IF: Gods and Monsters Read online

  The little winged creature sighed again. “There’s a man who’ll be looking for you. A very dangerous man indeed.”

  The Stranger grunted. “I’ve dealt with dangerous men before.”

  But Haberdash shook her head emphatically. “Not like this. Not like him.”

  “Who is he?” Etherie asked.

  “A dentist,” she said. Cole shuddered, completely involuntarily. He’d never had a cavity, thank goodness, but just the sound of the drills going to work in the rooms down the hall and the grunts of pain from the mouths they tore into were enough for him to know with complete certainty that a dentist was dangerous, all right. “Dr. Mandrill, his name is. Straight from the Nightmaring.”

  “I’m not worried about any dentist,” the Stranger replied.

  “You should be!” Haberdash cried. “Just listen to me! Before I was the Director of Tourism for the Boundary, I had another role. An important role. For over seventeen eons, I was the Tooth Fairy.”

  Willy perked up from the other side of the room. “I lost my tooth when I got here—gimme a dollar!” he shouted. He raced over and pulled open his lips, showing her the empty space where the baby tooth had been. “Money!” He held his hand out and made grabby motions.

  Haberdash placed a tender hand to her heart and smiled sadly. “So precious.” She wiped tears from her eyes and pinched Willy on the cheek. “There’s a dulcet in the jar under my bed.”

  Willy turned and sprinted across the room. He had no idea what a dulcet was, but he was pretty excited about having one. He dove under the bed and resurfaced with an old clay jar. He pulled the cork out of the top and plunged a hand into the pot. It came out holding what looked like a little globe of smoke. “You’re wonderful,” the smoke said in a gentle, pleasing voice. Then it broke free of its spherical shape, formed itself into a pair of smoky lips, kissed Willy on the forehead, then evaporated into the air. Willy stared blankly at the now-empty air.

  “What the heck was that?” he demanded.

  “A dulcet. It’s a high form of currency around here.”

  Willy tossed the clay jar and grumbled to his feet. “That’s not a dollar,” he muttered. “That’s awful.”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” Etherie gushed. “A genuine affirmation is worth more than anything all the world’s money can buy.”

  “Such sweet children,” Haberdash cooed, smiling at Etherie. “I do miss being the Tooth Fairy. I loved that job.” She began to cry again.

  “Why’d you leave it?” asked Cole, the boy who didn’t believe in Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or leprechauns, speaking to a spritely, pot-bellied creature with wings about why she had stopped being the Tooth Fairy. If his dad were here, his brain would have hemorrhaged with delight.

  “I didn’t want to quit. I was made to quit.”

  “By this dentist,” the Stranger said. Haberdash nodded.

  “Yes, by the dentist. He came to me one night, just as I was returning from the real world. I’d never met him before, never even heard of him at that point. But there he was, sitting in my office, sitting at my desk, in my chair, like he owned the place. ‘Hand over the teeth, please,’ he said. Just like that. No introduction, no nothing. Just, ‘Hand over the teeth.’”

  “What did he want a bunch of old teeth for?” Emma asked shyly. She hadn’t let go of Cole’s hand, despite the fact that it was beginning to sweat from the warmth.

  “For dark deeds,” Haberdash whispered. “But I told him I didn’t have any teeth. How could I? You can’t carry things into the Boundarylands from the real world, everyone knows that.”

  That caught Cole’s attention. “Of course you can” he said. “We’re here.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that myself,” the fairy admitted. “I can’t imagine how you made it across the border without dissolving into a trillion pieces of static. That’s what happens when you try to bring something over.”

  “It’s ’cause of their IFs,” the Stranger said, lighting his cheroot and leaning back against the wall. “They stayed back in the real world. They tether the children.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Haberdash said suspiciously.

  The cowboy shrugged. “Wasn’t really sure it’d work myself. But here we are.” He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his greasy, dirty blond hair. “What dark deeds has this dentist got in mind?”

  “Well…an army, I suppose you’d call it. He brought the idea with him from the Nightmaring. From what I gather, it works like this; he has a…a…I don’t know, some sort of magic potion, this purple liquid; he carries it with him in a vial. He sprinkles a little on the dirt, lets it sit for a bit, then he plants a tooth in that soil —a human tooth, mind you, a real human tooth. An imaginary tooth won’t work, he made that quite clear. And once it’s planted…” Haberdash hesitated.

  “Go on,” said the cowboy.

  “But the children,” she whispered.

  “They need to know what they’re up against. Keep going.”

  Haberdash frowned. “The tooth grows.”

  “Grows?” Willy asked. He trotted back over to the group and sat down at Haberdash’s feet. “Grows into what?”

  The fairy shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “This is only speculation, now, mind you, it’s never actually been done. But supposedly—supposedly—the teeth grow into gallows trees. Tall, ghastly trees made of bone that grow branches, like regular trees do, but these branches bear odd fruit They sprout huge eggs, each one the size of a house, and made of bone. You crack them open, and a…a creature emerges. A creature that—well, the description isn’t very pleasant,” she finished hurriedly.

  The Stranger drew deeply from his cigarillo, lost in thought. “What’s so special about human teeth? Why not regular imaginary teeth?”

  Haberdash shook her head. “I don’t know. But I know it only works with real teeth. Or at least, the dentist is convinced that it does. When I told him I couldn’t carry teeth across the threshold, he—” She paused as she considered the children. Then she said quietly, “He did some awful things to me.”

  “He fired you?” Emma guessed.

  The fairy couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, dear, he did that, too. And I was reassigned here. This was before the current Royal held the throne, of course. Now, when someone loses a state position, well, it doesn’t go so easily for them.”

  “Waaaaait a minute,” Willy said, crossing his arms. “You’re saying there’s no Tooth Fairy now?”

  Emma gasped. She stared at Haberdash with wide eyes. “No Tooth Fairy?” she whispered, horrified.

  “No, no, there is a Tooth Fairy. A new one. Only…he’s not from around here.”

  The Nightmaring, Cole thought. The new Tooth Fairy is a nightmare. An icy hand closed over his spine, and a chill shivered through his bones.

  “Dr. Mandrill is sure to learn that there are real children here,” Haberdash said. “He has spies everywhere. He probably already knows. And believe me when I say he’ll stop at nothing for a chance to pull their teeth right out of their heads. He’s clever; he’s dangerous.” She lowered her voice, leaned across the table, and whispered, “And he has the support of the Pinch.”

  The Stranger nodded slowly. A dangerous man was one thing; a dangerous man backed by the Pinch was another thing altogether, especially since the Royal was out for their blood. The fact remained that, Broken or no Broken, their only way out of the Boundarylands led them straight into that particular lion’s den.

  “Anything else you can tell us?” the Stranger asked, setting his hat back on his head.

  Haberdash shook her head sadly. “Just watch out for him. And for the Tooth Fairy, if you come across his path. Neither of them is any good.”

  “Fair enough.” He made a twirling gesture with his finger. “Let’s go. First we get Polly. Then we deal with the Pinch.�
�

  Haberdash grabbed the chalk out of her pocket and followed the group outside. The wind was picking up; it blew hard enough now to whip Etherie’s long hair into a beehive around her face. “Good time to be leaving,” Haberdash observed. “I don’t know where exactly in Reaper’s Gulch this will drop you, but it’ll get you into that imagining, at least.”

  “We’re obliged,” said the Stranger.

  Cole cocked his head. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Haberdash bit her bottom lip nervously. “Ah...I don’t think I’d better. I have a replicator to replace, and brochures to print and…and…well, I’d just better not.”

  She’s scared, Cole realized. Scared at the thought of running into this dentist again. He swatted at a leaf that had gotten caught in his hair. The wind was really howling now.

  “This place generally susceptible to quick changes in weather?” the cowboy asked with a frown.

  “No. Never, actually,” Haberdash frowned. The entire group was being pelted with dead leaves now, blown far across the plain from the Autumn Mountains on the horizon. “I don’t know what could be—”

  She was interrupted by a loud crack of lightning, followed by a roaring rumble of thunder. Cole craned his neck forward and strained his ears to hear over the locomotive squeal of the wind. The thunder wasn’t just thundering. It was saying something. It sounded like…like…

  “Math,” he whispered aloud.

  If a is equal to one, then a times b equals b, the storm whispered on the wind. If a triangle is a right triangle, then a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared. If p and q are bi-conditional, then p cannot exist as separate from q. If f is the direct result of d, then d exists in conjunction with f. The truth-value of p in conjunction with q is false except if both p and q are true. If n has a value of greater than two, then for no three positive integers does a to the power of n plus b to the power of n equal c to the power of n.

  “Does anyone else hear that?” Cole asked nervously. The storm was near raging now, the wind whipping so hard that Etherie, thin as she was, was forced backward by the powerful gusts. There was no rain, but plenty of thunder and lightning, and the sky over the Autumn Mountains had turned a blackish-purple color. Whatever the wind was carrying, it was bearing down fast.

  “It’s a logical storm!” the Stranger yelled over the sound of the wind. “Fairy! Draw the gate, now!”

  Haberdash fell to the ground and began tracing a line on the ground. With the wind barreling through the prairie, it was difficult to connect a finished line in the blades of grass, but Haberdash sketched roughly over the ground until she made a full and complete line. Even so, the chalk didn’t crackle with its electric blue light as she drew. The line simply lay there, flat, white, and dead. “It’s not working!” she cried.

  If a person is dreaming, then the person is asleep. The sum of two plus two will always be four. If the sun is shining, it is not night. Wet roads and rainy weather have a positive correlation. Winter does not exist concurrently with summer in the same geographic coordinates. If the cup is empty, there is nothing in the cup.

  “The logic’s too close!” the Stranger hollered into the wind. “We have to get out of the storm’s path!”

  There was a mighty rustling under the howl of the wind. The children turned to the horizon and watched in fascinated horror as a swirling purple vortex slammed into the Autumn Mountains from the far side, exploding the massive leaf piles outward. The leaves rushed toward them, a red, yellow, and orange tsunami carried on the wind. The Stranger grabbed Emma’s and Etherie’s hands and ran, pulling them along. “Move!” he shouted.

  Haberdash followed closely behind, ushering Willy along and pleading for Cole to follow. But Cole stood transfixed as the storm bore down on him, watching the wall of leaves speed toward him with the power of a locomotive.

  “Cole! Move!” the Stranger yelled.

  But he didn’t move. He couldn’t move.

  He barely even flinched when the wall of leaves slammed into him, surrounding him in a swirling curtain of dry, crackling fall leaves.

  Imagination, by its own definition, is not reality. Filmstrips are made of plastic, gelatin, and silver halide crystals. Lemonade stands do not represent a feasible business model. Dentists take the Hippocratic Oath. Once someone is known to you, he is no longer a stranger.

  The whispers of the purple vortex were true. They were logical. They made sense. Cole stood there, in an imaginary place, with imaginary people, facing imaginary threats, in search of an imaginary friend. But imagination wasn’t real. And no one really existed in a filmstrip.

  The Stranger pulled Etherie and Emma out to a safe distance, out of the logical storm’s path. Emma was crying, so Etherie slid one bony arm around her shoulders and held her close. Haberdash huffed and puffed to meet them, still pushing Willy ahead of her. “This should be far enough out,” the Stranger shouted over the rumble of thunder. “Draw your door.”

  “What about the boy?” the fairy cried.

  The Stranger gritted his teeth. “You draw. I’ll get him.”

  For once, there was real doubt in his voice.

  The purple twister was weaving its way across the plain, following behind the frantic storm of leaves. In its wake, the Stranger could now see, there was nothing but the Void, a long, exposed white ribbon trailing back to the horizon. The storm of logic was erasing every imaginary thing that it touched.

  “Cole!” the Stranger yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. But the boy either didn’t hear him, or else didn’t want to hear him. He stood his ground and faced the purple tornado, his hands balled tightly into fists at his side.

  The logical storm had found easy prey.

  The Stranger pushed his hat tighter onto his head to keep it from blowing away. He crouched down and crept closer to the boy. One brush from the vortex would send whatever piece of the imaginary cowboy it touched into the Void. That piece would be lost forever.

  But Cole knew the logical storm could not harm him. Or at least, he calculated that it could not. He was not imaginary. He was not illogical.

  He was not pretend.

  A voice deep inside of him wondered aloud if the tornado would carry him home. Would reason carry the reasonable to the real? Dorothy and Toto in reverse? It could happen. Or the storm could simply wipe away everything that was false and leave Cole and his classmates whole, uninjured, to awaken once again in the life that made sense. If that were true, it would be their ticket out, and they wouldn’t have to face the Royal to exit through the Pinch. And if the storm continued to rage, it would erase all the imaginary creatures, release them to the Void…it would erase Broken, and there would be nothing left there for Cole to apologize to, and nothing to apologize for.

  Nothing at all.

  The logic of the storm was so comforting…so simple, and so calculated, and so familiar. Logic brought with it extraordinary relief. It meant the end of confusion. The end of the exhaustion Cole was feeling from the mental gymnastics of trying to wrap his mind around floating islands and Tooth Fairies.

  He wondered if he should just let the storm take him. Let it ease his struggle and carry him back to reality.

  The Boundarylands cannot be located by Global Positioning Satellite. A sea’s waves break toward the shore. Even bully children grow up to be adults. The nature of imagination precludes reality.

  Cole held out his arms. He closed his eyes. He let the purple tornado of logic spin toward him. The whispers were louder now, louder than the roar of the wind. The truth filled his ears, flooded his brain, restored his soul. The storm gave him the answers he sought. The storm was the conveyor of truth.

  As it crept closer, spinning its reason and cleansing the Boundary, Cole heard his name being screamed at him across the wind. He opened one eye and peered off to the right. There sat the Stranger, crouching low to the ground, holding hi
s hat down on his head, willing to go no farther for fear—yes, genuine fear—of the storm that could erase him into the Void.

  Leaves and debris whirled around Cole as the twister slid closer and closer, spinning with intense ferocity as it loomed high above him with its dark purple force, the top lost in the thundering clouds. The wind screamed in Cole’s ears, but he could still hear the reasonable whisper below…

  This is the world of imagination. This place is not real.

  A huge leaf slapped into his face just then, covering his eyes. He reached up and pulled it down, and he was about to toss it aside when he realized that it wasn’t a leaf at all. It was a piece of paper. And there were words printed on it.

  Words that were familiar to him.

  Words that he’d read before.

  Because somehow, impossibly, irrationally, illogically, a page from his father’s book had found him in the Boundarylands.

  Prince Colemine stood before the dragon called Machloya, armed only with the Alchemist’s Broom, which was worse than useless now that the evil Grindel had drained it of its power, Cole read, his lips forming the words silently. But Machloya did not know the once-great tool had lost its magic. To the fiery, seething dragon, who had run up against its otherworldly force before, the broom was a thing of great awe. His belief made it real, to him, and that was the prince’s advantage.

  Cole looked up from the page. The purple tornado was close now, almost close enough to touch, still advancing as it whispered its truths.

  But suddenly, Cole realized, he understood something new about imagination.

  “My father made this real,” he called into the swirling vortex, holding the page of the book aloft. It was battered by the wind, but Cole held it tightly in his fist. “This was formed in his imagination, but now it’s a real, tangible thing. The book is real. The movie is real. People love this story, and that’s real. My father pulled this out of his imagination and made it real by sheer force of will.” The tornado continued to advance, though more slowly now. Cole took the paper, folded it neatly, and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Something doesn’t have to be logical to be real,” he realized aloud. “It just has to be real to someone.”