Skippy Dies: A Novel

Now you’re deep in the forest, searching for the final Demon’s castle. The sun is going down, the tree trunks glow pale silver, wrapped root-upwards with spiderweb. You left your horse down in the valley, there was no way to take it along. Where will it go? Someone kind will take it in and afterwards you can come and collect it.

Afterwards.

When you came back from Lori’s, Ruprecht was still out on his mission. You put the frisbee in the wardrobe and got the tube of pills from under the mattress. Through the dorm window the sky is the same dead black as the empty schoolyard, as if they’ve tarmacked over it, and on the desk, like a yellow leaf, the note you found stuck to the door: BUS LEAVES FOR BALLINASLOE 8 A.M. SEE YOU THERE!

No one knows much about the Third Demon, even on the Internet it’s hard to find any information. You’ve crossed the Realm three times hunting for this Castle. You leave the woods for the wetlands now, in blazing moonlight heading north. You run until there’s no further you can go and you hit the border of the Realm, the invisible wall where though the grass and water continue into the distance your legs move without taking you anywhere. Okay, try going west instead.

According to one solution of M-theory our universe is a HYPERSPHERE, which is to say it’s shaped like a bubble. That means that if you were to run as far as you could go, i.e. for fifteen trillion light years, which is the size of the universe, you would eventually end up right back where you started. So how would you end up somewhere else? Ah, well, from inside the bubble, that is to say hyperspace, you could go wherever you wanted. Like back in time? Backwards, forwards, any point in space, not to mention the other universes, an infinity of them maybe. So how do you get into the bubble? Well, that’s where it gets tricky. Because we’re too big and heavy for the dimensions? You could put it like that.

Djed running and running, west and west, through the predawn gloom. Now you come to a fork in the path you don’t remember being there before. Both ways look identical, lined with trees and mist. You pick one at random and start walking. Before long you notice the mist getting thicker, soon it has spread to cover everything, leaving only ghosts of trees, ghosts of a path. Still, if you keep going the same direction you’re bound to get somewhere eventually. So you keep going.

Sleep pulls at your eyelids. The clock ticks, pushing you closer and closer to tomorrow.

BUS LEAVES FOR BALLINASLOE 8 A.M.

Flu epidemic, ebola, plague. Bus explosion, revolution, dinosaur skeletons in the museum coming to life and wreaking havoc. Alien invasion. Death.

SEE YOU THERE!

The mist goes on and on. As you walk things come up out of your thoughts, frazzles of memories swirling around you and binding together, gathering like ghosts out of the dark. The swim meet, the last one, in Thurles. Grown-ups squeezed into plastic bleachers: country parents in frilly blouses and jumpers with diamond patterns, Seabrook parents in sunglasses, jewellery, fake tan. The other teams had bogger accents and broad shoulders, in the changing rooms they called you ‘townie ponces’, you were huddled in a corner not talking, with your goggles you looked like scared insects. Then Coach pulled you in together. You can do it, guys! They’re already afraid of you! Because you’re better than them! Then the whistle blew.

On and on, deeper into the mist.

As soon as you hit the water you stopped being scared. Water is the same everywhere! Your body moved without even thinking, you realized all the times before in training were just shadows of this time and the realness made you fly. The cheers from the bleachers were crashes of sound like the breaths of a monster that hit you whenever you came up for air. Your arms burned, they ploughed and dug like you were travelling right through the Earth. You didn’t know what was happening around you, just kept hurling yourself forward till your fingers touched the wall. Then you saw Coach jump up with his fist in the air.

The metal trophy Made in Korea in the fat fingers of the judge. Coach’s blue shirt black from carrying you on his shoulders. The space in the crowd where Mum and Dad would have been, that’s where you kept looking. She can’t come to the phone right now, sport. Okay, Dad, maybe later. A black hole is a region where the rules break down, where we don’t know why what happens happens. Likewise, the word ‘cancer’ does not designate a specific disease, instead you should think of it as the name we give to a huge hole in our knowledge, a blank space on the map so to speak.

Who wants hamburgers?!! McDonald’s in Thurles tasted different to home. Then back to the hotel, it was green like mint ice cream that had been left in the rain for years and years. In the next bed Antony Taylor fell asleep straight away. The others were in Siddartha’s room watching Dunston Checks In. Is she awake now? She’s just gone to bed, sport. But she’s so proud of you, Danny, she wanted me to tell you.

You lay there in the dark. Antony’s snoring was like a cement mixer. You just wanted to talk to her! You just wanted them to tell you what was happening! And then your leg felt like it was twisting up inside, you couldn’t lie still. It was twisting you right up out of the bed! You got up, you hopped around. Then you opened the door, the wallpaper in the hotel was green too, it looked like you were underwater, the gold numbers on the doors counting down, you raised your hand to knock – and then –

How long have you been walking in this mist?!! It’s got so thick that everything else has been blotted out, all you can see is this endless pearly-grey sea. Crap, maybe when you came to that fork in the path you should’ve gone the other direction. Now there is no path. You turn round, head back the way you came but it does not seem to make any difference. East, south-east, south. Nothing but mist. You start to wonder if maybe the game has crashed, leaving you stuck in some corner at the edge of the map, and you’re just leaning forward to press the reset button on the console when you catch sight of something, a way off in the distance.

At first it hardly looks like anything – just a speck, almost too small to see. But the speck quickly grows into a dot, and the dot into a tiny patch of dark-grey against the background of silvery fog. As you hurry towards it you realize that whatever-it-is is also making its way towards you. Thud, thud, goes your heart. Your hands on the controller are slippery with sweat. You know it’s the Demon, even from this distance, you can tell from the way the hairs on your arm stand up, the room thumps with your heartbeats, the night-colours drain and pulse in rhythm. And now it steps at last out of the mist.

Reality lurches left then right.

Because you know its face.

You rub your eyes. You pinch your arm, glance around you. The room is still here; you are still cross-legged on the floor, your floor. Behind you, Ruprecht’s SETI scan bleeps quietly to itself. In the window, the usual stars and the far-off sound of Casey Ellington chasing Cormac Ryan around the car park with a shaken-up can of Dr Pepper.

But when you look back at the screen nothing has changed. On one side, Djed, with his golden hair, his Sword of Songs, the princess’s amulet. On the other –

On the other is Coach.

He looks just like he always looks, in his hoodie with the Seabrook crest, a whistle on a string around his neck. His body listing slightly to one side, his hands hanging empty at his sides. He looks back out at you.

You don’t know what to do. Is this supposed to be happening? Is this still the game? You laugh, because it’s so ridiculous. But there’s no one there to hear your laugh. You wish Coach would stop looking at you, out of the screen. But he doesn’t stop. And now he says, ‘Swim meet.’

Your whole body jolts. The walls of the room churn round like a fairground ride.

Maybe you imagined it. But then he speaks again. ‘Swim meet,’ he says.

Is this really happening?

‘Swim meet.’

‘Coach?’ you say to the screen.

But he just says it again, ‘Swim meet,’ and again, louder, ‘swim meet.’

‘Stop!’ you shout back.

Now he’s coming towards you. ‘Swim meet.’

‘This is impossible, you’re in a game –’

‘SWIM MEET.’

You pick up the controller where you’ve dropped it at your feet. Maybe you can just run past him? But without appearing to move he blocks your way. You try another direction. There he is again, standing in front of you. It’s getting harder and harder to think. Mist rolls around the two of you, like a ring of ghosts watching a schoolyard fight. And now he advances towards you – you-you, like he’s going to come through the screen. ‘SWIM MEET,’ he says.

You let out a cry, lunge at him with the sword. You slash at his arms and neck. The blows have no effect, he keeps coming forward. ‘SWIM MEET.’

You run backwards, take out the bow and release four arrows into his chest. They stick out, shafts wobbling, as he advances towards the screen. ‘SWIM MEET.’

‘Shut UP!’ You take out the Axe of Invincibility and run towards him, you hack at him, hew at his face and body. You cast spells, Fire Storm, Reversal, Banishment.

‘SWIM MEET SWIM MEET SWIM MEET.’

Now you start to cry. ‘Shut up?’ you plead.

‘SWIM MEET,’ he says.

You yelp. You kick the monitor.

‘SWIM MEET.’

You go for the console but something has gone wrong because it won’t switch off, you flick the button back and forth but nothing happens and now Coach’s face is right up against the screen going over and over and over

SWIM MEET SWIM MEET SWIM MEET SWIM MEET

and there is a sound like a door opening and you reel back from the screen as like it’s been summoned it appears there right in front of you, the Door, its gold number, and you see yourself walking inside

into a hotel bedroom

Hey there, Daniel, what’s up? He’s rising from the chair, on the dresser the pills and a glass of wrong-tasting Coke, and you know what’s going to happen but it’s like you’re locked into the movements, like you’re watching yourself –

You just relax there, don’t worry about a thing, he says, his hand reaches out for you

Yes, you remember now don’t you

Into your hair gritty with chlorine

while Mum lies on her back with tubes going into her

And your soul slides down a slippery slope your body is black-magic encased in ice never again to escape or change or grow

And tomorrow it will happen all over again.

BUS LEAVES FOR BALLINASLOE 8 A.M. SEE YOU THERE!

Do you understand now, Skippy? You cannot run any longer. You’ve come fifteen trillion light years to the very place you started from. That’s the shape of the universe, that’s called the Way It Is, it’s a door that pulls you like a black hole into the future: and everything that promises to take you away from it, a girl, a game, a portal, these are no more than stray gleams and sparkles of light, shining at you from somewhere you will never be able to go.

On the monitor the Third Demon turns expressionlessly and walks back into the mist.

Now you’re lying with your head on the carpet. Somewhere above you a clock ticks. Your body feels like lead, it feels like you’re already dead. But then you notice something.

On the game-over screen, from his mist-shrouded body, you see Djed’s soul fluttering upwards. Up and up it goes, a dancing ball of light, till it’s reached the title screen, to bob around the princess where she waits in her glittering cage of ice. Around and around her it dances. And suddenly you think:

His soul.

You sit up.

A soul doesn’t weigh anything, it doesn’t have a size.

On the screen the princess’s eyes twinkle at you.

The dimensions are there at every point, too small to be perceived by clunky human bodies. But if you were just a soul –

That’s when you see them! As if a veil’s been pulled away, suddenly you see the air is full of little doors! All around the room, they’re floating there everywhere, and when you scramble up to peep through them, you can see what’s on the other side! Each one leads to a different time and place! Through this one you see you and Ruprecht, in the basement, working on the Invisibility Gun –

And here’s the Hallowe’en Hop, when the things she said on her doorstep tonight do not exist yet, and you’re realizing that Lori is the exact shape of what’s been missing from your arms –

Here’s tomorrow morning, 8 a.m., the sulky sky denim-blue, shivering boys with otter-like morning eyes, Siddartha and Garret and Antony Taylor, climbing one by one up the steps of the bus, fighting each other for the back seat, as Coach checks his watch, his clipboard, his watch again, studies the school door, which does not open –

(Faster, Skippy! a voice, the princess’s voice, urges you, as the room swims, the particles break apart, the strings unweave like an old school jumper)

And here’s summer, years ago, before any of this started, and Mum’s in the back garden giving Dogley his first bath, he’s still a pup, he doesn’t know what water is, suds are flying everywhere, he yaps and wriggles, nipping at anyone in reach, and Mum goes, If you just hold him so I can scrub his – when he squeezes out of her arms and shoots up in the air like a bar of soap, then landing on the grass turns and barks at you, shaking off the water so it flies all over you, and Mum laughs so hard she has to lie down on the grass, her hair is gold, her tummy round with Nina, the rainbow bubbles bob over the garden like perfect brand-new universes, the sound of her laughter is like music, it is music, and it guides you towards the door, against the rushing tide of time, swimming with all your strength, up and up –

‘What are you doing?’

You open your eyes. Ruprecht towers over you with a baffled expression.

‘Must’ve fallen asleep…’ You haul your head off the carpet. ‘I was playing the game,’ you say, gesturing at the monitor. But it’s not switched on. You drag yourself onto the bed and sit up.

‘What’s this?’ Ruprecht has picked up an empty amber tube from the floor.

‘Nothing,’ you say, ‘just getting rid of some stuff.’ Sleep sizzles into your thoughts like radio static. The little doors have disappeared. ‘Did you get your pod back?’

Ruprecht looks grimly out the window. ‘That damn dog,’ he says. A growl issues from his stomach. ‘You don’t have any food, do you?’

‘No,’ you say. Was it all a dream then? Disappointment burns within you, beads in your eyes, almost too much to bear.

‘Hmm.’ Ruprecht checks his watch. ‘Ed’s is still open…’

He turns away to count coins from his penny jar. You’re looking at SEE YOU THERE! just trying not to cry. And then you realize you’re floating six inches off the ground.

Holy shit! What’s going on? Ruprecht has his back to you, he’s saying something about making a new pod, meanwhile you are slowly rising up towards the ceiling! You try not to laugh – it’s like invisible hands have slipped under your feet and are lifting you, higher and higher –

Ruprecht turns round. Instantly you’re back on the floor. ‘What happened to Frisbee Girl?’ he says. He can’t see them, but quarks and electrons are shooting through the air, sparking from his body like a million miniature multicoloured lightning bolts.

You shrug. ‘Some other time.’

‘Oh.’ Another ferocious rumble issues from his stomach. ‘I don’t seem to have enough change,’ he says.

‘I’ll pay for both of us,’ you say. ‘We can have a race.’

‘A race?’

‘Why not?’ Your atoms are pulling upwards again. Every second you feel yourself lighter and lighter! Say if we started going back in time tonight, could we keep going back for as long as we wanted?

Ruprecht does one of his scoffing laughs. ‘My dear Skippy, no one’s beaten me in fifteen consecutive races. And those times I wasn’t even hungry.’

‘Well…’ You zip up your coat. Through the window the neon doughnut sign shines in at you, the door of doors, the gateway to everything beyond, today and yesterday and the day before, all the times and people you have ever loved. ‘Maybe it’s my lucky day,’ you say.