The Dark Lord's Demise (5 page)

Kurt knew they had to get Betty out of the way fast. Quickly he told
her, "Betty! We've got a surprise for you. You can't see it yet."

Betty's gaze traveled past the three of them and up the stairway.
A sly, knowing look came over her face. "Let me guess. It's something you've got upstairs, right?"

Lisa, still halfway up the stairs, clumped down to the bottom and
stood shoulder to shoulder with her brothers. They formed a wall
between Betty and the stairway. Betty laughed. "You guys are being
so obvious. What's up there? Your bedrooms are up there, right?"

Wes was completely truthful when he said, "Nope. There are no
rooms up there. Just a musty old attic."

"Why don't you do like Lisa says and go put those potatoes in a
bowl?" Kurt urged Betty. "And while you're at it, could you slice the
roast and put it on a platter? That would help a lot."

Betty shook her head. "I'm no good at fixing food. I'll ruin the
whole dinner. You wouldn't want that, would you?" The Friesens
fought off increasing panic. At that moment, they knew, a message streamed across the screen of one of the old televisions:

Look all thou wilt at the pictures and see.

List to whatever they say to thee.

The pictures you see are but one, not four,

And each to the others may serve as a door.

Once mayest thou enter by climbing the frame.

Once inayest thou enter but never again.

Once, yet I pray thee to shatter the bond

And pass through the glass to what lies beyond.

One of the sets displayed those words over and over. Pictures
showed on the screens of the other four sets. They were color pictures, although the televisions were black-and-white sets, too old
for color. The pictures appeared so real; they were like tiny theaters with miniature sets and miniature actors. Live actors who
seemed to look directly out from the screen and make eye contact
with the viewer. In fact, the people on the screens were alive and
real. Though they looked like miniature actors, they turned out to
be full-sized-once Kurt, Lisa and Wesley went through one of the
screens and entered the other world of Anthropos.

Once mayest thou enter by climbing the frame.

Once mayest thou enter but never again.

Gaal and the Changer were calling them to Anthropos! Now!
The children had a mission to accomplish there. They did not dare
ignore the summons and let the pictures fade to darkness. On the
other hand, they couldn't let Betty Riggs know what was going on.

The problem was that Betty Riggs wanted very much to know
what was going on. She demanded loudly, "You guys are up to
something. What is it?"

"Like Kurt said, it's a surprise," Lisa replied quickly. "But it's not
quite ready yet. You carne back sooner than we expected. I know.
Why don't you leave again and come back in, say, half an hour."

Lisa knew they would spend longer than half an hour in
Anthropos. Sometimes they spent years there. However, that was in
Anthropos time. In Canadian time they always returned at exactly
the same time they left. If Betty came back in half an hour, they
could be in Anthropos as long as necessary, and they'd still be back in plenty of time to catch their breath and prepare to welcome her
to the neighborhood. They could even still have dinner together.

You had to give Betty Riggs credit for her persistence. She did
not give up easily. Now she was more curious than ever. "There's a
secret up in the attic, isn't there? I knew it! This looked like a house
that had a secret! Don't worry. I won't tell anybody. Was there a
murder up there? Is there an old skeleton? Or a treasure worth millions? Or a locked trunk that no one knows what's inside? Or a hidden doorway to something mysterious like ... another universe?
Another world?"

"What!" Kurt sputtered. "Who said anything about other
worlds?" Wes wanted to elbow him in the side, but Lisa stood
between them. He would also have liked to clamp a hand over his
brother's mouth.

Betty leaned against the wall. Calmly she stated, "Oh, I believe
in other worlds. Don't you?" She looked at each of them in turn.
She expected a response.

With great caution Wes admitted, "Yeah, you could say we
believe in other worlds too." That felt safe. Believing in other
worlds was not the same as traveling to other worlds.

Betty examined her nails in a lazy fashion. "I think any sensible
thinking person has to believe there are other worlds besides this
one." Again she looked past them, up the stairway. "What's that
funny flickering light up there?"

Lisa grabbed Betty's arm and steered her toward the parlor. An
idea half-formed in her head. She had to put it into action even
before she fully understood it. She babbled, "You know, Betty,
you're really smart. I knew it as soon as I met you. Yes, we do have a
secret, but it has nothing to do with this house. It has to do with you
and with us welcoming you to the neighborhood."

Lisa looked over her shoulder at Wes and Kurt. With her free
hand she waved them up the stairway while she mouthed "Go on!
Go!" To Betty she said, "If you don't want to help with dinner, why
don't you go into the parlor and wait for us. Take another look at
the things my parents have collected from all over the world."

"I'll say one thing: I've got interesting new neighbors," Betty
muttered.

"Oh, I don't know. I think we're kind of boring myself, Nothing
ever happens around here." They went into the parlor. The boys'
feet thudded up the stairs. A moment later their excited voices
came from above the parlor ceiling. Lisa couldn't make out the
words. She wished they would whisper so Betty couldn't hear. On
the other hand, she was dying to know what they were saying. She
thought she heard Kurt say "Fake!" Or had he said "Lake"? What
lake could he mean? In Anthropos she knew only two: Lake
Bamah, where the city of Bamah stood before it was destroyed, and
Lake Nachash, with the Island of Geburah in its center. Or maybe
Kurt had said, "W tit!"

"I've already seen everything in here," Betty complained. "Oh,
except for that thing. What's that?"

"Nothing," snapped Lisa. She was looking back toward the door.
If only she could persuade Betty to stay here alone, even for a
short time. Then Lisa could run upstairs and go through the TV
screen into Anthropos. She needed only a minute. When they
came back, Betty would not even know they'd been gone.

"Sit down!" Lisa commanded. Betty gave a big dramatic sigh and
sat in an easy chair. Lisa said, "Now I'll run upstairs and finish the
surprise. No, no, don't move! It might even help if you close your
eyes!"

She hurried into the hallway and started up the stairs. Halfway
up she tripped and caught herself. Slow down! she told herself. You
don't want to go into Anthropos with a sprained ankle. Betty said she had
a sprained ankle once. Tell yourself the pain isn't there and it isn't there, is
that what she said? Lisa reached the top of the stairs, rushed into the
attic and shut the door behind her. She wished it had a lock. Then
she turned to take in the weird but familiar scene.

All five of the old TV sets had come alive. Across one of them
scrolled the words she already knew. She barely needed to glance
at that screen. Kurt and Wesley stood directly in front of one of the
other sets, blocking part of her view. Rapidly she scanned the four
screens with pictures. All had color images, three outdoor and one
indoor.

One of the outdoor scenes was little more than a bluish-gray
blur. Lisa was disappointed. It didn't look like anything recogniz able. Wait, the blur was moving. It rose and fell in a choppy
motion. It was water-the surface of a body of water on an overcast
day. There was the horizon where water met sky, an indistinct line
slightly above the center of the screen. Haze. A hazy day on some
large body of water. What was that vertical line at the right edge of
the screen? The mast of a ship? A lighthouse tower? A tower, yes,
but not necessarily a lighthouse. With a shock she realized she
knew the place well: the stone tower on the Island of Geburah in
Lake Nachash. But the tower had fallen down ages ago! What did it
mean? Were they being sent to Anthropos at some point in the
past?

Another scene showed thick woods. Lisa didn't bother to try to
identify the place; it could be anywhere. A path led into the woods
and disappeared into darkness. She was about to turn away and
investigate another image when shafts of sunlight broke through
the trees and illuminated the path. The path divided into two
paths. Lisa tried to decide which she would take if she were there,
but there were no arrows or markers to guide her.

The third TV set displayed a hallway of stone lit by torches set in
brackets on the walls. Strange shadows rose and fell. The back of a
man in a long cloak appeared from the side of the image, as if he
had walked into the picture from behind the camera. The man
moved off down the hallway with his back still to the viewer. From
his slow gait and slightly stooped posture, Lisa decided he must be
aged. The man turned and looked back over his shoulder as
though someone had called his name. His face was younger than
she expected. Suddenly the "camera" zoomed in on the face. Lisa
cried out "It's King Kardia!" but immediately she had doubts. It was
someone who looked like Kardia. He had the same dignified and
compassionate countenance. But the eyes were sad and the face
was thin-too thin!

Lisa heard Wesley say, "Never mind those. I think this is the one
we're supposed to go into." "Let me see!" she demanded and
pushed herself between the two boys.

The image on the last screen appeared to be an aerial view from
treetop height. It showed a clearing in a woods. Three people circled around in the clearing. They walked aimlessly but faster and faster. Sometimes they bumped into each other. Suddenly they
looked up at the camera and became very agitated. They pointed
and talked with excitement, though their words were inaudible.
Maybe they've seen a flying saucer, Lisa thought. Then she whispered,
"It's us!" Her own terrified face and the terrified faces of her brothers stared up at themselves through the TV screen. "What are they
afraid of? I mean what are we afraid of?"

"I don't think they're afraid of us," Wesley replied. "I mean, I
don't think we're afraid of ourselves. I think we're afraid of something else. Us in the picture are afraid of something we can't see in
the picture."

Kurt was exhilarated and apprehensive at the same time. He
said, "Reach out and touch the screen, Wes. See if it's still glass. If
it's still glass, this isn't the one."

Wesley put out his hand, jerked it back, then reached for the
screen again. Involuntarily his hand made a fist. He forced his
hand open, stretched his fingers out and would have touched the
glass if it had been a normal TV set. Instead his hand, followed by
his arm, passed inside the set. His arm and hand now appeared tiny
to match the scale of the picture on the screen. As Wes entered the
set up to his shoulder, a clump-clump-clump noise came from the
other side of the closed attic door. Betty's muffled voice pierced the
attic, an alien presence that didn't belong. "Hey, you guys! What's
this thing?"

Kurt hissed, "Wes! Pull your arm back out!"

"I can't! It's stuck! It's like suction-like a giant vacuum
cleaner!" In his head he heard the words from the list: Number
Three: Vacuum rugs. That's what they should be doing! Not this! Not
going to Anthropos!

"Grab hold of me and pull!" Wes ordered. Kurt latched onto
him, and Lisa latched onto Kurt, and all three heard the door
bang open. Lisa and Kurt tried to drag Wes out of the TV, but the
opposite happened. They were dragged in. Like dust on the rugs
they hadn't vacuumed, they were sucked inward. There was no
vacuum cleaner roar. The only sound was Betty Riggs's voice
screaming, "What are you doing! What's going on? Lisa! Wes!
Kurt! ... No!"