The Child: Episode 5
Harlan Forester
“What’s your ETA?” Harlan Forester’s basso voice vibrated my phone.
I glanced at the car’s clock. It was 11:30 p.m. “Figure 11:45.” I turned to the child, who was seated next to me. As we passed under streetlights, the boy’s face alternated between bright and dark, giving the illusion that one moment he was in the car and the next he wasn’t. “Thanks. I didn’t know what to do. After seeing those tattoos, I totally freaked out. I mean, what’s a little boy doing with a back covered in tattoos? There’s writing on them, too, but I can’t make heads or tails of anything.” I knew I was babbling. It’s something I do when I’m nervous.
Harlan was the chair of Middlebury College’s Russian department, my boss, and a dear friend. He would do anything for me and vice versa. Plus, he was the smartest person I knew.
I was exhausted, in desperate need of changing into huffle-buffs, downing a whiskey, and sleeping, but none of those items was in my immediate future.
“I’ll have a whiskey waiting for you. We’ll figure out what those tattoos mean.” Harlan knew me well. I felt better already.
“Thanks again.”
“Galinder.”
What? Galinder is what the boy said over and over again when I found him in the woods. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t mentioned it to Harlan, but perhaps I had.
I greeted Harlan at the door in Russian, the natural language for two Russian professors. The boy stood silently beside me. As I entered Harlan’s living room, he said, “Let’s talk in English. I don’t want to scare the boy.”
I squinted, as if trying to acquire a more focused understanding of what Harlan said. What’s the matter with Russian? “The sound of the Russian language only scares first-year students.” I chuckled at my own joke.
“It’s best you do as I say.”
There was an edge to Harlan’s voice I’d never heard before. I’d witnessed him angry at students — one in particular he’d caught cheating on an exam. I’d heard Harlan snap at the chair of the French department. But his voice always had a softness to it, like the fake rubber knife used as a movie prop. Now there was malevolence in his tone, the edge of a just-sharpened blade.
Maybe I’m the one who’s out of sorts. It’d been a tiring, bewildering day.
“Shall we have a drink, Harlan, before we talk?” I motioned to the bottle of Talisker on the sideboard. I took a step that way.
Harlan grabbed my arm, squeezed my bicep so hard that I was sure he bruised me, and snapped me back. “No,” he hissed. “I want to see the boy.”
So much for a promise made.
I shook my arm and released myself from his grip, rubbing the spot. I raised my hands to my chest, palms out, signaling that I gave up. I wanted to say, “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” but the words remained trapped in my throat. “Okay, sure.” My arm throbbed. “He’s right here, as you can see.” I paused a beat before adding, “Mind if I make myself a drink?”
Harlan roughly pushed me aside. I stumbled, slapped my hand against the couch, and regained my balance. He knelt beside the boy and said something in a language I couldn’t understand. I did make out one word, though.
Galinder.
The tartan blanket that was draped over the back of the living room couch flew across the room, a cold wind in its wake. I shivered and wrapped my arms around my body. The window frosted, as if it were the dead of February. Wind forced its way through the space where the window met the frame, filling the room with a loud, eerie howl. A Russian newspaper on the coffee table took flight, the pages snapping as they separated. The sheets of paper swirled and coalesced into a funnel cloud shape, spinning above the boy’s head, fast and loud, a shrill accompaniment to the piercing wind.
Goosebumps erupted on my exposed flesh.
Harlan spoke again to the boy, his breath a fog. The paper tornado slapped my head. I batted it to the ground.
The wind stopped, but the room remained frostbitten. My eyes stung, and I felt the crusty ice that encircled them.
Harlan and the boy continued to talk in this strange and guttural-sounding tongue.
A thousand questions wanted answers. The first one I asked was, “What language are you speaking?”
Harlan hissed at me and turned back to the boy. The boy removed his shirt and spun so his ink faced Harlan. I stared at the crazy quilt of blue, red, orange, gold, silver and yellow. It was different from before. When I moved, the drawings on the boy’s back changed shape. Flashes like lightning sparkled in random spaces, as if the boy were discharging static electricity. I saw a mountain, dragon, fortress, young woman, old man, the constellation Orion, the opening to a cave, a sword, and a sunset. The part of the tattoo that hadn’t changed from when I first saw it was the map and the writing.
“It’s not complete. It’s only half.” Harlan traced his finger over the writing on the tattoo and said, “Galinder will rise.”
The boy pointed to me, his arm stiff.
Harlan offered me a smile. “Hey, Mark. I’m sorry about my outburst. I was just a little stressed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the boy.” He shook his head. “Talisker neat? I forgot my manners. Of course you should have a drink.”
“You know him?” I gulped a gallon of air. “What’s going on here? Who is this boy?” I took two steps back. “Who are you?”
“It’s a long story. We’re half a map short. We need you to make the other half of the map.”
CHOOSE YOUR NEXT MOVE:
Grab the child and bolt for the front door.
— OR —
Ask Harlan what the hell is going on.
— OR —
The Child is an interactive puzzle fiction story. If you’ve stumbled onto this episode without reading the beginning, you can start at Episode One here.