Chapter 35

  Elmer Sky

  “Look at that!” Elmer cried in delight. “Look, dear. You’re not looking.”

  “Elmer, I’ve been looking,” said Amelia from her reclined position on the grass. “What else is there for me to do?”

  “But it is even more marvelous than last time, dear!”

  “I know how sunsets look, Elmer.”

  Elmer paced the hilltop in his sky-blue tracksuit, his ample body aquiver with excitement at seeing the last sunset this world would ever know. And it was marvelous indeed! The golden light of the setting sun traced along the cracks in the broken sky, and all the fog billowing down in great columns from one horizon to the next was awash in the rosy light. It looked as though Elmer and his companions stood upon a green hill amid a tranquil sea of honey and wine.

  Elmer sighed in contentment and checked to see whether Amber Jane was enjoying this spectacle as she ought. The girl sat by her unconscious sister, reading from that book of poetry. Her singing had been wonderful! It had fixed Amelia right as rain, just as he’d said, although in truth Amelia had needed quite a lie-down afterward.

  Still! Here, they were–alive, together, and well! No Abraham Black in sight, nor any dastardly fiends in grey coats. Elmer preened his dark moustaches in satisfaction.

  The fog closed in around them as evening came on. The brilliant lighting of the sun faded to fuchsia, then to slate grey. Elmer sighed again, this time in resignation, as the fog concealed the heavens above. No more sky. Not for now. Not for ever, likely, on this world. But what a finale!

  “I think I can manage,” Amelia said as the dim twilight set in.

  “Capital!” Elmer proclaimed. He sprang lightly to his feet despite his bulk. “We’d best find some shelter from this fog. We shouldn’t want young Elizabeth catching chill!”

  “Indeed.” Amelia sat up and buttoned her long, dismal coat around her. “I recall seeing some houses nearby. We can take turns with Elizabeth.”

  “We’ll try to spend the night somewhere?” asked Amber Jane. “At someone’s home?”

  “I suppose,” said Amelia. “Better than spending it here in the fog. Indoors offers some protection, you know.”

  “Protection?” Amber Jane closed the book, replaced it into her purse, and looked around nervously. “From what?”

  “The fog, dear,” said Amelia.

  “What comes of the fog, rather,” said Elmer.

  “Well then,” said Amelia as she rose to her feet. She took a wobbly step but soon found her footing. “Let us away. The effect will intensify as night falls.”

  “Ah! Night!” said Elmer. “That charming obscurity!”

  Amber Jane bound up her mass of golden hair and took the first turn carrying Elizabeth, whom they had bundled in coats for warmth. Elizabeth looked very peaceful there in her sister’s arms. The three of them set off downhill, easing through the thickening fog in the direction Amelia pointed out for them.

  “Soon,” said Amelia, “we ought to come upon a road of some sort. We will simply follow it to a turnoff.”

  “Ingenious! But I wonder, Amelia, do you suppose that young Elizabeth’s dreams will manifest in our presence?”

  “I think not, Elmer,” sighed Amelia. “She’s not really here, you know.”

  “Of course, of course.” Alas! To be where she probably was! Home! Though Elmer recollected it hardly at all.

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  “What…” said Amber Jane, who walked behind them and stepped with extra care down the slippery grass to avoid stumbling with her precious cargo, “are you talking about?”

  “Ah!” Elmer turned to her and tapped the side of his head with a finger. “I forget. I offer my sincerest apologies! Perhaps you’ve been paying too much attention to your feet. To notice, that is.”

  “Notice what?”

  “Here, allow me.” Elmer held out his short, pudgy arms and took Elizabeth from Amber Jane. Elizabeth was heavy, but not enough to seriously hamper his movement. “Now,” he said, “Take a close look at the fog. In particular, up there by Amelia. What do you see?”

  They looked together. The fog, with a curious grainy texture unlike regular fog, was shifting and forming itself into shapes. Cubes, spheres, rods, spiraling patterns and bending lattices. Each lasted only a moment. Each appeared almost accidental, the way that a passing cloud might happen to look, for a brief moment, like a certain animal.

  “I don’t understand,” said Amber Jane, watching so closely that she tripped and had to catch herself.

  “Observe long enough,” said Elmer, “and you will see the products of your own thoughts–and mine as well! The longer this goes on, the more real they will become. And of course the effect is greatly amplified by sleeping. Dreaming, you understand. It can be quite dangerous if, for example, you have a nightmare!”

  “There are other influences,” said Amelia, who had paused to let them catch up. “Its effects are more pronounced at night. Perhaps because more people are asleep? Certain types of people, such as young children, have a tendency to generate especially potent figments.”

  “I…hmm,” said Amber Jane. She furrowed her brow and hugged her tan jacket more closely around her.

  “Do not fret,” said Amelia. “You will come to understand in time.”

  It was only a few minutes later that Amber Jane cried out in surprise. Elmer, preoccupied with carrying Elizabeth, did not see what had caused the commotion.

  “Was that him?” asked Amelia. “The one you were speaking to?”

  “Y–yes,” said Amber Jane, shaken. “It was…it was like I saw him in the corner of my eye. And then…”

  “Like seeing someone in a dream, dear,” said Amelia. “Do not fret. He wasn’t real. Er…just remember that. If he begins talking.”

  “They can talk?”

  “They can do much more than that, Amber Jane,” said Amelia. “There is a danger, beyond the possibility of dying to a nightmare, that one loses track of reality.”

  “Not an arduous task in the fog, I daresay,” added Elmer.

  “Yes. Quite.”

  “Amelia!” A thought struck Elmer so suddenly that he forgot for a moment to keep holding up Elizabeth. She tumbled from his arms onto the dewy grass. Fortunately, the distance of her fall was not great.

  “Yes, Elmer?”

  “It just struck me, Amelia! How do we know so much about the genesis mist?”

  “Really, Elmer, it’s simple. We…ah…hm.” Amelia glared at the gravel by her feet.

  “Aha! Another one for the book!” Elmer took out his notebook of memories and began scribbling in it as Amelia hefted the sleeping Elizabeth over her bony shoulder.

  More visions manifested in the fog as they progressed, images glimpsed for a moment before vanishing into smoke. At first, they were grainy, grayscale, chance formations of the fog itself. But Elmer knew, without knowing how he knew, that in time they would gain color, form, independence. The time might come when, if he was daydreaming of something (a kitten, for example!) it might appear with such reality that he could hold it and carry it with him. It might scratch him, and the scratch would remain even when the kitten dissolved. Of course, it was very difficult to simply will something into being like that. Few had such control over their subconscious processes.

  He noted his awareness of these fascinating insights in his notebook of memories. It was a bit like learning interesting new things, except that the person explaining it to him was his own thoughts! Remarkable!

  It never became truly dark, even long after night ought to have fallen. The fog generated its own dull self-luminescence. Just as they began to consider the necessity of bedding down along the side of the road they followed, Amber Jane spotted a building nearby in the mist. They approached, verified as best they could that this was a real structure that would not dissolve into fog momentarily, and entered. It was some kind of barn, home only to two nervous horses.

  Elmer at once made it his goal to befriend the horses.