LateNightHacking Louis My Writing

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revisions: 2003-01-01, 2003-01-18, 2003-03-30

The interior of the cottage was one large room divided into sections. Near the front window was a table and a chair, and along the wall were a stove, sink, and counter with cupboards above containing cups and bowls. Here Moira could eat breakfast and watch the sunrise through the windows.

A bookcase and a dresser arranged around a bed jutting out from the wall formed a sleeping area in the middle of the room.

The back portion of the cottage was far busier and more interesting. Desks were piled high with books, papers, scientific instruments, and mysterious devices. There were neatly labeled boxes, jars, and (of course) books on the shelves, and even a large slate hung on the wall covered with notes written in white chalk. The whole area had an aura of organized chaos.

A freestanding fireplace with an overstuffed chair nearby gave the room a cozy atmosphere, but the whole large area was well lit with soft white light by elegant lanterns hung from the ceiling.

Moira hung her cloak up by the front door, and placed her staff on a wall bracket above one of the desks with a murmured word. Shifting a pile of books, she moved a stool over to the fireplace. Moving a stack of papers and a musical instrument, she freed up a bench and moved it too by the fire. Grabbing a well-worn volume from her writing desk, Moira finally flopped down into the easy chair and nestled herself comfortably into its familiar cushions. Noticing that Nutsy and Josh were still standing uneasily by the front door, she waved a hand at the available seats. "Come, sit," she invited. "The fire will take some of the chill off."

Nutsy walked over and sat upon the stool. He looked at the technicalia around him with fascination and admiration. Josh took his spot on the bench and began to warm his hands in front of the fire.

Moira turned her attention to the book in her lap. Opening it, she flipped through it quickly, finding the page that interested her. Nutsy watched her calm expression become a frown of concentration as she studied what was written on the page. "Hmmm," she murmured. She flipped a page back, then forward again.

Nutsy was curious about what she was reading. Whatever was written in her book, it didn't look like it was what she had expected.

"Well," she said, looking up. Nutsy and Josh looked back at her, and she raised her eyebrows in a look of mild surprise. "It looks like I owe you an appology. According to my log book, you never crossed my border. Which would mean you never saw my warning. I'm glad you weren't hurt."

"Can you tell us what happened?" asked Josh. "How we got here?"

Moira pursed her lips again. "No. My log book merely says that 'an unexpected event occured.'" She rolled her eyes. "Typically useless."

Nutsy leaned forward excitedly. "Are you saying that that book somehow has a list of everybody that crosses your border, without you having to write in it?"

"Yes," replied Moira, giving Nutsy an odd look.

"Well...well, how!?" exclaimed the squirrel.

"It's just a standard log book. How else would you keep track of spell activities?"

Josh stood up, agitated. "Hold on here. Are you saying that book is magic?"

"Yes. Of course it's magic," Moira replied, giving the two a look that showed she had no idea what the fuss was all about.

Josh rounded on Nutsy. "Holy cow, Nutsy! What did you do!? Where the hell are we?"

The squirrel raised his hands in the air, completely at a loss.

"You are in my domain," cut in Moira.

Josh spun around. "I know that! And I'm in a quaint cottage under an oak tree," he spat. "But were are we? What is this entire place called?"

"You don't know?"

Josh sputtered.

"OK, OK. You don't know," said Moira, raising a paw to forestall an outburst. "It's just hard to believe you really are not from here. It's probably a first. You are in the Shadow Realm."

"Oh, that doesn't sound good," said Nutsy with dismay.

"No, no. It's not something bad," Moira said, smiling. "Sit, Josh, and I'll explain."

The raccoon returned to his bench and sat stiffly. Nutsy leaned forward, eager to hear more.

"People have different names for this place; I just told you my name for it. Everything here is the shadow of something that exists somewhere else - a copy, a memory. Or, it is a shadow of something that is yet to be - a notion, a posibility. I think of this world as a land of shadows or echos."

"A memory? What do you mean?" asked Nutsy.

"Well, I'll let you in on a secret." Moira leaned forward in the arm chair, conspiratorially. "Not many people here know it, but this is not the only world that exists. In fact, you might say that this is not even a real world! We are thoughts of the Mind." Moira grinned. Nutsy and Josh looked at each other. "I've always been curious about the world aroung me," Moira continued, "and I love exploring. This is one of my greatest discoveries," said the grey squirrel proudly as she sat back into her chair

Josh groaned and put his hands on his head. "We're stuck in Louis's subconscious."

"No," said Moira. "Well, perhaps, but not exactly. You've heard of putting an idea on the back burner? Welcome to the back burner."

"Wow," breathed Nutsy. "What else is here? What's outside of your, uh, domain?"

"More forest," replied Moira. "Right now, my domain is anchored to a part of a domain I think is called the Pacific North West. However, it would be a long trip before you reached anything particularly interesting if you went by foot."

Nutsy looked disappointed.

"How about you two? Where are you from?" asked Moira. "I've tried to discern what domain you are from, but the spell is returning a garbage answer."

"What spell?" asked Nutsy.

"We're from the real world," said Josh, cutting in. "Nutsy, we need to get back and see if Louis is OK. I don't like being stuck in Louis's imagination. What if something happens to him? We might just disappear!"

"Wow!" said Moira, leaning forward again. "Really? You are from the real world? What's it like?"

"Not as interesting as here. There aren't any dragons or magic," replied the flying squirrel.

"Moira, how do we get home?" asked Josh, cutting in again. "Can you use a spell to send us back? It's important."

Moira shook her head. "There's nothing I know how to do that could send you home. If I knew how to get to the real world, I'd have visited there already. What do you remember about how you got here?"

"Well, we were sitting up on a shelf when Louis was knocked unconscious. This gray fog appeared and enveloped everything. It was so thick we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces. When the fog dissipated, we were sitting on a high tree branch getting wet in the mist, here in your domain," explained Josh.

"Hmm. I saw the fog. That's why I came out to investigate," said moira, drumming her fingers on the cover of the log book. "It wasn't like any fog I've seen before. We get a lot of rain here, but the fog doesn't usually drop off passengers," said Moira with a lopsided smile. "I bet that must be the unknown event my log book recorded." Moira frowned. "I don't like this either. If anything happens to the Mind, then the entire Shadow Realm could become terribly distorted or even cease to exist!"

"Become distored?" asked Nutsy.

"Yes. Think about it. It is the Mind which makes the world work. If the Mind changes, the world changes. Forms, relationships, personalities - it's a scary thought. It might be better to just dissapear than to live a nightmare." Moira wrapped her arms around her and huddled back into her armchair.

Nutsy looked at Josh. What had they gotten in to?

Moira roused herself and sat up. "We should visit Command and Control. If anyone knows what happened, they will." She pushed her self up out of her chair, and stood. Dropping the book onto the chair, she smoothed her fur where it had been ruffled from sitting. She retrieved her staff from its bracket and walked past the seated raccoon and flying squirrel back to the front door. Nutsy and Josh came up behind her as she fastened her cloak around her neck.

"I thought you said there was nothing around us besides forest. How long is it going to take us to reach this Control place?" asked Josh.

"I said there's nothing withing walking distance," replied Moira with a twinkle in her eye. "But walking is no way to travel between domains!" With a theatrical twirl of her cape, she turned to the door, swung it open, and stepped out into the daylight.

The mist that had been falling before had stopped and the sky was a lighter, brighter gray. Even though the sun could not clearly be seen, Nutsy and Josh were still dazzled as they stepped out of the dim interior of the cottage, following Moira. Josh pulled the door closed behind them and the looked around, curious as to what would happen next.

"Beth!" called the gray squirrel, walking across the front of the cottage. A green head poked out from the rocks. Moira stopped beside it and laid a friendly paw on Beth's snout. "Hold the fort for me, OK?"

The lambent eyes blinked once. Beth dipped her head in nod, then cocked it slightly to one side.

"We're going to Cee and Cee," explained Beth. "We'll see if then can tell us what's going on."

Beth nodded agin, her nose moving under Moira's paw. Moira gave the dragon a pat, then walked back to Josh and Nutsy. The green dragon came further out of the cave and sat attentively at the entrance.

Moira took a few steps toward the stream, then stopped and squared her shoulders. Pointing the head of her staff at the pebble strewn ground before her, she muttered a few sylables. Nutsy and Josh watched, stunned, as the water worn rocks began sliding across the ground and assmebling themselves into two stacks. Almost faster then they could follow, the impromptu cairns grew taller and began to bend toward each other at the top. When Josh thought surely they should tumble over, the two leaning pillars touched and formed an arch. Nutsy noticed Moira reach into her cloak and pull out a little notebook.

"Stacking algorithm is still too slow," grumbled Moira as she scribbled something in the little pad and tucked it away. She took a deap breath, then pointed her staff at the arch. The gray squirrel uttered another polysylabic phrase ans she traced the outline of the arch with the head of the staff. The quartz crystal glowed within its wooden cage, and the air within the arch took on a gauzy, translucent aspect.

Nutsy grabbed Josh's arm. "Did you see that?" he asked, excited. "Real magic!" He looked at the raccoon, a joyful look lighting up the squirrel's face.

Moira turned to look back over her shoulder at Nutsy and Josh. "Come one," she nodded her head. Let's go see what Cee and Cee has to say." With that, she walked calmly to the arch and stepped right through.

Nutsy let go of Josh'd arm and quickly approached the miraculous arch. He placed a paw on the stones, but the structure seemed sturdy to his touch. The interior of the arch was indistinct. He put his other paw forward into the blurry space but felt nothing as his hand disappeard. He walked forward, left paw still touching the reassuring solidity of the stones. Josh watched as the squirrel disappeared completely behind the gauzy shimmer.

Nutsy found himself in a tee junction of a hallway, dim after the brightness of outdoors. The hallway seemed to be build to his scale, just like Moira's cottage, but otherwise the place had a very human flavor to it. The walls made of metalic panneling and the floor was dark, dimpled plastic. The ceiling was lit with impersonal florescent lighting, but every few yards there was a band of red lighting. The red lights were blinking slowly, alternating between bright and dim, as if in an ominous warning. The air was alive with the soft hum of droning machinery. Nutsy could also make out the voices, somewhere in the distance. The main hallway ran left and right in front of him, while he and Moira stood in the brach. It was more of an alcove, really, for when he looked behind him, the side hall ended at the shimmer of the magic portal. A dark paw appeared reaching out of the mist, followed quickly by the rest of the raccoon. Josh soon stood beside them, brushing down the fur on his upper arms.

Nutsy turned at the sound of feet coming down the hallway. Two figures flashed by the opening in front of them, oblivious to the three standing in the alcove, and the footsteps receded down the hallway in the opposite direction. Nutsy thought they looked like miniature humans, slightly shorter than even he, wearing blue close-fitting uniforms and with a wild shock of yellow hair.

"It looks like Cee and Cee has a major problem on its hands," said Moira, turning back to her companions after watching the two figures dash by. "We better go see what's going on." She led Nutsy and Josh out into the main hall. It curved slightly, so they could not see very far in either direction. Moira turned and started walking in the direction of the most hubbub.

Another set of footsteps approached them, and around the bend came another little human. He seemd to be walking blindly, burdened by a large stack of heavy binders he couldn't see over. Nutsy, Josh, and Moira stood up against the edge of the hallway to keep the human from blundering into them. As he passed, he caught sight of Moira out of the corner of his eye. His head snapped around and he dropped his binders with a startled shout. Papers scattered everywhere across the floor.

"Gracious me!" the figure exclaimed, completely oblivious to the mess he had nade. "It's Lady Gray. It's Lady Gray!" He turned and ran back up the hall, waving his hands in the air and shouting. "She's here! Lady Gray is here!" He disappeard around the bend.

Josh looked at Moira questioningly. She just shrugged. "We may as well go. They'll be expecting us."

"Expecting you maybe. Oops!" said Nutsy, slipping as he tried to walk across the scatter of binders and loose papers. The three continued up the hallway, Moira in the lead. "Lady Gray?" said Nutsy, making it a question.

She shrugged. "My title is The Lady Moira Gray. But I prefer my friends to call me Moira."

"Royalty?"

"No," she said, scrunching her muzzle. "Just a mage."

As they walked up the hallway, the noise of voices got louder. They saw no more humans rushing though the hallway, but the red overhead lights continued to flash malignantly. Josh was beginning to think the passage interminable, when they reached the end.

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