IMPERFECT ORB Read online

  He moved slowly in his small room and sat himself down in the chair beside his desk. The clock across from him said that it was only a little past eight thirty. That meant summer classes were just beginning. He sighed and felt definite it was going to be a long day.

  Mrs. Gregory soon returned and with her she brought, not Advil, but a bottle of Children’s Tylenol. However that was only what she carried in one hand. In the other she had some cough syrup and a box of capsules.

  “You really do look awful.”

  He agreed with her by greedily taking the various medicines without protest. Soon after he ushered her through the front door, waving and smiling as if he were the epitome of health and cheer.

  When Mrs. Gregory’s car finally pulled out of the long driveway Mike couldn’t have been more relieved. In the form a a wallowing, clumsy dive he headed for the sofa. Having managed to maneuver around an antique spinning wheel, his luck ran out when one hip hit the coffee table. A dull stab of pain was added to his woes. The pain was easy to ignore. Presently Mike’s thoughts were distracted with other matters.

  Was it the cold? That was as good an explanation as any. Not only that, it made sense. He liked that idea, and smiled to show God his appreciation for sending it to him. Suddenly the smile on his face widened, widened until it turned into a big toothy grin. There was another explanation, this one being all the more sweet. Perhaps, he thought slyly to himself, it wasn’t happening anymore. In which case this cold could be a sign. A sign that would show he was finally Normal. He understood clearly that Normal was subjective. Unfortunately for him society’s Normal didn’t exactly include thirteen year old boys who… who had a knack of… of simply apprehending ideas, thoughts and, he vaguely suspected, feelings as well. Frankly, most people thought it came off as kind of creepy.

  Mike turned onto his side, now facing the large living room window, and thought of life without his knack for apprehending things so well. No doubt it would be simpler, provide more anticipation and there wouldn’t be that constant tension. It wasn’t just being careful about what he said but how much he said of it that kept Mike on tenterhooks all the time. It was the constant anxiety of wondering who else knew. He didn’t suspect anyone in particular. Sometimes his mother fixed suspicious, almost frightened, eyes on him but that was only because of the — and these were her words, not his — “cruel mind games” he always played. It was true he liked mind games. He was absolutely fascinated by the mentality of any creature and anything pertaining to it. The art of making someone believe something that wasn’t (and probably couldn’t be true) was a past time he relished. And who could blame him? When life became as dull as it did after years of… quickly comprehending things, one needed a challenge. Manipulating the direction of other people’s thoughts had been, for Mike, that challenge so desperately needed.

  He squinted his eyes into the glare of the sun coming through the living room window and thought of the times he had read his mother’s mind. Or rather, convinced her he had. Mike never really knew a person’s exact thoughts, but always their feelings came back to him in a strong way. It was, he thought looking up into the pale blue sky, very much like the way the sun stood over all. She may not want to be, but she was always there and thus saw everything.

  That’s what it was like. He felt as though he was suspended just below the sun, an entity alone in a vast sky that saw everything and yet was always afraid that at any moment he could be obliterated by the raging ball of fire hanging just over his head. Not now of course. In his sickened state, whenever he tried to concentrate on some point, all he could hone in on was a feeling of dull uncertainty. The realization forced fear and panic to rise to the surface within him with the thought of loosing his “gift.” Without his gift he would certainly be a different person. There would be consequences though and although he would almost certainly be okay with them he had to admit, if he were being truly honest, his father would be crushed.

  Now, Mike’s eyes suddenly opened wide as he searched the sky for that same sun. Two large white clouds now obscured the yellow orb in the sky. Far off on the horizon other clouds could be seen amassing and moving fast in the direction of Ceedon’s Valley. Before long the sky was overcast with clouds whose countenance had changed from high, fluffy, white to grey, low-hanging, menacing. Mike’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the deep gloom now before him.

  Rain was on its way, and with that thought Michael Gregory sat bolt upright. It was a conclusion any person would have made in the semi-dark room. That same person may have also thought the clouds now blotting out the sun were only temporary — but looking out the window now Mike thought the clouds were in fact settling in for the long haul. Of course if the clouds were in fact to depart as hastily as they had arrived there wouldn’t be any problems. Everything within and around the caves would be fine. Everyone would go on living their lives as though neither the caves nor its magic existed. That was an idea he liked very much. The caves and all their mysterious power were — and these emotions he felt strongly — his and his alone. He almost settled himself comfortably back onto the couch but then decided that there were times when one just shouldn’t — no, couldn’t — take chances.

  From outside thunder sounded, and if Michael hadn’t been sure whether to go to the caves or not, he was positive now. Concerns about his health gave him pause only for a moment. The last thing he needed was to explain pneumonia to his mother, especially in the middle of summer. Even that, however, would be a small price to pay. If he didn’t get down to the caves before the rain started his magical wonder would be ruined. He wasn’t quite certain how he knew this but, as was his way, he just did.

  Mike had accidentally discovered the hidden caverns only days after stumbling down the hidden trail. Although he got the sense that these places had at one time been well known by the locals, he felt certain they had by now been forgotten by the general population; unvisited for years, perhaps even decades. The path had long since been grown over by all sorts of plants and bushes; the entrance of the caves likewise.

  Accidentally sliding down the trail leading into the Drop had been both terrifying and thrilling. When he realized where he was those emotions tripled. He was sure that the closest anyone had gotten to the paradise at the bottom of the Drop in recent history was either from the path running alongside it or from the railing in front of it. It was just a place where by unspoken rule nobody ever went.

  Getting off the couch now and up the stairs was a laborious effort. The pain in his side, which had dulled to a distant throbbing now flared back to life. Mike ignored it as the sound of thunder could be heard rolling across the sky.

  His exit from the living room brought him past an antique curio cabinet itself filled with various family heirlooms. A pocket watch that had belonged to Great Great Uncle Somebody, the thimble Great Great Aunt Somebody had used to make the wedding quilt for her only daughter, a small wooden keepsake box branded all over with a geometric design of straight lines converging at ninety an forty-five degree angles, the corners and lock accented with long-tarnished brass. A great antiquity that one was. Blah, Blah, Blah on his mother’s side had….

  He hated old things and he hated nick-knacks and, oh yes, he hated the old wooden wagon wheel propped up against the front of the curio cabinet — which he managed to stump his toe on, again.

  Only halfway up the stairs Mike found his mind swimming in chaos as thoughts of what would happen if the magic within and around the caves got wet. There were a lot of things concerning this magic he was uncertain of, but there were two he knew almost immediately (apprehending things like he did this was, to him, no surprise). The first was never to allow rain to hit its surface. The second, a warning that came to him more sharply than any feeling ever had, was never, never, under absolutely no circumstances, let direct sunlight shine on its surface. That was an idea he respected although he could not understand…. In the farthest reaches of his mind lurked the thought that alchemy
was a precarious thing. What could be bound by herbs and powders and blood could just as easily be unbound by something as mundane as the weather — sun or rain, apparently.

  Mike could not provide any definitive explanation as to how the crystal had survived before him. Perhaps it had existed exclusively in the caves, perhaps it had a companion prior to himself. The crystal obviously had some kind of senescence. It was able to maneuver on its own. Perhaps it did not need Mike nearly as much as Mike needed it.

  It was the rain that worried Mike now. The ground of the Drop and everything below the vast growth of trees were always sheltered from the sun. Wait, he thought sternly, there was one exception. In one corner of the small forest there was an irregular shape made up of smaller, irregular shapes of light. That was the only place Mike knew of that, through the tight tangle of leaves, direct sunlight managed to fall. This was good, and a logic that didn’t come with his gift told him that that was the only way the magic had survived all these years. If he wasn’t sick he probably would have been able to give an exact number but in his current state all he could do was guess that the magic had been around for a long time, and for him that was good enough.

  Only vaguely did he wonder what the caves had been used for. To him there had been absolutely no sign of life (human or otherwise). The tunnels just kept winding into the darkness. Somewhere in that darkness Michael had expected to find old clay pots or kerosene lamps or something to show that at some point in time the caves had been inhabited by human life but the deeper in he ventured the more convinced he became that he would find nothing. Then he stumbled onto the magic. It had come spinning out of the darkness and had nearly given the twelve year old boy a stroke.

  Unconsciously Mike had dropped the lighter from his hands while stumbling and crab walking backwards in the darkness. Suddenly the stuffy air seemed not quite enough to fill his lungs, the passageway more narrow than he remembered. And as the seconds trickled away in time with the steady sound of dripping water, he felt the surrounding walls closing in on him yet further. A small, rational part of his mind protested, knowing that what he was feeling just couldn’t be; knowing that he was having some sort of panic attack.

  The spinning object came closer towards him and Mike could feel a distinct but unfamiliar energy moving through the air with it — moving even through himself, if he was not mistaken. As the source of that strange energy continued towards him Mike felt the walls open back up and, suddenly, the damp air moved in and out of his lungs in sufficient quantity. There was a strange feeling of familiarity and because of that Mike held out his hand towards the spinning object.

  Glancing at the colours of his plaid shirt Mike thought them somewhat like the shades falling out of the spinning polyhedron, but that wasn’t exactly right. The colours had been within his mind. Sure, they had appeared to be exceptionally lucid, but nonetheless he had recognized them as nothing more than pictures dancing playfully in his mind’s eye. In actuality, with him in the caves there was nothing but darkness… and the crystal polyhedron.

  Looking back on the entire event now, Mike was quite surprised he had put out a hand to that strange and spinning configuration. He wasn’t one for courageous acts and thought the whole scene quite suicidal. He’d never seen nor heard of anything like it before. He could have been killed. Worse, he could have been maimed. While he now struggled to pull on a pair of bomber-style shorts he reasoned that there had been that strange sense of familiarity to lure him on. Like a family member away for too long, he needed to be close to the object. That was the only way he knew to explain it. It was nothing like his act of comprehending but rather the intense feeling that he had been there — that is, in the caves — to witness all this before. He knew that wasn’t possible. Until the day he went sliding down the well-hidden path he had viewed the foliage from above like everyone else. He hadn’t even known of the clearing, or the tiny, shallow brook that made a chord through the clearing. To him the entire thing had been a mystery.

  “And it still is,” he said aloud, frowning into the mirror above his dressing table.

  Mike hadn’t really taken a good look at his face in that moment. Instead he had immediately lowered his gaze to start a search for his house key. If he had taken a good look at his face the boy would have noticed his eyes. They had a sunken appearance, making him look like a living skeleton. That’s what Michael would have seen if he had looked into the mirror a second longer. If he had really looked he would have noticed that the dark pupils had dropped into a “V” at the twelve o’clock and six o’clock points of the circle, so they appeared as though they were about to split into two. Unfortunately Michael hadn’t looked — not really — and because of that the change in his eyes went unnoticed. Instead he’d started to search in earnest for his key. When he found it, he began to rummage through the pockets of a pair of khaki shorts which he had scooped up from off the floor — the same ones he had been wearing while in the caves the previous day. Mike quickly found what he had been looking for, exited his bedroom and bounded down the stairs taking them two at a time. Reaching the bottom he stopped for a moment to slip on a pair of black sneakers and within the same minute he was out the door and headed towards the Drop.

  * * *

  Thunder clapped overhead. It was a strong, booming sound that sent Michael sliding uncontrollably down the path leading into the clearing. He had only once, within the years he’d discovered the clearing, managed to go down the steep slope on his feet. Other times went something like this: He’d be shuffling along, never really letting his feet leave the ground and, without much of a warning, one foot would take a double-step and before he knew what was happening he’d be sliding along on his back. This time it had been the formidable sound of thunder that sent him tumbling down the slope with an ungraceful ease. Perhaps, he thought, there may have been a chance of staying on his feet if that root had not popped out of the ground the way it had. (In truth the root had been there long before Mike ever arrived and by the time he reached the bottom he had forgotten all about it.)

  For the smaller part of a second there was two of everything and then slowly the world before Michael came back into focus. He moaned once and absently wondered how much more of this he’d be able to take without breaking a bone. The sky unleashed another volley of thunder. Mike lay very still on his back, letting the sound roll over him. He took a few moments to take in the shaded gloom of the clearing. Regardless of what the clouds were doing out of view above, in the Drop all was perpetual gloom. All except for a single, irregular patch of light that, by some fluke, managed to get through the tangle of tree branches and leaves. Uncontrollably Mike’s eyes began to move toward the patch of light, though before they could settle on the spot the entire clearing was alight as lightning cracked overhead. With that, Michael sprang to his feet, quick and crossed to the other side of the clearing.

  The tangled leaves and branches obscuring the caves were about one foot in width and it amused Mike to think of the perverse way he had stumbled through the long since overgrown foliage: A few days after discovering the clearing Mike had been sliding down the steep entrance that lead into the Drop. By no fault of his own he’d managed to upset a nest of wasps. Showing little mercy the spiteful creatures had chased him up against the growth of bushes that concealed the entrance to the caves. It was fear that had clamped his eyes shut and made him push backwards as hard as he could. Without warning the little light that had been in the clearing to begin with had lessened to a state of total darkness. Instead of being frightened Michael had felt a growing excitement. Now he recognized that excitement as the same he felt every time he entered the hidden caverns. As for the wasps, when he later emerged from the caves back into the clearing they had been lying dead on the ground, shrivelled up and discoloured.

  From the existing overgrowth of foliage in front of the caves Mike had managed to fashion a very functional, very well-hidden entrance — to lessen the pain of falling through — and as h
e stood back now to survey the wall of brush, he thought that he had done a pretty good job. For anyone who did not know what was behind the overgrowth of branches it would be impossible to guess.

  With his back against the entrance to the caves he turned and allowed his eyes to take in the entirety of the clearing. As he did so he reached a hand deep into one of the front pockets of his shorts and even before he dug the cheap lighter out of his pocket Mike knew what he would see. And sure enough it was there. Spinning through the darkness towards him was the crystal dodecahedron that although obviously inanimate, was clearly alive at the same time. Again he saw the colours but this time they weren’t as bright. Definitely not as bright as what had been splashed across the back of his mind the day before. The colours had dropped about four shades of a paint chip card darker than Mike’s plaid shirt — the bright reds and blues turning into browns and blacks — and because of that Mike knew it was as worried about the rain as he was.

  Just as another roar of thunder sounded, Mike grasped the crystal between his fingers. The thin glass felt cool to his touch. The junction between the precious glass and his hand was one he recently found himself yearning for whenever a feeling of loneliness was on him, and was more than pleased whenever he felt it. Despite the coolness there was a hint of sentience there, he was sure of it. For one thing, he could feel the hum of magic, like a life force barely contained, just beyond the glass. With his eyes he could see nothing, but often the feeling of power filtering through the air and being swallowed by the glass overwhelmed him. For another thing, despite all logic to the contrary, he felt that he had developed a real emotional connection to the object and the object had reciprocated. It meant that Michael had another friend, and if anyone suggested that there would be trouble between the two (instigated by his newest friend) he would have laughed.