The Twinning Verse One: The Silver Coins

Chapter IV: Escape

IV

Escape

The castle’s interior proved more amazing and magnificent than the outside as Michael gazed at the grandiose entrance hall.  He saw stone floors, beautifully aged, with cracks here and there.  Carpets ran like wild snakes atop these floors, woven of colorful fabric.  Huge paintings hung from the walls of the entrance hall, Michael saw one of a man with blonde hair dressed in armor.  Another painting depicted a man with long white hair dressed in a robe.  The second man did not look as regal and mighty as the first.  Directly in front of Michael and Bartlebug a massive marble staircase, looming closer as the two traveled the massive distance of the entrance hall, led up and then split, one path to the left, and one to the right.

Before he reached the staircase, Michael heard a noise coming from somewhere.  He looked around, unsure of what the noise was or where it was coming from.  As he got closer to the staircase, the noise grew louder.  At last, Bartlebug instructed Michael to climb the steps.  Now the noise was very loud.  Michael was curious as to why Bartlebug seemed to not hear it, or perhaps he did hear it and simply chose to ignore it.  Still, Michael could not figure out what it was. Then it hit him.  The noise was music.  Michael continued to listen and the more he did, the more the sound began to seem less like noise and more like music.  At first, it had sounded like a jumble of different noises, all strewn together carelessly.  Now, Michael could hear individual notes, melodies and harmonies, even a refrain.  The boy did not understand why the music had sounded so foreign at first, until he and Bartlebug reached the top of the staircase and turned right.

In a small room near the landing at the top of the staircase, a group of men and women sat playing instruments.  They all wore the same clothes, and there were perhaps twelve of them in all.  The instruments caught Michael’s eye immediately.  One man played something that resembled a guitar, only it was much longer and the neck curved around the back of the man’s head.  Michael saw a woman playing a piano; only the keys were all different sizes and colors.  Michael noticed two people playing the same instrument together.  This particular device consisted of a long metal rod which ran from one player’s mouth to the floor.  Sprouting from this rod were six other metal rods which player number two seemed to be tapping.

All of this amazed Michael and now he knew why the music sounded so odd at first; he had never heard music played on these instruments before and it had taken a little time for his mind to understand it.  

“Do not linger!  A liar such as yourself has no right listening to the BlanchField Choir!  Now keep moving,” said Bartlebug after noticing Michael had stopped to listen to the music.  Bartlebug disliked the Choir anyway; he thought the sounds they produced on their disgusting instruments were worse than torture.  Michael took one last look at the choir and one last listen to the music, which he now thought was absolutely beautiful, and continued following Bartlebug further into the castle.     

As they walked, it became all too clear to Michael what was happening, and he knew he needed to get out.  Bartlebug was taking Michael to see this King because Bartlebug knew that Michael did not belong here.  Michael also thought Bartlebug simply enjoyed bringing pain to people such as himself.  The two had walked down several other hallways and as they did Michael noticed the decorations becoming much more elegant.  Instead of a single burning candle for light, now the walls were adorned with a multitude of candles.  Instead of a single tapestry hung from the ceiling, now there were three.  The carpet in the main entrance hall became a faded memory compared to the lush blue one on which Michael now walked.  All of these clues led Michael to the conclusion that they were getting closer to the King, and that meant trouble for Michael.  He knew he needed to escape, and he knew of only one way for him to escape Bartlebug. He needed to shift.  He did not know how he was going to manage it, but he knew he had to try.

Michael thought about the bathroom at Levi, tried to concentrate on the smells and sights the same way he did when he almost shifted getting up from the stump in the rose field.  Nothing happened.  He tried harder, made himself smell the disinfectant of the bathroom, the pungent odor of the toilets, but nothing.  Now Bartlebug and the boy neared the end of the ornate hallway.  At the end of the hall a huge double door loomed before them, painted red, with a large crest plastered on each door, but Michael was too far away to see them in detail.  He had a feeling, however, that the King waited for him just beyond those doors.  A thought occurred to him as they approached, and Michael cursed himself for not realizing it before.  He had been thinking about the bathroom at Levi, trying to shift back to the bathroom.  His mind now told him that he was no longer in the bathroom at Levi, that he must have walked several miles since shifting here.  Michael assumed that by traveling in this place, he also traveled on Earth and when he shifted back he would not be in the same place.  It seemed like an obvious conclusion.

Michael tried to imagine where he could be, but he simply could not.  With all the twists and turns they had taken in the village and now in this castle, it would have been impossible to predict where, in his world, he was.  Michael now stood in front of the double doors, desperation setting in, a sickening sense of helplessness and fear because he knew he would not be able to shift. He knew he would have to go in the red door and face the King.  Then the boy looked up, and saw the face of his mother.  

The woman’s face shone down upon Michael like the North Star, a beautiful replica of the boy’s mother chiseled in the large crest, a silver plate upon which his mother’s face had been engraved.  Michael looked at the door and saw two plaques; the woman’s plate adorned the left door while a similar one was fixed on the right, only Michael didn’t recognize the face on the right one.  He could hardly believe what he was seeing.  How was this possible?  He wanted so badly to be home with his mother now.  His mind flooded with thoughts of her, feelings for her.  It had been so long since he last saw her, but her memory would never leave him, the way she smelled, the way she laughed, the way she tucked him into bed at night.  Suddenly, he felt the world sway. He started to sweat, and the colors that surrounded him began to fade.  He looked at Bartlebug, who hovered a few feet ahead of him.  He began to open the door.  The bee-creature’s body grew transparent and Michael could see through him, into the throne room.  Just before the world fully faded, Michael thought he saw a massive and mighty man sitting upon a throne in that room.  A feeling of relief at last settled in his nervous mind.  He was shifting. He had done it! He would be saved yet!  He closed his eyes, trying to steady himself, but before he could open them he felt the floor under his feet disappear and felt that sickening feeling like he was falling overtake his stomach.  He did fall, but not far.

“Ahhh!” he yelled.  He opened his eyes.  He was in a super market he thought he recognized.  He looked around and saw jelly and peanut butter on shelves to his left, and crackers on shelves to his right.  Luckily, no one else was in the aisle.  Michael realized he was in the Thrift Save and an expression of shock filled his face.  He knew the Thrift Save was several miles away from the school, much further than he had walked in the other world.  He did not know why, but somehow he had ended up traveling much further than he expected.  Instead of wasting time trying to figure it out, he decided to get moving and try to make it back to school before it was too late.  He stood up, and thought the next time he shifted, he would have to be more careful.  He left the store and headed back to school.

Bartlebug opened the red doors and spied the throne room.  He envied this room so; its warm fires and animal rugs, the long tables upon which only the most important people feasted, and most of all, the King’s throne.  He turned to fetch the boy.

“Through here, Michael the…” Bartlebug’s small mouth fell open.  Michael was gone.  A voice bellowed from the beyond the now open door.

“What is it, Bartlebug?”  

“Nothing Sire, I am terribly sorry to disrupt you,” said Bartlebug, his voice shaking.

“Then be off with you!” shouted the voice.  

“Yes your majesty!” called back Bartlebug.  He closed the red door, his face twisted in a knot of hate.  His sting shot out, not slowly like when Michael had watched it, but almost too fast to see.  Bartlebug buzzed down the hallway, scrapping his stinger along the stone wall, the sound drowning out the melodious notes of the BlanchField Choir, now only a distant sound barely heard.

“Michael the Smith,” scowled Bartlebug, his face a mural of hate, twisted and cringing in the flickering candlelight.