Secret Places and Hidden Things

Chapter Eleven

Marelle was nothing.

For a moment she was paralyzed by fear, then realized she must still exist if she could be afraid. Somewhere behind her reality still existed. She could feel it there, the meadow in the woods, the air blowing across her skin, the smell of pine. She turned around and saw she was still in nothingness. The world had turned with her inside of the nothing.

Off in the distance she saw a light and tried to move towards it. Walking didn't accomplish much, but her interest seemed to be enough. As she watched the light, it grew in size, resolving into the shape of a boy. He was standing on an island of rock suspended in the nothing. In a moment she was standing beside him. He didn't notice her at first, but with a sudden movement he turned his head to the side, squinting.

"I know you're there," he said, "but I can't see you."

"I can see you," she said. "Where are we?"

"This?" He looked around at the darkness. "This isn't anything in particular. Just a void full of potential." He looked back at where she was standing. "Would you like to come through all the way? There's no reason to be so non-committal."

Marelle realized what he meant immediately. She had left part of herself in that clearing on purpose. She let go of it, and with a sudden rush of color and space, she found she was standing in a grassland at the edge of a long cliff, the void cutting deep into the earth as far as her vision would go. The sky above was swirling with clouds, like black smoke curling its way out of the nothingness. The sun peeked through from time to time.

"Oh, it's just you," Michael said.

Marelle realized who she was standing next to. Her mouth pressed into a thin line. He looked different than he had before. His eyes were too far apart, and his ears were long and furry like some animal. He was a wild thing now—a creature, not a human. She sneered.

"Nice to see you too," Michael said, grinning sardonically.

"You tricked me."

"Maybe you tricked me," Michael said. "I'm certainly not the only one who's changed. Why are there so many of you?"

Marelle looked down at her hands and the rest of her body. She didn't look any different. She didn't feel any different either. "What do you mean?"

"You're all over the place," Michael said. He moved his hands in an arc, patting the air in front of her like a mime. "That can't feel very good. Do you want some help?"

"I'm fine," Marelle said, crossing her arms. "Do you know anything about the still point?"

"Oh, sure." Michael's eyes lit up and his face lifted into an even wider smile. "I was just talking to it a little while ago. It was a tree."

"A tree?" Marelle leaned away, her eyes tracing the line of Michael's mouth.

"Yes, or a knot, or nothing at all." He held his hands out to the void in front of them.

Marelle looked at the void sharply. "So this is the still point?"

"Not all of it. This is a little of everything."

"Enough riddles. You know what I'm looking for. Where is it?"

Michael stared at her, that wide smile fixed on his face. He seemed to be searching her. She looked away.

"Why should I help you?" he asked, though his tone was gentle.

"Because I'm growing impatient!" she yelled. She pulled the sword out of her belt and slashed at the air in front of them. Somewhere, somewhen, a window opened in the air, and a wave crashed against it, throwing an ocean up and around them in a spiral. A pod of whales, bellowing their low songs in distress, came drifting through, flying upward into the liquid pillar. A wall of water formed and rushed off the edge of the cliff into the void with a roar of sound. The ocean filled in behind them, a raging storm lashing its way through and inflating into the sky.

Michael's smile never wavered, and he stood calmly on his small patch of sunny grassland. "What did that do?" he asked, looking around. "You're all wet now."

Marelle was slipping on rocks, the water washing around her feet. "Damn you!" she yelled. "Why do you always mess everything up!"

Michael put his hands on his hips. "Well, I'm not trying to. Here, let me help." Before she could protest he grabbed her wrist and shook her out like a rug. She could feel the water flapping off of her, but there was something else too. A sense of disorientation at the back of her mind snapping into place. She hadn't even realized it was there. She could feel the fractured pieces from the disks merging together. It was like colors from a prism overlapping until they were a single white light. Michael set her down and she was standing back on the grassland beside the cliff where she had found him, no sign of the ocean or the storm.

She pulled her wrist out from his grasp and rubbed it gingerly, backing away. She looked around her, then looked back at Michael, who was still smiling at her.

"AUGH!" She threw the sword to the ground, and sat down next to it with her arms crossed. "Nothing makes any difference. You can just shake it all away with a flip of your wrist. What's the point of even trying?!"

"Well, I mean, anyone can do that," Michael said. "You can do whatever you want."

"Not me," Marelle said. "I can't do anything. I can only steal."

Michael's smile faded for the first time. "Well, yes, I suppose that's true."

"So, why is that?" she asked, looking up at him. "I steal, and you make. Why are you so special?"

"Me?" Michael put a hand to his chest. "I'm not different. I steal too. It's not like I ever come up with anything new." A bit of wind rustled the grass beneath their feet. "This was already a place before I came here."

Marelle looked up at him, her brows coming together. She went through her mind, thinking about what she'd seen him do. It didn't make her feel better, just more disappointed. "You can't help me," she said, standing.

"No," he said. "You can't really be helped that way."

She turned to go, raising her sword in front of her.

"However, there is a riddle you're trying to solve. I can help you with that."

"A riddle?" She lowered the sword, looking over her shoulder. "What riddle?"

"How can you find something that never moves, but is always far away?" Michael smiled again.