Aware Read online

  Tom didn’t care. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand a lot of what was said around him. He knew his name. And a few jokes. His last thought before dropping into a deep, dreamless sleep was, I wonder if it's summer now. Summer means ice cream at the Farm. Even if my name is Brownfield.

  Thomas Brownfield Edgington liked ice cream. And so he smiled in his sleep.

  * * * * *

  Kendra was running.

  The air whipped through hair at a speed she associated with hanging out a car window. Her heart pounded in her chest as she pushed harder, pumping her legs as fast as she could, willing more speed into them.

  It was unnerving. Running as fast as a speeding train.

  But she had to know.

  So she activated the fourth of the six dice she wore on a string around her neck.

  The countryside exploded around her. Trees and bushes flashed by her in a blur of indistinct green. The ground barely real beneath her feet.

  Must have been a six! she thought

  Her eyes were clear –eyes are never affected by these things, she thought – but the pressure of the wind against her cheeks was beginning to make her chilly. Even though it was a nice, warm summer day here in Bardonne’s Fields.

  Two more, she thought to herself. And so far, no ones.

  The day before, she’d marked trees with bright orange duct tape every quarter mile for ten miles. That had taken most of the morning, since she was also looking for a straight route that passed near all the marked trees but didn’t have any directly in her path.

  No surprises, she thought to herself. Well, none that will result in a concussion.

  Now she realized she wouldn’t be able to see the tape. She was already going too fast. She’d have to keep an eye out for the stream on her right which marked the ten mile point.

  She remembered getting Dotty set up with a stopwatch that morning.

  “Ready?” Kendra had asked.

  “Sure thing, boss,” replied the other woman. She looked to be about ten years older than Kendra’s nearly-sixteen. When Dotty wore her hair its “normal” length and color, she reminded Kendra of a surfer chick more than anything. Tan, blonde, lanky and loose in her movements. Sure of herself, but not cocky. Maybe a bit of a hippy… but not obnoxiously so, Kendra had thought more than once.

  Today, Dotty’s hair was, well… not normal. It was gone. She’d lost a bet. That happened a lot. Dotty loved to gamble, but wasn’t very good at it. She didn’t care. She seemed to get as much fun out of fulfilling debts as spending winnings.

  Which was why she didn’t resent working for Kendra as, essentially, a lab assistant.

  “It doesn’t have to be exact,” Kendra had told her. I just want an idea, within a minute or so, of how long it takes me to get there and back.”

  “Got it!” Dotty had said. Bib overalls, white t-shirt, no shoes. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she was a hick or country bumpkin. But Dotty knew more about a half dozen subjects than most PhD’s and was one of the world’s leading anthropological experts on small group dynamics.

  Cruising along after the fourth die had been activated, Kendra realized that she had no idea how much of the course was left. This was all very new to her. Better finish it up, then.

  A small burst of concentration, and the fifth of the dice flashed in her mind, adding to her speed yet again.

  Maybe a three? She thought. She really had no idea anymore. She didn’t even really know which side of the dice corresponded to the different effects, but she was clearly moving faster.

  The last one. She could see a break in the trees coming up. She was nearing the end of the course she’d marked for herself.

  She didn’t need to, but she reached up and touched the sixth red cube hanging around her neck as she released its Way.

  The forest disappeared behind her before she could notice it was gone. There was a brief flash of silver to her right where she thought the stream might be, but it was gone too fast for her to be sure. Though she felt her legs moving at the same rate they had since the beginning of this test, she now sensed that she was moving closer to the speed of an airplane than even a very fast car.

  This is worrisome, she thought. She’d given herself plenty of space to slow down and turn around based on a calculation that was, well… a bit of a wild-assed guess. Now the mountains at the edge of Bardonne’s Fields were approaching rather quickly and she had no idea what would happen when she got there.

  CB, the owner of Bardonne’s, had told her only, “Don’t go past the foothills. Whatever you do, don’t climb the mountains. And, seriously, don’t ever even think about going over them to the other side. It would be bad.”

  She remembered chuckling and asking, “Like ‘crossing the streams’ bad?”

  CB hadn’t smiled. He’d shook his head and said, “Just don’t.”

  So she’d given herself all kinds of wiggle room. But something had gone… well, not wrong. But “more.”

  That last push feels way bigger than six, she thought. She tried to start turning, but could only really do so at a “normal” rate. Which meant that while she was moving forward at some insane speed, she was turning in a circle a lot, lot wider than what she’d be able to do while running naturally.

  She concentrated… bearing down hard on her will. The mountains getting closer. She could see individual peaks and the trees at their base.

  Slowly… so slowly… the direction of her arc shifted and the mountains began passing by on her right. Good thing the forest doesn’t extend all the way to the foothills, she thought. Just grassland here, whipping by under her sneakers.

  But then she realized that while she’d bent her path to avoid running straight up into the mountains, she was still on a curving course that would, in just a little while, intersect with them at an angle. That is, she was moving faster than she could turn toward those tall, silver peaks. Like a car on an oval track with too much speed going through the corner. And I’m going to hit the guardrail.

  Unless I can hold on until the brakes kick in, she thought.

  She tried slowing to a jog and then a walk, but it didn’t help much. Her own effort was providing only a fraction of her velocity. And she didn’t dare actually stop pumping her legs. Vannia had been very explicit in her warning: “If you stop what you rolled against before the dice are done, they will become unhappy.”

  Kendra knew what a Chaos Way was capable of if you tried to renege on a bet in progress. “Unhappy” didn’t begin to sum up the consequences. She’d seen a man tear his own arm off at the shoulder trying to get rid of a coin that was holding him to a bet.

  Typical night at Bardonne’s, she thought as the mountains streaked by to her right, growing slightly closer with every breath.

  What worried her at the moment, though, was those trees. The edge of the meadow was in sight. A bit of scrub bush and then she’d be among the very tall, very solid trees that ringed the foothills.

  There’s no way I’ll be able to dodge around them, she thought.

  She pulled even harder to her left and maybe gained another ten seconds. Maybe not. Flowers underfoot now. She could feel them crunch a little differently than the grass. Trees closer. Even at this speed she could tell that they were evergreens of some kind.

  One of their branches, sticking out a little further, brushed her elbow.

  She closed her eyes, knowing that the impact would come at any moment. Hoping it would at least be relatively painless. Her heart in her throat, breathing fast even though her legs weren’t moving beyond a bare shuffle.

  She waited to die… the scent of the forest around her, the sound of wind in her ears.

  Then: nothing. No “smack” of girl-on-tree. No breaking bones. No crushing ricochet of an elbow shattered as she passed too close to the great trunks.

  She opened her eyes… And was amazed.

  Kendra was running on top of the trees. Each step landing perfectly on a branch. No effort or concentra
tion on her part, obviously, since she’d had her eyes closed. But the forest that had been churning beside her, ready to turn her into a bloody mess, was now holding her aloft.

  I should have guessed, she thought. Just like the Narrow Roads. You don’t worry about smacking into cars. The Way takes care of the details.

  She smiled, then, enjoying the view, pumping her legs a little faster, even. Feeling like a dervish or a phoenix, tearing around the periphery of this place at a speed she’d have dreamed impossible a few months before.

  Until her path took her even further to the right and the forest began to thin out. She was in the foothills, running on broken ground, now. Toes tapping the tops of rocks and then coming down on hard packed earth. The land rising to her right, and she along with it.

  A gentle slope at first, but she could see where the hills ended and the sheer sides of the mountains began.

  Whatever was beyond those hills? It was getting closer.

  What what what to do do do? She thought, her mind trying to outrace her feet.

  She felt herself begin to rise as the land beneath her tilted upward. She tried even harder to turn back to the left, back toward the forest and the plains, back toward Dotty and the starting line. Though she wasn’t even sure which direction that was anymore, she’d been running in a curve for so long.

  Her feet began to feel cold, and she realized she was running on snow.

  And then she felt eyes upon her.

  Kendra?

  The thought was as clear as a voice on the other end of a phone. She didn’t answer. Didn’t want to know who it was. Didn’t want to be found.

  Rough gray rock streaked by on her right. The cold was getting more pronounced, climbing up her legs as she slowly edged around and beside and up the incline at the base of the mountains bordering the “Otherwhere” that defined Bardonne’s Fields. She was level with the edge of what she thought of as “true mountains.” The place where the slope was no longer just an uphill hike, but a real climb. She wondered if the dice would let her ascend those rough rocks with the same grace as she’d felt on top of the trees she’d feared to crash into.

  She didn’t want to find out.

  Kendra? the voice asked again.

  This was a bad idea, she thought. Which is, of course, what CB and Dotty had both told her.

  * * * * *

  “What do you think, Parrot Girl?” Kendra asked her friend.

  “Do what thou wilt,” was how Vannia (her real name) had replied when Kendra explained the experiment she had in mind.

  “That’s a Mundane thing,” Dotty said. “Witches or gypsies or something.”

  Kendra shook her head. “It’s kind of neither. A version of the ‘Golden Rule’ called the ‘Wiccan Rede:’

  ‘Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill,

  An it harm none do what ye will.’”

  “What’s a Wiccan?” Vannia asked. They were in one of the back rooms at Bardonne’s eating chicken salad and Ritz crackers and listening to Jahar (one of the semi-regular musicians who played at the Sanctuary) tune his hurdy-gurdy.

  “It’s chronic religious stuff,” said Dotty. She was working on a sketch that Kendra couldn’t see because it used ink that she didn’t understand… yet.

  “It’s also good Reckoner sense,” said Vannia. “I never heard of Wickeds…”

  “Wiccans…”

  “Whatevens… but the idea of minding your own business is way older than them.”

  Getting back to her question, Kendra asked, “So it’s OK if I use more than one of the dice.”

  Vannia finished her sandwich and pushed back from the table, patting her belly.

  “Do. What. Thou. Wilt.”

  Over the past few weeks Kendra had sensed her friend becoming a bit… impatient… with all her questions. Even at her best, Vannia was a feckless, twitchy thing—which was only to be expected from a Child of Chance, Lady of the Fluid Court, Reckoner in the Domain of Chaos.

  Now, though… It was almost as if Vannia resented teaching anything to Kendra. Where, earlier, she’d seemed, if not eager, at least engaged.

  “So how many of the dang things you got, Bird Brain?” Kendra asked.

  Vannia rummaged around in a purse that Kendra knew was much larger on the inside than the outside. Accessories by TARDIS, she thought, for the umpteenth time.

  “Nine,” Vannia answered.

  “Can I have them all?”

  Vannia looked at her like she was drunk or an idiot.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re mine.”

  “I’ll give them back.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “They’re mine.”

  “So how many will you lend me?”

  “Hmmmm…. One.”

  Kendra shook her head. “I can’t do my experiment with one. I need at least three. Four would be better. All nine would be best.”

  Vannia made the I’m thinking hard scrunchy-face and said, “I’ll let them decide.”

  She rolled one of the stone dice on the table and it came up “6.”

  “OK. She said. I’ll loan you six. For the day. What’s the gamble?”

  Crap, thought Kendra. That’s right. There has to be a wager when you ask anything from Chaos.

  She thought for a moment, then replied, “I teach you something new about Chaos.”

  “Ha!” said Vannia, her large, green wings popping into existence for a second as if to punctuate her laugh. “Done! But if I win, if you don’t teach me something new… then you have to…”

  She waited as Vannia – who looked like nothing so much as the John Tenniel illustrations of Alice from Wonderland – thought through what Kendra assumed were increasingly unpleasant consequences.

  Finally, she held up a little finger. “If you can’t teach me something new about Chaos,” she said, “You must come with me to learn more of us yourself. To the Court. To meet the Red Brothers.”

  Vannia had made the invitation before. Several times. Kendra knew that Vannia wanted her to choose the Domain of Chaos for her own House. She also suspected that the rulers (or ruler) of Chaos, known always as the “Red Brothers” (regardless of gender or number) wanted that as well.

  Is it worth it? What the heck…

  “Done!” said Kendra, holding out her hand.

  Vannia shook it and took out a piece of twine from her bag. Whispering a short Way, she then strung six of the dice on the string through some of the pips that had become holes in the cubes for that purpose. As soon as the string was tied, the holes seemed to close up, making a necklace.

  “Why did you do that?” asked Kendra.

  “You’re borrowing six. You’ll return six. This way, you can’t lose one of them or even roll them. Rolling them isn’t part of the bargain. They’ll do what you asked, but that’s all.”

  Kendra nodded. “That’s fine. So when I call on their Way…”

  “You’ll have a chance to increase, or decrease, your current deed,” Vannia replied.

  “So if I call on one and jump?”

  Vannia sighed. “I explained this. There are six sides. So there are six chances. One of them will halve your act. One does nothing; the null pip. One increases your endeavor by half-again. One doubles, one trebles, one quartiers it.”

  “So if I could jump, say, two feet in the air normally…”

  “Good gravy, you sound like a Mundane sometimes,” Vannia said.

  “Or an Increase,” Dotty pitched in.

  “Ugh,” Vannia agreed. “Yes. Ugh. Always with the spreadsheets, they.”

  “Yes, fine,” Kendra agreed, “But if I’m wagering, it’s important to know the stakes, is it not?”

  Vannia nodded. “True enough. So, you jump as hard as for two feet. Call upon the Way of the dice. You’ll maybe jump a one-foot. Maybe two. Maybe three. Maybe four. Maybe six. Maybe eight. Maybe maybe maybe. That’s the whole point, and I don
’t see why you don’t understand how that works.”

  “I understand it perfectly,” said Kendra. “I’m just curious if they stack.”

  “Not when they’re on a string, idiot,” Vannia said.

  “Not like that. I mean, suppose I jump in the air and get a double. But while I’m still in the air, I call another dice and get another double.”

  “Again with the idioting,” Vannia scolded. “That’s the same as rolling a quartier anyway. So why do you need two?”

  “It’s why I need as many as possible. The odds stack in my favor the more I roll.”

  Dotty nodded. “I get it. Math. She won’t. You’ll have to show her.”

  Kendra nodded. “I don’t think I could call all six in one jump. What might do for the test?”

  “Running?” suggested Dotty.

  Kendra nodded. “You think BD would mind if I used the Fields out back?”

  “Go ask him.”

  * * * * *

  So she had. Vannia said she’d watch “from on high,” whatever that meant. Dotty agreed to be her assistant.

  And now she was about to find out what happens when you run into a nearly vertical mountain range teeming with vague, mystical threats at something like three-hundred miles-an-hour.

  Something, though, she thought. Maybe something even more strange and wonderful.

  There was a certain pull to that … What is over the mountains? What is off the edge of the map? What if I want to meet the dragons?

  Though still running, she felt her body begin to tip over to her left, coming more horizontal as the slope she ran on angled upward. Like a marble in a bowl, she thought, you spin it around the edge fast enough, it seems to defy gravity.

  She heard the voice in her mind again. Louder this time.

  Kendra! It’s Wallace! You need to stop!

  Wallace? She was hiding from everyone. But he, at least, was someone that she almost trusted. Or didn’t fear directly, anyway.

  Reluctantly, she responded, thinking, I know I need to stop, Wallace. I just don’t know how.

  Tell me how you got here.

  Quickly – very quickly, for she knew Wallace could absorb information at great speeds – she consciously remembered the pattern of events that had brought her to this point.