Secret Places and Hidden Things

Chapter Five

The distant future...

Michael's voice cut off mid sentence.

Elliot twitched when the sudden change registered in his mind. He looked around himself. He was still in the woods, but the clearing had disappeared. A grouse startled and flew off into the trees, its wings cutting the air with a wild chirping. Nothing about this was familiar. He wondered how he was going to get back home.

He turned a full circle and saw the trees were thinner in one direction, so he walked that way, ferns brushing at his legs. This forest was much older than the one by his house. He'd noticed, following the fox before, that the trees had been bigger than he was used to, but these trees were immense, like towering buildings that shaded out large swaths of the ground around them. The predominant smell was pine, but there was something else too, a crispness of the air he wasn't used to. It was cool, but humid, a fresh feeling on his face.

As he walked through the trees, he had difficulty breathing. The air was thin and light, and he had to pull heavily with his lungs. There was a thick place of shrubbery ahead of him, blocking his way, and just as he was about to step over a tall bit of bush, he stopped dead. There was nothing but sky ahead of him, a distant range of snowcapped mountains cutting their way across the horizon.

He couldn't see much, as smaller brambles had grown up around the edge of the cliff, but after feeling his way around the thickets, he found a point along the edge where a group of trees had fallen away, taking the rest of the forest with them. The cliff was sudden and deep, working its way around the bend of an old river that was snaking far below. The other side was so distant that the cliffs looked like mountains in their own right, but it was smooth with angular stripes of colored rock. The peaks beyond were so high and massive, it was hard to imagine how a forest could even grow in their shadow. The light from the sun cycled in and out behind thin clouds, a distant sheet of rain falling below the snow line and casting a rainbow.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, toto," he said. Just a few minutes ago, he'd been following the fox in the old woods behind his parent's house, now he was somewhere else entirely. From off behind him, the leaves rustled, and he turned quickly, thinking of bears and wolves—and whatever else might lurk in such a massive terrain. It was just the fox, nosing its way through the ferns. At least, he thought it was the same fox. He didn't have anywhere to run, anyway.

"Now what?" he asked it, looking back out at the massive range of mountains before him. The fox looked up at him, then leaned over the cliff, its back haunches crouching down for support. It snapped its jaws and licked around its snout, backing away.

"Yeah, it's really high up, and we're not anywhere near home anymore..."

The fox looked up at him, then turned and walked along the edge of the cliff. It stopped every few moments, sniffing. Elliot followed, wondering what the fox was searching for.

Suddenly, from back in the forest, the trees began to part around some massive moving object. Elliot jogged back the way he'd come, trying to get out of the way, but the fox barked and danced on stiff legs, trying to catch his attention. He looked back and saw the forest itself was moving, a patch of trees and rocks drifting smoothly through the landscape around it. His first thought was that the side of the cliff was coming away, falling into the canyon below, but as it moved past, the forest floor shifted below him, trees parting across his vision as the land itself bent to accommodate the foreign piece. The fox barked again, then jumped onto the moving island, so he threw caution to the winds and jumped on behind it.

As the island of rock moved out over the edge of the cliff, it just kept moving forward. Elliot half expected it to fall, but it never did—it just kept going, out into the open sky. The land behind them came back together like a zipper, sealing itself cleanly as if nothing had been there.

The fox bounded over to Elliot, its tail flicking about wildly. It ran past him and jumped up onto a high rocky outcrop, looking out into the canyon, then it ran by again to the other side, dodging around the few trees and ferns that were stuck to the top of the island like sails. Over all, it was no larger that a small boat might be, and had a similar shape, the prow in front carving through the air. It moved so smoothly, and was made of rock, so it appeared as if the world was moving by while the island stayed still.

It drifted over the canyon at a steady pace, and when it came to land on the other side, Elliot braced for impact. None came, however, and the island flowed into the forest, beginning its ascent up the side of the mountain's feet. Elliot looked closely at the edge of the land mass, trying to discern how it was moving without friction, but the items on the ground just seemed to tumble back and forth over the edges, like eddies of water, or smoke making its way through the air. The island was seamlessly connected to the land around it, but moved without any strain or disturbance to the ground. It truly was like a ship through water.

As it made its way upward, the world around it tilted. Elliot didn't feel that the island had tilted at all, but they were moving smoothly up the mountain, nonetheless, the horizon ahead of him spread out at a low angle, and the land behind him curving up dizzyingly.

Elliot walked over to the edge, then hopped off experimentally. The land behind him continued to move upward, but he was suddenly disoriented and fell backwards. The whole idea of down had changed. He got back up and hopped over the moving edge again, landing on the moving side. This time he fell forward, as his lean to accommodate the slope of the mountain became too pitched.

The fox was watching him from a rock, panting slightly, its arms crossed in front of it.

"Well, I don't know," Elliot said to the fox. "It's not like I've ever seen anything like this before."

The fox just stared at him.

"Are we going somewhere?"

It didn't answer this either. Elliot walked over and sat down next to the fox. It rolled over and laid with its back against his leg, stretching its haunches.

They rode the island for a long while, ascending up and down mountains, sometimes sailing through the air like some dirigible. Evening was falling, the darkening horizon shifting to purple and gray-green. Elliot was never much of a camper and he didn't love the idea of sleeping on this strange island next to a fox—even if it did seem completely tame. He patted the fox's side and it leaned its head into his hand, jerking its snout up and down.

Suddenly, he was standing by his house and it was mid-day. He was wearing different clothes. His hands were dirty, though how they'd gotten that way was anyone's guess. It took him a while to register the abrupt change, staring at his hands.

Elliot went inside. No one was home. All the windows were open, and a warm breeze was blowing the silk drapes over the kitchen sink. Elliot stared at the trees through the window, his hands moving slowly through the stream of water from the faucet. They all were in full leaf—it was summer. He rushed over to the kitchen calendar, splashing water across the floor in his haste. It was July. July of the next year. Somehow, he'd skipped half the year.

He sat down at the table, his eyes wide, wondering what to do. He stood back up and walked out onto the deck, looking out at the woods.

"Michael!" he shouted. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Nothing answered back.

Wherever he had been—wherever that fox had taken him—it was long gone. He was on his own.