“If all, or almost all, the plays that are popular now, imaginative works as well as historical ones, are known to be nonsense and without rhyme or reason, and despite this the mob hears them with pleasure and thinks of them and approves of them as good, when they are very far from being so, and the authors who compose them and the actors who perform them say they must be like this because that is just how the mob wants them, and no other way; the plays that have a design and follow the story as art demands appeal to a handful of discerning persons who understand them, while everyone else is incapable of comprehending their artistry; and since, as far as the authors and actors are concerned, it is better to earn a living with the crowd than a reputation with the few, this is what would happen to my book after I had singed my eyebrows trying to keep the precepts I have mentioned and had become the tailor who wasn’t paid.”
– Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha
Fans of The Alchemist, The Wizard of Oz, and the visual arts will enjoy this whimsical work. It’s gonna get weird, so remember as you change the pages: it all makes sense in the end.
When teen twins Mariah and Zooey visit their reclusive Grandfather’s cabin, they think it’ll be another boring weekend out of cell phone range. But things go sideways fast. A walk in the woods delivers them to a strange new world. Technicolor trees grow Willy Wonka fruits. Forest creatures speak in rhyme and control the air around them. The rules of physics warp and bend. Nothing’s as it was before, but everything’s like home. Because another human got there first and took it for his own.
Click here to purchase AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE IN THE END.
ACT I
When the road changed from pavement to dirt, the twins left their old lives behind.
Mariah swept her bangs behind her ear. The grinding of the gravel was drowning out her tunes. She turned the volume up and closed her eyes.
Zooey paused his game. He rubbed his face and stared at his reflection in the glass. Try again. He hit restart.
The family van forged on, its passage swallowed whole by the thickets and the dark.
***
Five years earlier, their Grandpa stood from the Thanksgiving table and declared, “From this day on: all I need is a camp, a garden, two dogs for company. A wood stove and a book. The time and space to think. Everybody leave me be.”
And so it went. He quit his job. He stopped answering the phone. He sold everything he had for a whisper, till there was nothing left but bones. He wouldn’t shave. His tongue grew sharp. He burned the bridges around him and laughed.
The twins’ mother was sad, of course. But she knew better than to challenge him. She clung to her memories. In his prime, he was charismatic as a king.
Soon he got a truck and threw his things in back. Its engine rumbled rough as he climbed into the cab. A cloud of exhaust hid his face. He’d trade prosperity and friends for a cabin in the woods, where time would stop and no one would know better.
Turns out, Grandpa got everything he wanted from his new life. And more. He earned a nasty reputation in his small town and a nickname from the local kids. He was the Hermit of Hawthorn Road and he was best left alone.
***
Dad turned the van onto a narrow lane. Stray branches reached into the gap and clawed the paint. He brought them to a stop behind Grandpa’s rusty, dented truck.
His home was well hidden. The trees he cut to clear the lot became his cabin’s walls. The roof was painted forest green to hide it from above, though he added a few flashing lights for safety. There was no cell service, no internet, no cable TV. His water came from a well, and his power came from the sun. His garden thrived three seasons of the year, providing him with food and flowers. There was a shed out back for firewood, which he split as time allowed.
Mariah and Zooey climbed to the door and knocked. No response. They tried the knob, which turned, so they let themselves inside. Two Great Danes leapt towards them. Their baritone barks pushed the twins back. The beasts jumped passed them, onto the porch, then bounded down the steps in a loping frenzy.
“Grandpa, we’re here!”
“Come give me a hug.” He put down his book and waddled their direction. He squeezed them tight, pulled back, looking them up and down, then held them close again. His coarse wool sweater was rough on their cheeks. He smelled like dirt and smoke and sweat.
Mom and Dad crossed the threshold, their arms loaded down with luggage. So many bags. “Welcome,” said Grandpa, his glowing old self, the way she remembered.
Mom drank in the scene. There was a fire in the wood stove and a blanket draped across the couch. Braided rugs warmed sections of the floor. Needlework pillows gave comfort to the antique wooden chairs.
The kettle whistled on the stove.
“Come in. Come in,” he said. “Relax. Water’s ready. Care for a cuppa? Beer? Maybe wine? Juice or pop?”
Grandpa traveled as a younger man and spoke in a mishmash of sayings. He turned the twins. “You two: grab your things and set your beds in the loft. It’s been an age since you slept up there.”
He walked for drinks, mumbling aloud as if he were alone. “Jeezum crow, they’ve grown. A mustache and a bra. Trouble’s next, right as rain.”
So cringe. The twins grit their teeth and grimaced. Mom did, too. Dad laughed so hard he snorted. Grandpa turned to face them, “What’d I miss?”
The weekend had begun.
***
The twins climbed a hand-made ladder to the elevated nook. The room was painted creamy white and featured a six-pane window that looked into the trees. It had built-in bookshelves filled with knick-knacks from his youth. A lamp with a stained-glass shade threw tinted spots of light. Everything was dusty. The sacred space was filled with memories Grandpa could no longer reach.
The twins inflated their mattresses, then lay down with their heads peeking over the edge. They spied on the adults just like when they were little. All clear. They took the telegraph from the middle shelf to check on their graffiti. Their tags had smudged with time, but were clear. They felt the adrenaline rush again. They remembered passing the permanent marker back and forth, wordlessly daring each other to go first. Like on the subway trains at home. They knew it was wrong. Be sneaky. Be quick. Breaking the rules felt amazing. They had to. One, then the other. They did.
Downstairs, Grandpa hovered close to Mom. “What’s that?”
She held a pink box with the logo of his favorite French bakery. “Oooh,” he clapped his hands. Before the move, a coffee and croissant there was part of his Sunday ritual. He smiled.
The twins came down for dessert. Zooey picked a chocolate eclair. Mariah, a berry tart. Grandpa took a mille-feuille. The three made little grunting noises with every bite. When they were done, they moved to the couch to stare into the fire. Big yawns.
“All right,” Mom said. “You two, let’s brush teeth and get to bed.” She ushered them towards tomorrow.
The twins gave Grandpa a good night kiss, washed up, and ascended to the loft. They slid into their sleeping bags and closed their eyes. The gentle murmur of adult conversation bubbled up to their ears. More tones than words. Soft and warm and slow. Comforting and safe. Good night.
***
The twins woke silently at ten, and without letting anyone know, eavesdropped on their family below. There was bluegrass playing on the turntable, with mandolins and banjos trading leads. Bacon popped and sizzled. They heard a whisk beating against a thin metal bowl. Their stomachs growled.
Mariah checked her phone. No signal. Her text apps bare, she checked her feed. Nothing. Her battery was low, so she grabbed her charger. She searched for an outlet behind Grandpa’s collection of 19th-century elixir bottles. A few of the brown glass vessels were still full, with their tiny corks worn flat at the rim. Their brittle paper labels promised cures for everything from insomnia to warts. She laughed.
Adjacent to the snake oil samples, a pile of oversized books lay flat on their sides. She grabbed five and heaved them out of the way. They landed half on, half off her air mattress. She grabbed four more and let them fly. The second batch crashed into the first, and their collective weight compressed the bedding like a trampoline. The top book jumped away from the rest, spinning towards Zooey like a throwing star.
It struck his ribs. He whipped around, “What gives?”
He frisbee’d his phone her way. She set him up, then flopped back on her mattress. The surge of air jammed the book harder into his back.
“Can you not? Jesus, Mariah.”
From downstairs, Dad’s voice, “Babe, did you hear that? I think they’re up.”
Zooey snatched the book and propped it on the pillow before him. Mariah leaned in to see.
The cover was made of smooth mahogany leather. Where people had handled it the most, it was burnished to a Van Dyke brown. The lettering was beveled and embossed, with pools of beautiful gold flake welling in the valleys. Zooey caressed the cover with his fingertips, imagining he could read it like braille. The gentle gesture left five tracks in the surface dust, so he blew to clean them away. A cloud of silvers, blues, and greens billowed before their eyes. They heard a quiet sound like wind chimes. No, it was more like breaking glass.
Mariah passed her hand through the twinkling motes.
Then from below, Mom’s voice, “Good morning, kiddos! Breakfast is ready! Come on down!”
Whatevs.
Zooey opened the cover wide, cracking the glue in the spine. The endpapers were marbled ink, lavenders, pinks, and whites. This was the oldest book they’d ever touched, by far. Under-glass-in-a-museum old. Crazy-old, old.
Dad’s voice, “Let’s go, you two. Food’s getting cold.”
Zooey thumbed the corner. The pages flipped like casino cards until he stopped on a random spread.
The book looked like it stretched into his touch, a kind of cat or caterpillar. It arched its spine slightly to the left, then wiggled to the right, then nestled deep into the pillow and relaxed.
“Nah,” he mumbled.
Calligraphic patterns filled the margins of the facing pages. The illustrations looked like hand-painted flowers, or maybe interwoven feathers. Tiny fireworks popped at the tip of every line.
The text was written in an old-time script, like cursive from a fountain pen, but fancier. Mariah wondered if the author had used a feather quill. An eagle or a hawk, maybe. She imagined a solitary monk, his head in his hand, working by candlelight.
The first letter on the page was larger than the rest. Zooey squinted. A poem? The ascending and descending loops wove the words into a web. It was hard to tell. Hold up. Was it English? He read aloud, his voice reluctant, automatic, like it wasn’t come from him.
Welcome to a grand old tale
Of tricks and tests fated to fail.
The setting is a perfect land.
Our villain has a wicked plan.
Volcanoes, forests, city skylines,
Beaches, farmlands, treetop confines,
Darkest caves and angry trees,
From nature’s heights, fall to your knees.
For the woodland creatures were enchanted,
Tempted, fooled, their dreams supplanted.
Yes, their culture surged in leaps and bounds.
But melancholy filled the towns.
Foreign but familiar, the future did unfold.
Until a pair of heroes came, their destiny foretold.
One by one, the duo met an extra special crew.
The group of six was forced to split, becoming three times two.
They faced mind-bending obstacles everywhere they went.
The odds were stacked against them, but they never did relent.
Their foil raised the ante. Death’s door had opened wide.
They’d sacrifice their lives for hope. Their revolution must survive.
And when the dust had settled, were any lessons learned?
That history repeats itself has often been confirmed.
Greed and glory. Selfishness. Compassion, love, and caring.
Hold this close. Then set it free. This fable’s meant for sharing.
“Get down here,” shouted Dad. “Your breakfast is ice cold. This is the third time we’ve told you. Good heavens. When are you going to learn?”
He stomped toward the ladder, each footfall a storm. The wooden rungs strained beneath his weight.
Zooey shut the book and hid it beneath his pillow.
Dad’s fat face popped over the edge. “Move it!”
“We know. We’re coming.”
The twins climbed down. Their skin was tingling.
***