Once Upon… Not Yet: The Elder and the Fire of Unknown Origin

By MDR McInnis

In a medieval land embroiled perpetually in war, one boy is chosen for a mission that may stem the tide. But he must focus on the task at hand and not be side-tracked by the people and things standing between him and duty. Asa, the son of Radnar and Abigail, lives in Sharon, a small community in alliance with other towns and shires forming the Union under which the Order of the Rose presides; and he has been elected to journey to a faraway land with the endorsement of the Earth's under-gods, known as the Elder. In his odyssey, Asa will retrieve a unique rose that exists in the desert, along with the mystical Fire of Unknown Origin from the Guardians in High Haven, in the hopes that it will up-end the advantage that the Dark Lord and his army has, and which increases, with each battle in the un-ending conflict between the Rosarians and the Black Horde in the Psychic Wars. But there are many miles between Sharon and High Haven… There are numerous distractions… There will be several people Asa will meet along the way. And SOME of them won't want the boy to return to Sharon…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669826248

MDR McInnis

Michael “doc” McInnis has been a songwriting musician nearly all his life. Raised on the Country Music of his father and the Pop music of his mother, along with his first preference of Rock N Roll, Michael expressed himself at the earliest of ages by playing guitar in various bands from his youth to adulthood. As an early fan of Elvis Presley—whose very first conscious awareness of the King of Rock N Roll goes back to at least four years of age—Michael was fascinated by music and the way that the medium could speak to and influence its listeners. More importantly, he was intrigued by music’s ability to speak to and influence him. Therefore, he began writing songs from the start, even when he could barely play an instrument. Following his desire to create art, he built a recording “studio” when he was still a kid, spending all of his allowance—and, later, earnings through real work—investing in the pursuit. In his earliest years as a rocker, too—pre-teen, even—Michael created his own Rock Magazine based around his favorite band: KISS (complete with an 8-Track Cassette giveaway), doing all of the artwork and writing all of the articles himself. Then, inspired by Yul Brenner in Westworld, he began writing a first novel at age 12. Eventually, though, the music and the writing would merge into one art. First, with songs; then, much later into enterprise. While football had consumed his afternoons and Saturday nights as a youth, they were ultimately replaced by guitars and playing with bands in order to earn his teenager-moneys instead of following the “traditional route” of hawking hamburgers and fried chicken at the local fast-food restaurants. Michael kept his studio operating in overtime between gigs, writing and recording, with an eventual desire to try his luck in Nashville as a songwriter. But, later, preferring art over committee—and being grounded by obligations that would not let him live out of the backseat of his Pontiac Bonneville—he went home to his studio, thus, leaving Music City to find its own way without him. But he continued to write songs and record them in his studio while also continuing to compose White Papers on various topics that covered everything from theology and apologetics, to history and music, sociology and political science. But it was when he began to develop a story—in a prophetic manner, and unfolding even into the present—with the notion to create an accompanying soundtrack that his perspective changed about what could be. It was only at this point, then, that Michael McInnis realized that he had been writing all of his life in some form or fashion and that his two interests should be married together. Then, that idea took him from those White Papers to Novels. Since that time, he has written several books which combine the literary with the musical with such books as the southern drama Blood Red And Goin’ Down; a thriller called (Stay Away From) Captain Howdy; a couple of suspense dramas, Bridge To Nowhere and Artifacts, a sci-fi-drama named The Tinker Man, along with a dramedy that has such a woeful title as A Hop Across The Pond Is Easier Than Sneaking Out In The Middle Of The Night With Your Socks Tied To The Bedpost. The Unauthorized Biography of Irish Mick and His Ploughboys…Or Something Like It. Once Upon… Not Yet, this coming-of-age fantasy-drama, then, finds its inspiration and genesis in the music of Michael’s youth. As such, the music of those formative years from childhood to manhood became the backdrop to every scene contained within it; and its influence is on-going. (Music is such an important element to life that—in the absence of it—we will make up our own melodies and tunes at will, wherever we go.) As a kid learning to play guitar, Michael McInnis found it difficult to “learn” others’ songs. Not difficult to figure out, necessarily, but difficult to “stay with” long enough to learn it before being distracted by invention and, therefore, using that melody or guitar part he was trying to learn as a launch-pad for his own melody or song. This same kind of difficulty he also remembers having as a child when he was learning to read. His mother would ask him what the story was about once he had read something for school. And, if Michael could not tell her, then she made him reread it till he could. But the trouble was not in either the reading or the comprehension but in the distraction that the exercise introduced to his brain. Just as the youth might slide from the melody of a song he intended to learn of someone else’s into his own “thing” some years later, so, too, as an even younger reader, Michael found himself triggered by what he read so that he often detoured into his own ideas or stories. (His eyes may have been on the page; but his mind was captivated not by the story he was reading but by the one he imagined to write.) So, he didn’t become a great “learner” of guitar; but he did become a proficient songwriter. Likewise, though a continuous reader, he found himself writing more novels than he read (which is contrary to many writers’ practice, it would seem) so that he created his own “voice” within the telling of his tales. Making his home just south of “Nash-vegas” Michael DR (“the doctor”) McInnis continues to write and record music, play in bands, fantasize about soundtracks, storylines, and movie pitches while engrossing himself over the latest book or CD he has acquired or gawking at some picture or reading some write-up concerning a Classic-model guitar (such as a Gibson or a Fender, a Gretsch or a Hamer) or an amplifier (Marshall or Fender or Hiwatt). He and “Nurse” McInnis have a happy co-existence in their rural paradise, dreaming and writing.

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Copyright © 2022 by MDR McInnis.

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

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Rev. date: 06/22/2022

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Prologue

I. I am just a Boy

Chapter 1 innocence

Chapter 2 stardust and vermin

Chapter 3 pantas and gods

Chapter 4 better angels

II. Dark Light

Chapter 5 the shroud

Chapter 6 furious horn. ghost with eyes

III. A World without Heroes

Chapter 7 contemplation

Chapter 8 number the heroes with cross-stakes

Chapter 9 fractured shards

IIII. Only You

Chapter 10 conviction

V. Loneliness Will Haunt You

Chapter 11 to see the vexing

Chapter 12 silent cries

Chapter 13 emberous hues

VI. You’re Not Well

Chapter 14 no vincere finis, ne a

Chapter 15 daemons, angels, and kingdoms of scorn

Chapter 16 of girls and sons

VII. Future Unveiling

Chapter 17 The Elder and the Fire Of Unknown Origin

Chapter 18 strange magick

Chapter 19 preparations

VIII. Once Upon . . . Not Yet

Chapter 20 odyssey

BOOK ONE

DEDICATION

To my brother Jeff Dodson and his devoted wife Kim; to Jacqueline and Pearson; to the memories of my mother and father, Geraldine and Ronald Dodson, and my brother Brian—all whom I miss dearly, whose presence remains in the pages that I write; to the bands and the music and the cinema which inspires the amalgam acting as my muse; to my family and friends—the names too numerous to list.

PROLOGUE

The mountain spire rose high and pierced the circle of the moon as it stood post over the expansive valley below. Littered with flickering campfires here and yon, the flatland looked like the decorations seen at holiday in ages past—from the vantage of the eagles’ nests of Brandiwood or the owls’ roost in the forest of Loudermont—with their red-and-orange embers ornamenting the landscape. The self-gathered bands of men and boys making up the Rosarian Union assembled together around the carefully manicured blazes, ate guarded rations, talked of home and family, praised today and plotted tomorrow, or else tried to find rest. Garlands of smoke rose from the individual companies throughout the field and into the clear nighttime sky, like ropes of cotton pulled from a loom in strings and in handfuls, as the stars above winked behind clouds to mirror the face of the earth below somewhat.

At once, the campfires served to divide the troops into smaller companies. But they also gave warning to the feral wolves, howling in the distance and scavenging, and the mountain cats, tracking and tracing, and both doing so for food or for sport. Additionally, the individual bonfires served to ward against the want of some wandering serpent looking for warm company against the chill of the springtime night. These cold-blooded creatures moved through the tall dewy grasses that overlaid the rutted, ruinous stage floor of the natural theatre existing in the midst of the peering rock walls of the mountains that framed the area at either end. And into unsanctioned territory, these snakes stealthily crossed the tracks caused by horses and carts and carriages—most of which were produced by the other side, being well-armed and fitly appropriated in opposition to the woesome lot forming the army of the Union on this end of the vale. (Many a boy shook a viper from his wadded bundle in the night only to expire later in a sweat-drenched slumber caused from the uninvited companionship of an red asp.)

Wearing tattered clothing and footwear held together by farmer’s twine, with metal clasps found in the field and fashioned for such purposes, the militia, made of villagers and towners, struck an odd contrast to the dark-clad battalions gathered around their own night fires, waiting for sunlight to break when they could commence in their game of war. These other men wore uniforms of black leather with metal the color of oiled steel and were hired and financed by the island king known as Lord Black—the man who insisted on carrying out these wars here, away from his kingdom, and perpetually as if he wished to rid the mainland of Zander of its remaining good men, and for reasons which only he knew.

The night would have appeared still in this intermission for the illegitimate troop trying to recuperate from the long and wearisome day, too, if it wasn’t for the heaviness that hanged in the Vale of Monroe as a shroud—ever hanging—or like the canvas of a trap curtain (the kind of pall that protected the cargo in the ships, land away, coming across the Sea of Gandling and into the harbor of the mainland). These shipments, arriving constantly at the port of Rhats Fjord, and far-off from the battlefield, fed the beast of the Black Knights, the so-dubbed force of the Dark Lord. These allocations were pulled into the arena from the commercial inlet flanked by mountainous wings frequently so that the hired band of Lord Black could be restocked and sufficiently supplied. Pulled from the harbor through the marshes and forests buffering the inland, and away from coastal pirates, these came all the way from Broods Island, across the oceanic moat that surrounded the palace of the island monarch, to the well-fed and conditioned warriors in the field while the Union soldiers, on the other side, were made to wait for homemade things sent to them by missionaries and emissaries—a thing that took a great deal of time—or else they were made to scrounge for whatever provisions they could (which were usually less than ideal). Anticipation. Weariness and exhaustion were usually their allotment, however. Alongside the often emptiness of their bellies, the feeling of anxiety over the never-ending dogged the boys on the lower end till they churned dread in their guts as a substitute for adequate food. And sometimes the only distraction from this aching was the loud, boisterous carousing of the men in black across the field, away from them, as their echoes moved along the valley floor and the noise of their drunken celebrations careened into the mountainous wall in back of the Union and reverberated whilst the boys and men, huddling in fixed, tiny platoons—sipping puddle water filtered through their shirts when necessary, eating wild rodents, locusts, and whatever they could find—prayed to rest.

The Raiders—as the offensive army had been called from of old—were rugged and war-worn. Battle fit them like the hide of their uniforms: comfortable and like a second skin. In contrast, on the other side, the hairless faces of boys outnumbered the rugged, worry-trenched visages of men. And though there were scores in the village militia—made up of males from every direction in Zanderland, from the coast land to the forest thick, from north to south—the assemblage of the youths who constituted the Union beggared the number of grown men four to one. And while aged, weathered skin was not apparent on the boys as it was on their elders, mud and dirt camouflaged their exposed appendages and made them all look the same, uniform, and comparable—at least as to being one army together rather than as individuals in a collection of forced recruits—to the dark horde that opposed them in the vale. And as much as the filth provided impotent armour to the Union’s clothing, it aged the boys’ appearances and secreted their innocence behind it like masks while also hiding their existence in the dark so that only the whites of their eyes made any real presence in the shadows. (Like alien orbs hovering above the ground, the eyes of boys—and of men—danced in the dark while the light of the fire reflected from the glassy eggs. But to the unsuspecting—if a soldier had been roused from his attempt at haggard sleep, alerted by some noise like from a broken twig or a clinking anklet or the worry of a slithering visitor, and turned to see—the floating eyes might appear to be a vision of some approaching ghost or beast or dreaded thing, or else a harbinger to fearful souls that the Grim Reaper was visiting, moving through their camp, looking for names, and thus warning him beware. A boy in such an state might even be caused to draw his sword in defense and shout in curses, waking those around him, till the possessor of the tiny hovering globes came into enough light that the affronted could see that it was only a comrade and not some foe—bestial, human, or extraterrestrial—and then withdraw his blade. It’s only me, a familiar voice might say to the relief of the disturbed.)

The army of the Black Knights, though, lingered in the vale. Looking like a black cloud on the horizon similar to the ominous threat of a thunderstorm, they created a game where—for days perhaps—they wouldn’t even advance but would remain in place, in camp, and without care to push. It was a storm they liked to play with, a sport akin to the atmospheric version that occurred in the form of a rainy season in the valley, producing days and days and days of torrential outbursts but only after looming and loitering for days and days and days of menacing over the arena in a stalled formation—a mocking that never seemed to dissipate once it arrived—but persisting and taunting, terrorizing and ridiculing those watching, waiting for its strike, and wishing for finality one way or the other, even while giving the boys time to retreat to the holes in the mountains or else the cover of the forest wood. Likewise, the Raiders maintained their intimidation by virtue—virtue?—of their presence, except that they didn’t give the Union days and days and days of warning. No. And, once started, they continued forthwith and with persistence despite the surprising opposition that the landsmen, who slogged faithfully in the ongoing fight, posed. And theses savages pummeled the dead too. It wasn’t enough to kill a man. They must send him to Hades skull-less.

But there were losses on each side. Yes. Despite the uneven match. The well-cammed troopers, with supplied armaments and coats, sustained their own losses even at the hands of the ill-equipped ragtag band they faced—to their astonishment. And monuments in the field verified the Union’s small victories in the leather-clad bodies that had been collected and piled out of the way (the same which were artfully and daringly stolen from by bands of boys under the veil of night, looking for clothes or weapons). Still, Lord Black’s army tried to plough the courageous militia into the mountains at the southern end. If he couldn’t bring them to their knees, he would crush them on their heels!

But the Rosarians fought for something. It gave them determination, if not energy. While the Knights were paid for their barbarity, the boys in the valley of Monroe fought for the future—not theirs but for those back home. And when they had the time, late, late at night, when the fighting had stopped, between dusk and dawn, when men were but moving shadows and untrustworthy to offend, or when they were holed up during the storms or were waiting for the Black Knights to get the notion to resume their charge, the boys would think about what was important, about their lonesome mothers and siblings, their towns and communities, and them all going on without them somewhere a ways from the vale. Family mattered. Home mattered. And they mattered enough to defend. Die on your feet or live on your knees!

But the boys were hardened beyond tears now—except for those who had just joined the valley campaign and could still remember the smell of their mother’s cooking; the softness of the mats of their beds; the freshness of laundered clothing; dry feet; the carelessness of boyish play, games, and whatnot; and the luxury of carelessness altogether. (These boys whimpered like children half their ages for their first month in the field, though. But none around them begrudged them this when they heard their cries above the whispers of the wind at night in the open as they mourned privately in their bundles. None of the rest saw these boys as diminished soldiers—they would all fight despite tears and blubbering snot. And die, they would, child or man. And survive they would, if in spite of the same. And it’s true: all of the troopers in the Union, each and every one, had done this very thing when they first got to the valley. They had been but boys after all, pulled from the innocent hearths of their mothers or loved ones and into the bog of forced manhood and burden.) And while the older ones were still boys, they were calloused by duty. The novices would become so too. In time. And if they were lucky to survive long enough, they’d become the elders to other greenies. And luckier, still, they would live to be old men, past their time in the field. And luckiest of all, they might not die in their youth in the valley only to have to wait to be buried in their old age back home, but would live to tell… and tell. (Boys didn’t stay boys for very long out here. And those who survived the Psychic Wars may only do so in body. Far more men left the valley as dead men walking, corpses outliving their souls, than ones who found satisfaction in their return.)

Still, youths from every township and shire went into the valley. And they would go—were made to go—either by honor or debt. But no boy ever came out of it. No. Only men.

I

I am just a Boy

CHAPTER 1

innocence

Mah! Asa gasped for air as he awakened from a tortured night. The morning sun peeked softly in the window, barely rousing itself above the horizon of Sharon, as the wide-eyed boy, bolted upright in bed, tried to escape his dreams. They were growing more and more vivid and multitudinous lately—his mind, in them, flitting from one entrapment to the next to the next after, till the boy was caught in a vortex of overwhelming images which swamped Asa’s rest so that he awakened without the benefit of his repose. For they always made him feel haggard and worn—wearied and drained—and inexplicably odd. However, with all that he saw in them when they occurred, the boy struggled to keep the components intact long enough after waking to review any of them beyond bits and pieces. But even that was becoming easier with the frequency by which they were entertaining him. His sister Dharma had cautioned Asa about his overactive imagination; but it was hard to restrain one possessed of a twelve-year-old boy, especially when living in a world embroiled in wars (and with tales of them circulating in the whispers around the child) perpetually—if indeed this was the cause of the visitations. But there was more than enough going on around Asa that could feed the boy’s mind with ponderances without him having to exercise any imagination to conjure such nocturnal vexations.

As he stirred, Asa thought about the boys who were somewhere in the vale, waking in the dewy grass from a sleep not unlike his own—if they were able to sleep at all—yet, themselves, being threatened with more than an inventive stimulation of any sort, would have had to keep a watchful eye against adversaries who might creep into camp to assassinate them in their unconscious huddles. Something Asa too would come to know in the by, he supposed.

The boy looked across the room to his little brother, Hanley, and stared briefly at him, barricading dread for his youngest sibling behind an expressionless façade. The toddler and his older sister were still sound asleep, devoid of the dreams that rattle nerves and impinge upon whatever solace one might find these days; and, thankfully, the two were blissfully unaware—and would remain so—for a season.

After examining the peaceful tyke and noting the boy’s safety, Asa flung his legs over the edge of his bed. He hesitated there for a moment as he raked the corners of his eyes with his fingernails. And then, finally amassing the wherewithal to rise, he pushed up from his berth to get dressed. Flashes of color darted through his mind. Familiar but unidentifiable voices hanged in the recesses as he tried to recall what he had seen and heard in his sleep even as he oriented himself steadily to his feet. He remained still like a monument near his bed for a moment longer, looking down at his hand and envisioning a sword in it. (He would surely take one someday.) But as he inspected the grip of his soft fist, the boy considered the agility it would require to handle such a weapon deftly. And then, in a single motion—as if slicing a blade through the air—whipping his hand over his head, Asa flung his gown from his slender body and, there in the tiny room, faced his foes without repentance of bravery. THIS is imagination, Asa thought, answering his elder sister’s charges against the boy’s dreams. But what he saw in the night was not the invention of an overactive mind in a pubescent—it was something else. Something he didn’t have any part in.

Having dressed, and tucking his nightshirt under his blanket and, therefore, out of sight—as Dharma was apt to remind him to do when he forgot—Asa ambled to the cottage’s only other room where his mother and sister were fixing breakfast.

Asa, we need water, said the elder sibling as the boy staggered into the room, the girl not even allowing Asa long enough to recover from his sleep before making the demand. Dharma and Abigail had already been up for some time, sewing, cleaning, repairing, and so forth—the things that the women of Sharon did. In her mind, there was no reason that a boy should be so long in the morning. No one need tell her, the girl reckoned, as she continued with her occupation.

But ignoring Dharma’s petition, Asa went up to his enchanting mother. Good morning, Mum, the boy croaked through a scratchy throat as he kissed the busy woman on the cheek—he always kissed his mother. Darling Asa, Abigail responded, acknowledging her elder boy even as she continued with her busyness.

Asa dropped himself into the worn wooden chair at their table, evidently wearied by the journey from the back room to the front; but Dharma wouldn’t let the boy rest.

No kisses for me? asked his sister. Asa offered only a rejecting look instead. Undaunted, Dharma barked again, not being misdirected by the lack of her brother’s affection. "We need water. Go."

The boy rolled his eyes at her insistence, but he forced himself out of the wicker-laced seat he had just taken relief in and went outside. He knew that there was no sense in either trying to dissuade his sister or trying to appeal to his mother for exemption—Abigail always deferred to her capable firstborn, if not wholly agreeing altogether with the girl not even three full years the boy’s senior.

Asa retrieved a bucket from the corner of the stoop near the home’s only door. He yawned with stiffness and began his short trek toward the spring located down at the bottom of the slope, just off from the right side of their hovel. And he stumbled along the way, partially out of his lingering sleepiness and the other part out of his loathing of the mundane. But the slippery footing, caused by the morning droplets settled on the clover petals at the eclipse of the knoll, served to jolt him to full animation as the boy nearly lost his balance just before reaching the fresh pool where he would dip his pail.

As Asa bent over the grassy tufts that bordered the fount—and trying to keep from submerging his tattered shoe in the effort—he caught his reflection in the stillness of the water. The sunshine, sprinkling through the limbs of the trees, sat upon the surface of the creek. Like a pane of glass decorated with gold gilding, the water appeared to present the boy’s returned image in a frame. Asa stared at his own big blue eyes, set a bit wide, and lingered for a moment. His family owned no mirror, so each referenced their self by one another or from other available means such as through plates or pans of water and the like—if one needed that kind of reference. For, there wasn’t much call to concern themselves with things of that sort in Sharon where Asa and his family lived—and certainly not for a boy his age. But Asa would take the glimpse every once in a while, anyway, to try and determine what others might see when they looked at him. Did he look like his father? Would he grow up to be like his father? Asa tried to imagine himself as a man; but all that he ever saw while looking at the face looking back at him was a boy. And if he was indeed man of the house, he was no man at all. And he knew that he was no more in charge of it than Hanley was. But at least, for Hanley’s sake, he didn’t know it. Asa spit into the water and watched it ripple across his reflection as if he was trying to erase the reminder.

The boy edged closer and dropped the container into the cool spring. He watched as the water rushed into the bucket as if powerless to refuse; and then he brought it up again, gushing, before straightening himself against its weight. And there, just as he was about to turn and to go back up the hill, Asa saw an image flash in the water, a thing that almost made him drop the full pail for being startled at the strangeness of it. His face, Asa recognized; but there were other things reflected in the water also—foreign and disconcerting. Just like in his dreams. Only he wasn’t asleep now. The boy wanted to examine it closer. But he blinked; and then, the vision was gone so that, when he looked again, only the tranquility of the water’s surface remained, albeit with a boy’s face—his face—framed in its calm. Asa stared for a moment. But finishing his rotation at the creek’s edge to go up the hill, the boy had only taken a single step before glancing back at the water, surveying one last time, hoping to catch another glimpse of whatever it was he’d seen. Yet there was nothing. But then, as if on cue and elected solely to draw the boy from his ponderances, Asa’s foot slid upon the soggy border, alerting him again to his task, and thereby shook the boy from his distraction. Thankfully, though, his heel dug into the mud and prevented him from toppling over into the spring under the weight of his burden (for Dharma would have certainly barked about the laundry it would have caused), and he was then able to maneuver out of the hole and overcome the immediate grade. Asa jabbed his muddy shoes into the high grass and leaned against the hill as he moved deliberately up it, going towards the house, lumbering along, with the water sloshing over the edge in a torrent until the content of the bucket was comfortable in its volume and would therefore remain inside. Still, he contemplated what he saw in the water as he went. The boy had seen something. This wasn’t a dream, and he wasn’t just imagining it.

When he got back to the cottage, Asa set the bucket on the counter inside their modest home and was met with the expressed gratitude of his mother even as she continued to work. But he was soon ambushed by Hanley and Gracie, who were now awake. They had been chasing each other in the front room in their childish play, but both of them immediately left their pursuits when they noticed Asa and ran to him. The littlest boy latched his arms around his brother’s leg and Gracie hugged Asa’s waist, for they loved him dearly. The elder boy returned the enthusiasm and began to wrestle the two wee ones until the three of them had fallen to the floor, forming a pile of arms and legs in the midst of laughter and squeals.

Gracie fixed herself atop Asa’s chest. Her chestnut-brown hair, accented by golden strands she doubtlessly inherited from Abigail, hung in tight curls over her brother like the hairy moss of the trees draping the waterhole from whence Asa had retrieved the bucket. The child leaned above the boy’s head and taunted him with her pungent morning breath, hissing and growling. You smell like a moo, said Asa, teasing the little girl in return and even mimicking the famed farm animal behind it. Asa enjoyed the play, but he also enjoyed the influence he had over his youngest sibling as Hanley united with Asa to toy with their sister. But this only goaded the targeted girl all the more as Gracie revealed her tiny gapped teeth in a snarl back at the older kid under her straddle.

But Hanley, seeing a better opportunity and forsaking Asa’s charge, switched sides and followed the lead of his sister, who seemed to be more in charge of the situation. He climbed along Asa’s sore and growing limbs like he was maneuvering along a felled tree in the woods in the gulley near their creek. (Asa was apt to complain, from time to time, about experiencing an unusual stiffness and a discomfort in his bones as if he was able to feel the very growth of his frame taking place. Abigail called these growing pains. But the boy doubted that this was the case; for if he was growing, Asa could not tell it—he was still just a boy; he still looked like just a boy.)

With the toddler joined to his bigger sister on top of Asa as if they were stuck together, Hanley leaned into Gracie’s back and anchored himself while the two hopped, heeling the boy in the side as if they had found a ride upon a travel animal. The bean-headed tyke with yellow brush crowning his pate drooled in his laughter, with his gaping, near-toothless amusement dripping to his brother’s shirt below him, before Asa rocked their saddles and ejected the children from his form. Once free, the bigger boy began to tickle the pair, and his efforts were accompanied by tortured giggles and squeals amidst the bucking thrusts and squirms of the young ones who feigned torment behind Asa’s targeted retaliation. And the boy continued so with the two, joyously, until their play was interrupted by their mother’s call to eat.

Abigail, though, was humoured by the lump in the floor and, therefore, interrupted her own occupation for a second to watch as the three disassembled. The woman enjoyed her family, and she welcomed respites of fun. But she was most glad, at the moment, for Asa who was finally able to laugh again.

Things had been difficult for the family for the last several years—certainly since Asa was old enough to be aware. And Abigail could imagine that her eldest boy had felt that it was cruelest on himself as all the boys made to be men seemed to wear it especially hard. Hanley and Gracie were too young to know, or to understand, the impact of the things that had happened before or of that which was ongoing. And Dharma—she was already grown. The girl had been beyond the bliss of childishness since she was just passed Gracie’s age. Therefore, she acted un-childlike and like a mother instead, yet, an unadulterated child herself. But Abigail had her own things too. Things she kept close to the breast—things that even Dharma was not permitted into.

So it was good for the mother of four to hear a moment of refrain from the tragic melody that chorused around the people in the community of Sharon and, indeed, the tiny family just this side of the prairie. The woman smiled as she watched the three kids unravel their human knot and retreat to the small kitchen table for breakfast.

§

After the morning meal, Asa and Dharma began their short walk to school; and Dharma, as was the custom, began one of her lectures on the way.

Asa, you need to mind your chores, said the girl. You should not need telling.

Asa took offense at his sister’s mild scolding. She was doing it more and more these days, and he resented it. You’re not my mother, he responded.

No. But Mum needs you to grow up, Dharma said as they walked along through the long hollow that overarched much of their path till they got to the clearing just outside of town. You can’t stay a child. It’s been hard on her since William died.

The boy locked his face into a scowl.

Don’t go and get mad, Asa. It’s not always about you. Mum tries to protect you, but she can’t tie you to her apron strings all of your life. It’s time to grow up.

Asa refused to say more as they went. Anything that he might have said would be rash now and regretful later on. So he walked in silence. His sister, however, continued to speak about this or that even without the boy’s involvement (like she needed only another set of ears for her conversation) as they entered the town square of Sharon.

Crossing the main thoroughfare, the youths passed into an alley which seemed to be situated as it was, and hidden, for the express intent of restricting distractions that might be generated from the lane to which all others intersected. Thereby, the location would aid against the disruption of the classes.

Overcoming the maze secluding their schools, Dharma headed right while Asa went straight in their parting (as the two, by gender, were taught in separate buildings). Have a good day, Asa, Dharma said.

The boy didn’t want to say anything because of his maintained pout, but he cherished his sister and therefore couldn’t deprive her of well-wishes. But all he could muster at the moment was As well before breaking off from her. And from here, the two went into their respective classes and would be separated for the whole day unless they happened to meet at recess. This arrangement was happiest for boys who loathed to be bothered with the presence of girls impinging on their childish play or for those, like Asa, who had a bossy sister that took every opportunity to grow them up. (Separating the sexes seemed to be a good idea to the boys, in general. The girls, however, might have had a different opinion.)

Once inside, Asa flopped himself into a chair at the long table made of walnut but nicked and pocked both from age and from careless boys.

At their usual desk today, Erasmus flanked Asa on the outermost right, which meant that Humphrey was posted immediately at his elbow. Asa would have avoided sitting next to him had he gotten to school earlier since the pulpish boy took the tendency to giggle and snort even at the slightest wheeze of Charles or at any other opportune stimulus found in the room. (Perhaps boys like this were the reason the leaders of the fair incorporation of Sharon deemed the isolation of the classrooms necessary?) And in his proclivity to be irritating, Humphrey often provoked the typically more-subdued Erasmus into his amusement, thus creating an accomplice. This could—and often did—gain momentum like a rock tumbling down a mountainside till it overtook the whole of the room (if there were no restraints interrupting so as to contain the kid with the auburn brush that held residence between the pinkish flaps he called ears).

The sickly looking Charles, though, sat on Asa’s left. He was a good friend—and Asa’s best, if anyone was recording it. Since the swarthy-eyed kid was also the boy’s oldest friend—and knew him from their earliest days at school—Charles was almost like a brother. And though the two played after class almost exclusively together, Asa was still good friends with everyone, in general, and did not restrict any from his conference or audience. Even the giggle-brothers next to him would join Asa and Charles in play; especially when a certain brand of childishness was needed and encouraged. But this happened outside the classroom. Inside, though, Asa wanted to be separated, by and large, from such divergences. (Not that he was the best student, but Asa did want to learn; and he meant to try and be respectful of their schoolmaster as well. And the boy certainly didn’t want Dharma to get wind of him being a miscreant—she would darn his ears to his pillow while he slept!)

There were a few holdouts, however, to the boy’s welcoming demeanor. A kid named Cornish, wearing a banded beret and a boater collar (meant to indicate something few cared to notice), together with his closest compatriots, was a bit standoffish to Asa and the others who favored him. Therefore, his gang made a sport of scoffing the lunacy of the clownishness they found and would generally respond adversely if they thought it was advantageous to do so. Looking for their own opportunities to be entertained, though, they especially sought excuses for which to press Asa and his friends. (However, it seemed that they targeted Asa more—and obviously so as everyone noticed how the boy was singled out by Cornish and the flankers in concert with him, those sycophants who followed blindly as if tethered to him, assuming the blondish kid to be someone of note.) Still, Asa ignored the intimidators the best that he could. He tried to like them upon his mother’s counsel: A body needs friends and not enemies. Or You find many allies at your elbows but very few under your heels. Asa reminded himself that these boys were just amusing themselves (as people in Sharon had need of distraction from their ongoing dearth of happiness and against reasons to consider that they could never be fully happy). So the bullying tactics of the kid in the fancy bonnet, with his friends, were little more than that, Asa was made to consider: they were not personal inflictions as much as mere diversions. But at times, the insisted resistance of Cornish pushed even the good-natured boy from the prairie to the end of what he could tolerate, and Asa would deign to retaliate. Thankfully, those times were rare.

The room, occupied by boys, bubbled with chatter as the classmates began to liven from their morning clouds of past slumber. And Humphrey did his best to encourage everyone’s vitality as he took the chalk from its ledge under the blackboard. He broke the cylindrical rock into two pieces and stuck a shard into either nostril and growled before the small assembly of boys like a sabre-toothed tiger. Lord Hartland was not yet in the room to reprimand him, and so the boy felt no restraint as he was being egged on by the youths whose bodies were now coursing with energy—a thing that should pose them a disadvantage once class commenced and they were bound to the drudgery of schoolwork and constrained feet.

The freckled kid with a broom-tree head of red hair wolfed before the chalkboard like some tormented animal singing a love song to its feline counterpart, and Erasmus slid cautiously behind Humphrey during his serenade. Asa and Charles, and those with them in the room, watched both boys with anticipation. And as the ginger piped and crooned, his best friend wearing, perpetually, a skullcap with ear flaps and himself looking ironically the scholar, snuck up and jerked Humphrey’s trousers down to expose the boy before his classmates. The room erupted into laughter while the offended student took the opportunity to capitalize on the situation. He happily turned around and presented his rubbery bum, crowned with baby fat; and he squeezed the halves like he was testing melons at market and displaying them before his audience for their inspection. And just as the defrocked boy was taking the applause with a ceremonious bow, Lord Hartland entered the room behind him. The jester raised himself unwittingly to find that the grey-bearded schoolmaster had been standing over him when the boy was dangling his orangish wiry mop over his feet. Hartland was amused, though, as he had seen this for every year of his educational life—and indeed even as a boy himself. This sort of thing was endemic to the amusement of boys, he knew. But the teacher maintained a taut purse of the lips, as it would be expected that the man should, and he ordered the boy to adorn his pinkish display with cover and then to find his seat. The other classmates, though, needed no direction as the teacher’s glare alone quieted the audium in the room. Humphrey’s grin waxed cold as he hid his boyishness behind the canvas of his trousers and pulled at the waistband. However, the kid didn’t take the time to fix himself properly before leaving center stage—wanting to leave the spectacle as quickly as he could—so that, even his attempt at orienting his crooked dress while hobbling to the long desk to take his seat alongside his host, Erasmus, pricked at the very amusement of the classroom of boys. Nevertheless, they minded their expressions here and stored their reviling for later—for a more-accepting environ, when they could undo the boy who had been undone.

Without wasting any more time, the greyed educator launched himself forthwith into a torturous lecture as the boys labored to maintain interest, having been swelled beyond the bounds of acceptable constraints by Humphrey’s opening address. All of them, it seemed, but Asa. He was enthralled by Hartland; for the man struck an impressive presence of which the boy admired. Men were in want—especially those who could be worthy of admiring—since the wars had ravaged the towns and communities of its strongest and best soldiers. And not only in Sharon but also in the whole of the land. All that remained—all those males who could be referenced and counted, it appeared—were those who were unfit, undesirable, or yet unwilling; for, there would be a mandate upon the male population—except, of course, for the permissible concessions where leaders of the towns were either men of means or veterans who were fixed at their heads in necessity, those men whose services were required for the various communities if only to maintain commerce and existence in the threats that the local areas ever faced in the perpetuity of the wars engaging the world. And Hartland, among those, was such an one in Sharon. And aside from those men of renown, the rest of them—if they were not themselves fighting on the battlefield or suffering wounds thereof—would have been suspect besides; and the eyes of passers would betray their skepticism, for all were expected to sacrifice and to own their duty. There was little pity and concession offered a male who would not serve.

As a warrior himself in battle, Lord Hartland, now with the baton at the head of the boys’ school, was a rare survivor of the Psychic Wars that were carried out largely in the Vale of Monroe, northeast of Sharon. He had seen legions of boys and men rise and fall in the valley. He had seen the apparent peace of diplomacy—as much as one can assume when bargaining with terrorists—unravel into escalating demands of violence coming from the Black Veil Raiders, that gang and army that raged against the land in his day. And despite the many evolutions and iterations of this group over time, the constant blood-thirst of the savages, raping, killing, pillaging and plundering continued for themselves, when they weren’t marketed for war by the highest bidder; and their latest purchase seemed to be from the darkest, cruelest personality of them all, from one known simply as Lord Black (to indicate the pit from which he obviously originated, no doubt). Hartland, though, had fought with the brave against their aggression and had served his community, and the Union representing the communities, well. Afterwards, though, he was blessed to return in whole even when others had not found such consolation to return in part, if at all. But he was aging; and with his seniority, the man had become more useful to the Future with his books than with his sword. He was an educator now—the shaper of minds, the molder of destinies, the inspirer of ambition, and the intentional distractor from woe. His duties now lie with the instruction of boys, both to teach them and to act as a shield for them against impending demands that will certainly be made of the innocent faces. And by virtue of the era of the schoolmaster’s birth and subsequent age, Hartland had, in that, also avoided the War of Wars—the greatest of all the wars that any group serving in the vale had ever known. As such, this particular sexmensis of the Psychic Wars was deemed simply the War in common reference because of the way in which it ended. (Most battles continued throughout the year until the weather dictated lulls or intermissions; and then, afterwards, the offenses would resume. But the War ended without such natural imposition but with the most tragic of circumstances; therefore, this anomalous event was one which no one spoke of or whispered about—or at least, not in any detail and certainly not in public or before impressionable ears such as would be found in Hartland’s classroom of boys.) The Psychic Wars, on their own, were difficult to survive; and if one did, life afterwards was nearly impossible to persevere through for the thoughts and flashes and nightmares ever after. Most did not survive to old age without laying hand to their own retired swords to finish the duty left undone by the battles themselves. (It was a pitiful statistic; those who escaped alive barely escaped to live.) But the War was unique in its torture and aftermath to that of all the other battles in the wars; and Hartland was thankful that he had expired his strength long before its occurrence and, in consequence, had avoided it. However, he felt a debt of sadness and shame as well because of that very fact. It was something to be thankful for: surviving the wars. But it was also something that was met with a certain bitterness because of the feeling that one had cheated death when his comrades had so sacrificed. Therefore, Hartland held his service close and hidden (for this and for other reasons which he spent many sleepless nights pondering upon). But Asa knew none of it. All that the boy perceived was that the lord at the front of the classroom was a wise and good man, one to be honored and one deserving attendance to. Therefore, Asa sat reverently as if listening to a sage.

§

As the morning progressed, a few of the students had to be called into consciousness, as on other days before. The beaner—the boy appointed to post near the headmaster and given the duty to thump dry beans at those boys who would dare attempt either to sleep during the lecture or to choose distraction rather than attention—had to be a studious youth. In an age long past, this was the given responsibility of an older boy. But most of the older boys now—and certainly all of those whose years had eclipsed their educational pursuits—had since been called to service elsewhere in the vale to fight alongside the men. The classrooms were, therefore, now deficient of many nearing the age of fifteen. Because of this lack, a boy of impressive academics was often chosen to sit beside the teacher and appointed the task of beaning. And this day, Asa was chosen. He would have preferred not to have been chosen, however. For the one thing, he wanted to see Lord Hartland and to listen to the tutor’s address unencumbered, without having to watch his classmates. (He found it odd, too, that the one who is studious must, himself, then be distracted from the lecture by an appointment whereby he must reprimand those who were not inclined to be diligent and, thus, be forced to be so against their distractions. Ironies, the boy thought. He wanted to listen but could not for the boys he had to correct who did not want to listen.) But for another reason, Asa resisted the assignment: he did not want to be in charge or, even less, to confront an errant friend in transgression; for the role of an aggressive opponent was not easy to his nature. He would prefer not to argue, not to fight, and he certainly didn’t want to be made to be the instigator of such a confrontation. He would live quietly—as quietly as one could in Sharon. And he would have no more war if he could help it. The world had seen enough of that already. He could be happy without such conflicts. But Hartland called him to the front, the boy’s wishes aside, and Asa left his seat beside Charles and took the sturdy chair near the schoolmaster’s station.

As Hartland launched into his prepared and well-rehearsed course, Asa took the bag of beans responsibly into his possession; but he kept the drawstring tight as he held it in guard on his lap as if he intended to avoid any need for a launch. As Hartland proceeded, though, it was no surprise that the first to require a bean was Humphrey. The boy seemed to have a fascination with his nose this day, and he stuck his fingers in them and wallowed his fattish probes around in the twin orifices—those openings, perhaps, having been irritated by the chalk dust from his earlier display. And meaning to cause revulsion, Humphrey then terrorized Charles, sitting to his left, with that which he extracted from the cavities. Charles winced, only adding false evidence to his delicate countenance, and contracted himself as if he might retch. But those boys in the classroom, those who took note of Humphrey’s ill-mannered exploits, broke the unfettered silence attending the lecturer at the front while the man, with his determined cadence, marched through his lesson despite the intrusion. The snickers and guffaws peppered the classroom air as commonly as exhaled boredom and thereby challenged Lord Hartland’s discourse. Nevertheless, the teacher continued; and so with the boys, so again with the instruction in the seeming tug-of-war between the two parties. But, and when, he could finally ignore it no longer, the schoolmaster looked over to Asa (for to indicate the need for the beaner’s intervention). The boy had been watching the classroom bubble without exacting retribution; but now he perceived Hartland’s gaze from his periphery and therefore glanced over behind him just in time to catch Hartland’s attention. The lecturer urged the student with his eyes to do his duty but did not forsake his progress in teaching even while calling his student to it. So, reluctantly, Asa pulled a hardened pellet from the sack in his lap and beaned Humphrey (who, having quitted Charles, was now in Erasmus’ face and moving his mouth at the boy as if he was chewing something, churning something, yet without making a sound, not wanting to alert Lord Mas. The kid with the flap-eared, leathern head cover was unflappable, though, in this instance and ignored the mimed feeding which only encouraged the auburn-haired boy all the more). Again, Asa had to bean his comical friend as his first signal went unnoticed—or at least unacknowledged. But his aim was truer this time, and he thumped it quite hard. And with this second one, the infringing boy, feeling the missile—albeit with a delayed impression thereof—subsequently turned from Erasmus’ stony disregard and Charles’ squeamish expression as if he himself had been startled (but not as if he had been darted). Magically alerted to his transgression, Humphrey resumed attention desirous of the master. All the boys, then after, hushed themselves behind the corrected student, fearing being made a target—even if it was but a dried bean—and class was restored to a modicum of order. The sniggers broke off one by one suddenly, like soldiers falling on the front lines. Then, the modest confinement housing the boys, dark as it was without the benefit of windows but well-lit with lanterns, had no intruder or adversary competing with the teacher’s booming strain when Hartland was again allowed his preeminence.

As the period continued, though, Asa again had to lob beans at this one or that, for this thing or for that. And while it was all incidental, each time a bean was thumped, it made a telling noise as it hit the floor, or bounced from a desk, or else was intercepted by an opposing wall. The beans, therefore, became as much a distraction—Asa thought—as the distractions themselves. But he continued with his duty nonetheless. And though the boy would still have preferred to be at the desk with the others, he was becoming somewhat comfortable with the task that he was appointed this day. Asa also knew that tomorrow Hartland would select another boy; and then, he could listen to the educator himself and not be sitting where everyone was looking at him.

But it was among those transgressors who took naps at their desks following the boys’ break for lunch (which Asa found to be leftover biscuit and a strip of pork wrapped in flax, saved for him by Dharma and offered by her at recess) that Cornish’s disregard also had to be apprehended by a targeting bean from Asa’s bag, the mouth of which was now duly open and prepared without reservation.

Cornish jerked from the tabletop and away from the pool collected at the corner of his mouth, between the desk and his face, saturating the bodice of his high-neck ruff. A couple of boys, seeing this, snickered. And of course, Humphrey used the rattle of the ricocheted bean as an excuse—if he needed one—to release his own concentration away from the lecturer as he turned to see Cornish and his slobbered countenance. Humphrey chuckled as the bonneted kid with the nap-swollen visage raised himself, wiping his chin with the back of his hand and shunning his embarrassment while he pretended not to notice the eyes locked in his direction. But the disruption only drew the demand for another rock from the beaner’s sack; and this one, delivered to the side of Humphrey’s dome, miraculously discovered an opening in the boy’s fuzzy mop and clipped his ear. (Asa had lobbed it especially hard this time, intentionally, finding some game in it now. And the boy grinned somewhat—trying to be discreet in his glee but enjoying his success, watching in his own full distraction, with the words that Lord Hartland labored to broadcast having been reduced to a rumble in the background of Asa’s attention.) Humphrey pinched the lobe to anesthetize it from the bite of the slug and manufactured a scowl as he turned in his chair to face the front again without another reminder. Cornish, though, did not take this for sport but pierced holes in Asa with his eyes. And he did this more because of the humiliation than for the intrusion. The boy didn’t like anyone laughing at him—even for something as innocent as a classroom reprimand. Mocking touched a nerve. And taking the signal, Asa looked down and acted as if he had not noticed the focus of the disruption still sizzling in the room with the whispers and grins of many of the boys while hoping, foolishly, that Cornish wouldn’t know the identity of his assailant and the cause of his mates’ crackling. But Asa felt Cornish’s gaze even though he avoided it till Asa was forced to remove his eyes completely from the offended kid’s ability to seize his vision. He hid by staring over his shoulder down towards Hartland’s feet, as if he was listening to the master, and concentrated on a particular point the educator had launched into if only to avoid the lashings reflected in Cornish’s face. Eventually, though, Asa was looking at no one at all. Lord Hartland continued his lesson at the board, moving as necessary behind the boy’s posting, but without taking notice—or making reference—to any of the exchanges among the classmates. But persistently, Cornish maintained his glare towards the beaner’s seat, waiting for an intersection of the eyes; for he had something to indicate to the boy at the head of the classroom. And he aimed to make a point (one which Lord Hartland had not broached).

After school, Asa met his sister and they walked home together. He was over his sulk concerning her scolding that morning. He knew that she was right; he did need to be more responsible—at least for his mother’s sake (whom he loved greatly). But it was easier for Asa to sink into the morass of the persistent mood of ambivalence that swept through Sharon than to try and overcome it. It was a difficult time. And, besides, he was just a boy.

The plague of uncertainty exhausted the whole of the land, and it was undeniably vexing; but no one knew how to end it, much less to ameliorate it. The wars had gone on for so long. One army up. The same, down. The next army up. The same, likewise. It became normal—if wars could ever be accepted as normal—to find no end to them. But the escalating failure to apprehend final victory, and the ascending decline of the communities rent asunder and vacated as its natural accompaniment, became the expected. Whole towns had been driven from existence by death or departure from the threats. The Raiders made their intentions known and took their opportunities well past the arena of war even while they elicited the rancor of the enlisted in the theatre of the overlooking hars capped with snow and sitting safely out of harm’s way but watching the contests below nonetheless. And there were none in the towns who could offer any real means to resist it. There were, then, but few respites from the reality of it all—and that by only glorious fits of innocence—and most of those were attributable to manufactured ignorance and distraction. And Asa clung to those. If he could have articulated it to Dharma (who dogged him on his tenderness), he would have told the girl that it was partially out of his felt need to hold on to childlike ignorance that kept the boy irresponsible. The other part—as it is true of all boys—is that Asa was a kid and didn’t want to be responsible. Even their game of swords—if they were now allowed to play at them as other generations had so enjoyed—even that was play. And it was in the nature of boys to be at play. Responsibility is for girls and mothers, it seemed. Finally, if Asa could have seized his fears enough to acknowledge its existence, he would additionally have to admit that growing up also meant growing old enough to go to war, to leave Sharon, to leave his family, and to go to the vale where it was unlikely that he would return in whole or in part.

As Asa and his sister came to the boundary of their homestead, they watched Abigail hanging clothes upon the limbs of trees and doing the laundry. Hanley was playing with a salamander he spotted on a rock even as he chewed on a huge wheat muffin held in one of his hands between his little fat fingers. And Gracie, uncaring of the boy’s impish serpent at the moment, danced in circles before him, drawing a short piece of twine through the air as she whirled about with the sun’s rays pushing through the white nightgown she hadn’t changed from all the day and wore still. Upon arrival, Dharma rescued the salamander from Hanley’s torture as she took the boy and his prancing sibling inside to clean their faces before starting the evening meal. Afterwards, the two newly-scrubbed children would find their play indoors, chattering and humming and chasing each other around in the tiny hovel as the family would be all assembled together and safe.

Feeling a bit guilty, though, Asa went up to his mother as she continued to hang the clothes to dry. Mum, I’m sorry, the boy said, introducing his regret.

For what, Asa?

For… you know, not being a better… you know? he shrugged, hoping that she would understand what he meant.

Darling Asa, Abigail said (as she was apt to call the boy), don’t fret yourself. You are just as you should be, she told him, wanting to comfort her son.

But Dharma— he began but then hesitated, not really meaning to have his mother draw sides.

Your sister—she’s very demanding, you may think? Abigail said as she clutched Asa’s face in her clean, laundry-wrinkled hands.

The boy nodded, signaling his agreement.

She’s scared, Asa.

But he didn’t know what that meant. How being bossy was connected at all with being scared, Asa couldn’t figure. The boy’s face revealed his confusion as he looked back at his mother.

"The way that fear is dealt with is different for everyone. With some, the distress is obvious. They look scared. With others, they laugh and cheer to cover their fright, but inside, they are a fit of nerves. Then, some run from it. Some hide. Ignore. But then, some deal with fear by taking—or asserting—control wherever they can, trying to hold on to that one thing that they can keep within their possession. That’s your sister’s way. Dharma is simply meaning to protect us."

Abigail draped her arms down Asa’s back and latched her hands behind him, drawing the boy into herself. It’s her fear, said the woman, speaking directly into Asa’s ear during their embrace but looking away towards the vale as if she was having thoughts of her own. "And by trying to be in charge, she is trying to control the only things she feels she has power to. Don’t begrudge her for it. She loves us. She loves you, Asa," the woman said as she squeezed her eldest boy.

I know, Mum, but—

"I know," Abigail said as she pushed herself from her son