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Chapter Six of Many

Dyn Twodd

By Nicholas SchweikertPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 17 min read
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Chapter Six

“I told you, he’s on a business trip,” Mama told Meg for the fifth time. “He’s going to be gone for a while.”

“But he makes the bacon smile,” Meg pouted, staring at her plate of bacon and eggs in obvious disappointment.

Mama sighed and set another plate down on the table. She then reached over and fixed Meg’s bacon so that it was tweaked upwards in a queasy sort of grin. “There. It’s smiling.”

Meg wrinkled her nose at the new plate Mama had set down. “He makes my pancakes in the shape of—”

“Megan,” Mama snapped, “eat your food and stop complaining. Pancakes are for eating, not making shapes.”

Meg’s eyes filled with tears and she stared at her plate, her fork motionless in her hand.

Mama sat down across from me and ate her food quickly. “Wallace,” she said when she had swallowed her last bite, “make sure Meg eats and then get ready for school. I have to call the hospital and let them know that I won’t be coming in today. If you need anything, I will be in your father’s study.”

She then rose and left the kitchen, leaving me alone with Meg.

Meg’s tears dried promptly and she began shoveling her eggs down ravenously.

I glared at her as I finished my food.

She glared back.

I got up and dropped my plate into the sink with a crash. Meg got up and dropped hers in, too. She stared at me silently for a moment, as if daring me to speak, and then, “Mama said for you to get ready for school.”

“Shut up, Meg.”

“Papa said it isn’t nice to say that,” she replied sharply, as though I ought to know better.

“Yeah, Papa also said that you aren’t allowed to walk Dyn,” I shot back.

“You didn’t get out of bed,” Meg pointed out. “He had to go to the bathroom.”

“Well, now he will never have to use that bathroom again,” I yelled at her.

Meg took a step back. “What do you mean? Mama said he went to live on a farm.”

I shook my head and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving her staring after me in confusion.

It wasn’t fair that Mama didn’t want to tell Meg what had happened. It was her fault, she should have to hear it and mourn the loss of Dyn the same as me, but she didn’t have to. She got to believe that Dyn was happily chasing chickens across rainbows on some distant farm.

I thundered up the steps to my room, trying to remember what I needed to put together for school.

I almost threw up at the thought. School was the last thing I wanted to think about right now. I just wanted to curl up in my room and cry, waiting for never to come, or for Dyn to come back. I wanted to hug Papa and have him tell me that everything was going to be fine.

“Wallace.”

I froze halfway up the steps.

“Wallace, come here for a second.”

I turned and trudged back down the steps to my mother who stood in parlor. Tears stained her cheeks again, an all too common sight since we had moved back out to Grandpa’s house.

“Wallace, I want to explain something to you,” she said, kneeling down in front of me. Her hand trembled a bit as she brushed some of my hair back a little.

I didn’t know what she wanted to tell me. I had no idea what it could possibly be, but if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that Mama was very very sad about Dyn. Her lip trembled as she took a few shaky breaths, closing her eyes for a moment and trying to maintain a good face.

Mama did that a lot. I couldn’t remember much before my fifth birthday, but it seemed like ever since I turned six, my mother was always trying to push something away, to hide it, to beat it. I don’t know what it was, but whatever it was, Mama was afraid of it every single day.

She finally wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry about your dog, Wallace. You’re such a good boy. You don’t deserve these things that are happening to you. You’re being so brave, and so patient with your sister, too.”

I always felt uncomfortable when Mama or Papa praised me. It always made me feel a bit guilty, like they didn’t know what wrong I had committed while they were looking away.

“I told Meg to shut up at breakfast,” I confessed awkwardly. It made me feel a little better, but I braced myself for the reprimand that I knew was coming.

Mama just cried harder, her arms closing around me more tightly.

After a moment, she pulled away and wiped her eyes again. “Okay, go get ready for school, then. We don’t want you to be late.”

I nodded and turned away. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned back around. “Mama,” I said hesitantly, “was the big black dog from home really sent to live on a farm? Or is he...is he dead, like Dyn?”

Mama’s hand flew to her mouth and she shook her head, her eyes closed tightly. “Just go get ready for school, Wallace,” she said tensely. “I can’t do this right now.”

My heart sank into my shoes as I turned and dashed up the stairs into my room. I slammed the door shut and flopped down on my bed.

I cried then. I cried long and hard, tears soaking my pillow and turning it to wet mush. I wished that Papa wasn’t away on a business trip, that he was here to tell me everything that had happened. I wished that Meg had not let Dyn out, and that he was still in his room, wagging his tail happily and waiting for me to come and fill his water bowl.

“Oof. Tough day, huh?” A familiar voice spoke up from across my room.

I didn’t look up. “Go away.”

“Are you sure?” Nos asked quietly. “You seem pretty tore up…”

I ignored him. The last thing in the world I needed was Nos trying to make my life even more interesting than it already was. Besides, it was mostly his fault that I didn’t wake up in time to save Dyn from my little sister. Had he not kept me on the moon so long, maybe I would have made it back in time to stop Meg from letting him outside.

“Look, I know you’re sad,” Nos said, “and I’m really sorry about Dyn. I really, really am.”

“You’re not sorry,” I mumbled into my pillow. “You only care about yourself and your stupid whales.”

“Hm. Right. Not true,” Nos said impatiently. “I mean, look at me. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get down here in the daylight?” He let out a little grumble. “Bloody sunshine...”

I sat up and looked at him.

He was perched on my windowsill, his little black suit coat torn and smudged with dirt. His perfect white hair wasn’t perfect, tumbled on his head like a prehistoric bird nest, and his balloon was nowhere in sight. Nos was roughed and tumbled indeed, and quite balloonless, his face twisted into a sort of restless scowl as he crossed his arms and glared at me as though I had no right to be short with him.

“Well, why did you come down then?” I asked moodily. “Don’t you have things you should be looking after on the moon?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “I just...I dunno. I wanted to check on you, I suppose.” His scowl melted away, to be replaced by a look of mild concern.

Now I was irritated. I was also a little relieved. It was nice to know that someone cared if I was okay, and only a bit annoying that that someone had to be Nos Awyr. Still, it was nice to know.

“Thanks,” I said, unsure of what else to say.

Nos shrugged. “Sure. And I am sorry about Dyn, you know.”

I hung my head, my feet hanging over the carpet. I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t okay. I missed my dog, and I was mad Meg, and I missed Papa. In fact, Nos was about the only thing I could think of that I wasn’t missing or hating in one way or another right now, and it sort of made the guardian of the moon rather bland.

“Maybe you’ll get another dog,” he offered. “Or something.”

“I don’t want another dog,” I said sharply. “I never want to have another dog ever again.”

“Whoa,” Nos said, frowning deeply. “No, no no no, we can’t have that! Alright, I admit, I shouldn’t have brought that up so quickly, that was dumb. But Wallace, you can’t think like that! Things change, you know? Time happens. You were happy with Dyn, weren’t you?”

I glanced at him and nodded.

“Right! Well, that’s what you need to be thinking about right now. It’s okay to be sad, but you gotta stick with it! Dyn was such a happy dog. You don’t think he would have liked to see you so sad, do you?”

I stared at him. “Why do you care so much?”

Nos rolled his eyes. “I just—well, it’s—first of all, I don’t care all that much, so don’t get the wrong idea,” he said quickly, picking at his fingernails in a very, very distracted sort of way. “Besides, ain’t a guy allowed to have a friend or two? Geez. And anyway, you might still decide to just stay here and get ready for school like a normal boy.”

I blinked. “Instead of what?”

Nos let a small smile creep across his smudged face. “Oh, I dunno. Go with a friend to the moon and see what the Niwyl Mages look like.”

I almost smiled myself. “What’s a Niwyl Mage?”

Nos sighed dramatically. “Aw gee, I guess you’ll never know. You’re determined to stay here and hate dogs forever, aren’t you?”

I stood up beside my bed, prepared to prove him wrong, then hesitated. “What about Mama and Meg?”

Nos shook his head. “They won’t even notice you’re missing. One second you will be getting ready for school, and the next…” he trailed off, staring at me with a twinkle in his eye.

I almost slugged him. “The next?”

“The next, you will be ready, and downstairs in time to catch the bus.”

That made me feel a little better. I took a moment to imagine life without school, without Meg, back on the moon again.

Without Dyn.

I sat back down on my bed, my mood deflating the moment Dyn came back across my mind. “I don’t know.”

Nos shifted in the window. “Listen, here’s a thought. So, dogs are dreams right?”

I stared at him stupidly. “They are?”

“Oh yeah,” Nos said quickly. “That’s why dogs are so much cooler than people. See, dogs are different. Dogs are basically dreams come to life. You didn’t know that?”

I shook my head.

“Weird.” Nos shrugged and continued. “Anyway, when someone dies, their dreams live on after them, and, just as they're supposed to, they travel back to the moon. You know, to Gald Wydion. Well, dogs go there too, once they die. If we leave right away, I bet we could actually find Dyn before he gets off wandering too far.”

I could scarcely believe my ears. “Really?”

Nos nodded. “Really.”

I leapt to my feet. “You aren’t messing with me?”

Nos grinned a crooked sort of grin. “If I was, you think I would tell you?”

I almost didn’t notice when he said this. To tell the truth, I didn’t care if Nos was pulling the world's worst prank on me, as long as there was some chance that I could get to see Dyn again, I would go to the moon on the back of a flying cactus, never minding whales.

I turned away and hurried over to my dresser, grabbing my pack off the top. I quickly threw in a sweatshirt and my ball cap, pulling a couple of my schoolbooks out of it and dropping them on the bed. Opening the top drawer of the dresser, I snatched out the little wooden flute that Grandpa told me had once belonged to the moon.

Maybe it would be good for something up there.

Dropping it in, I shouldered my pack and turned around to face Nos. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Nos smiled, his brilliant teeth flashing ivory against his blood-red eyes. He held his hand out again, wiggling his fingers the way one would to get a toddler to hurry over.

I reached out and took it once again, noting that this time…

I wasn't a bit afraid.

In a flash, we were once again enveloped inside the velvet black orb, blocking out all the sound and sight of my grandfather’s old house. The dots of white appeared again, and just like last time, swirled around us like electric cobwebs. Everything was happening exactly as it had before.

Until quite suddenly, it all became very, very different.

The black orb flickered, like a light just before the power went out. Lights from outside shone in when the orb faltered, the same faces I had seen last time flashing dangerously close to us, just outside our little wall of blackness.

I looked at Nos, feeling a bit of sweat trickling down my back.

He was frowning in concentration, his hands held out on either side of him as though he were trying to prevent a wall from closing in on us.

“What’s happening?” I asked in alarm.

Nos ignored me, frowning even more deeply.

The black orb flickered again, letting more light in. This time, the specters were closer than before, little green dots showing where their eyes were nestled inside their sapphire bodies.

“Nos, what’s going on?” I cried.

“Give me a second,” he grunted, his arms trembling under the strain of whatever he was battling. Sweat beaded on his brow, soaking his albino locks and turning them a sort of faded yellow.

The orb flickered again.

Ice crawled across my skin like a frigid spider. The specters were gone, scattered out into the distance and circling like angered bees. A looming figure stood in their place, floating in the whirling nothingness outside our dark sphere. Long hair drifted around slender shoulders like tall grass in a breeze. The left half of its face was covered in a shadowy mask, the other half empty, and plain. There were no eyes, nor nose nor lips that I could see on the half of the face that was not hidden. A great scythe rested on its shoulder, the handle gripped in its right hand long, and splintered. The blade glowed the same red as Nos’s eyes, twinkling in the gloom of the Nothing and reflecting the light of the agitated specters in the distance. A single, shining yellow eye gleamed out at me from behind the half-mask, like a lonely pearl in a dark sea.

Movement by its leg tore my eyes away from its mask, and I looked down. My breath caught in my chest as my gaze was met by that of a giant black dog, every bit as large as Dyn. Its matted black fur hung in thick clumps around its meaty shoulders and rigid legs, not flowing in place like its master’s hair. I recognized him immediately as my friend from back home, before we moved into the country, when we still had the little wooden fence with the cracks in it.

Except now he snarled at me angrily, rows of white teeth glinting dangerously in the light of his master’s scythe.

The figure took a step closer to us, its hand outstretched. I tried to take a step back, but found my feet rooted in place by the velvet orb. The hand reached out toward me, skinny, crooked fingers the color of a raven’s feathers splayed out before me.

I lifted my hand suddenly. Not because I wanted to. Not because I had made that decision, but because it just sort of happened. The next moment I found myself reaching out toward this specter of doom, my hand pale and white against his spindly ebony claw.

“Wallace, stay away from him!” Nos yelled loudly.

In that moment, the orb shattered. Fragments of its obsidian shell floated away from us, the shards of a broken mirror. The strange figure drew back, surprised at Nos’s outburst. It raised its scythe, the dog bending low at its side and preparing to lunge.

Nos suddenly moved, standing in front of me. I could still see around him. I could still see the stranger and my old my friend, who no longer cared for me. “Go back to the Dim, Collector,” Nos said, his voice sharp and commanding. “Return to your mistress, before you make me return you by force.”

The Collector stared at us silently, its yellow eye unblinking, unmoving.

“There is no collection to be made here,” Nos said. “Your magics are neither needed nor wanted. Begone, Dream Seeker!”

There was a heavy silence, the air humming around us as the Collector seemed to consider Nos’s words. I thought for a moment that Nos’s command was binding, that perhaps the creature would listen, and begin to drift away into the Nothing.

But it didn’t. Without warning, the Collector struck, its scythe flashing forward like a bolt of scarlet lightning. It passed through Nos, tearing a glowing blue line through his tattered suit coat, and passed through me, too. It felt like a whole part of my chest had fallen asleep and was just waking up again, blood rushing back to places in a storm of needles and sandpaper.

Nos fell to his knees briefly, then shot back to his feet and clapped his hands together. The sound was like a gunshot in a bottle, ringing in my ears long after it had passed.

I was suddenly wrapped in the velvet orb again, except this time I was entirely alone, Nos nowhere to be seen. The familiar white dots whirled around me furiously, the sphere trembling and humming like a derailing train.

A moment later, I was lifted off my feet and hurled to the ground. It didn’t hurt. Not really, anyway. I tumbled a few feet and stopped, mostly on my hands and knees.

I blinked and shook my head, trying to clear away the sand and grit clouding my vision.

The world suddenly turned white, shining and radiant. I stared at the dusty ground in front of me, my heart hammering.

I stood up and wiped my hands on my pants, freezing when I saw them. Or rather, through them. I could see my jeans straight through the backs of them. They were the same color as the whale; shimmering, see-through blue.

I swallowed. I had become a ghost.

Nos was nowhere in sight. In fact, there wasn’t anything around me at all. Fields of white stretched out around me as far as I could see. Dust and small stones were the only landmarks that I could make out, no Crystal Valley or welcoming sapphire houses waiting to greet me as they had before. There was no canyon, no lightning beets, not even the Nothing could be seen from where I stood.

I was a ghost on the moon, and as far as I could tell, I was the only thing on the moon at all.

AdventureFableFantasySeriesYoung Adult
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About the Creator

Nicholas Schweikert

I'm currently searching for my head. I've been told it's somewhere in the clouds, But I'm not interested in coming that far down towards earth to find it.

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