The Tale of the Second Faerie Orphan

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

Once, there lived a boy named Jack who was all too sure that his fate in life was to go mad. No one had ever called him mad; No one had even thought him mad. In fact he was not very sure what madness should feel like at all, but he had watched his father go mad and that was his evidence. He made sure never to speak of his fear to anyone and aside from a very clear set of gnawed fingernails on his left hand and an adamant refusal to ever read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, you too would think him quite a normal, but fragile boy.  

Jack was fearfully sorry to see his father go mad, though he never particularly liked him. How could he? He was the kind of father who forgot birthdays, and as every child knows from the age of one, a birthday party means love. Though Jack was left to abandonment, his father always made time for women with high heels and cigarettes. If you told Jack that his father lived as though he had no son, Jack would probably respond, “What father?” Recognition faded. The man he lived with was just Bill, the reclusive drunk upstairs.

Then Bill went mad.

On that morning Jack found Bill standing in the bathroom. He had brushed his hair with a toothbrush and combed his teeth with a hairbrush and said strange things as poor Jack picked the hair from his father’s teeth and the toothpaste from his hair. Jack thought him drunk at the time, except that he never went sober.

The poor boy spent two more days with his father. In that time Bill spoke aloud to no one in particular, argued often with the armchair in the living room, and peeped through the window to make sure no one was watching him. But the way that Bill stared at Jack when he entered the room became the most disturbing sight of all: the constant chatter would die for a moment; his two blue orbs seemed on the verge of bursting as they bulged from his grinning face and followed Jack with dilated pupils across the room. They never blinked; they never softened into that familiar, uncaring stare that was his father. He always stayed very still and whether from madness or sanity shouted with beaming pride: “One day, boy, you’ll be just like your old man. Just wait! You will!” In minutes Jack would be ignored and the chatter would begin again.

On the third day, Jack knew he had had enough. He found the right people, and they took his father to that “safe place” found in that special area of Jack’s mind where things go to be forgotten.

 “You’ll have to be sent away from here,” the inspector stated flatly as he blocked out Jack’s sniffles from his thoughts. “You got a mother, son?”

Jack shook his head.

“Aunts? Uncles? Anyone who will take you in?”

Was the inspector trying to make him feel alone? He remained silent.

“Well then that settles it,” the officer huffed. “We’ll get you to the station, my boy. But until we find your closest relative, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay inside St. John’s Orphanage, on Wilson Street.”

Jack did not much care for the inspector’s use of the word inside. It had all the implications and images of a prison. “Why did you say “afraid”?” Jack sniffed as he did his best to hold back tears.

“No, no. Nothing to be afraid of son. Best orphanage in the city they say. Nice people. Just strange stories, the director being a bit off his rocker now and again.”

“I’m to be sent to another crazy person!” Jack shouted, “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be around someone who’s crazy!”

The inspector shuffled his notepad of statements into his pocket and bit his lip.

 

*              *              *              *              *

 

Jack fidgeted with the handle of his suitcase. Where were they taking him? His frequent sobs met with uncomfortable responses: “unwell”, “you’ll be stable”, “I’m sorry”. Tears blurred the window of his memory until he could recollect very little of the past few days. There were shapes running around, bustling, papers being shifted, phone calls, noise, ringing, that officer laughing beside the secretary. His thoughts held images, but no pictures, messages, but no sense. His behavior must have seemed crazy to everyone. He rubbed his sleepless eyes as he shifted uncomfortably in the taxi car. He needed something, anything to tell him that his mind could make sense. Two plus two was what? Four of course.

“Alright. We’re here, folks.” The taxi driver looked into his rear view mirror, “You’ll be just fine here, son. I promise it. I forgot your name, what’s it again?” 

Jack jumped from his thoughts. The very notion “to forget” seemed like such a frightening concept all the sudden. What if you forget how to make sense? Do you ever know when you’re forgetting or remembering? What was his name?

“Jack. Jack Wilkins,” the escort officer beside him stated to the driver. “He’s right Jack. You’ll be fine.”

The boy watched mouths moving, doors slamming, but heard nothing apart from his own thoughts: Jack. Your name is Jack. You’re dad’s crazy. It doesn’t run in the family. He found himself repeating this statement up the walkway until he just registered syllables. A disconcerting look from the officer silenced him. Since when did he talk to himself? 

Then it struck him. A short glance of St. John’s cheerful red brick, the finely trimmed green, the elegant white pillars, all gave off an unnerving sensation to the eyes: that recognition of shallow beauty. The mixture of neatness with orderliness hid something, a curve of the ridiculous, like a grin in the midst of the most miserable of moments. This could not be an orphanage! He had read about those. They were miserable places with dusty beds, ruled by the wicked stepmother who gave one meal per day and a broom to clean the Chimney of Endless Dust. He knew children slept restlessly there, forgotten by everyone save the occasional someone who picked out kids like they were candy at a grocery store.

No. In that moment, Jack knew where he was, who they suspected him to be, what they said behind all those closed doors. This was a crazy house. A crazy house for crazy children with crazy parents, and if the grounds did not convince him, the old man standing in the doorway with loony features and a penetrating look that shouted, “You’re mad,” confirmed it. It was Bill standing in the doorway. The bulbous eyes marked him. He was motioning them forward.

Jack suddenly felt his hand drift away from the escort. His head jerked from the concerned officer to the old man. The suitcase fell upon the grass with a thump and before he could make out which direction to run, his feet had decided for him.   

“Whoa. Stop there Jack!” the officer shouted. Jack could feel the old man’s gaze pursuing him. He would not look back. His small legs carried his heavy frame across the green and around the red of the west wing into the back lawn. He passed curious faces in the windows, some pointing fingers, and he choked at the thought of living with crazies for the rest of his life. Unlike them he was certainly not too crazy to run, and as long as he had legs, he would.

The chomp of hungry footsteps on gravel alerted him to the officer close behind. To his far right, the old man was hurriedly rushing onto the clearing whilst putting on his coat. There was no time. He absolutely had to make it into the woods beyond the grassy lawn! All sanity depended on the bark of the trees. “I’m not a crazy boy!” Jack shouted to the top of his lungs. His first wind was lost and his second seemed slow in coming. His breath lessened but the woods drew nearer with welcoming limbs. He heard a faint grunt close behind that sounded like his pursuer had tripped. He stole a glance back before confidently turning to what he knew to be his clear escape.

Yet in the place of leaves and wood, Jack registered brown plaid and the sudden forceful strength of two arms. “No! Stop!” he fell to the ground in a daze from the impact. The hit had sent tears down his cheeks and the fate he had dreaded loomed over him with frowning features. “I’m not a crazy boy! I promise I’m not! Don’t send me there! I’m not crazy!”

“Dear Jack, if you’re not a crazy boy then why are you running away?”

“You’re taking me there,” he looked to the house as the officer huffed up beside him. He was dazed. Blood pounded through the boy’s head as he caught his flaming cheeks with a hand. He had to stay conscious. What would happen if he woke up insane? Suddenly the old man had lowered himself to eye level. Jack found him to have the wildest eyes, save perhaps Bill. He trembled all over.

“Now my boy hear this well,” the man’s voice lowered. “You’re not a crazy boy, but woods have a way of making one so. Next time, if not doing the most sensible thing and staying with us, do the next best thing and run to the street.” While Jack wondered what that could possibly mean, the man looked up in time to see not a few attendants coming down the lawn. “No need to be alarmed people! The boy just needed to work up some appetite, and I most certainly did as well. Now before anyone else desires to run away, they’ll need a good dinner for energy! Isn’t that right, Jack? What’s the menu, Mrs. Pimberley? Shouldn’t you be getting it ready?”

“Oh why yessir, it’s ah…salad, honey hams, and steamed vegetables.”

“Splendid!” he clapped his hands. “Take my hand Jack. I can tell for both of us eating is the most sanest thing in the world!”

“Mr. Stevens, he’s passed out!”

 

*              *              *              *              *

 

Darkness pounded behind Jack’s eyelids as he rolled off to the side of the couch and waited a few seconds before letting the light invade his eyes. A small table rested nearby with not a few books sprawled around it and the smell of a hot something wafted nearby. One inspection of the room and Jack knew he rested in the center of chaos. The ceiling spun his gaze around to clashing colors and warped furniture. Carpet stains wound up to a cluttered writing desk, overflowing with papers and trinkets. There sat the old man, furiously writing a note or two and shaking his malfunctioning pen onto the stained carpet every so often. He looked over his shoulder.

“Ah! Jack my friend! Glad to see your awake!” he pulled off his glasses and stood from his seat. “Sydney! Bring our new friend some soup will you? He’s just awoken.” He hopped over various articles, toys, and trinkets to reach the couch-side. “Well Jack. Now that you are calm, I can properly introduce myself. I am Mr. Stevens, the Director of St. John’s Orphanage. How do you do? And might I say, you run very fast.”

“I’m Jack,” he said to himself as much as to the old man. The boy rubbed his eyes as the event of the afternoon rushed back into his thoughts. Taxi. Grounds. Crazy. “I’m…is this an orphanage?”

“Indeed it is, son. I’m sorry to hear about your father. It must have been�"”

“I don’t have a father,”

There was silence.

“Is that why I’m here?”

“My boy, you’ll find there are more reasons to you being here than simply the lack of someone or something in your life. Although you do lack something important.”

“Like my sense?” he piped up hesitantly.

“Like your peace,” Mr. Stevens corrected.

Jack felt insulted and unnerved. “I ran because you think I’m crazy.”

“People who think they’re telepathic generally are,” Mr. Stevens laughed. “But I know your thoughts. You’re thinking how hungry you’ve been and how beautiful soup would taste at this very moment! Sydney!”

“Coming, Mr. Stevens!” a little voice piped around the corner. A small girl blowing a fancy bowl of steam shuffled into the room, carefully winding and bumping around the maze of obstacles until reaching the couch.

“Please speak with our newest member, darling,” Mr. Stevens smiled. “He’s a bit frightened and new friends are just what he needs!” He turned to Jack, “I’ve picked out the perfect room for you. Just come find me when you’re ready. And let Sydney show you around. You’ve got about an hour before lights go out, you know, so be quick! You don’t want to be caught in the dark. There’ll be more introductions for you in the morning.”

With a wink the director left Jack to his anxieties. His stomach said more things than his mind, and he accepted the bowl with thanks. The girl called Sydney seemed vibrant enough, but cautious. She never seemed to enjoy making eye contact but preferred drifting off into space. She did her best to reach for things and tidy up the room with as much spirit as possible.

“So your name is Sydney,” Jack stated as he munched on the vegetables.

                “That’s right. Sydney Parkerson!” the girl brightened. “Welcome to St. Johns! It was you I heard running outside a few hours ago on the back lawn. I was sitting about when you started up such a commotion! I don’t know if you saw all the kids run about to the windows. Isn’t the lawn so nice though? I prefer it to the indoors. It’s my favorite thing to run across it barefoot. We’ll do that tomorrow won’t we? I’m the fastest in the whole orphanage! How’s the soup?”

                Jack felt like he had opened a floodgate. No one talks that fast. “It’s um…it’s good.”

                “I helped make it too. We have our own vegetable garden! And I help grow them. I water them and fer-til-ize them,” she had trouble pronouncing the word, “and then the orphanage does the rest!”

                Jack shifted uncomfortably in his couch. The girl was quirky. She never blinked, but stared at his general frame, too engrossed in the quickness of her own thoughts. The back of his spine began to tingle as his original fear began to surface. He decided to get the truth and raised up on the couch.

                “Sydney. I just want you to know. I know this isn’t just some orphanage.”

                Sydney looked at him with surprise. “It’s not?”

                Easy Jack. Keep going. You’ll see if she’s crazy.

                “It’s something more isn’t it? Don’t worry, Mr. Stevens told me everything about the place. There’s something special for all of us who come here right? We need some…some treatment, something like that to help us?”

 Sydney seemed to pause in amazement before growing excited. She smiled and laughed and hopped up and down. Her gaze shifted into something that resembled obsession. “Oh he told you? He never does things like that! He always lets us find out for ourselves! It’s so wonderful isn’t it? To think an orphanage could be a magical place that helps us! On the nights that I’m helped and enchanted, everything changes! Doors lead to magical kingdoms! Rooms become palaces! And witches and knights and fairy tales!” she giggled.

Jack’s heart began to pound and the growing sensation that an old, eccentric man had left him in the room with a girl who had lost her mind quickly dawned on him. “It’s true then,” he whispered aloud. Sweat grew on his forehead.

“Oh, so very true!” Sydney laughed and found his hand. He pulled it back instantly. Was crazy a disease? Sydney seemed not to notice. “And you get to be one of us! Not everyone thinks it magical here. Only the gifted ones I suppose.”

Is that what they have them believe? Jack thought.

“Here let me show you around!” Sydney found his hand again and marched him around the corridors of the old building. She pointed out the kitchen pots that apparently would make enchanted meals at midnight all by themselves. “If you smell something delicious in the middle of the night, don’t go downstairs. And DON’T eat the food, no matter how good it might look, okay Humpty Dumpty?”

“What did you call me?” Jack asked, offended.

“Hey it’s Humpty Dumpty!” a boy pointed from one of the rooms. Another girl joined him and laughed before rushing beside Sydney. “We saw your fall there out in the lawn!”

“Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!”

Jack could not believe he was about to be teased by crazies: “Shut up!”

“Chris! Ranelle! Go off to your rooms, your making him scared,” Sydney huffed.

“I’m not scared!” Jack retorted.

“You called him it first!” the boy tattled.

“I’m not trying to make him feel bad!”

“Anyway, the name is Chris. This is Ranelle.”

“Are you gifted too?” Jack asked cautiously, avoiding their stares.

“Magic?” Chris replied, “Happens all the time, if you’re strong enough.”     

Ranelle gaped. “Chris! You’re not supposed to tell anyone or it might not work for them!”

“It’s okay, he knows already. Right Jack?” Sydney asked.

Before he had time to reply. Each child was tugging him in different directions around the orphanage. “This is where a giant whirlpool nearly drowned me!” “I killed a werebat under these stairs.” “This arch will take you to a castle!” “Raining indoors!” “Night forever!” “Books alive!” Jack hoped for one explanation:

“So it’s all good fun, right? All pretend? Like these are games I need to learn and play if I want to fit in?” All three children stopped, confused.

“No silly Humpty.” But Ranelle looked at him with the most intense seriousness. “It’s real. We’ve all seen things, and you will too I hope!”

And you’re crazy.

“Kids die here,” Chris clarified with the straightest face possible.

“They do not! Stop trying to scare him!” Sydney shouted, but before she could go further, Mr. Stevens approached and shuffled them off to their respective rooms with a chiding eye. “Bye Humpty! See you tomorrow!” They all waved their farewells and sang the Humpty Dumpty rhyme as they disappeared out of the room.

“Now Jack. They’re not teasing. They’re just excited to see a newcomer! I’ll talk to them all tonight. Let me show you to your room where you’ll be staying. I know you’ll be feeling better after a good fluffy pillow and some rest!”

Jack could not remember the last good sleep he had enjoyed, and he knew simply being in the “orphanage” would never give him peace. They won’t get to me. he thought. I won’t catch “crazy”. I’m Jack, and I’m not mad.

“Here we are,” Mr. Stevens shouted, after shoving the door out. “The door opens out, not in, and its backwards. Blame the home improvement employees. But the room is perfectly livable. You’ve got a fine view of the lawn too! Your things are already here and I’ll be sleeping upstairs. We’ll show you around to everyone and everything tomorrow! I’ll leave you to it then.” He knelt to give Jack a strong pat on the shoulder and light hug. Can I catch crazy by touch? Jack thought fearfully, and he wondered if Bill ever reached his hand out to him during those two days.

“Take care, Jack. Whatever happens, your room is the safest place,” that said, Mr. Stevens closed the door. 

Whatever happens? Jack trembled and imagined all the insane Sydneys and Chrises and Ranelles pounding on his door in the night and giggling hysterically. They would try to take him. Make him one of them. Strip him of sense until all that could be imagined was madness. No. He was leaving. Tonight.

Jack had lived on his own nearly everyday of his life, despite having always lived with his father, but as much as Bill hated Jack, he hated a sneaking Jack even more. The boy knew the sigh of satisfaction a house feels when all but one of its residents slept soundly. He knew how to keep your feet from squeaking, boards from moaning, and doors from squealing. The secret lay in thinking the house itself asleep, and so not to wake it. He prided himself as a genius of sneaks, and sat patiently waiting for all good things to come to him.

After many minutes he stood up, stretched himself, and began to explore. He would not use the door. The thought of lone, mad children meandering in the dark halls sent chills down his spine. Confident that his advantage lay in being on the ground floor, he began inspecting the window.  The pale lunar spotlight gleamed into his prison cell as his fingers ran over the wooden bars and locks, sealed with layers of paint chips and caulk. It was old, old enough to pull and flake if he could only find a sharp, flat tool. After a few furtive glances he seized a small vase on the nightstand, shoved it under his pillow, and pressured the cushion with all his weight until he heard more than one break.

                Most of the gleaming pieces remained too big but he picked up the few keys of just the right size before returning to the window and furiously rubbing against the caulk. It came away bit by bit, like Bill’s sanity. He recalled instances before the days of the bulbous eyes and ceaseless chatter. Signs. Quirks. Bill’s sobbing, then laughing. The sound of television static and sleepless pacing, just on the nights when Jack needed to sneak out. The paint held onto the crystal window like desperate thoughts clinging to the most secure and transparent consciousness. His every memory, every image, flaked away at the eyes chipping away from his mind, falling to pieces through his hands. Yet it was he who was chipping the windowsill. His chip was maddening. What controlled madness? What was he?

                One day, boy, you’ll be just like your old man! Just wait! You will!

He threw the chip at the window in frustration and flung his shoulder into the glass. The locks gave slightly but still remained glued to the catch. He gave another heave and kept his weight against the sill; his chubby fingernails scratched along the locks until at last both flung up with difficulty. His weight shifted to his knees as he heaved the wood open and breathed the fresh air of sanity into his lungs.

Yet the air felt strangely chill; a kind of dullness permeated the room, like the thought of biting into a crispy, juicy something and finding it unripe or dry. It did not matter. Any food was better to eat than diseased food and any air was better to breathe than mad air. Yes. Madness was most definitely a disease, and Jack knew, if he was not mad already, he would catch it here at some point. He leaped out the window and onto the grass. Where should he go? The street? No that was exactly what the director said. There must be patrols. He glanced into the grey blackness beyond, marred by twigs and green. It was not smart, but if he could somehow stay just enough beside the clearing to keep his direction without being seen, he could make it past whoever patrolled the streets.

Without another thought, Jack disappeared into a face of twigs and gratefully shook hands with every branch that congratulated him on an escape-well-done. The clearing blinked at him worriedly between the rising and falling limbs as he slowly made progress deeper into the black. He was still too close. His feet shook the dirt and sticky leaves from his socks as he stepped over dead limbs. Blackness covered the earth as he circulated around coarse bark and pine needles. The leaves tickled his cheeks and seemed to stick on him like fear shaken from his thoughts.

The moonlight peeked every few feet to his next step, and yet strangely, it always seemed that had he looked just seconds before, he would have seen what made those leaves rustle, that limb sway so hauntingly. Whenever he found his way to the dark, another snap drove his eyes to the light.

“Is someone else there?” he whispered frantically. The image of a mad little girl wailing at him from behind caused him to panic for a moment. His plan was up. He would find another way. Nothing was worse than being dragged into a void by a mad person. He began sprinting to what was sure to be the clearing. As he leaped over brambles into moonlit leaves, Jack noticed the pale green outlines of pine needles and oak begin to do very strange things. 

The unreality of it all distracted him long enough to trip into a pile of cones and sticks. In horror, he felt the illuminated leaves float about his shirt and shorts, clinging with tiny fingers and tugging him into different directions. Sticks hopped about the light, eventually snapping into limbs and joints like bones breaking into shapes of animals and creeping things. He did not sit to think. He was not thinking. Haunted. Dream. No. Nightmare! There was only darkness, pale lights, and no border. Only the motion of things that should never move, and squeals of things that had no voice. He saw the clearing up ahead and tumbled into tree that suddenly exploded into a blaze of fireflies. They buzzed about the woods like pale moons, illuminating a craze of excitement in every leaf, bud, and branch. Bark sloughed off the trees and formed into a pack of noisy, barky hounds. Branches tore off to form limbs that scraggled together into walking forms.

Jack’s eyes soaked in the sweat of his forehead before releasing it in a torrent of tears, shaking his head of leaves and fear and sense. “NO! I’m not crazy!” he screeched at the moon as he flailed and whimpered his way into the bright lawn of the crazy house. The grass welcomed him with caressing sways and soothing coos. “You’re Jack Wilkins. You’re not crazy. The forest is just a forest.” He breathed into the earth. “Twigs don’t snap into living things! I’m dreaming. I’m sane. Just need to dream and be sane!” After minutes of whispering all the sensible things that one could in the course of a few minutes, Jack looked up. The house seemed farther than before, as though it had backed away from the boy in fear. A greater expanse than he remembered illuminated the lawn. Only one word filled his thoughts: abandoned.

Bewildered, Jack stared back at the black void that he had escaped and panicked when he saw a tree seem to scoot closer. Suddenly his feet were running again over the lawn to the orphanage. The grass became flooded in a yellow glow as the moon no longer seemed to him like a white disc. His gaze swirled about the fleeing orphanage, the white fireflies, the crazed and dilated eye in the sky. Here was madness. Insanity. He was going crazy and he knew it. By the time he realized the craze he had caught, a limb caught his ankle and he found himself falling through the black earth and green grass and forward onto a pile of dust surrounded by trees.

The ground beat with pain in Jack’s every limb. He rolled off to his side and fearfully gazed about for the clearing. No space existed. He was in the middle of it. Lost.

Jack sought for something, anything to defend himself. He picked up the first thick branch his fingers could find in the shadows. With a shout he dropped it as it fluffed and swayed about before slithering into the black moonlight. Was that a tail? Jack held his knees in close as he disappeared behind the darkness of his wet eyes.

“Where am I supposed to go?” he cried in despair.  

“Whatever I suppose,” an intelligent voice floated to Jack’s ears. He jumped to his feet.

“Who’s there? Where are you?”

“How here. Whenever I am,” two yellow orbs flickered in the pale emptiness and leaped onto a tall thick limb above the frightened boy; its great mound of fur bristled about its moving features as it paced along the thick limb in and out of darkness. The light seemed to alter its features from sanity to madness as his small eyes enlarged to round, watery circles. They stared through Jack with such frightening intensity that it seemed to register nothing in its mind. They were empty, adamant, lost, yet totally fixated. They were suddenly Bill’s bright blue orbs. Jack opened his mouth to scream but found no voice until after some unbelievable minutes.

 “Are you s-s-sane?” Jack ventured, “or….or mad?”

“The question is,” the wolf spoke clearly, “Are you?”

Was he crazy? He was hardly sure anymore. A creature was speaking to him! Hounds never talk to sane people, but he held out for any hope not to give in to his worst fear. “No! I’m sane. At least I was.”

“My question was not are you mad or sane. My question was, ‘Are you?’”

“Am I what?”

“Are you?”

“I’m Jack.”

“Not your name. Are you?”

“Well I think�"”

“That’s not good enough,” the wolf retorted, clearly disappointed. He wagged his tail against the bark of the tree for some moments and let his tongue fall. Jack held his own tongue in for some minutes, and wondered if he was to be eaten whenever the beast got hungry.

“Are we crazy together?” Jack piped up despairingly.

“You don’t even know if you are. How can a boy like you know anything?”

“Well I am�"”

“I suppose that’s a good attempt. But you weren’t always, you know.”

 “You’re just a dream! I’ll wake up in that crazy house bed and when I do, I’m gone!”

“How selfish of you,” the wolf scolded and stared on, “Why are you the one dreaming. It could just as well be me.”

“Because I know what’s real! I know me! I remember living at 2830 Robins Roost. I remember my favorite foods. I remember school. My books. My dad. My sleepovers with friends! I know�"”

“You don’t know,” the wolf dictated flatly and Jack felt somehow refuted. “You’re memories aren’t real. They’re pictures. Pictures in my dream for you, and you aren’t real either. Why would you dream of yourself going mad? But I would. Because I am.”

“You are?”

“But not always,”

“Then what was it like before?” Jack could not help but wonder if they were talking about two different things.

                “I wasn’t there.”

                “Then who was?”

                “Others,” the wolf sighed.

                “I’ve always been here,” Jack retorted.

                “At least as long as you can see images that might show you were here, but what was it like before you?”

                The boy paused. “I don’t know.”

                “Maybe “before” wasn’t anything.”

                “What do you mean?” Jack felt clouded in his thoughts. What were they talking about? He was Jack. He was here. He was thinking. But what was thinking at all? He saw pictures, but was he really there? Thinking about things “before there was Jack” pounded his thoughts. The very notion that he was just a dream to the wolf panicked him and his breathing lessened.

                “Let’s start at the beginning,” the wolf declared, raising himself up on all paws.

                “Introductions?” Jack asked; did wolves name themselves? But before he could think, the wolf pounced from his perch and let his gaze bore into the eyes of the stunned boy. The wolf flailed and writhed about never leaving his stare.

 “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,” the wolf howled and snarled upon the earth.

“Stop it!” Jack cried out. “You’re scaring me! Be still you crazy thing!”

The wolf ceased his writhing as his dilated circles accentuated the grinning fangs. Jack thought he was a goner for certain. “A strong paraphrase. You still haven’t got it.” They stared at one another for some moments. Jack tried to stay unblinking, as if in a staring contest in a deteriorated lunch room.    

 “What if I could ask a particular question?”

“You’ve been asking me questions all along,” Jack boldly choked on his tears. :I don’t even know what you are.”

“What if I could ask a question that could unravel it all? Bring it to nothing.”

“What all? What it?” Jack wiped his tears.

The wolf licked his muzzle hungrily. “Everything. Like a stack of cards. What if the question could be asked to bring it all down to ruin,” he paused, “Now I’m going to ask you a question. Would you be scared of the question? Or the answer?”

“Are you going to ask me about death?” Jack shivered. “I’d rather be dead than mad!”

“Very well,”

Before he could say anything more, the two yellow eyes filled his vision. The smell of something dead choked his lungs as the wolf pinned his shoulders to the ground. Fangs and breath covered his flailing limbs; he was screaming. Shivering at the thought of teeth, Jack opened his eyes to see himself bounding from limb to limb, dangling from the wolf’s maw. The black only became void as the limbs grew thinner, shaking from side to side in the full light of the moon.

“No! No!” Jack grit his teeth and hit the wolf’s head as hard as his muscles could give. The beast seemed unresponsive and only giggled. “Here’s death. You should be acquainted.” He released Jack onto one limb and nipped his fingers.

“Help me!” Jack wailed to nothing as he slid off the branch and clutched to the bark for all his life. “Please. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Get me down! Anything!” He gazed past his feet into the reaching abyss.

“Your mad, Jack,” the beast chattered incessantly. “Let go!”

“No! I’m not mad! I’ll die!”

“Why is that any worse? It’s the sanest thing you’ll ever do. Show me!”

“But I don’t want to die!” Jack shouted to himself. The wolf made no movement to save him.

 

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!

All the king’s horses and all the kings men,

Couldn’t put Humpty back together again!”

 

“I hate you!” Jack cried.

“To be or not to be? Nothing. End. Black and deep. No where, no what, no thought, no madness. There’s your sense!”

“I want down!” Jack reached to the black mound of fur as far as he could. “Please, take me down. I need to live.” The wolf merely stared for one moment in silence before raising the boy into his mouth. “You’re mad,” the hound huffed. Jack shuddered as he felt the teeth grin.

“How do you know?”

“You would have let go,” the wolf said simply. Jack did not think that proved it in the slightest.

The foaming teeth found its way down to a small moonlit patch of leaves before spitting the boy into the pile. “Have you found out what your scared of yet?” it asked impatiently. 

“I’m scared of nothingness,” Jack hid his eyes and cried. “Is that where we all go?” There was no answer. “I’d rather not have been born if that’s true!”

“Now that’s more satisfying to hear. And that, you have no control over,” the wolf declared.

“What are you getting at?” Jack wailed.

“Are you scared of the question or the answer?” the wolf repeated.

“I’m scared of the question,” Jack sobbed. The wolf stared. There was silence apart from Jack’s falling tears. Until, slowly, the boy whispered: “But you can still ask me.”

The wolf seemed pleased, or even more insane. Jack could not tell which. 

“Are you the thinker? Or the thought?” the wolf calmly asked.

Jack seemed confused for a minute and then thought deeper. “What if it’s neither?”

“Then I would kill you. Because the only thing left to think after that answer is my stomach,” the wolf was not giggling.

“That’s not my answer then.”

“A wise choice.”

“I’m…I’m a thinker,” Jack stated slowly.

“Now you’re too sane,” the wolf twitched and snickered from tail to nose. “How dull.”  

“I know reality! I have imagination to handle it!” Jack rose up to face the two penetrating circles.

“Show me!” the wolf snarled into his face, “What’s seven times eight?”

“That’s fifty six!”

“What’s today?”

“Monday!”

“What’s Monday?”

“It’s a day!”

“What’s a day?”

“It’s…it’s light and dark!”

“What’s light?” Jack paused.

“You hold the thoughts stupid boy! What’s light?” Jack stuttered something about brightness. The wolf circled him drawing closer and closer. “Why is light? How did you begin to imagine it? What’s math? Where do babies come from? Why should they even come at all? Why babies? What’s in a word? Why aren’t there more colors? How do you even think?  What is boy? What is girl? Why life? Why not death?”

 “Stop it!”

“You know these things Jack,” the wolf giggled. “You’re the thinker. You have to!”

“I…I don’t know!”

“You need to know! What, where, who, why, how? Tell me!”

“I just need it!” Jack cried.

“Then one day, boy,” the wolf howled, “you’ll be just like your old man. Just wait! You will!” the hound stared long into Jack’s frantic features. “And that is what you need to know.”

“Are you my father?” Jack trembled.

“You haven’t answered my very first question. If you can’t answer that, you’re no one’s son. You can’t be trusted with any answers whatsoever, stupid boy.”

 Jack’s mind burned from his constant thinking, until he finally slumped down and shut his eyes: “I don’t trust myself anymore,” he whimpered.

“And everything is still here,” the wolf giggled. “It’s time to stop running, Jack.”

 Jack shifted uncomfortably as he raised his head and breathed. The wolf licked his muzzle again. He knew what it was telling him. “Will…will everything change?”

 The wolf twitched closer and bared its deep, foaming fangs. “I don’t know. I’ve never been sane. It must be so frighteningly dull.”

“It’s frightening to leave it.”

“Only as frightening as a prisoner leaving his cell for the last time,” the wolf clarified.

“To die or be freed?” Jack asked.

There was no response. Nothing more needed to be said. It was over. Jack stared into the eyes of the wolf and raised up his sleeve. His arm trembling like a branch in the moonlight, he slowly extended it in front of the absent-sighted wolf. In the blink of an eye, the great jaws closed onto Jack’s arm, the foam seeping into his open wounds. There was little blood, yet the pain scorched through his limbs as he fell into the moonlight. He could feel his hair changing, the bristles of fur growing between the pads of his paws. His eyes felt huge and his jaw and nose agonizingly cracked forward into teeth and whiskers. A tail swished about his legs until he frantically moved about in aching anxiety. The cracks stopped. His wolf breath pushed the earth from his wet nose. He needed his bearings, he needed to know where he was. What had he become?

No. Not of that seemed to matter anymore. He was no longer the thinker, frantically gathering everything into what he remembered. Why should he? So much claustrophobic sense! When was the last time he even cherished his senses? His heightened wolf ears heard every snap and chirp of the wood, like living wind chimes blown by the breeze of time. His nose twitched at the bold scents of fresh earth and crisp leaves as though they were flavorful souls finding their rest in the heavens. He opened his eyes to find the closest tree swaying over his fallen form and wondered that no tree he had ever seen grew quite like that. Why did trees grow up and out? The entertaining thought of a tree growing down and in made him giggle for only a second, until he remembered that trees grew up and out, which only seemed equally ridiculous. He giggled again. Every sense merged together to form a picture, a picture that made no sense, and yet one sense. He was delighted.

The forest glowed white within the void like a forbidden treasure of inexplicable movements and perplexing stillness. The fallen stick seemed no less wonderful than a walking stick, nor the bark of trees less strange than dogs of bark. The wood entertained Jack with leaves swirling nonsensically and branches swaying in eager anticipation. As he placed a foot into the blur of moonlight, his toes flickered into paws in an instant. His thrust his hand out to the light to glimpse claws before pulling back in to find fingers.

He stood up and steadied himself. He was the werewolf of heightened sense. The poet of experience. A model breaker and map tearer. A real thought. He was a boy. Jack Wilkins. Yes, that was his name. Jack.

“A world mystery, my boy, and a world of mysteries” the wolf declared flatly. Jack heard the voice and jumped again from his thoughts at the sight of the two round orbs drenching up his mind. “Don’t expect all the answers.” the wolf began to chatter to himself, “but never be afraid to ask.” 

“I don’t trust that I could understand them,” Jack shrugged with a smile. “I’m sorry. I spoke a lot of things I didn’t really know about. But one thing I do know.”

The wolf stared on.

“The world’s a good thought.”  

The wolf kept his grin: “Who cares for you? You’re not your father.”

“Who cares for you? You’re nothing but a lone wolf.” 

                “I think at last we understand one another, Jack Wilkins,” the wolf let his tongue fall to the side and snickered back into the darkness until his features resembled that of a typical grey wolf; soon its tail too disappeared into black..

                As Jack turned from the wooded void, a clear lawn stretched before him to the welcoming windows of the orphanage. The red brick, trimmed green, and white paint never seemed more ridiculous to him. In laughs, smiles, and yawns Jack stumbled through his still open windowpane and into the enchantment of the real.

 

*              *              *              *              *

 

                The Animal Control patrolled the grounds the entire morning, keeping not a few disappointed children from the pleasures of grass stains and mud battles.

                “Sorry Mr. Stevens,” the officer sighed in frustration. “Patrolled the whole grounds, no sign of any hound in the area as far as we can tell. The tracks lead to the window but not out. It’s strange but we’re obviously sure it didn’t get in. But it no doubt must’ve given that kid a fright.”

“Well our windows don’t give to just anything or anybody, officer. It wouldn’t have let a wolf in, if it was dangerous.” Mr. Stevens seemed fidgety, as if desiring to be elsewhere.

The officer stared at Mr. Stevens with a raised eyebrow as though attempting to imagine any child sitting in a room with a “safe” wolf. “Well director. Just uh…just call me back if you catch any sighting of it. In the meantime, stay on watch for any signs. We’ll be back out to keep him away if need be.” He ripped out a receipt and handed it to the old man before walking away.

As Mr. Stevens strolled hastily back into the orphanage and through the wooden archways, Ranelle, Chris, and Sydney tugged on his sleeves. “Is he alright?” “I heard there are packs of wolves in the woods!” “Poor Humpty Dumpty!” “Is he eaten?”

“Step away, step away,” Mr. Stevens peeped his head into Jack’s room before closing it lightly. “Off to lunch with you all. We’ll show him to all the other kids when he gets out. There’s no playing outside today.”

“Is he in the corner crying?” Ranelle worried.

“He’ll hate this place forever,” Chris sighed.

“Oh I think he’s found some peace about things,” Mr. Stevens patted their heads.

“How do you know, sir?” Sydney looked up.

“I know because you just can’t reason yourself to sleep, no matter how much you need it. No one can. You’ll stay awake forever.”

 

THE END

Author's Note

Hope you enjoyed it!

Reviews

[kris]

It was a very good story overall. I wish it would have kept going. But please don't ever use the word "orbs" when you mean eyes. Just say eyes, it sounds so much better.
It had a very nice Wonderland feel. The pacing was alright, but the beginning seemed negligent by the end. If you gave a bit more background, it might be improved- I feel as if I don't know Jack at all, and as a result it's hard to care about him.
The conversation with the wolf took up the bulk of the story, and it was the best part, so that makes sense, but maybe elaborate more on the orphanage as well.