Vardenfall

Daffodils or The Story of Concrete Life

         Thinking back, I can’t help but remember how beautiful the place was. I suppose every creation is a mirror, Vardenfall being no exception.
         My mother had been coming to Vardenfall often – ever since Lara and dad’s disappearance. I once thought she was driven to it by a mundane curiosity. But it was something more. I had shown her Vardenfall a few days after they left. It started out that she would occasionally visit, maybe once a week or so but quite soon she was there daily. I did find myself drawn back ever so often. Whatever disdain I held, I hadn’t broken its spell completely; the place had its appeal.
         I liked the walk into Vardenfall best – the swinging rope bridge, the distant river; I must have walked it a thousand times. The grass was always short in Vardenfall itself (I’m certain Fran had something to do with this; she was an avid gardener among the townsfolk) but upon the far side of the bridge, it is almost true forest. The grass is long, the trees aren’t trimmed; I liked to pretend it really was wild, unswayed by the laws of Vardenfall. And for a time, as a child, the place frightened me. I would run across the bridge, never looking back, for fear of the vast unknown that waited in those forests. I never journeyed in those woods. There were too many other mysteries closer at hand.
         I’m not afraid of the woods anymore. Not really.
         The village itself is partly forest. It isn’t more than a few hundred meters across. Along all sides it is bordered by an impossible river, constantly circling the town. It’s a good symbol for the village; few things change in Vardenfall. Perhaps if I was a braver child, I may have picked my way down the cliffs to the water but even in Vardenfall (perhaps only in Vardenfall) I have a fear of heights.
         As I said, the town is partly forest but it isn’t anything like a real forest. It’s the forest of a thousand gardeners run wild. It is a manicured forest. And stuck between these perfect trees are the humble wooden buildings of this strange place. Vardenfall offers a modest twenty-two buildings, composing a schoolhouse (which teaches the same yearly lessons), a bank (devoid of anything that really has to do with money), a family grocery store (which never deals in currency), a town hall, a manor, a square and about a dozen other small homes and cottage industries. It hasn’t any roads, except for a few cobbled areas around the square, but it does have a much unused fire hall with a working fire engine.
         There are exactly thirty-seven permanent residents (excluding the temporaries like myself). There were always thirty-seven and there always will be thirty-seven. Everything about the Vardenfall led me to believe that it is untouched by death, birth and change.
The villagers have no mayor. I don’t think they ever have. Nothing needs to change, so they have no use for implements of change. I suppose power, is regarded in the same manner as death, upon the village plateau. There are, however, several influential members of the village. But really, they’re just personalities. Whatever sway they have in the village is a theoretical thing, unused and untested.

***

         For a long time, I thought my mother came to Vardenfall as a refuge from death, from pain, from the cold facts of life. I thought that perhaps she looked upon the townsfolk and saw Lara, saw Dad, saw all the people she once knew. But I don’t think that’s what she saw at all.
         Sometimes a beautiful place can just be beautiful.

***

         We had a small house in Vardenfall. It had a small kitchen, a small den and three small bedrooms, all of which I assumed my mother kept immaculate. There was one place, however, she promised me, she didn’t go. As a child, when I had Vardenfall to myself, the attic had been my bedroom and my sanctuary. But in the later years, when the charm of Vardenfall had begun to fade, I had abandoned the house altogether, like a man in the summer abandons a winter coat. My mother took pride keeping the house perfect, where I spent most of my time around town, when I was actually in Vardenfall. There was little to do in the house and, besides, no one slept in Vardenfall. I hadn’t been inside since years before Father left.
         As I said, I had grown tired of Vardenfall – long before I introduced it to my mother. It still held a place in my heart but I thought that perhaps Mother could find something more to Vardenfall than I ever had. I think she did. Upon the odd occasion that I visited, I found the townsfolk a buzz about my mother. She was always organizing dances or plays or bands or scattering seeds or gathering food for the store. And everywhere, she was planting concise rows of daffodils. Daffodils were her favourite.
         I would retire upon the hill and watch the town working. It was peaceful.

***

         As I grew older, my mind became occupied with other things. Outside of Vardenfall, existed a different reality. The concrete bunker sported no grass or trees, except in murals that lined the walls. My mother had been an avid painter. Over the years, she had carefully and meticulously painted all the walls in our expansive abode with a serene air of servitude. Everywhere you looked, you could find the shadows of a woodland forest. She stopped painting after I showed her Vardenfall. I used to think that she had given up her two-dimensional forest for one that she could walk through.
         There was one place, however, she had quite purposefully never painted. It was a ten-foot wide section of empty cement where a single ladder drops into our bunker. “I’m waiting for something beautiful,” she would say.
         We lived in a central area of the bunker system. Tunnels connected us to the world around, yet most are no longer accessible, or even dangerous. Only the ladder leads to the surface, connecting straight from the central bunker. At the top of the ladder, sits a large light. So long as it was red, whatever apocalyptic danger that inhabited the surface was still present. I couldn’t help but think of my father whenever I got a glimpse of its glow. Even before he left, I associated it with him.
         Perhaps I knew what he was going to do. I think mother did.
         Its light meant death for whoever left. 
         My exploration was confined to the tunnels that lead deeper into the earth’s surface. The tunnels seemed infinite, expanding outwards in all directions, taking an unimaginable number of twists and turns and strange intersections. But as far as I went through the maze, every tunnel in its unthinkable size, did its part in convincing me that we are alone. Mother, Father and Lara were the only living people I knew.
         Sometimes I liked to pretend that the villagers were really other people, plugged in at other terminals, hidden somewhere in the labyrinth of tunnels. But I knew better.

***

         In this reality, my mother was bound to a wheel chair. An invasive disease had attacked her spine and left her crippled. She had relied solely upon me, my father and Lara, as the farthest one can go in tunnels is a few hundred meters, unless one starts to climb, crawl or jump. And after Lara and father disappeared, Mother relied solely upon me. But it never worried me, though. It was fun scavenging, almost like a game.
         Father and Lara’s disappearance was several years ago. They left in the dead of night, as Mother and I slept. We never talked about it. We both knew where they had gone.
I suppose I can’t blame my father. I can’t blame Lara, either. I know how appealing freedom can be. The only thing more powerful than freedom is love. Vardenfall could never have beeen enough for them. No, I can’t blame either of them. I don’t think my mom ever did. She understood.
Once my mother told me that people were like birds; we come to rest upon a tree until the right gust of wind tells us it’s time to leave. Then we fly.
         It’s been three years.
         I had gone scavenging a hundred times with my father. He had shown me the ins and outs of the tunnels. I was well versed in the labyrinth when he left. I suppose he planned it that way.

***

         The eastern tunnels collapsed long ago. Three major routs lead east, along with a handful of minor tunnels but each is blocked by rubble, as if some behemoth has landed atop them, crushing them flat. There are a few places where it is possible to bypass the collapse, at least for a while, but those tunnels are by far the most dangerous. I never enjoyed exploring the east.
         To the south, the tunnels peter off into a few small ducts. The ducts drop into larger tunnels. These tunnels were at one point guarded by large rotating fans but now they lie motionless. Past the fans is a large tunnel, which I’m sure could easily accommodate any house in Vardenfall. It quite quickly brings you to two of the larger storage rooms. With the exception of a few odds and ends, we had emptied them long ago. Continuing on down the tunnel, a waterspout juts out from the wall. Although other spouts are scattered throughout the tunnels, we had always taken water from this one.  “It’s clean water,” my father would say.
         The only other feature of tunnel is a few hours down, where a single elevated vent leads into a sealed warehouse, which we had only recently discovered. Besides this one blemish, I’ve come to the conclusion that the rounded tunnel simply runs on forever, unchanging and featureless.
The tunnels to the north and the west lack the simplicity of the single mammoth tunnel that runs south. They’re a cruel snarl, a tangled warren of mismatched and seemingly impossible architecture, nearly as dangerous as the eastern tunnels. They hold the largest abundance of materials, I’m sure, yet we’re limited by how far a rope can take you into them. If you went much farther, it might be impossible to find your way back. Once when I was young, my father disappeared into the western tunnels for three days. He never did say what had happened.

***

         Once, I picked my way past the eastern wreckage. I found about a hundred meters of intact tunnel, stopped abruptly by a complete collapse. Here, I found something most intriguing. It appeared to be decoration. Besides my mother’s paintings, everything else in the tunnels had hailed a utilitarian design. But here, in the heart of the collapsed tunnel, the barren wall sported two laced triangles. Below them a notched circle, inset into the wall, was spinning slowly. I didn’t think much of it at the time but ever so often I felt compelled to return to the spot. There was something strange about the spot. It felt different.
         Whenever I returned from the tunnels, I found my mother in her wheelchair. More often than not she was immersed in Vardenfall. I would venture into the town to say hello. She would smile and insist on showing me the play the villagers were putting on or show me her newly planted daffodils. She never talked about Vardenfall when she was in the bunker. I can understand.
         My father had occasionally gone to Vardenfall. He told me he thought the place was peculiar, yet he had often journeyed in long before Mother ever had. “A town of trees,” he would call it. He detested the place. He was bound to the world of concrete. Death, hunger, silence, steel – he had found a meaning to it.
Within the village, my father’s only friend was Mr. Engle, the school teacher. They talked much of each other, yet never did I actually see the two of them together. I often thought my father merely conversed with Mr. Engle to hold onto some remnant of sanity, so that he might be granted some small lapse from reality. I wondered if he ever told Mr. Engle of his plan to leave the bunker.
         I hadn’t ever seen Lara in Vardenfall. She once smiled when I told her about the place. She was always smiling. “It sounds lovely,” she told me. She never ended up entering Vardenfall. A year after she disappeared, my mother planted a small black oak in front of our Vardenfall house. “I think Lara would have liked it,” she had said. I think she would have liked it, too.

***

         Even now, I can still see it, walking into Vardenfall. You begin looking over towards the town, suspended on its pinnacle of rock. Silhouettes of trees and buildings spring into the horizon, outlining the little garden village. The river rushes below you and the bridge sways gently in a phantom wind. A hundred meters and you’re in the town itself, surrounded by green grass and box elder. And everywhere grow my mother’s yellow daffodils. To your immediate right is our house, looking deceptively small. A bright red mailbox sits in the yard, along beside the billowing black oak. The cobbled square centers the town, surrounded by the bank, the store, the fire hall and a few odd houses. A great fountain lies directly in the middle, spouting crystal water a few feet into the air. From the very center of the fountain grows a great maple tree. In my memory, it’s foliage grew out endlessly. Unlike the other trees of the town, its branches were not pruned, nor looked after at all. They spread out, high over the square, casting shade across the buildings.
         To the north, a hill rises over the town. Behind the hill, the schoolhouse lies hidden, it’s barn frame holding only a single room with no more than fifteen desks. A ladder climbs from the schoolroom into the bell tower, which doubles as an observatory. The stars in Vardenfall are quite something. From the perch, one can view the entire sky, as well as most of the village. The only obscured area lies to the east, where a thick band of trees grow. There, the pruned box elder fall to a partition of blue spruce.
         Just south of the blue spruce lies another cluster of homes, upon a slight rise. A moss covered centurion confronts the face of each house, lying directly in the center of the semi-circle. His stone features have been stolen from another era but have been worn away, along with the words which once graced his stone plaque. Now, he serves only as a reminder of a different time.
In the largest of these houses, is a kennel, home to the half dozen village dogs. Each is a different breed, some large, some small but all fat and carefree, cultivated in the ways of the village. Jonas, a giant of a man, runs the kennels as well as a makeshift blacksmith. His son Henry appears a mix between himself and the dogs: large, cheerful and slow. Every couple of mornings, Henry brings his father’s wares to the town square, trading them around to any in need. I don’t think I’ve once seen Henry with a frown or a dark thought.
         To the west of the town square the trees fall away to a green field, where festivals and events are held. Only one building lies in the field, sprouting upwards upon wooden stilts. Its hexagonal shape is occasionally decorated for events but is more often than not, left to itself. Mrs. Faren lives within the shack. She only leaves the house at night.
         Only once did I talk with her. Our conversation had gone like this:
         “Hello Mrs. Faren,” I had said.
         “Bah!” she had spat. I thought this was where our conversation would end but she turned to me.          “I don’t suppose you’ve seen it, have you?”
         “Seen what?”
         “The next world, of course.”
         “The next world?”
         She hissed. “It’s around here somewhere. One day we’ll all get up and just move on.”

***

         After my mother’s arrival, the villagers talked of little else. Everyone seemed intrigued with my mother, except for Mr. Engle of course. Mr. Engle talked of very few things, which was strange for a sprite. He was a stranger and a recluse. He only came alive when he talked of grand things. I suppose he was a bit like my father, in that regard.
         He still held my interest, even as I began to tire of the village folk, as I began to tire of all Vardenfall. I let my mother take over the town. She seemed happy there. I visited every week or two to see what things had changed. I rarely found much of interest. The only person left in town that still captured my interest was eccentric Mr. Engle. He lived in a room above the bank, where he could be found whenever he wasn’t teaching lessons. With the exception of the ground between the two places, Mr. Engle was never seen elsewhere than the bank and the schoolhouse. I would set myself up to ambush him on his trek between these two safe houses, trying to coax a few meager words. I rarely got more than a simple dusting of common scripts that the villagers shared. I often wondered if Mr. Engle hadn’t been a fully developed sprite, if there had been some error in his creation, yet each time I began to wonder, he would spout off something wonderful, something insightful, something brilliant. He was an enigma, a riddle that I intended to solve.
         Another mystery of Vardenfall, that my mother happened to uncover, was hidden away in the eastern grove of blue spruce. The trees are so thickly linked there, that I had mistaken the place for nothing but a mass of trunk and branches. But one day my mother took me by the hand and led me around the thicket. The trunks of two of the largest trees came together to form an opening not more than a meter tall and a half-meter across. We followed the tunnel into the thicket until it opened into a small clearing. “I found this place yesterday,” my mother said. She sounded excited. “Isn’t it beautiful?” It was.
         The branches of the spruce curved at an unnatural angle to make the clearing a perfect circle. Here the grass grew long, almost outgrowing a couple of small trees that had started to grow. A few small rays of light dropped from the green ceiling into the center, where a rounded stone protruded from the ground. It was, I realized, an unmarked grave.
         I told her I wanted to start a garden there. I never did.

***

         A year and a half after my father’s and Lara’s disappearance, my mother grew ill. She took a hiatus from Vardenfall and began to paint again. She went back along the walls of the bunker, adding minute details, creating new groves and whatever else she pleased. I journeyed back to Vardenfall to see how things were going in her absence. Crossing the rope bridge, I noticed something was wrong. A few grey clouds had begun to gather over the town. The villagers were astir, frantically moving back and forth. Henry was looking troubled, talking with the baker’s assistant, before he spotted me and came running over. He took a moment to recover his breath.
         “Mr. Engle…” he began. “Mr. Engle… he’s leaving, no, no, he’s already left.” Henry stopped for a moment. “He’s gone!” he said, almost sounding surprised at his own words.
         “Gone?” I asked.
         “Gone,” he repeated with mystery.
         I took a moment to think over Henry’s words. As far as I knew Vardenfall was self-contained. I didn’t think it was possible for a villager to leave. Where would he go?
         I left Henry to recover his wits as I went to seek out more villagers. I found Fran leaving her house. She was a a good friend of my mothers. I noticed she was looking larger but passed it off as my imagination.
         “Hello!” she said. “Bit of a puzzle we got here. Looks like old Engle is our new town magician.”
         “He’s gone?”
         “Most certainly. Bella said she saw him climb up the ladder into the top of the schoolhouse, so do a few other younglings. But we checked up in that bell tower and there’s not a trace. Gonna have to start callin’ him Merlin, now.”
         “Have you searched the town?”
         “That’s what we’re doing now, though no signs so far. The bugger’s been missing for hours.” Fran laughed and sauntered off towards the bank.
         I was worried. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen. I decided to aid the villagers in their search. After all, I knew one place that they didn’t.
         The eastern thicket, however, was empty. Where could he have gone? I stopped for a moment, gazing aimlessly at the sky through the dense foliage. I didn’t want to return home without finding him. I took my worries back to the hilltop by the schoolhouse. The clouds were darkening. At least the villagers still looked peaceful. They didn’t look worried, not from here. The village seemed alive, all of the thirty-six remaining villagers coordinated, shook from their slumber into a single harmonized being. I wondered if deep down they knew what was going on. I’m sure they must have.
         A wind began to pick up upon the hill. It rattled the branches of the box elder and swayed the blue spruce. Even the distant alders rippled as the breeze found them. A light but sudden rain began to fall from the dark clouds. It splashed the roof of the store and drummed upon the wooden shingles of the town hall, running down the drains towards the bank.
         Something felt wrong.
         And then, suddenly, something was happening.
         The great maple tree that grew from the fountain started to glow a red light. My thoughts began to drift back to the bunker before being washed away by an abrupt blinding flash of white light and a supreme blast of sound, as if the world had torn apart. There was nothing but sound and light.
         For a moment I was lost within the noise, before returning to myself. The maple’s leaves were aflame, casting a ghastly light about the square. Its bark had blackened into silhouette, hidden by the bright flames. All the villagers had stopped. They gazed wordlessly at the tree. They were transfixed, frozen in time. Except...
         One figure made his way across the village, breaking from the frozen mold. The figure moved between buildings, clinging always to shadows and darkness. I lost him for a few minutes as he ducked into the trees but spotted him emerge near the bank. He had the collar of his coat pulled around his face. For a moment, my heart stopped. In the strange light of the hidden sun, I thought I saw my father.
         But it wasn’t my father. It was Mr. Engle, I realized. He was the mysterious figure, stealing through the town. He vaulted over a fence and disappeared into the small yard behind the bank. Silently, I rose from the hill and began to jog after him. I pushed my way past the villagers, all of them still dazed by the great flash of light.
         Climbing onto a barrel, I peered over the fence. There was Mr. Engle, looking as mysterious as I had ever seen him. Upon the bank wall, two laced triangles protruded, centered by a slowly spinning circle. I had seen the design before.
         It was the same design I had seen hidden away in the wreckage of the old tunnels.
         Frozen by curiosity, I watched Mr. Engle reach out and stop the spinning circle with a finger. He rotated it slowly in the opposite direction, while turning the left triangle with his other hand, so that it pointed towards the right triangle. He took a step back. The wall of the bank began to shudder, opening into a set of stone stairs. Noiselessly, it slid back into place as Mr. Engle descended the stairwell. The wall was now simply a wall.
         I jumped the fence, into the small yard but it was too late. The triangles and circle had retreated into the wall. I felt around for something, anything, a ridge or seam but the wall was flawless. Whatever had been done, had been done. Before me was nothing more than concrete.

***

         When I returned, I told my mother about Mr. Engle’s disappearance. I told her about the village and the rain. I told her about the great flash of light and the great blast of noise. “Lightning,” she had told me. I told her of the villagers that I talked with, but I didn’t tell her about seeing Mr. Engle, or the bank. It was my secret. I would journey back to the collapsed tunnel and try opening it, the way I had seen him do it. But that could wait. There were other things to attend to.

***

         Mother had stopped eating as much as she once had; yet even so, we were running low on food and water. Strapping a gallon pouch to my back, I set off south, dropping through the small ducts into the vast fan tunnels. I passed by the empty storage rooms to where the small tap jutted out from the wall. Leaving the small water pouch, I set off down the expansive tunnel. For what seemed like hours, I walked, the tunnel remaining unchanged, to where I found the lone ventilation duct. As it was, I took only a single pack from the warehouse, stealing back through the tunnel to where I had left to water jug.
         I sat down to rest. I felt good. I really did. But something was nagging. I badly wanted to tell someone of my secret.  I needed to tell her. She had, after all, shown me the unmarked grave in Vardenfall. I wanted to tell her. I would, I decided. I would tell her.
         Lackadaisically, I made my way to the central bunker. How euphoric I must have looked, returning into the chamber – no one watching could have mistaken the joy on my face. But there was no one watching. Mother was plugged into Vardenfall. I didn’t mind, not really. I could wait. I was planning on waiting, too. I truly was. That was my intention. But idleness fuels curiosity. Curiosity is like love, like hatred; curiosity is an overwhelming force. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to try to open the passage, I convinced myself.
Before I could think it over twice, my legs were taking me east,
         I found myself picking over the rubble, through the collapsed tunnels to where I had seen the three symbols. I did what I had seen Mr. Engle do, reversing the circle and tilting the left triangle.
         But nothing happened.
         Not at first.
         I kept reversing the circle and fiddling with the one triangle for what must have been several minutes. Nothing. I thought back, tried hard to remember what Mr. Engle had done. I took a step back from the wall. I couldn’t help but picture my father’s face, his triangle eyes, his round mouth. But something didn’t quite look right. The face was frowning, the right hand triangle slightly off. I tilted it so that the face no longer seemed to frown but to smile. I gave it another try, reversing the circle.
         A distant clicking filled the tunnel. The wall began to slide backwards, then pull into itself. A flight of stone steps led downwards. Real stone, not metal, nor concrete but real stone, like I had seen in Vardenfall. I forced my feet to walk downwards. It was dark and the light from the tunnel only pierced so far.
         At the end of the stone stairs, the passage way opened. The room beyond was enormous. The stone had stopped at the stairs, the opening cast in metal. But the room was covered in darkness. I vanished in that darkness, my imagination filled the vast space with such wonderful things…
         A light flickered on.
         I stopped. What did I see? What did I see within this mysterious room?
         I certainly knew what I wanted to see.
         I wanted to see Father safe with Lara, hidden away in that secret place. I wanted to see that they had never left the bunker, that their escape to the surface was a lie. I wanted to see Father, there, hooked into Vardenfall, pretending to be old Mr. Engle, journeying to the school, and back again. I wanted to see Lara in good health, having become an excellent scavenger. I wanted her to explain to me that she, like a guardian spirit, had secretly and indirectly guided me to the warehouse I had discovered in the eastern tunnel. I wanted to see that she had uncovered bunkers, full of people and food and all sorts of things, within the collapsed tunnels. I wanted to see that she had found doctors that could help Mother, that already these people were working on recovering the surface world. I wanted to see that Lara had taken up painting and Father had regained a sense of humour. I wanted to return and tell Mom of all the wonderful things I had seen.
         But I didn’t see any of that. The room was sterile, devoid, empty.
         Almost empty.
         Its vacancy was broken by an old book lying upon a steal table. The book’s cover and spine was laced in a black leather, however, it held no other markings. I picked it up and began to thumb through the pages. Each page was blank, as devoid of words as the room was of mysteries. Only towards the back of the book, did it appear to hold something. I could feel the pages become strangely thick.
         Only it wasn’t the pages becoming thick. Trapped within the paper folds of the book were hundreds of carefully preserved flowers. Not just any flowers - daffodils.

***

         When I returned, I found Mother waiting for me, smiling.
         “Did they find Mr. Engle?” I asked.
         “No,” she said. “No, they didn’t.”
         I never told her I had found the room, or the book.
         I don’t know if she ever returned to Vardenfall.

***

         They did find Mr. Engle, after some time. A few days later the children found him nonchalantly sitting behind his large oak desk. He refused to say a word about his absence. But Vardenfall seemed to have already lost its magic.
         I spent the next few weeks turned inwards. I started exploring the tunnels, walking in silence, trying to make some sense of the world. I suppose I had expected answers. I had wanted answers.
         But in the end, I found nothing. The world had appeared upon the brink of resolve but at the last moment, had turned away. What had I learned? I had learned of coincidence, chance and, simply, that the world was simple. Dad left, Lara left and I was here, with a stomach full of long simmering hatred. This wasn’t the world I wanted. This was not the world I wanted.
Why had he left? I wanted to know.

***

         So I went, disdainful of the world, with a head full of questions and a discomforted heart.
         Only once, during that time, did I return to Vardenfall. Somberly, I watched my feet take me into town. The villagers were out and about, as they always were, but there was only one villager I wanted to talk with. I paused briefly beneath the great maple that gave shade to the town square. The tree was scarred with jet-black fissures running the length of it. The leaves had long since fallen and its bark was slowly flaking off, sending hundreds of small dark boats to float about endlessly in the fountain. I paused only for a few moments, then continued towards the hill and the school house.
         The dirt trail skirted the hill but I found myself veering from its path and striding up the grassy slope. I came to the entrance of the schoolhouse. Resting my hand upon the door, I froze. I could hear Mr. Engle’s voice, muffled though it was by the thick oak and the soft laughter of children.
         I didn’t knock. I didn’t push the door open. I didn’t even enter the school. I needed to see something first, so I pushed a retreat back towards the square. What I would have said to Mr. Engle, I don’t know. Perhaps that’s why I never went in – I had nothing to say.
         I passed Fran upon the dirt path. “Hello!” she said. But I kept walking, leaving her unanswered. I was tired of pretending she was real. There was only one thing left in Vardenfall for me and it had very well to do with Mr. Engle. I set my course for the bank.
         I hopped the wooden fence that ran around behind the old building. Upon the wall, I was satisfied to see that the symbols had returned. Once again, the wall hosted two triangular knobs and a slow spinning circle. I began to work the symbols, finding it easier than the first time. Almost disappointingly easy. The wall clicked open and revealed the same set of stone stairs I had seen twice now. I set off down them, not knowing what I expected to find.
         There was no light at the bottom of the stairs but the room itself was well lit as things tended to be in Vardenfall. A desk, much like the one Mr. Engle kept in the schoolhouse rested against the far wall. But where I had found one book in the tunnels, I found an entire set before me. A few lay open upon the table, buried under hundreds of loose pieces of paper. Notes and scribbles filled the pages, decorating the desks dark finish. I peered over a page that had fallen to the floor and found a detailed description of sequoia sempervirens, a species of redwood trees. It said they could grow up to a hundred meters tall. I had heard that somewhere before.
         The books, I noticed, were part of a set, like nothing I had seen before. I read the spine of one book. It was titled “Volume 2: Banyan to Easter.”
         Mr. Engles disappearance must not have been a single occasion, I realized. He came here for his ideas. All his brilliant one-off remarks had been plagiarized from the pages that lay before me. Mr. Engle was neither mysterious, nor was he gifted.
         He was simply knowledgeable.
         It was a contemptible end to a mystery.

***

         I became angry.

***

         I returned to the village. For the hundredth time, I took rest upon the hill, looking out over the town. But things seemed clearer now. Why hadn’t I realized this before? A tear ran down my cheek but inside it wasn’t sadness that was seething. The simmering hatred that I had locked away had finally grabbed hold of my heart.
         I hated Vardenfall.
         I hated Vardenfall. I hated its manicured forest. I hated its perfectly trimmed grass. I hated its fake food, its false people. I hated Fran for her gardening and growing fat; I hated Henry for being so dimwitted. I hated Mr. Engle for being so mysterious and for having no mystery at all. I hated them all for being so one-dimensional. I hated the bushes, the flowers, the birds that hopped from tree to tree. And I hated Vardenfall for giving me such hatred. How could my mother have grown to love this aberration of nature? I hated it all. Images burned in my mind of the places destruction. Forests blazed inside my head, buildings smashed by a howling wind. I wanted it gone.
But the bunker was worse – the bunker and all its tributes to the dead world above. It, too, was a monstrosity – a cruel experiment, a concrete petri dish. I wanted to tear down its grey walls, rip apart its steel tunnels. I wanted to destroy something, everything – but more than that I wanted to be free of the place. I hated Father for leaving. Wherever he was, he had taken the freedom that was so rightfully mine. He had used me, so that he could escape while I looked after Mother.  I hated Lara for following him. I hated Mother for not stopping them.
And behind my soaking eyes, I prayed for the lightning to return to Vardenfall and leave nothing behind.

***

         Hours passed.
         I must have fallen asleep, for when I opened my eyes snow was falling. A light dusting covered the ground and trees.
         Something had changed. I had changed, my anger dissipated into the calm air. Whatever I had felt before had vanished like a puff of smoke in the fresh falling snow. Inside, I was empty.
For a few moments, I didn’t move. Everything looked so beautiful in the falling snow. The buildings were slowly being blanketed in layers of snow, becoming hidden away from the world. I looked up towards the schoolhouse and, for a moment, I thought I saw a figure standing upon the hill. But when I looked again, there was nothing. There were no footsteps in the town square. No birds chirped, nor dogs barked. The only sound was the bubbling fountain. I watched small chunks of ice swirl about in the water. Reaching down, I scooped one into my hands. It felt cool.

***

         When I returned back to the bunker, my mother was resting serenely in her wheelchair. A set of brushes rested on the table to her left. In front of her, at the base of the ladder was a painting of a great redwood, towering tall. Two birds rested upon the tree.
         She wasn’t breathing. She had passed away in the night.
         The bunker, itself, was dark. The red light that rested atop the ladder had finally switched off.

***

         I took my mother to the secret room. In her hands, I placed the book of daffodils.
         I began the monumental task of systematically emptying the warehouses, the storerooms and everything that I could find within the bunker. I labored, dragging all the supplies I could back into the central bunker.
Months past.
         I spent a most of my time excavating the treasures that lay hidden around in the tunnels, resting only to eat and occasionally to sleep. To the north, I found a few odd rooms that I had missed earlier. They contained sacks that could be fastened to one’s back, as well as water canteens and proper boots.
         Eventually, I returned to the central bunker, to all the goods I had found. I knew what was going to happen. I was going to climb the ladder and open the hatch.
But I didn’t. Not right then.
         I returned to Vardenfall one last time. The snow had melted, the day overcast and grey. My feet thudded upon the wooden walkway. The rope bridge swung gently and the river still roared beneath me.
         Yet things had changed. The grass had grown long in the town. It looked ragged. The trees were no longer pruned but grew tall and wild. And everywhere, yellow daffodils blossomed. In the town square, I looked upon the lightning scarred maple. Bright green moss had begun to cover its bark. Looking up, I noticed a few small buds growing from the tips of the bare branches. I smiled.
I looked around at the village, smiling. But my smile began to falter. The village was empty. Everyone had disappeared, only…
          One lone figure crested the top of the hill – a small twist of a woman. She shambled over the rise. It was Mrs. Faren, outside in the full light of the day. A crooked smile wrapped her face. She hobbled towards me, reaching the square. “Where…” I began to say, but she moved a finger to her lips, silencing me.
         She led me past the town hall, down the cobble path towards the small circle of houses. The moss-covered centurion stood tall as ever. But she didn’t stop for the statue. She gently guided me towards the entrance of one of the smaller houses.
         All the villagers were inside, crowded around a large bed. Henry spotted me and grinned. He pulled me forward so that I could see what was going on. The crowd parted and there, I saw Fran, looking unkempt but joyous, sitting upright in the oak bed, clutching a baby in her arms.

***

         There was one person missing from the assembly. I asked Henry. He stammered slightly, telling me that Mr. Engle had disappeared into the woods a few months ago. I asked him if he was coming back this time. Henry said he wouldn’t be.
         “Why?” I asked.
         It was Mrs. Faren that answered. “Love,” she said. “Nothing moves a man but love.”

***
         
         After some time, I separated myself from the crowd. Aimlessly, I walked about the town, through the tall grass and beneath the shade of the trees. I walked around the hill, behind the bank, around most every building till I eventually found myself standing in front of our house. Mother’s house. I wondered what she would make of all this. The black oak in the front yard had grown into a mighty tree.
         I put a hand upon the cool doorknob, twisting it and pushing back the wooden door. The house was pleasantly warm. I took off my shoes and let my feet pad upon the bare floors. How much the house had changed. The walls had been repainted a deep sunset orange. They were covered with pictures of Mother, and Father, and Lara, and I, and the times we had spent together. The floors were no longer carpeted but replaced by wood. I wandered into the living room, where a set of paints and an easel had been set up. A painting of a redwood rested upon the easel. Two birds were flying from the tree.
         I began to boil a pot of tea and took a seat upon the couch. But my feet refused to stay still. I was restless, so I walked about the house, exploring the den, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, finding only odd remnants of the past. I walked and walked until I came to a stop. In front of me was a ladder to the attic. I had almost forgotten my old room. Rung after rung, I made my way up, finally pushing aside the old trap door.
         I found the room unchanged. Light shone in through the small circular window illuminating the same small bed and wooden walls I had known long ago. It was exactly how I had left it…
A light flashed upon my mailbox. It had been years since I opened it.
         Inside its rusted cover, I found hundreds of messages. Sifting through them, I realized that they were nearly all the same. Each was a little message with a present attached. Each one read something to the effect of “Thinking of You, Love Mom.”
I sat down and read them all.

***

         Perhaps it meant little, but I took a single daffodil from the front yard and planted it upon the unmarked grave in the eastern thicket.


***

         An hour later, I found myself back in the bunker, opening the hatch atop the ladder.
Before I could push open the hatch, my imagination was running to a world dominated by forests of giant alders swaying in the breeze, with blue skies dancing over shimmering fields of long grass and everywhere, daffodils. But when I opened the hatch, the sky wasn’t blue. There were no trees. There was no grass.
         There was only dust.
         This was my world.
         I began to walk.