Blankmap: Book I

28. Blankmap

         

Solomon awoke while the sun still hung high in the cloudless sky. His heart was racing, and the nightmare of the half-faced fox loomed large in his mind. It seemed impossible that such a thing could exist in a world as bright as the one he stepped out into (for he had walked outside, hoping to clear the cobwebs), but for the moment, the terror of the thing was no less vivid for the hot sand and the light breeze, such a far cry from the gray sky and black mountain of his dream.

He found Juda on his belly in the sand, poking at a beetle that was attempting to trundle its way into the hollow log that rested at one edge of the yard. The smile on Melion's son's face immediately put Solomon at ease.

"Hey," he said. "Want to try to open that box with me?"

"What box?"

"The one I found down inside the whale."

"Ohhhh! Yes, yes I want to help. I will get Miya, too. She would be upset to miss this."

He scampered off into the trees.

The nightmares of the young, though far more frequent than those of adults, seem to take less effort to shake away. Perhaps it is because all of their dreams are so much more vivid and so changeable, perhaps it is because the horrors of life are by design much more of an abstraction to them, and perhaps (though few adults would dare entertain such a notion) it is because young people are endowed with a kind of courage that is chipped away by the time they become adults, a kind of courage that is all but forgotten by the time one grows up. It takes a certain doggedness to rise from bed each morning as an adult, with so many disappointments and mundanities and responsibilities to face, but it takes the heart of a lion--a child's heart--to survive being young.

Whatever the reason, Solomon's nightmare had begun to recede from the moment he first saw Juda's smile. There was something about the boy that immediately put him at ease, and he wondered if that was what made someone a friend.

Solomon was stifling a yawn when Juda came rushing back, dragging his older sister by the hand.

"Juda says you want to open that box," she said. "How are you going to do it?"

"There is a key. It was given to me by an old woman in Nishaya."

"And it's the key for this box?"

"I have no idea. But it looks really old, and it's the same color...I figured it's worth trying."

Miya frowned. "Nishaya is a long way from here."

"So it is," Solomon replied. "But I got here from there, didn't I? Anyway, it's not like I have any better ideas."

Miya brightened at that. "No," she said cheerfully, "I don't expect you do. So she just gave you this key?"

Solomon felt the tips of his ears flush. "Errr, not exactly. I had to give her something in return."

"WHAT?" Juda chimed in.

"An octopus," said Solomon. "A little black octopus with green rings on it."

Melion's children exchanged a pointed look.

"If you gave her one of those, Solomon Hyrax," said Miya, "you should hope this is the right key. The only creature more sacred to the ri-Marij people than the pilak are the whales."

"I, ummm...I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. She was really convincing. Like she had some kind of power over me."

"Oh, don't worry," said Miya, waving a hand. "It's probably fine."