Out of the orange passageway inside the city’s secured walls, and across the pink stones that still contained the residue of Whisk-pey’s engraved footprints, was the dead zone. It was the forbidden place (which was off limits to Whisk-pey at least), the place where Bodolf and Fenris had captured the Canine girl before releasing her unexpectedly.
At this entryway there wasn’t an orange passageway, or a city inside protective walls, tree houses of all sorts that complimented the city’s beauty, or even a shrubbery of some kind, filled with flowers. But the image of that entryway was one of tall, half broken, red trees. At the bottom of the trees just under the high grass were the tree’s barks and limbs’ shedding.
Deep within the red trees, past the high grass, past the tree’s shedding was an expanse of black ground. Out of the black ground came obscure grass, grass that was the same color as the pine needles that protruded out of the ends of the tree’s leaves, grass of the same color as that of the facial hair that grew wild upon Bodolf’s face.
This was the dwelling of not just the distastefulness of the Dark Forest this was the Dark Forest in which Bodolf and his partner Fenris and all the Wolf-people lived. There were caves, more like huts built from the trees and the soil of the Dark Forest. Instead of a city, this place in which they lived, this Dark Forest was more like an ‘empty community’ of people, people that were under the leadership of Bodolf.
“I think you need to be harder on the people, boss!”
“Why should I be harder on our people? They haven’t done anything wrong. They are not our enemy.”
“Yes, but, boss, there is a sinister way about leadership that could really put a handle on those people that are running freely in our city, they need to feel your power and authority. You are the boss and they need to know that.” Fenris said, as they walked throughout their camp, giving out bottles of water to the ones who stood outside their dirt-made dens.
“Thank you, Bodolf,” He heard most of the Wolf-people say as they took the metal containers of water. Other drank the water right where they stood or if it were a child where he or she sat.
Fenris cut his slanted brown eyes first at the people then at Bodolf. “If you don’t mind me asking, boss, if you chose not to be this boss of what I am calling strength, then what will you be to these people?” he asked.
They stopped once they exited the Dark Forest.
“I am who I am; I am who I was created to be Fenris!” Bodolf’s voice changed from one of tolerant to a chilling whisper.
Fenris realized that he pushed the wrong button and backed away.
“And these people, my people, you and they will be ruled the way I see them to be ruled, Fenris!” Bodolf pulled him close to him by the rim of his collar sleeveless shirt. “But I think there is a better way, a way that we all can profit from, boss.” Bodolf’s grip loosened a bit for a moment. He caught himself when he realized that he was siding with Fenris’s suggestion.
“We have work to do. The people are hungry and they need to eat for the next few weeks, so I suggest that you do your duty, Fenris. We will speak of this at a later date, if you have an objection to my role as leader here.”
Fenris shook his head and walked to the stone and dirt-made facility at the back of the exit.
When Fenris walked in, he immediately slipped on an egg yolk.
“There was laughter from the chickens who sat in this facility and laid eggs. “Ha-ha-aha! We got you again, you sucka,” one of the chickens yelled out. Fenris got off the floor wiping egg yolk off his body.
“I am so tired of you, stupid chickens. Who is running this place today?” Fenris asked.
“Me!” The response came from the corner of the building.
“Can’t you at least keep this place clean since you’re not going to do any work?” Fenris yelled.
The woman who had the brown, slender face with the golden facial hair and short wide ear walked from her seat and to where Fenris was standing. In her hand was a gold nylon sack and in her other hand was an egg.
“I asked you a question can’t you give me an answer?” Fenris shouted as he tip-toed slowly forward so he wouldn’t slip on any other possible spills.
“If you would hold on a second till I get to you, then I can tell you why I haven’t cleaned up,” the Wolf lady replied in an even voice.
“Well, make it fast. I have deliveries to make and I don’t have time to wait on you,” Fenris replied harshly.
She gave him the huge bag, and then with one harsh swing, she smashed the egg she held in her other hand in Fenris’s face. The egg cracked and the yolk ran down his narrow face and down his sleeveless shirt until all of it ran onto the floor. “You want to know why I didn’t clean up? Because I don’t feel like it. You’re not my boss. Now, if you don’t want me to make you clean it up with your face I suggest you take that bag of deliveries and get out of here before I have a change of heart, Fenris!”
The only word that best described Fenris beside mad, was embarrassed. The chickens got a humongous laughed out of it and so did the young Wolf-woman who was attending the chicken house.
“Something has got to change. This is no way to treat a second in charge,” Fenris yelled, almost slipping on his way back to his compound. “If Bodolf doesn’t do something about this, then I will make sure something gets done about the mess that we have here,” Fenris said, walking to the site of the compound.
“Remember what we talked about earlier on our way here, Whisk-pey?” Gilma asked. “Of course I do. How could I forget?”
“Thought I would ask there isn’t anything wrong with asking right?” Whisk-pey didn’t respond, whatever Gilma wanted to talk about she wanted her to hurry up and get to it. All that she had been through that day was enough for her to skip dinner, put on her night clothes and go to sleep, but she wanted to know of her father’s fate and her mother’s enduring journey with her father in the storm.
“As you and I spoke about earlier, Whisk-pey, what you experienced in the Dark Forest has to stay in the Dark Forest. The reason being now with your father being injured, and revealing that you were there and the people there know not only you but know your family, will blow over. Please, be encouraged, Whisk-pey, and don’t give into what you think is right but give into what is actually right. Do not burden your father with what you discovered. Don’t worry; your heart will guide you!”
“Thank you, Gilma. I will remember that!”
“Good. Now go in there and get some dinner. You and that awful little character in your satchel need feeding,” Gilma said, as she flew away out of the city.
All Whisk-pey could think of were flashbacks of her being the temporary prisoner of Bodolf and the dork but seemingly cunning Fenris.
“This doesn’t make sense to me now. I’m curious. I want to know. I want to know everything,” she muttered under her breath.
“Hi, honey, I think the storm is long gone. I believe it is heading south but I could be wrong. I’m just glad that it is out of here though,” Kalite said, her small lips stretching into a smile.
“I think it has passed, too, Mom. How is Dad?”
“I think he has a sprained ankle. We will take him to the spring tomorrow. He will be fine tonight. Why don’t you go see him and wash up for dinner?”
“Okay, Mom,” Whisk-pey replied, hopping away in the direction of the bathroom. When she went into the bedroom to see her father, the bottom half of his leg all the way down to his ankle was wrapped up.
I thought Mom said that it was his ankle that was hurt. Dad wouldn’t be Dad if he didn’t over exaggerated things, Whisk-pey thought and giggled to herself.
Once in the bathroom, she peered in the mirror and saw what she has always saw for the last fourteen years: a beautiful Canine-girl that didn’t want to be like anyone else in her city. She wanted to be unique.
“It has to be more than this. I love it here in the Land of Make Believe, but all we ever hear is that the Dark Forest is bad and the Wolf-people who live there are bad too,” Whisk-pey whispered.
“So you think the people are good or something,” Ento said popping out through the opening of Whisk-pey’s satchel. “I hope not. Remember how they had you and I captured like we were prisoners or something?”
“Ento, you scared me!” Whisk-pey replied softly.
“And what have I told you about that loud talking?”
“I’m sorry; I didn’t know I was talking that loud!”
“Your voice carries, Ento. I been telling you this since I was like three years old. How could you forget that?”
Ento put on a sad face, his lips turned down and his all-encompassing eyes began to blink fast as if he was trying to stop the possibilities of any tears coming out of them.
When he realized that Whisk-pey was angry, Ento gathered up his feeling and went back inside Whisk-pey’s jacket. “Awh, come on, Ento, you don’t have to act like that. Besides don’t you want some of Mom’s cooking?”
There was a brief silence before Ento jumped out of the jacket.
“Well, then again, you’re right, I wouldn’t miss none of mama Kalite’s food for nothing. Take me to it!” Ento replied.
At the dinner table everything was the same. The food was placed on the wooden table, everyone got in their favorite seat, while Ento was made to sit and feast on the floor beside Whisk-pey. Amose said a prayer to their God of provision. What was different? It wasn’t the storm tearing up the city except the houses, it wasn’t the food, or Amose being hurt; it was all the same but what was apparently different was the way Amose ate his food then looked up at Whisk-pey.
“Are you okay, Amose?” Kalite asked.
“Yes, dear, I’m fine, how are you, my beautiful warrior of a daughter?”
Whisk-pey looked at her dad awkwardly then placed a piece of her dinner roll on Ento’s plate before she answered. “I’m fine, Dad. If you think the storm may have harmed me in some way, it didn’t. I feel perfectly okay.”
“I thought you were somewhere in the city but when I went to look for you, no one knew where you were. Did you venture off somewhere out of the city with Ento?”
“Dad, I understand that you had some kind of leg injury when you were out there in that storm. How are you feeling? Does it still hurt?” Whisk-pey asked.
“No, Whisk-pey, it doesn’t hurt. I think the medicine that your mother gave me, Red Flower Liquid, has me feeling a okay,” Amose replied.
“That’s good. I am happy to hear that,” Whisk-pey said.
“He got around okay out there, Whisk-pey,” Kalite said. “You should have seen your dad. He even cut out a small piece of the tree so we could have shelter until the storm had past.”
“Well, I tried and my efforts paid off. I will try to do anything for this family to protect them even if sometimes they want to venture out of the arms of protection. But if it calls for drastic measures then I will exercise drastic measures to get my family out of harm’s way. All they have to do is tell me if they are in harm’s way and I will….”
“Alright, Amose, what in the world are you trying to say?”
He’s trying to say in so many words, Whisk-pey, where on Land of Make Believe were you? Come on Kalite read between the lines! Ento thought.
“I’m not trying to say anything specific, but the food does taste really, really good, Kalite. You out did yourself on this one.”
“If it wasn’t for Gilma, I don’t know if I would have lived to outdo myself,” Kalite remarked.
“Oh, don’t say that. You would have survived, I’m sure.”
“Honey, is everything okay?” Kalite asked Whisk-pey.
“Mom, things are just fine,” she replied, taking another spoon-full of rice.
“You don’t seem like yourself, Whisk-pey. I mean you’re not talking like you use to and well, I was just wondering if everything is okay?”
“Yes, Mom, everything is okay, we just had a storm. I was in the storm. It could have done something bad to me and to the both of you, but we are here now. There is no more storm, so can we like cut out the crap about if I am alright?”
“Whisk-pey, that is no way to talk to your folks. Your mother just asked you a question and you gave us the answer.”
“Amose!” Kalite said.
“Well honey I’m just trying to be a father that’s all,” Amose replied.
Whisk-pey was doing all she could do to hold her tongue, but the more her father beat around the bush, the more she felt the need to tell him about her day.
“Whisk-pey, if you don’t mind, can I ask you a fast question and you won’t give me a hard time because I asked you?” Amose asked.
Ento jumped in her lap under the table.
“Yes, go ahead, Dad, but I can’t promise you anything,” she said. Both of her parents laughed and so did she for a brief moment, until Amose’s question was asked. “Were you in the city the whole entire time of the storm, darling?”
Before answering Whisk-pey paused and put him in his comfortable spot on her shoulder.
“Why does that matter, Dad? I’m not a prisoner. I shouldn’t be held here in my city, not able to go outside and explore things that I never seen before and shot my sling shot!”
“She has a point, Amose. She isn’t a prisoner. She should be able to leave sometimes.”
“Kalite, would you stop being an instigator and let me handle this?”
“Yes, and I’m not being an interrogator!”
“And I didn’t say interrogator. I said instigator,” Amose said.
“Instigator, interrogator they both are the same thing!” Kalite shook her head, while Ento laughed.
“I don’t want to upset you I just want to be aware of your well-being. You are part of me. You are my daughter and I want the best for the both of you!”
“So rather to tell the truth, I smell the burnt weeds of the Dark Forest on your clothes. I know you have been out of the city today.”
“Amose!” Kalite shouted.
“Let me handle this, I know what I’m doing.”
“So, are you going to tell the truth or am I going to have to take some of your recreation away from you and keep you away from Gilma?”
“Amose, don’t accuse her of something that you don’t know she did!” Kalite yelled.
“Did you go to the Dark Forest or did that Gilma, who I can’t tell from an owl or an eagle, fly you out there!” Now Amose was on his feet barely able to keep his balance. He didn’t hear Kalite’s angry yells for Amose to leave their daughter alone nor did he see the tears that were welling up in her eyes. All he saw was a daughter who he believed disobeyed his order never to go into the Dark Forest.
“Yes, yes I went there, Dad. I was there playing with my sling shot.” Then as if the room had heard a feather drop everything became instantly quiet.
“All I know is what you told me, Dad. What you told all of us here at Make Believe that the Dark Forest is bad and we are never to go there. If the Wolf-people are so bad, I wanted to see for myself. That’s why I went. Now are you happy that your daughter disobeyed you because she wanted to see something for herself?
“Now, if you don’t mind I’m going to my room. I’m not in the mood to eat anymore!”
Kalite gave Amose a look of disgust before she hurried behind Whisk-pey, but by the time she got to her bedroom door, Whisk-pey had shut and locked it. “Whisk-pey, darling, this is your mother. Open the door so I can talk to you!”
“No, go away, Mom. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now!”
“Whisk-pey, it’s your mother. It isn’t your dad. Maybe you should open up for her!” Ento whispered. Whisk-pey closed her eyes and cuffed her arms together in a fetal position.
“No, I don’t want to talk to either one of them, and if you insist that I talk to either one of them, Ento, I will put you out of my room and you won’t be able to come back ever again!”
“Gosh, your penalty doesn’t fit my crime, but you are the one who makes the rules. I’m sorry,” Ento said, cuddling right around her neck.
“I just want to speak for a moment, that’s all, Whisk-pey,” Kalite said, placing her triangle ear to the door. She wanted to hear whatever she could hear behind her daughter’s bedroom door.
“No! I don’t want to talk to you or Dad. I want to sleep and I don’t want you or Dad interrupting me, so please go away, now!” Whisk-pey’s voice spelled anger for not just how she felt but what she may say if the banging on her bedroom door continued.
“Okay, dear, if you want to sleep I won’t bother you. I am leaving now.” Kalite left but she didn’t leave without feeling a bit of anger herself.
“Amose, you didn’t have to speak to her like that. She is just a fourteen-year-old girl. She has feelings just like you and I do. Next time you need to have a little sympathy just like I had for you, when I was working on your leg.”
As if she wasn’t speaking to him, or as if she wasn’t there, Amose kept on eating. At one point he hobbled away from the table, walked to the counter where the blackberry pie was, cut himself a slice and walked back to the table and began eating it.
“You need to lighten up. The way you talk to those men who work for you is not the way you are supposed to talk to your daughter. Amose, are you listening to me or am I talking to myself?”
Amose burped rudely. “Are you finished yet, Kalite?”
“What do you mean am I finished? I want you to fix our hurting daughter back there!” Kalite yelled, standing by his chair, watching him and waiting for the explanation that she expected to hear from him, while he wolfed down the rest of his dinner.
She didn’t get the one she expected, but she got one. “It’s called growing up, Kalite. If she can go out learn how to shoot a sling shot, swim, jump from one of those fifty feet high mountains and land on her feet then she can listen and take heed to what her father has to say to her! Just as you know, just like all of us know, the Dark Forest is bad, the Wolf-people who lived there are bad, they have no dealings here and we have no dealings there!”
Now Amose was back on his feet. “All I have is the two of you. I have a duty to keep and that is to make sure that you and Whisk-pey are safe. And if she goes into a place that is not safe for her, then it’s my responsibility to make sure I tell her it isn’t safe. Let her do whatever she is doing in there. In the morning she will be fine, everything will be back to normal. But for now leave her alone, just as she told you.”
Kalite wanted to pop Amose one good one across his lips and thank him at the same time for what he said, but convinced herself that only one of those things would be sufficient. She chose one. “I thank you, Amose, for being concerned. You are really a good husband. Maybe I overreacted. Yes, the Dark Forest is bad and so are the Wolf-people and you not condoning her actions is what makes you a good father,” Kalite said.
“Trust me, Kalite, she will be fine in the morning. If we both stop to think for a moment how many times we have gotten on to our daughter and she has ran off to her bedroom mad and upset? That is what girls her age do. This is nothing new. Sleep is the perfect medicine. You will see in the morning she will be perfectly alright,” Amose said. “Come on sit with me, dear, and have a piece of your blackberry pie that you made for us, it’s good!”
She looked beside her a couple of feet away at Whisk-pey’s bedroom then back at Amose. “I think a piece of blackberry pie would be good!” When the evening was totally gone and the dark skies confirmed it, Amose and Kalite went to bed only seconds after she thought about trying one more time to see if her daughter would respond to her knocks. She will be alright in the morning. Leave her alone this is what girls her age do. That’s what kept Kalite from banging endlessly on her daughter’s door, trying to get her to talk. The night air was cool, but not cold as it entered Whisk-pey’s tree bark window. She wasn’t asleep. So Whisk-pey didn’t have to wake to the hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo sound of the breeze.
Ento was asleep beside her. But he woke up when Whisk-pey got up and walked to the open window.
“I was dreaming about blueberry plum pie. In the dream I had it all to myself, but I did share with you. What was so cool about the dream, Whisk-pey, was once I finished with one of those pies, Kalite made me another and another and another!”
“Shouldn’t you be asleep, Ento? I guess I’ll take the blame for that. Maybe all the tossing and turning I did woke you. If so I am sorry!”
“Oh come on, Whisk-pey, don’t be hard on yourself. Yeah the tossing and turning was kind of annoying!” Then he stopped when Whisk-pey gave him a strange look with a smile. “But it didn’t bother me. I was okay with it. Your tossing and turning wasn’t bad!”
“What does that look like to you, Ento?” Whisk-pey asked, looking away from the open window at her bed where Ento was.
“I don’t know but if I get up there where you are I may be able to tell you!” Ento jumped on her shoulder and together they peered out the window. “It looks like a lot of damage to me, Whisk-pey. What does it look like to you?”
“I mean up there in the sky, silly – those bright colorful things that are way up in the skies?”
“I’m not sure. Whatever they are, it’s the first time I ever seen them. You?” Ento asked.
“Yes, yes, it is the first time that I ever seen that, but it looks so cool, Ento.”
Ento didn’t reply. He knew what her curiosity was going to bring – not just to her but to him as well since they were inseparable friends.
“There’s only one way to find out what those colors are in our city, Ento!”
“I guess you want to see them up close, right?”
“You got it, Ento. You’re such a smart friend!”
How did I guess? Ento thought.