I couldn’t take my eyes from it, from the multiple pairs of bowed legs along its sides, the spiny extrusion that might be a dorsal fin, though just now it lay in a wrinkled pile along the creature’s spine. I am not usually afraid of serpents, knowing as I do that most of them are harmless and useful in keeping vermin in check, but the look and smell of this thing could have been designed to instill fear. It had a stink peculiar to itself. If malice smelled, it would smell like that.
After slurping at the falls for what seemed an interminable time, the creature lowered itself, redistributed its lumps, and moved away through the trees with the sound of a retreating avalanche. It left a slick gray-slimed trail on the ground. As the end of the tail disappeared, a crowd of tiny people came out of the woods pushing barrows and carrying shovels. They dug the grayness up and carried it away. Immediately, the green mosses moved back into the places the slime had been, and the little people followed the slime trail back into the trees.
“Where are they taking the stuff?” Glory asked.
“They probably know of a way-gate nearby, one that opens into a fire pit or a volcano or even into a little sun, and they’ll dump it to be burned.”
“And what are those little people?” Bamber demanded.
“I’m not sure,” said Falija. “In your world, little people are mythical, and they’re called different things. These are quite real. In their language they’re called a word that means filth-carriers. They have no sense of smell and no aesthetic perceptions, they aren’t bothered by nastiness, though they themselves are quite clean, so they make their living cleaning it up when it intrudes on special places.”
“So that’s a magical world down there?” asked Bamber
Falija replied in an astonished voice, “No, of course it’s not magical. It’s completely real. It simply has a lot of life-forms that you’re unfamiliar with.”
Glory asked, “What do you mean, it’s not magical, it’s real?”
“It’s a real world. It has real qualities. Up is always up and down is always down. Fruit falls from a tree, it doesn’t float to the sky. Creatures are born in this world, and grow up and eventually die. What’s true today is also true tomorrow.
“If this were a magical world, all those things would be subject to change by anyone who had power or could command it by spell or enchantment. Magical worlds can’t exist in our universe because their rules change constantly, and there’s no difference between evil and good. Power is power, and everyone does whatever they can get away with.”
“I always thought magic was sort of nice,” said Glory.
Falija’s ears drooped. “Humans are fascinated with magic. Your people like to believe in powers that will break all the laws of the universe, just for you.” Falija shivered. “My bones feel it’s getting really late back home. It’s time to go.”
So we went back through the shimmering gate, down to my house, all of us silent and full of wonder. Falija and I stopped off while the other two went on down the hill. For a moment I wondered if I should call them back, tell them not to mention what had happened tonight, not even to Maybelle or James. I decided they knew enough to keep their mouths shut, and in fact, they did.
The first day of the following week, I drove Bamber and Glory over to Remorseful to school. Some of the people who had been taking care of Dorothy Springer’s cats were interested in setting up an animal refuge in her memory, a place for stray cats and dogs and whatever. They’d asked me if I would help, and I’d said I’d talk with them about it that morning. School hadn’t started yet, and most of the students were out on the lawn when we arrived. The children got out of the buggy just as a series of unusual noises came from the main street, down the hill, where the stores and bank and offices were, like a huge door slamming repeatedly. Everyone jumped up, peering down the street and jabbering. Before anybody could move in that direction, the head teacher came out of the school and told everyone to get inside until we knew what had happened.
I hitched the horse and went inside with the children, thinking how ridiculous this was, in Rueful, of all places. Bamber went out the back door of the school before I had a chance to ask where he was going. Inside the doors, the head teacher was telling everyone the Dominion Alarm system had already summoned Dominion officers, and everyone was to stay inside with their belongings at hand, in case they needed to be sent home.
A moment later, a Dominion Police flier buzzed up over the hills and headed for the downtown, and only moments after that, Bamber Joy sneaked back into the school and came to find Glory and me. He said he’d sneaked over to Main Street where supposedly armed men had robbed the bank. He’d seen Ned and Walter in front of the bank, waving their arms and claiming to have seen the robbers running off into the woods. Since woods covered most of the mountains around town, the alleged robbers could be anywhere. That’s the way Bamber said it, alleged
