Box Set - Chapter Twenty-Eight

             ‘Welcome to the Doldrums, Easton!’ says a voice to my left.

Suddenly the thousands of smiling faces make me a little uncomfortable. I’m not sure I like all their eyes on me.

The man wears a wide brimmed hat and a long robe. His beard is thick and black and his eyes stare at me from the edge of the fabric, warm and excited.

‘I’m Tarquin,’ he says.

‘Don’t call it the Doldrums, Tarquin, that’s so miserable,’ a woman nudges him. ‘We can call it what we like here, we’re not all miseries.’

I notice the ring of buildings around us and notice we’re in a village square. The same village square I saw the ruins of. The well I died in stands tall and proud to my left. The town hall, complete with pillars and shining windows is behind them.

There’s a parting of the ways and a pink ball of excitement tumbles towards me. She catches me in a bearhug and I feel the pull as she tries to lift me off the ground.

‘Easton!’ Elle says into my shoulder.

‘Elle!’ I say. ‘How did you get here?’

‘Same way you did,’ she says, setting me down. ‘The singing, lifting me out of the desert. A doctor led me here, it was Tarquin.’ She smiles at him.

‘So you people bring us across,’ he says. ‘How do you know?’

‘When you’re in tune with the Edge you can sense people lost in it, ripples that course to all of us. Some people ignore it of course, but others can do some good with it.’

‘Easton,’ Elle says. ‘I think this place is the Edge. It’s the land in between.’

I marvel at the idea of it. That a whole world could exist alongside our own one. Every time I close my eyes I get a glimpse into it. The universe is wide and confusing, but ultimately, this is wonderful.

I smile. ‘Where’s Yates?’

Elle’s face falls. ‘I…um… we haven’t found him yet.’

My face falls. Tarquin reaches over. ‘Don’t worry yourself, everyone turns up eventually.’ He notices that my face doesn’t change much. ‘Seriously, we rarely let anyone slip through our fingers, unless they choose to leave themselves.’

‘Come,’ says the woman. ‘We’ll find you lodgings. We’ll find your friend.’

The crowd parts to let us through. Occasionally someone stops me and shakes my hand, or claps me on the back. Of everything I’ve experienced so far, this is the strangest.

‘What have you found out?’ I ask Elle.

‘As far as I can tell, this place has always been here,’ Elle says, ‘it exists on the path to the Great Beyond.’

‘So it’s real?’

‘Well, that’s the question,’ she says. ‘They all believe it is. It’s just the problem, no matter how much you say it, how much are you ever convinced of something, especially something with no proof. Some people choose to go, and they lose their belief, fear sets in and people end up here. They’ve made a pretty good life for themselves to be fair.’

‘We make do,’ Tarquin leans over his shoulder. Obviously he’s been listening. ‘As far as we can tell, this world is mostly desert, but we’re filling it. We find quarries and fashion tools. As I’m sure you noticed before, interacting with physical objects is no problem for us. We found a quarry nearby.’ He waves his hands at the lines of buildings and pavements.

‘So we’re still ghosts,’ I confirm. The rumble in my stomach disagrees.

‘Always,’ Elle says. ‘You just have to learn to accept some facts.’

‘Your mind is strong but your will and belief can be stronger if you train it to be. I’m Sandra by the way.’I shake another hand.

‘Tarquin’s the major here.’

‘How do you become mayor of a ghost town?’ I ask.

‘Vote,’ he smiles. ‘Literally by show of hands. Some people prefer to stay here because they think it’s as close to a Great Beyond as they can get.’

Personally, the idea of living under a baking sun and never seeing the world I love again isn’t my idea of paradise. I wouldn’t dare question Tarquin or his friends though, they’re not hurting anyone here, quite unlike the likes of Windermere and Thacker.

‘Any sign of Teague?’ I ask.

‘Nothing,’ Elle shakes her head.‘Hopefully he just dropped off the worlds and won’t be coming back. I just think his funny his girlfriend turned on him.’

‘Who is this Teague?’ asks Tarquin.

‘A man from our world,’ I reply.‘Troublemaker would be putting it lightly. I’d suggest that if you sense him floating around out there, you leave him by the tree.’

Tarquin looks offended. ‘We would give everyone a chance. No one deserves to be trapped in that place.’

I don’t want to make enemies here, not when I don’t know how to get back, so I keep my mouth shut. Elle appears to follow the same mantra.

We begin up the stone steps to the town hall and start towards a high set of double doors, the only wood I’ve seen here so far.

‘They were made from the tree you arrived by,’ Tarquin explains as we cross the threshold.

‘So has this place always been here?’ I ask. I admire the high stone walls and windows that let light stream in diagonally. It’s like walking between two great galleons with the oars deployed. On the floor are chairs and benches hewn from stone.

‘As far as we know,’ Tarquin says. ‘We’re simple people. We’re glad of the life we have here.’

‘Haven’t you ever wanted to go back?’

Tarquin bows his head. For a second there’s a flicker behind his eyes and I wonder if he’s considered it. ‘We’re simple people here,’ he repeats. ‘A lot of us find it preferable to life in the modern world.’

I look at Elle, searching for some support. Her reply is something different though, more one of warning. I decide to hold my tongue.

‘We have a rule here that if you’re part of the community, you take some part in it.’ He smiles and I know there’s no way of arguing.

All I want to do is find Yates and go home. I don’t even know what to do about Thacker. Will the woman hound us until we or someone stops her? I couldn’t care less about what happened to Teague. I feel a small hole inside me as I realise my favourite author has lost touch with the very subject of her book. I read about Cecily and Roger over and over again and it made me appreciate the small slice of life I had been given. Now I reach death I find that most people have an opposite opinion.

More people file into the hall and get on with their daily business. The place is empty. I wonder does anyone have a possession here. How very human to turn a place that would be a hell to most and turn it into something worth staying for. I try to imagine Graham in a world without material. Nothing to show off with or flaunt his loves in front of everyone who’ll listen.

Maybe it's that which deters me from this place too. I think we're all guilty of loving the things we take for granted in some way.

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘But we want to find our friend too.’

‘Elle has been asking the same since she arrived,’ smiles Sandra. ‘We’ll find him, don’t worry.’

‘What do we have to do with the community?’ I ask.

‘Whatever you like,’ Tarquin says. ‘We have a number of things we do here. Those of use suited to physical labour work in the quarry. Our school here is thriving…’

‘You have a school?’ I chip in.

‘Of course,’ Sandra says. ‘I run it, it’s a beautiful place. You’d be surprised how many people want to continue learning after they arrive here.’

‘Are there children?’ asks Elle. I know what she’s thinking. These would be dead children, their lives gone before their time just like hers.

‘Of course,’ Sandra smiles like it’s the best news she could possibly give. ‘We understand that newcomers might find it strange, we’ve even had people telling us that it’s morbid, that the children don’t know what they’re doing. The ones we’ve shown are always converted though.’

‘How?’ I’m intrigued at the idea that anyone might be. I see the nay-sayers’ point. The children, no matter how they end up here deserve a choice to leave if they want to. But then how do you educate a child on travelling? On the dangers of travelling through the Edge for too long. ‘What exactly do you teach here?’

‘Oh all sorts,’ Sandra replies. ‘We have a thriving literature class, history, all sorts of languages. We find it’s the best way to help children expand their minds.’

‘No science?’ I’m a little disappointed that no one here wants to pass on scientific ideas to the young. Maybe they’re the ones that left? The experimenters, the adventurers. I’ve always loved books from an outsider’s perspective, but does this show the cleft in society between people who stay and people who want to find the next grassy plain?

‘We’ve had a lot of intent,’Sandra says. ‘And rightly so, but our resources are limited here. Science is something that needs to be seen. What we care about here is people and how people survive and how we carry on. We remember the greatest writing and the greatest moments in earth history so well when there are no distractions. It’s let us appreciate things a little more.’

‘What about if children want to leave?’ I venture. Elle shoots me a look. I do regret my words as I say them. I want to get out of here as much as she does. I can’t let things lie. The question was in the air so I asked it.

‘I thought you might ask that,’ Tarquin says. ‘People always do. The answer must be seen, not told. You’ve taken an interest in the school so I think that would be the best place to start for you.’

He waves his hand and we follow him. Elle steps beside me.

‘Why did you ask that?’ she asks in a hushed voice. ‘I’m a little tired of people turning on us.’

‘I only asked a question,’ I reply. ‘I can’t help it.’

Elle frets. ‘I just want to find Yates and get home.’

‘Me too,’ I say. ‘I promise.’

‘Remember when there weren’t crises every few minutes?’ She smiles despite herself. ‘Weren’t they happy days?’

‘Great power, great responsibility,’ I say, wise to the end. Elle nudges me in the side and I push back. We both giggle and try to hide it.

We walk through the streets, past houses and big halls and long tables where people sit, talking quite content. It feels very peaceful here.

‘A lot of people find themselves here and take it as heaven,’ Tarquin says. ‘I’m quite proud of that.’

‘Do you think this is heaven?’ I ask. ‘The heaven at the end of all religion?’

‘I’m not sure what I think,’ he replies. ‘Our way of life might seem a bit hippy for a lot of people, and there are infinite benefits to living here, I’m just happy to have helped make it what it is. To be the one who built the waystation at the end of the line for so many people.’

I look into his face and wonder if a part of him wants to leave too. Is this truly enough for anyone?

‘What were you when you were alive?’ I ask.

‘Believe it or not I wrote travel books.’ He laughs. ‘Ironic that this becomes my calling in life.’

We reach a low building with wide windows on each side. I hear the laughs of a great number of children. It sounds like a happy place. A school in paradise. I’m sure for a lot of people that’s a form of hell.

‘How old are they?’ I ask as we pass through the open archway. ‘The children?’

‘They range from under a year to about twelve. If they want to stay longer they can. We find that after that they can make their own decisions about their lives.’

Elle looks at me with an approving expression on her face. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if this form of schooling existed in the world of the living.

We pass through the archway and into the inside. It seems cooler, despite the lack of any air conditioning or even electricity. The windows are wide to allow the maximum amount of light.

‘It’s strange, before you arrived, we had another arrival who seemed intent on teaching in the school.’ Tarquin leads us through a door on the right. ‘Maybe he’d be the best one to guide you through starting your teaching careers here. He can introduce you to his children and then we can find the best place for you.’

In years to come, I’ll rebuke myself for not seeing this coming. We turn the corner and see a happy class of school children, all directing their attention to the man at the front.

There, with his hair tied back and a wide smile on his face, stands Teague.