendly?)

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  Then he continued on his quest for hearty conversation.

  He found Leah and Rebecca in the main room of the ALL-Rover. Leah was busy with the crayons, drawing something, asking questions that Rebecca did not answer. Rebecca gazed blankly at the wall.

  “Mr. Sky,” said Leah when he arrived. She spoke as though she was a commanding officer acknowledging the presence of a subordinate.

  “At your service, ma’am!” Elmer snapped off a crisp salute, just as he had for Alan a moment before. “Although ‘Elmer’ will do quite well enough!”

  “Look.” Leah held up her picture for him to see. “It is you and Ms. Shape.”

  He examined the artwork. It was him and Amelia, all right! Leah had rendered them in crayon next to someone else in colorful clothes. Butterflies flew overhead. “Goodness me!” said Elmer. “That’s my old suit! I had seven, you know.” Seven suits, yes, in seven wonderful colors, but his favorite was the bright blue one, which he wore in this picture. The crayon drawing of him had his hat in an extended hand, and a rainbow came out of it.

  “Ah!” he suddenly remembered; the rainbow reminded him. “That must be the Hero of Skies! What was her name? Something Carter, like dear Rebecca here.”

  “Kate,” Leah informed him. “Kate Carter.”

  Rebecca roused to awareness beside them. “Hrm? What about Kaitlyn?”

  “Why, she’s here in this lovely illustration, made by our young prodigy.” He winked at Leah. “Look!” He showed it to Rebecca. “It is myself and Amelia meeting the Hero, with Theians overhead, it seems!”

  Rebecca took a long look at the drawing before shifting her gaze to Leah. “I forgot. You met Kaitlyn, didn’t you?”

  Leah nodded. “She was nice.” Her voice quavered a bit.

  “Hrm.”

  “And see,” said Elmer, “It’s my old suit! It was…spiffy. Wouldn’t you say, Amelia? It was spiffy.” He then realized that Amelia was not immediately at hand. “Er, Ms. Carter?”

  “Certainly, dear,” said Rebecca, handing the paper back to Leah. “The spiffiest.”

  “Do you like it?” asked Leah to Rebecca.

  “Draw me in there. Then I’ll like it.”

  “Okay.” Leah accepted this new assignment with a solemn nod.

  Elmer wandered out to the fire around which the others had gathered. Amelia spoke to Michael and AJ, describing what she remembered about the Hero of Light; Dwayne spoke to Alan. Elmer contented himself with watching them and playing with a snowglobe he had discovered in the vehicle. He didn’t have to move or shake it to make the particles swirl within or twine into dancing funnel clouds.

  Rebecca and Leah eventually came out to join them, and they all ate together. It warmed Elmer’s heart to see such companionship developing amongst his new friends. Amber Jane amused Leah with peculiar accents. Leah begged Amber Jane to teach her to sing. Dwayne Hartman discovered that Alan used to play music long ago, and Rebecca gave Amber Jane advice on how to approach the fact that they’d been wearing the same clothes for several days and this showed no sign of improving. Michael ate in silence, watching the others much like Elmer. Elmer tipped him a wink when their eyes met.

  When they had finished eating, Dwayne Hartman addressed the group. “I apologize,” he said, “for my behavior last night.” He appeared to be speaking to all of them, but he looked mainly to Amber Jane when he spoke. “Got carried away with the drinking.”

  But it was Leah who forgave him from where she sat by AJ’s side. “It’s okay,” she said, “I drink too much sometimes, too.” This caused Rebecca to cough as she gulped from her canteen, and it made Dwayne Hartman’s weather-beaten face split into a smile. He reached aside for another log and dropped it onto the fire in a flaring burst of red sparks.

  “Your hands,” said Amelia. “Hold fast. What does it mean?”

  Alan sighed with resignation into his empty bowl of stew, but Dwayne cast his gaze up to where the sky ought to have been. “Got ‘em in Vietnam,” he announced. “God saved my life in that country. I saw Him.” It was perfectly clear to Elmer that when Dwayne said ‘Him’ he could not possibly be referring to anyone or anything less than a god.

  “I heard the thunder,” Dwayne continued, and there was a distant rumble of it in his own voice as he warmed to the topic. And it may have been Elmer’s imagination, but he thought he heard actual thunder muttering far away. “I heard His voice in the storm. HOLD FAST, he said.” Nearly everyone around the fire flinched when Dwayne’s voice rose to a sudden crescendo at the two words. “Through the dark and through the night. Like an anchor in the storm, hold fast to your hope. In trial and in pain, believe. All things will change. So I got these tattoos, Ms. Shape, as a reminder. Though I have to say I’ve got so used to ‘em, sometimes I don’t even notice.”

  “And the canes?” asked Rebecca. “The limp?”

  “Rodeo,” said Dwayne. “Bull got testy. It’s somethin’ ‘bout m’spine.”

  Rebecca tapped her lips, eyeing Dwayne critically. “How did you get away from this Abraham Black? That other young man was shot, and you certainly didn’t run.

  “Well, as to that...” Dwayne fished a pack of cigarettes out of an inner pocket of his coat. He put one between his teeth and lit it with the hot end of a smoldering log pulled from the fire. “I had a talk with that man.”

  “A talk?” said Amelia. Rebecca, at the same time, said, “I was under the impression that he was a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of fellow.”

  “He’s killed at least two hundred people, to my knowledge,” Alan added. “Why not you?”

  Dwayne shrugged. “My life ain’t in his hands.” He spoke with such finality, with such a weight of certainty, that no one offered any more questions on the topic for the rest of the evening.

  When the fire burned low, after the meal and the evening conversation had grown cold, and the fog seemed to close in thick and dark around the ALL-Rover, most everyone trailed back into the comfort of the vehicle, one by one. In the end, only Elmer and Amelia remained. Amelia made a bench for them, a cozy bench of solid grey light, so that they could sit close together and watch the glimmering coals. Nearby, the fog swirled and shaped into many forms, brief and mysterious, to reflect the tumultuous dreams of those inside.

  “Memory’s coming back,” Amelia observed in a hushed voice, as though all their wonderful new companions were sleeping just nearby.

  “Ah! Yes. I seem to recall our house now.” Elmer’s pudgy hand found Amelia’s spindly fingers, and they held each other. “It was a delight, wasn’t it? But now I think, if we ever return, perhaps it would be a marvelous idea to put wheels on it! Can you imagine? Rolling about, making new friends at every turn!”

  “Elmer,” said Amelia, “Our house was on top of a cloud.”

  “Ah! Quite so! I had forgotten that bit. Such a view…” He sighed, pleased by the memories. The fog in front of him swirled and coalesced into a facsimile of a marvelous scene: cloudrise over the plains of Snickaree, the air fresh and fantastic, friendly birds out in scintillant flocks on the crisp morning drafts.

  “Do you miss it?” Amelia asked as they gazed together at this fabrication of a memory. “Home?” The sweet, sagey aroma of their cultivated cloud drifted out from the fog, and the rushing of the wind, and the calling of the birds, and the twinkling of the stars, and the streaking of spacecraft, and the moons bright and glorious overhead.

  And their cottage! Simple, clean, rather blue, eminently lovely. Elmer would eat a fine breakfast omelette, or waffles, or sausage and cheese, before dropping by rainbow down to the world below for his work alongside Amelia. What had their work been, exactly? He couldn’t recall. It hardly mattered, though. What mattered was that he had done it alongside beautiful, brilliant, wonderful Amelia.

  “Well, quite, dear!” he told Amelia. “I do miss it. But it would be rather a stretch to call that house my ‘home,’ I dare say! My home is where you are, dear, which at the moment is right here in this very spot! And I am quite content, amnesia and all.”

  She leaned against him and clasped his hand tighter. “I feel quite the same way, Elmer.”

  “I know you do, dear.”

  Together, they watched the coals go dark in the damp chill of the fog.