Picnic Pete in the Dungeon of Keys

Arrival

Picnic Pete climbed off the roof of the riding lawnmower. Grasshopper leaned out of the cab. "Don't forget, I have work in Southfield after this. You really gonna be okay out here for two days, Pete?"

Pete took in the horizon. This was all tall grass, all the way to the edge of the world, basically. Prairie grass. There was a square wall of rocks, about six feet high. A foundation for an old building, perhaps, with brambles and an ancient tree growing inside. Nearby was a wooden tower painted white. A belltower with a missing bell.

Pete pulled down his cooler, his lunchbox, his fishing rod and his bow. He had plenty of provisions. "Two days? I'll be fine, Hopper. I'm just going to have a picnic."

Hopper scoffed fraternally, but he couldn't hide the worry in his sun-baked face as he looked at the tiny wooden belltower. "You came all this way to camp out in a bell tower for two days and have a picnic?"

Pete smiled. "It's just a little vacation in the Sargasso Sea, and I have some writing to get caught up on. It'll be good to get it done without interruptions."

"You think the Witch will be here?" Hopper scanned the horizon, too.

"No. She won't be here. She made that perfectly clear."

"If you're sure, alright. You know how to reach me, brother. I'll be back in two days. You need me sooner, you just... here, wait..."

He tossed a tiny pumpkin out of the cab, and Pete caught it. It had been hollowed out, and holes cut around the outside. Pete blew on it experimentally. D-B-A, D-B-A. It sounded good. "I don't need this, Hopper." he caught Grasshopper's expression, and softened his face.

"But I appreciate it. It sounds good."

"Love you, brother."

"Love you too."

There was a rumble of engine and whirling blades, and the clank of the mower deck dropping. Grasshopper banged on the roof of the mower in salutation, and then he and his heavy mower turned into the tall grass, and vanished. Leaving Picnic Pete alone.

He climbed the belltower and unfurled his picnic blanket there. He set out his cooler. His lunch box. His notebook and binoculars. And a package, wrapped in a scarf.

Pete scanned the world around his little belltower. Already the tall grass was reclaiming Grasshopper's path back towards civilization. The grass stretched all the way to the edge of the world. He saw the blue rise of Siren's Bluff. He saw Anning's Eye, cloaked in the Orchard Forest. He turned in each direction, listing places he knew. Lanatus Landing. Ciderlyn. Dog Bend. The Stray Forest. Fallow Field. The Moon. He rested his hand on the package. It wasn't time yet.

Pete saw Anhypnia's Castle and lingered on it for a few minutes. There was a burst of purple light, and a streaking comet of shadows broke from from the castle before it was arrested midflight and toppled to the ground. He caught his breath. Anhypnia was still awake. Everything was fine.

Picnic Pete opened his first picnic of the trip. Fresh raw salmon over wild rice, rubbed with horseradish. A small bottle of plum wine, and he sat with his back to the empty bell yoke, admiring the world that stretched out in the distance in all directions. Sushi was perhaps an odd choice for a picnic so far away from the sea, but Picnic Pete did not believe in roughing it.

He heard a thump and saw in the shadow of the belltower that a falcon had perched on the roof, presumably to scan for rodent life. He saw a colony of warhawks circling the column of smoke from their munitions factory. A small herd of deer blundered between the wall and the belltower, driven by a wild prariemower that thundered after them, cutting the tall grass in its gnashing teeth. A thunderstorm was gathering in Fallow Field. He eyed the package.

Pete opened his notebook and made phenomenology notes. It was fall, and the tall grass was as tall as it would be before the frost and snow turned the Sargasso Sea from a waving ocean of grass to an ocean of soft, wet snow. When he got tired of writing about what he could see, he opened his sketchbook and drew. Things he'd seen. People he hadn't. And when he couldn't occupy himself any longer, and he was certain that it had now been too long for Grasshopper to think better of things and double back, he opened the package.

The scarf fell away to reveal a key, eight inches long, and topped with the silhouette of a cracked bell. The Liberty Key. On the floor of the bell tower, there was a keyhole in the center of another bell silhouette. He inserted the key and turned. The tower began to shake. The whole world began to shake. Inside the stone fence, there was movement. The tree at the center of the little lot seemed to be rotating over its roots, the bark twisted and warping over the inner surface until it revealed a door. Pete smiled with grim satisfaction. "The perfect place for a picn