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DOWN THE TREACLE WELL

I’d give all wealth that years have plied,

The slow result of Life’s decay,

To be once more a little child

For one bright summer-day.

             Lewis Carroll

Chapter 1

December 1, 1864

Oxford    

A tall, thin man dressed in black clerical garb paused only long enough to rip the note from his apartment door.  He smiled, recognizing the handwriting.  “Mr. Dodgson,” it read, in the neat hand of the dear child.  Perhaps it was an invitation to tea, a poem, or even one of her drawings.  Quickly through the door, the professor went straight to his desk and, using his letter opener, he forced the envelope open.  The thick, cream-colored stationary was from the special stock she had procured in the village, and he knew she used it only for special occasions.  He scanned the short note and his heart lurched.  His gray-gloved hands reached for the back of the chair to steady himself.    

Chapter 2

Today

Oxford

     Ben shivered and pulled his younger brother under a store awning.  It was drizzling again.  Who would have thought Oxford would be like this in December?  He had expected a quaint little English village dusted in fresh snow, but instead, he was smack in a major city babysitting Kyle while his mother attended yet another conference.  Sighing, he dug in his backpack for his map.  He pulled it out and flicked it open.  They were on the right street this time, thankfully.  A few more turns and they’d be back within the university confines.   

     Ben glanced toward his ten-year-old brother.  He was at it again.  While leaning against a building, Kyle had pulled back his waterproof windbreaker hood, revealing a mass of red curly hair.  Ben watched as Kyle’s fingers danced on the unsharpened pencil he always seemed to be carrying; all the while Kyle smiled to himself.

     “Can’t you just give it a rest?” Ben said.

     “Nope.  I’m going to get this tune memorized.”

     “Put it away.”

     Kyle shook his head, ignoring the request.  Ben fumed.  Ever since Kyle had begun playing the bagpipes, he used his nervous energy to tap out songs, usually on a pencil.   Why did little brothers have to be such a pain? 

     “Now!” Ben said, a little louder than he had intended.      

     Kyle’s smile evaporated as he slipped the pencil into his jeans’ pocket. 

     A small man in a long coat and bowler hat ducked under a portico to Ben’s left.  Not only was his dress odd (no one wore hats like that nowadays), but the tight smile that formed when he made eye contact made Ben decidedly uncomfortable.  But why?  So what if some old guy grinned at you in a creepy way?  There were just as many strange people back home.  Ben dismissed it and turned back to his brother.

     Ben leaned toward Kyle.  “Look, it’s really important you don’t tell Mom.  If she finds out we went outside the university, she’ll never let us go off on our own again.”

     “We could tell her we got lost,” Kyle countered.

     “Are you an idiot?  How is that any better?  We still couldn’t go anywhere.  She’d think we’d get lost again.”

     “I guess,” Kyle said.  He looked down at his shoes. 

     “That goes for Dad, too.  He’ll be here in a few days.  You’ll remember, right?”  Ben said. 

     “Yeah.  Where are we going now, anyway?”  Kyle ran his hand over his pocket making sure his pencil was still there.

     “Told you.  We head back to the university.  To Christ Church.  Try to keep up this time,” Ben said.  He quickly checked his watch and then glanced sideways.  The bowler-hatted man was gone.  They had hours before they’d have to meet Mom for lunch. 

     Ben ducked back out into the thickening rain.  Fog descended on them, making him feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic.  The boys made their way through the streets and every once and a while Ben checked behind him to make sure Kyle was following.  It wouldn’t do to lose his brother someplace that they weren’t even allowed to be.         

     Finally, they made the turn onto St. Aldates.  The rain intensified, coming faster and more violently.  When it started to feel like a drenched dishtowel had been wrung out overtop of them, Ben once again pulled Kyle into shelter.

     In a doorway painted bright red, the boys stood huddled together.  Ben spotted the bowler-hatted man again.  The man hurried down the street turning his head from side to side, looking for something, Ben presumed.  The hair on the back of Ben’s neck rose as the man drew closer and locked eyes on the location of the brothers.  Not possible, Ben thought. He can’t be following us.  There’s no reason for it.  The bowler-hatted man stared straight ahead as he passed the boys.  The heavy feeling in Ben’s chest dissipated as soon as the man proceeded down the street without ever looking back.  Ben realized he’d been scaring himself unnecessarily. 

     The wind picked up, and the shop’s sign hanging above them swung back and forth, creaking in protest.  Ben gazed up and saw the words “Alice’s Shop.”  It sounded like a ladies clothing store that his mother might frequent.  Then, Ben was forced to move to one side as a middle-aged couple stepped outside.

     “Just say what you mean, Edward,” the woman said with irritation.

     The man harrumphed and replied into his coat collar, “I always say what I mean.  Or, that is, I always mean what I say.”

      The woman laughed at the comment, although neither Ben nor Kyle understood why.  The man raised and opened his umbrella and the couple moved away.  Ben shot a sideways glance toward his backpack.  Why hadn’t he packed his umbrella?  He had planned on bringing it.  But somehow in the morning rush he’d left it sitting on his bed back at the hotel. 

     Finally, the rain slowed enough for them to continue.  They made steady progress down the wet sidewalk.  Ben felt relieved to see the university ahead of them.

     “That’s Pembroke College!”  Ben said pointing across the street.  “That’s where Tolkien wrote The Hobbit.”

     Kyle paused and threw off his hood.  His round features were made ruddy by physical exertion and the chill of the morning air.  “And Lord of the Rings?”     

     Ben shrugged.  “Maybe.”

     “I think Lord of the Rings was better than The Hobbit,” Kyle said.

     Ben rolled his eyes.  “You haven’t read either of them.”

     “But I saw the movies.”

     “Whatever.  Come on.  We’re almost there.”

     Ben took a sharp right and led Kyle down Broad Walk.  The visitor entrance to Christ Church College was straight ahead.  Outside an open metal gate sat two wooden benches.  On such a cold and dreary morning, Ben wasn’t surprised that no one was hanging around.  He and Kyle darted through the gate, finding themselves safe behind the college’s walls.

     The rain stopped, but dark clouds still hung heavy above them.  Both boys threw off their hoods and shook off their windbreakers.  Ben looked around to get his bearings.  Huge gothic buildings, stained black by centuries of weather, surrounded the boys, giving them a sense of permanence and history they had never experienced before.  

     “Let’s kill some time here and then maybe go to one of the museums,” Ben said.

     “It reminds me of a castle,” Kyle said.  His sense of fun bubbled to the top.  Immediately, he tucked his left hand behind him and extended his right.  “You owe me a sword fight,” he demanded.

     “I do not.  How can anyone ‘owe’ somebody a sword fight?”

     “You just do,” Kyle persisted.

     Ben spun around and walked off muttering, “You don’t even have a sword.”   

     Kyle ran after him.  “It’s pretend!  It’d be better with real swords though.  Do you think Mom will let us buy some?”

     “Doubt it,” Ben said.

     “Maybe we could convince Dad when he gets here,” Kyle said.

     “Maybe.”  But Ben didn’t say it like it was a real possibility.   

     As they moved ahead, Ben felt he and his brother had been transported back in time.  Jack the Ripper could be lurking around any turn.  Ben wished the sun would come out or at least that they’d run into some people.  The quiet and the atmosphere were starting to unnerve him a little. 

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ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGOTTEN

By Ellis Nelson

 Chapter 1

Arms folded tightly against her chest, Nigella twisted the ring on her finger as she waited for the micro-vet. She pushed her dark bangs off her forehead and looked up. Her bright green eyes met those of the tall, blond, micro-vet as he entered the room.

“Morning,” said the vet. “Okay, so you have one in isolation and another one sick?”

The vet surveyed the scene. Nigella nodded as he peered over the enclosure. It was a wooden rectangle, roughly ten by twelve feet. Placed on a table, with sides eight inches high, it hit the micro-vet at the armpit as he reached across to grab his patient. The sick animal was near the water, down on two legs, looking disoriented.

The vet carefully wrapped his hand around the little animal and lifted her out of the enclosure. He placed her in the middle of his left hand and began the examination. The weak micro-elephant gazed up at the vet.

In many ways, she was just like the others in her micro-herd. She stood six inches tall and weighed in around a pound and a half. Her skin was tough, wrinkled, and a powdery gray-brown, and she sported two well-formed tusks.

Nigella watched as the vet proceeded to examine yet another of her elephants. This was the vet’s second visit this week. He inspected the elephant’s eyes, ears, and mouth. He lifted her tufted tail and checked each foot. The vet pushed aside several paper flowers and set the tiny pachyderm on a small table near the only window in the display room. He placed one hand in front and one hand behind.

“Hey, Nigella, grab my bag and we’ll see how high this fever is,” the vet said. Nigella picked up the medical bag and brought it to the table.

With a quick, practiced motion, the vet removed his right hand from behind the elephant, unlatched the bag and retrieved the nano-injector. A jab to a vein released the miniaturized computer components into the elephant’s system.

“Humm, any vomiting or diarrhea?”

“Yes, both,” Nigella answered.

“In about twenty seconds, the units will calibrate themselves and we’ll get an accurate picture of what’s ailing this little one.” The vet fiddled with the nano-reading device on his wrist.

“Well, this looks identical to what we had with your first sick elephant. I’m going to give her an injection and start her on the same antibiotics that we put the other one on. Luckily, she’s not as dehydrated as the first. She should do fine in a few days.”

Nigella reached around the vet to stroke her sick elephant. The vet withdrew to prepare the injection and Nigella moved in to lift and cradle her. Gently, she raised the creature to her mouth and whispered, “Sorry, poor girl.”

The vet finished giving the injection and moved the sick elephant into the adjoining room used for isolation. Nigella glanced over at the enclosure and noticed that the rest of the herd had gathered by the water. Two calves were splashing at the water’s edge, but the adults hung back in a tight group. They appeared somehow confused. Nigella wondered if they realized why two of the elephants had been taken. How could they know what was wrong? She reached over to stroke one of the adults. The elephant backed away from Nigella’s hand.

The vet returned.

“Nigella, they’re going to be fine in a few days,” he said. “However, now that we have two cases of infection, it’s important to thoroughly disinfect this enclosure. Keep the elephants in isolation and continue giving the antibiotics. Call me if they don’t seem to be getting better by Friday or if any of the others show symptoms. You might also stop by my office and pick up some of that fortified elephant feed I mentioned on my last visit. It might help the rest of the herd from getting sick.

“Any questions?”

Nigella shook her head. The vet collected his bag and left.

Micro-elephant keeping is difficult, Nigella thought. She had no experience in it. In fact, she had never had any kind of pet. Dad had said that they just didn’t have time for that kind of responsibility. His job at the nanotechnology firm often kept him away for days. Nigella, too, had the active life of a twelve year old. School, air soccer, and her friends kept her busy. None of that had totally convinced her that her father was right. Many of her friends had micro-pets and occasionally, Nigella would instigate a conversation with her father about getting a pet. Somehow, his logic and persistent belief that a pet was a bad idea for them always prevailed.

Maybe things would have been different if her mother was still alive, but she wasn’t. Nigella resumed turning the ring. Her mother had given her that gold ring with the sapphire stone shortly before she died. Then last week her grandfather on her mother’s side, died suddenly. Although she had no memories of him, Nigella had inherited a micro-herd that contained six females and two calves. She had assumed total responsibility for them since her father was so involved at work.

Nigella looked into the elephant enclosure. On the vet’s first visit, he had remarked that the enclosure was unusual. Most people kept their animals in sterile, easy to clean, hypoallergenic, plastic enclosures. Nigella’s elephants lived essentially in a wooden box mimicking what she supposed looked like the African savanna.

Of course, not much of the African savanna remained now. Nigella had seen pictures showing what it had looked like over a hundred years ago when there were real elephants roaming the earth. Those wild elephant herds had been devastated by years of poaching and loss of habitat. A final, swift moving virus killed off the rest even before biologists could identify the strain.

Even the Asian elephant succumbed through habitat loss and that same virus. A research facility in the Far East had been working with the virus hoping to develop an inoculation to save the small number of Asian elephants still remaining. Inadvertently released through a faulty venting system, the virus spread like wildfire. Some people believed that the captive elephant population offered hope for repopulating the elephant back into the wild. But in the end, there weren’t enough captive elephants left to provide a sustainable gene pool. Those in captivity eventually died out and the giants of the savanna were gone forever.

Nigella decided she should try to clean the enclosure. She left the room and returned with a large laundry basket with a towel, neatly folded in the bottom. Carefully, she removed each elephant and placed it in the basket on the floor. None of the elephants put up any real resistance, although the oldest female did grunt a bit upon being transferred into the basket. With the herd safely relocated, Nigella began the cleaning work.

She needed to sanitize the enclosure to stop any further viral or bacterial growth. And that was the problem. How do you sanitize the African savanna? The enclosure had real water, real dirt and mud, and real plants. At opposite ends of the enclosure were two watering holes. One, a simple shallow pool, attracted the micro-elephants who splashed and played. A miniature waterfall emptied into a second deeper pool just opposite the first. A pump kept the water circulating continuously and here the micro-elephants drank and swam.

Using a siphon, Nigella began emptying the pools. The shallow pool drained quickly. She scrubbed it clean with a disinfectant made for use in micro-elephant enclosures. Snorkel Bright came in a plastic container with a small brush. It promised to “…take on the mess of a herd of elephants.” It smelled distinctly like bleach. Nigella turned off the power to the waterfall and used the cleaner brush to scour the rocks covered in green algae.

Nigella wondered if there might be a way to sanitize the dirt around the falls. She read the bottle of Snorkel Bright, but it talked about cleaning enclosure surfaces, not dirt.

Some deep rumbling, followed by trumpeting, drew her attention to the basket. The calves pushed each other and the biggest adult put herself in between them. The elephants were getting restless and Nigella thought it was time to put the herd back.

Using some toweling, she quickly dried the cleaned areas. She refilled both pools with bottled water and restarted the waterfall pump. She lifted the largest elephant from the basket and set her carefully down near the waterfall. The elephant grunted, then trumpeted. Lower pitched rumblings from the adults still in the basket answered her calls. The calves straightened and extended their ears. Instinctively, Nigella next moved the calves. Once in the enclosure, they immediately moved to touch the older elephant. They nuzzled each other and a short burst of rumbling that turned to purring began. Nigella was struck by the fact that elephants could purr. There was so much to learn about these animals. The other adults were returned to the enclosure and reunited with the rest of the herd. Much rumbling, purring, and nuzzling followed.

The largest of the micro-elephants took a few hesitant steps toward the waterfall. She stopped and lifted her trunk. She held it there several seconds appearing to sample the air. Finally, she dropped her trunk and advanced. The calves burst forward at full speed bypassing the largest elephant. They threw themselves into the water. Several grunts from the adults signaled their advance. Soon the whole herd splashed and played at the base of the waterfall.

Nigella’s Maxim whistled. Short for Maximum Communicator, the wristwatch like device had the capability for satellite communications, intergalactic positioning, and all manner of internet capabilities. She pressed the respond button and heard Kepler’s voice.

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INTO THE LAND OF SNOWS by Ellis Nelson 

REALITY AND ILLUSION

 Chapter One

The phone rang at an ungodly hour. In the darkness, Blake reached across his desk and clicked it on.

“Hello?” he said, wiping the gunk from his eyes.

“Hi, Blake. It’s Dad,” came the response.

“Dad?”

“Listen, I got a call from your mother.” The line crackled with static.

Blake threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “Where are you?”

Mumble, mumble crack. “…at Base Camp. Look, I can’t get away, so the best I can do is have you come here,” Dad said.

“Come there? To Everest?” Blake said with disbelief. He dug his toe into the carpet and reminded himself he wasn’t dreaming.

“Yes, here. Your mother is very upset.”

“I know, but she’ll calm down in a couple of days,” Blake answered.

Dad’s tone turned harsh. “You’re coming here and we’re going to straighten this out.”

Blake drew in a cold breath and pleaded, “This is not a big deal. Everyone is overreacting. Besides, I can’t come there. I’m in the middle of school. Maybe over the break. I know Mom will calm down. Look, this isn’t necessary.”

Static filled the line. “…not open to discussion. You are in big trouble and your butt is mine for the next few months. I’ve talked this all out with your mother and she’ll help you get ready. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

“But Dad—”

Click. The phone went dead. Blake let it drop into his lap. He climbed under the covers and pulled his comforter up close. With his back against the headboard, he shivered and wondered why everyone was making this out to be so important. On top of that, this was the first time he had heard from his father in the many months following the divorce, and the phone call hadn’t been the warm reunion Blake sought. Why had Dad felt compelled to call in the middle of the night? Everyone was acting like this was a really serious thing, and it just wasn’t. Go to Everest? That was crazy! He’d talk to Mom in the morning and once she truly heard what he had to say, she’d agree and Dad would back off his insane idea. Blake chuckled. Base Camp, Everest, yeah, right!

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