A Fantasy Story
“I was out camping and I… I sure wish I never seen it.” The woman wrung her hands, her face pinched. “There needs to be a wall or a fence, or at least some warning signs!”
“Warning about what?” Sheriff Doyle asked. “What’s the problem?”
Her expression turned from fear to shame. Turning away, she rubbed her arms against a chill that wasn’t there. “Never mind. It’s nothing. It’s just a story. I thought being in a police station would be exciting, so I… I lied. Sorry to waste your time.”
The sheriff sighed, rubbing his blue eyes. A dozen different people had claimed to see something in Lawson Woods, but none of them would say what. When he asked if it was a bear or a mountain lion, they said it likely wasn’t dangerous, but wouldn’t explain why they were so worried. If he pressed them for details, their whole demeanor would change. They would suddenly get uncomfortable and insist they had made the whole thing up.
“You fibbed too, huh?” he said, scratching his beard. He reached for his coffee cup, but it had been empty for hours. “Just go home and don’t do it again.”
He shoved his notebook in his shirt pocket. Watching the woman leave, he stepped over to the receptionist’s desk. “Another one of those stories about the damn woods,” he grumbled. “It just don’t make sense, Tanya.”
“What doesn’t, Sheriff?” Tanya tucked her red nail polish in a drawer, hoping he wouldn’t notice she had been giving herself a manicure at work again. She was the youngest employee at the station, and tended to ignore goof off when no one was around. This week, her hair was blue.
“It don’t seem like a prank. Nobody’s laughing or posting videos online. But if it’s not a joke, what is it? They all made a false police report on a whim? Is it a internet meme? Shared psychosis? A folly of whatever the French for a dozen is?”
She rolled her eyes. “Folie des douze.”
“Oh. I probably should have known that. I took six years of French in high school.”
She took a long sip of coffee. “Maybe they saw something strange but didn’t think you’d believe them, so they got embarrassed and went home.”
He harrumphed. “Like what? Some paranormal thing? Maybe it’s Bigfoot or Mothman or one of those mutants with a dog’s head. Everyone says the… whatever it is comes at night. I’ll head out to the woods after work and see what I can find.”
She smirked behind her mug. “Good luck, Sheriff. Say hi to the Dog-Faced Boy for me.”
Deputy Connors walked over, her hat in her hands, blonde hair up in a tight bun. “Sheriff, I got another call about Tommy Reed shoplifting. We can’t just keep letting that boy go.”
“His father got fired last week. They probably don’t have any food in the house. Just ignore it for a few more days. I’ll make sure they pay everyone back as soon as they can.”
She frowned, her lips pressed together tightly. “The folks at the farmer’s market won’t like that.”
“Tell them I’ll pay for whatever he took. How much can a few vegetables cost, anyway?”
“Probably more than you think. Some of those booths are real fancy. I wanted to make pasta, and the mushrooms cost more than the ground sirloin!”
He rubbed his brow. “Maybe I’ll buy the Reeds a steak instead.”
He waited until dark and drove out to Lawson Woods. He walked through the trees, scanning the area with his flashlight, until he came to a clearing. It was empty. No Bigfoot tracks, no Mothman eggs, no mutant dog man chew toys. The only thing in the clearing was a large boulder that had cracked in two, either from erosion or an earthquake.
He aimed his flashlight at the rock. “Is it you, Stoney? You scaring all these nice people? That crack might look like a mouth, if I didn’t have my glasses, and had been out here drinking all day… No, that’s not it. Of course there’s no monster. Nothing interesting ever happens around here. This damn town don’t even have a bowling alley.”
A flickering light came from the crack in the boulder. A gray woman appeared standing on top, one foot on each side of the crack. She was beautiful but broken, like a crumbling statue in a museum. As she moved, bits of what looked like stone drifted down from her body. Statue or not, she wouldn’t be around much longer.
She spread her arms, dim stars in her hands. “Behold! I am Haldis, and you are my chosen! Darkness is rolling in like fog. Even the widest streets are hidden from view. The people are lost and wandering, hearts full of fear. You will be their guide. You will lead them home, back to the warmth and safety of the fire. You, my special one, will bring new life to a dying world.”
He stared, stammering. “Me? Everyone in the whole world? I can hardly help people right here. Folks are struggling to pay rent and feed their families, so they do things they shouldn’t, just to keep life from getting even harder. I just keep letting them go. They don’t need jail time, they need jobs and healthcare and transportation. I want to help folks, but what am I supposed to do for a whole planet? I’m just one person. I can’t buy groceries for everyone who’s hungry. You understand, right? You can find someone else, can’t you?”
But she had already vanished.
In the morning, when he returned to work, his mind was still spinning. He felt like his chest was full of lead. He brushed past Deputy Connors, ignoring her good morning, and headed into his office. He sat on the couch, his head in his hands. “I’m just like them,” he thought. “A dozen people picked to heal the world, and they all refused. We all failed. Each and every one.”
Tanya came in, bringing him a cup of coffee. “Are you alright, Sheriff?” She tilted her head. “Hungover?”
“No, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself.
“How was your night in the woods? Did you meet Bigfoot?”
“I wish. Bigfoot would have been easy.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What happened? What did you see out there?”
He shook his head. “…Nothing. There’s nothing in those woods. They made it all up.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, I should have guessed nothing exciting would happen in this little town. Last Thursday, I saw a guy at the grocery store with a parrot on his shoulder, and it was the most interesting thing that happened all week. How sad is that?”
“Oh, that’s Griffin.”
“The parrot or the guy?”
He furrowed his brow. “You know, I don’t remember.”
Several days later, Sheriff Doyle came into work and discovered Deputy Connors teaching Tanya how to fence. They were both holding rapiers and practicing attacking and defending, chasing each other back and forth across the police station.
His eyes widened. “When you said you were a fencing expert, I thought you meant the kind that keeps cows from wandering off, not this Three Musketeers nonsense. What in the hell are you two doing?”
Connors held up her hand, signaling Tanya to take a break. “Getting ready, of course!”
“Ready for what? An invading barbarian horde?”
Connors folded her arms. “Rapiers weren’t around until the sixteenth century. The Romans would have fought invaders with gladiuses. Totally different sword.”
Tanya gave her a playful shove. “Save the history of stabbings for later.” She grabbed the water bottle from her desk and took a sip. “Sheriff, we know you met Haldis in the woods. We joined my brothers on their annual hunting trip last night, and she appeared to both of us. Of course, we agreed to help right away. A world-saving battle sounds a lot more fun than answering phones or catching kids shoplifting. Why didn’t you want to fight? Didn’t you go through the portal?”
He tossed up his hands. “What portal? What’s going on?”
She shook her head in disbelief. “The portal on the rock? The door to her kingdom? You didn’t think she was talking about saving this world, did you?”
He scratched his beard. “I didn’t know there was other worlds out there to be talking about.”
“Of course! That’s where we’re headed. Oh, we’re both taking three months off work. I already signed your name on the time off forms.”
He grabbed the forms from her desk and scowled. “Maternity leave? But you’re not… Neither of you are… Hold on a minute!”
But the two women were already heading for the door. Connors called over her shoulder, “Sheriff, I’ve got a battle axe in my truck. You’ll need it. Projectile weapons don’t work there. The gravity is all weird. Now come on! There are thirteen kingdoms full of people in danger, and we’re going to save them all. Each and every one.”
