Chapter Seven

When the Whispering Fades

Leven stood in the middle of an abandoned shack. It was the largest of three shacks clustered together, partially hidden behind a run of fantrum trees, on the side of a wide dirt road somewhere near the bottom of the island of Alder. The shack’s red fabric curtains and gold roping made Leven feel as if he were a prop standing in the middle of some poorly funded Arabian movie. The shack was built over a large square of stone ground. Inside, the floor was covered with thick, dusty rugs and plush roven hides. Thanks to Leven, there was now a small fire burning in a round pit to the side, the smoke from the fire dancing up and out into the dark sky as the flames sang softly.

Leven’s on Alder, now we shall see

If while on Alder he’ll reach the tree.

Leven stared at the fire, and it began singing about something else.

There was nobody else inside any of the shacks. But once inside, it would have been hard not to feel comfortable. It seemed as if the whole of Foo had washed away and there was nothing but the safety and warmth of the shack.

In the center of the largest shack, hanging on a thick wooden beam above a small sink, was a square mirror. Leven gazed into that square and marveled at what he saw. He reached out and touched his own reflection, his pointer finger tracing the flat image of his gold right eye.

“I’m old,” Leven whispered. He shivered and pulled his robe up tighter around his wide shoulders.

Of course, to the boy who had been fourteen not too many weeks ago, anything over seventeen was old. Everything Leven had experienced since swimming into Foo had caused him to grow at a tremendous rate. His body was now hovering somewhere between ages eighteen and twenty.

Leven studied his reflection. His face was fuller and his chin more defined. The ears that had seemed too big on him were considerably more fitting; they were also hidden behind the long, dark strands of his hair, which curled slightly. The few freckles Leven had once sported had long since dissolved like raw sugar in milk, leaving his skin clear and unspotted.

“I look like a man,” Leven said.

Leven stared into his own eyes and marveled at all the things he had seen with them in the last few weeks. He had seen his life in Reality disappear and the realm of Foo grow up around him. He had seen a host of unimaginable creatures and beings flood into his life. He had seen his grandmother taken away from him by the gunt. He had seen Geth change from a toothpick to a man. He had seen his grandfather selfishly pass on to him the mantle of the Want before dying in his arms. Leven’s eyes had seen the dreams of his own father, a father he had long thought dead. Leven had also seen Winter change from a girl to a woman.

Leven’s thoughts warmed.

Winter was far different from the unsure child who had first found him at his school not too many weeks ago. Leven caught his breath. He could feel his emotions and soul catching up to the rapid growth of his body.

Leven pushed his hair back behind his ears and sighed. The sigh was as heavy and significant as any air he had ever released before.

Through the walls of the shack, Leven could still hear the Dearth whispering from patches of distant soil. Ever since Leven had returned from fighting the Dearth, his head had been filled with the incessant hissing and beckoning of his enemy. The hissing sounded wounded and forlorn, as if Leven had hurt the Dearth and the Dearth now mourned his absence. Leven put his palms up over his ears and growled to himself. He dropped his hands and breathed in deeply.

“I’m not sure I can do this,” he whispered, telling himself the secret. His reflection just stared back, looking sad.

Leven shook his head and turned the wooden spigot above the sink. He pushed his hands into the cold flowing water and washed them in the small basin beneath the mirror. He dried his hands, pulled back his hair, and tried to listen better to the wailing of the Dearth. Leven’s one long white streak of hair slipped from his hold and hung loosely in front of his right ear. He sighed and watched it happen in the mirror.

“You’re quite handsome,” Clover said casually.

Leven jumped slightly. “I thought you were checking out the other shacks,” he said.

Clover materialized on Leven’s left shoulder. He wore his small purple robe, the hood of it folded back. He was crouched and smiling innocently. His large, leaf-shaped ears fluttered and his small, hairless face scrunched as he sniffed and then blinked. The hair on the rest of his body was long and clean and he vaguely smelled of corn chips.

“I was in the far shack,” Clover admitted. “But it’s not as warm as this. Why are you staring at yourself?”

“Nothing, really,” Leven answered. “I guess I just can’t believe how old I am.”

“Everybody ages,” Clover waved. “Maybe you should try some cream or something.”

“Not that kind of old,” Leven laughed, shallow dimples appearing like grey smudges on his cheeks. “I was fourteen, and now? Well, I don’t exactly look fourteen any longer, do I?”

“I’m not good with ages.”

“It’s like I skipped five years of my life,” Leven explained.

“What you’ve been through this last little bit was not skipping,” Clover said defensively. “You just got a whole lot of living crammed into a short bit.”

“I know,” Leven agreed. “And now look at me—I look old.”

“You look like Leven,” Clover pointed out. “Besides, how can you see anything? It’s so dark in here.”

“Not to me,” Leven whispered reverently. “I can see the dreams everywhere.”

“Really?”

“Everywhere,” Leven insisted. He reached out his arms and brushed through the darkness. “I can feel the hopes and sadness of thousands of dreams. They feel like tiny pins. Look.” Leven clenched his right fist and grasped a spongy string of light. The dream glowed softly in his grasp like a limp glow stick. Leven pulled on the light with his left hand and stretched it like taffy. The elongated image of a small wooden boat blushed like a radiant tattoo.

Clover pointed at the bugs covering the boat. “Sarus,” he said. “They’re carpeting the whole thing.”

“Dreams are being destroyed already,” Leven whispered. “All of them are tainted with bits and pieces of the Dearth.”

“How?” Clover asked. “Has the Dearth already gotten through? I mean, the sarus are already there?”

Leven stared at the image in the dream, brushed away the bugs, and cleared the image. He left Clover’s question hanging and went to work on a strong dream filled with tall, dark humans throwing sticks and stars. Had Clover thought about it, however, he might have remembered the day he carelessly let a single sarus slip from his void while he was still in Reality. He might have also felt some pride and deep dread over the fact that his mistake was now helping to wreak havoc on hundreds of thousands of people and dreams. The single sarus Clover had set free had now multiplied into millions of bugs and was speeding up the destruction of dreams.

A wounded hissing floated lightly through the air.

“Can you tell if anyone is dreaming about me?” Clover asked in hushed tones.

Leven let go of the dreams he was holding and smiled. “Anyone in particular?” he asked.

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” Clover said, his blue eyes glowing softly. “I’m just wondering if one of the many things I have met in my life is now dreaming about me.”

“Things?”

“You know,” Clover said, closing his eyes and fading. “Things . . . people, stuff.”

“Stuff like Lilly?”

Leven couldn’t see Clover, but he could feel him shiver as he hung onto Leven’s right arm. A weak whispering floated through the air.

“I need to speak to someone,” Leven said suddenly.

“Who?” Clover asked, confused. “Jeffery?”

“Who’s Jeffery?” Leven smiled.

“That guy with the limp and the really tight pants?” Clover said snidely. “I mean, come on, move up a size.”

“Not Jeffery.”

Leven stepped from the large shack, pushing the splintery door open and letting the deep gray of an oncoming morning swirl around him. Alder felt different from the rest of Foo. It seemed like there was more oxygen, and the air was more moist.

The ground was rumbling slightly, the whole of Foo unstable and unsteady. Besides oxygen and moisture, the air was filled with emotional Lore Coils of different strengths and volumes. Leven could hear the words Alderam Degarus faintly drifting all around him, and he knew each one he heard represented the frightened and passionate concern of some poor sycophant somewhere.

Clover materialized.

“I should have kept my thoughts to myself,” Leven whispered, thinking back to the night the Dearth had pulled the secret from his mind.

“That was a pretty big mistake,” Clover admitted.

“Thanks.”

Leven walked a hundred feet over and stopped and stared down at the dirt on the edge of the island. The ground shivered like an old refrigerator with a tired motor. Leven could see spots of deep, dark swirls in the dirt where dreams were blocked by the presence of the Dearth.

Leven stared at the ground. Then, as if it were only natural, the weight of early morning seemed to push him down onto his knees. Leven knelt on the ground, fighting the urge to lean forward. His body felt like a heavy eyelid that insisted on closing. Leven bent forward and his face pushed down into the soil. He opened his eyes, expecting dirt to fill his view—instead the soil seemed to lighten. Like on an old TV slowly warming up, he began to see fuzzy images and warped definition beneath the ground.

“Wow,” Leven whispered. His eyes swept the sand, taking in roots and rocks and long-buried objects. He could see an underground river flowing miles away and a colony of three-armed tharms digging a long tunnel off in the direction of the Swollen Forest. He could also see beneath the Lime Sea, and then, like a flip of a light switch, Leven’s view beneath the soil was as focused and clear as staring at a mountain landscape on a cloudless day.

“I can see everything,” Leven mumbled.

Leven’s life was tumbling and shaping at such a rapid pace he could barely keep up with the changes. Ever since last night, when he had wrestled with and sliced the Dearth in half, he could feel new gifts working their way into his being. He knew that as the Want he could possess multiple gifts, but he was surprised by how quickly they were now coming on. He felt like he was a giant magnet and the abilities were being drawn to him.

As Leven stared into the dirt, he saw a sea of darkness a few feet beneath the surface. The blackness stretched out as far as he could see, and it was wriggling like a serpent away from the spot where he now knelt.

Leven thrust his hand deep into a square of dark dirt. He moaned and clenched the bits of black with his hand. He yanked upward hard, pulling a thick strand of the Dearth out of the dirt. The ooze stretched out and melted in his palm. It pushed through his fingers and dripped down his arm. Leven pulled the blackness up and stood. He stared at the tarlike substance in his hand and on his wrist.

“That’s real nice,” Clover said, disgusted.

“I can hear you,” Leven said to the muck, the gold from his eyes lighting up the strand of Dearth. “I know your head’s miles away, but I can hear you whispering.”

The black ooze hissed.

“I’m not the same person anymore,” Leven explained to the goop on his hand.

The dirt sizzled.

“If you push through to Reality, I’ll have to stop you,” Leven growled.

The black gunk in Leven’s right fist bubbled, and dozens of small, dark faces swelled like boils. The multiple faces whined and screamed in anger and agony.

Leven squeezed the muck and it popped from his hand and wriggled back into the dirt and away. Leven reached down and pulled out more. It too slithered and pulled, trying to escape his grasp.

“He’s trying to get away,” Leven said. “Pulling out of Foo.”

The ooze burped.

“Ugly and no manners,” Clover observed. “He doesn’t have a whole lot going for him.”

The tar dripping down Leven’s arm hissed and whistled. Dozens of tiny, agonized faces swelled like zits in the muck. Collectively the faces began to hiss. They screamed, popped, and then withered. Leven stared at the black mess of Dearth he held. The glare of his gold eyes lit the ooze up from the inside out.

Leven pulled at the blackness and twisted it up like a stubborn root. With his left hand he yanked up more of the Dearth from the ground and tore at it. The strings of sticky evil pulled between his fingers as if he were a child playing with mud.

Leven could feel how long and stretched out the Dearth was. He knew he reached beneath the soil in all directions, slithering to an escape. The tiny faces in the black ooze began to laugh and snort.

Leven’s throat constricted. He coughed twice and could feel his lungs expanding.

“Are you okay?” Clover asked, patting him on the back.

Leven stood tall and then, as if he knew exactly what he was doing, he breathed out. Thin flames leapt from Leven’s mouth and wrapped around the ooze of the Dearth. The tiny faces melted and screamed as the fire turned them to ash. Leven watched the fire race down the black strings and extinguish itself against the ground. He closed his mouth and placed his hand over his lips.

“Wow,” Leven whispered, a weak wisp of smoke escaping from behind his hand. “I can breathe fire.”

Clover materialized on Leven’s left shoulder. “That’s one way to wash up—pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Leven agreed.

“You look dazed,” Clover said.

Leven shook his head, “I’m fine. But the gifts seem to be growing. I woke up last night and couldn’t see the bottom half of me. A few minutes later the rest of me materialized.”

“Nice,” Clover said.

“Plus I can see under the soil,” Leven continued. “And just now I breathed fire.”

“You shouldn’t brag,” Clover said jealously.

“I’m not bragging. In fact, I can’t decide whether I’m confused or amazed. All I know is that the Dearth’s moving out and we’re stuck here on this island.”

“We could eat something,” Clover suggested.

“The world’s ending and you want to eat?”

“Maybe just dessert.”

Leven’s shoulders flexed as he stood up taller and smiled. The white T-shirt he wore stretched across his chest tightly.

“What?” Clover said defensively. “It could be like a portable dessert. Like an ice-cream cone or a splotch-sicle.”

“Maybe we should hike to the center of this island and find that tree,” Leven suggested.

“I guess,” Clover said reluctantly.

Leven reached out his arm, and Clover twisted around it and onto his head.

“Then,” Leven said, “maybe we can find some dessert.”

Clover disappeared and shivered contentedly for the next ten minutes.