Falling Away


Clumsiness is not often the cause of high adventure, but for James
Strathmore a mild head cold and a moment of inattention sent him
falling into the epic. A struggling college student, wavering between
majoring in Chemistry or something in computers, James was walking
briskly while trying to fish out a handkerchief when a quiet buzz made
him look up. That same instant his foot caught on the slightly raised
lip of a brick in the walk and he tripped, falling, and crashing into
someone as he fell.

He was roughly shoved off of the person even as he was stammering
apologies, and caught only a short glimpse of a tall, slender man
looking at him with irritation and contempt. James' vision was blurred
by the sudden light of a noonday sun, which he found startling and
disturbing, as he was quite certain it had been dimming towards
twilight only a moment before. He struggled to his feet, his heavy
backpack hampering his attempt, and managed to straighten enough to
have a brief solid look at an oval opening in the air, the tall man on
the other side walking away into the dusk, before it suddenly
vanished, leaving him on a grassy path under a warm sun.

He shrugged the backpack off and jumped forward, far too late, but
there was nothing to show the portal had been there, save a thin slice
in the grass, as if someone had pressed a shovel in but not turned up
any dirt. James stood dumbfounded for a few moments, then began
turning in circles, staring about him, wondering when he would wake up.

That the tall man was some sort of traveler was obvious, and James had
read enough science fiction and fantasy to recognize a portal when he
saw one, even if he had never seen one in real life. There was
certainly no other explanation for his being here now, in what looked
like a pleasant sort of countryside, standing on a grassy lane that
led up to a picturesque little cottage that had the sort of extra
boards on the facings and edges, crossed here and there, that he
expected on a postcard from some old European town, a bit of kitchen
garden to either side of him making him think this must be the back of
the house. There was a white fence around the garden that met up at
the edge of the house, and a gate by one side of the house and another
behind him down the grassy path. That confused him a fair bit, as if
anything, he would have expected a path that was actually used, such
as the one through a kitchen garden, to be well packed dirt. Even if
it was sown with grass, surely a path would have been quickly worn
into it?

He was certain he had not been unconscious for any of what he had just
experienced, so it could not have been an abduction. But a portal? How
could such a thing be? Was it merely a distance portal, a way for some
alien or eccentric genius to teleport around the world? Or did it go
through time, or space, or dimensions?

He leaned down and lifted his pack back onto his back, sighing at the
weight of the books inside, and wishing they had been something more
useful. Why couldn't this have happened when he was camping, and had a
pack full of survival gear or something? He fished out his
handkerchief and blew his nose, as he had been about to do, not
wanting his first impression on whoever might be in that house to be
that he was sick.

Unfortunately for his desires, that was the moment the back door of
the house opened, and an old woman stepped out, carrying a basket of
clothing, and saw him. He started violently, not having noticed her,
when a voice suddenly spoke sharply in an unfamiliar language, and he
looked up. His heart sank as he realized that at the very least he was
far enough from home that he not only did not know the language, he
could not even identify it.

He did not know French, or Italian, or German, or Spanish for that
matter, in spite of living in Houston, a city with a high-proportion
of Spanish-speakers... though Spaniards might not acknowledge them as
such, but he felt sure that he would have recognized any of them. So
further afield then, one of the former Eastern bloc countries perhaps?

The lady had said something more and then, frustrated at his helpless
shrug, had stomped back in the house.

"So much for a good first impression," James muttered, wondering if
she was calling the cops, and if he was about to spend the next few
years in a foreign prison. She had looked a rather wizened old lady,
but that wouldn't do him much good if she had gone to get a phone or a
gun.

That thought made him realize something was missing, and he looked
around again, more closely. In all his view of wooded and grassy
hills, a flock of sheep in the distance on one of the slopes, a stream
winding between hills on the lower ground in one direction, and a
denser, darker wood rising up to the slopes of a mountain range in the
other, nowhere did he see a sign of tarmac or blacktop. There was not
a single power-line in sight, nor any vehicles. There was no sign of a
plane in the sky, though he did see some birds circling here and there
in the clear blue.

A grumbling voice drew his eyes back to the cottage, as an equally old
and decrepit looking man came out, shutting the door behind him, and
strode towards James, a lumpy and crinkled stick in his hand, that
could only be called a cane by way of hyperbole, though he pushed off
the ground with it like one.

Here again, looking closer at the old man's clothing, James felt
goosebumps rise on his arms. No sign of metal buttons, zippers, not
even a belt-clasp! The man's trousers were held up by a bit of knotted
rope. James could almost feel the possibility that the portal he had
passed through was merely a means of teleporting to different places
on the Earth slipping away, vanishing beyond his grasp.

The man said something sternly, and prodded James with the stick.
James sighed and shrugged, assuming he was being told to hit the road,
in spite of the lack of roads hereabouts, and shrugged and turned to
go, hoping that he would find someone who would be a bit more open to
a stranger, when he was spun about again. The seemingly decrepit old
man had hooked his knobbly stick into James' backpack strap and spun
him about with no sign of effort. James eyed the stick warily, hoping
he was not going to have to defend himself from a beating.

The old man merely eyed him fiercely, glaring at him from under great
bushy white eyebrows. He had a thin, wispy white beard, closely
trimmed, with a stray few white hairs sprouting from a mole on his
cheek that James had to struggle to keep his eyes off. The man's eyes
were ... well, one of his eyes was a steely gray. The other was
clouded with white splotches. The old man mumbled something, then
tapped his staff on the ground. James' eyes burned, and his mouth
watered furiously, forcing him to swallow, and but for the lack of any
pain, James would have thought the old man must have cracked him in
the head.

The light faded, and James' eyes adjusted just quick enough to catch
the last glimmer fading from the very tip of the old man's stick.
"What is your business here, outsider?" the man questioned irritably,
but in perfectly comprehensible English. He must have seen the logo on
my shirt, James thought quickly, searching for an explanation for old
man's fortuitous guess of language that did not involve flashing
lights from wooden sticks. Maybe he's got an LED in there for walking
at night.

"I..." James paused, realizing that if he simply described what
happened, then he would likely not be believed, unless the old man was
involved with the slender man, which was a bit much to hope for. On
the other hand, what could he say? "I'm lost," he said finally. "Can
you point me to the nearest town?"

The old man shook his head, his still full mop off white hair flopping
about. "Do you know who I am?"

James shook his head, wondering why on Earth the old man might expect
him to know such a thing.

"Alright then, inside with you," the old man stated and turned and
stalked off.

James briefly considering arguing the point, but quickly hurried after
him. There was something peculiar going on here, and while he would
have been satisfied to get to a town where he could learn something
merely by observing the level of technology, and hopefully find out
that these creepy old folks were just Luddites who despised progress,
and the town would have cars and phones, he did have a feeling that
these two would know rather more about what happened to him and who
that thin man was. He was simply afraid that if he irritated them too
much, he might find out the hard way that it was a magic portal, by
having the old man turn him into a frog, or a tech portal by having
one of them vaporize them with a beam weapon. After all, the thin man
had apparently been leaving their house.

He followed the man inside, and found the house to be open and roomy
on the inside. The old woman was puttering about with a heavy black
saucepan on a hanging rack over a fire in a large stone fireplace, and
he felt a sudden irrational surge of relief that it was not a large
cast-iron pot

"The potatoes are nearly done," the old lady said, glancing at the two
of them, and James shuddered. She had spoken English before she had so
much as looked at them. If she knew it, why hadn't she tried it when
she first saw him? That the man could have recognized something about
him and tried English was one thing, but how had she then known to use
it?

"Good, good," the old man said, and pulled a wooden chair over, and as
he did, James realized with a start that the house had a packed dirt
floor, not stone or wood. The chair itself was made of rough sticks,
debarked but not split, and bound together with twine or something
like it, and James pulled off and set his backpack down beside it
before gingerly settling into it, afraid it would fall to pieces if he
even put his full weight on it, much less sat down with any force.

He was surprised at how comfortable the chair was, and how little
trouble it had accepting his weight. It had certainly looked like the
sort of chair prone to creaking and squeaking, but it made no sound as
he settled in to it.

The odd fellow bustled about, tugging a table away from a wall to the
center of the room, something James would have gladly helped him with,
but for the glare he received when he moved to stand, then arranging
said table with three dinner settings. James was not particularly
hungry at the moment, but seeing the two preparing what he assumed was
a lunch, he realized that if the closest town was any great distance
away he might not have reached it by nightfall. Maybe they could take
him in the morning? James wondered if there might have been a driveway
around the other side of the house, and whether a proper road could
have been somehow concealed from his sight by the hillsides, his mind
balking at the obvious even as the clues piled up.

Pulling the saucepan from the fire, the old lady easily ladled out
three portions onto the plates, drawing James' attention to them. They
looked like fairly ordinary plates, white with a blue pattern, like
porcelain, and James thought them a hopeful sign. From the dirt floor
he had half expected a wooden bowl. The cutlery was equally normal to
his eyes, a simple metal knife and fork. Surely that put a limit on
how far back he might be, if he had somehow traveled in time?

He was not sure when porcelain had been introduced into Europe, but he
was certain it came from China. Likewise he was uncertain of the
antiquity of using a knife and fork at meals, but he vaguely
remembered discussions of their introduction to English nobility from
France or something like that. That would put it sometime after 1066,
he thought, that being the one significant date he could recall
regarding the Normans and England, and his heart sank again, realizing
that while it might have cut off a substantial portion of early
history, it still left him potentially hundreds of years out of date.

When the other two took their own seats at the table, James turned his
attention to the food itself, realizing that apparently whatever it
was, it composed the entire meal, and found it to be a stew, with
lumps of meat, potatoes, onions, and something he thought might be
carrots, though they were rather more red than he expected of a carrot.

The old man took a black loaf of bread and tore it into pieces,
handing a piece to each of them. Breaking bread . . . realizing with a
start that he was sat at a dinner table and had not even introduced
himself, James blurted out, "Uhm, I'm James, James Strathmore."

The other two just looked at him curiously for a few tense moment,
while he flushed with embarrassment, then the old guy shook his head
and said dourly, "We'll see, we'll see. Eat up."

James flushed even brighter, and lifted his fork, but hesitated,
waiting. He wanted to say Grace, but he wanted even more for one of
them to do so. More than that, he wanted one of them to take the first
bite, but they were waiting patiently, and it hardly seemed credible
that they would have any reason to poison him when he would have
willingly just walked away. Still, strains of horror music were
floating through his head as he bowed to the pressure of their gazes
and took a bite. The flavor was good, and the meat was tender, the
potatoes fully cooked. None of it made much sense to him, when his
mother used to make stew it was in a large pot on the stove and cooked
slowly for a long time, not a saucepan over a fire, but somehow the
textures of everything seemed to be just right.

The knowing gazes of the elderly couple were a bit much to take, but
he held his tongue, having been raised to respect his elders, to be
polite when a guest in someone's home, and still hoping that these two
would have some explanation for what had happened, or at least who the
thin man was. He noted to himself how that man had become the thin man
in his thoughts, and wondered how long before he would be capitalizing
it in his head, like Cancer Man from the X-Files.

He was about halfway through with the stew, stewing in his own
troubled thoughts the whole while, when he finally noticed that it was
becoming a strain to reach the bowl, and looked down at the chair and
then himself. "What the hell is going on?" he cried out, staring at
his tiny hands, swimming in his now overlarge shirt. "What is this,
Alice in freaking Wonderland? I didn't even get any cake!"

His complaints came out in a high, child's tone, and the old folks
grinned at him, and he realized that they too were younger, his hair
and beard now grey instead of white, hers black and long, their
wrinkles fading before his eyes. "Come now, finish your meal," the now
middle-aged lady urged.

The man nodded. "You'll need all the years you can get just to make it
home, you know."

James jumped up from his chair, frightened and panicked, but now fully
aware that they obviously knew how he had gotten here, and probably
who the thin man was. "Who was that man?" he demanded, reddening with
anger and frustration, barely noticing that his shoes had fallen off
at some point and his right foot had landed rather painfully on the
laces of one of them. His hand darted to his jeans to hold them up.

"Never you mind that, now," the woman said, frowning sharply at him.
"You just sit down there and finish up. Your mother didn't teach you
to leave food on the plate."

He gaped at her, unable or unwilling to believe that she could know
anything about his mother.

"He won't be back to take you home, if that is what you are
thinking," the man said curtly. "You'll have to make your own way
home, and you'll need the time."

James stared at them for a long minute before tugging his jeans up,
pulling his chair back in place, and sitting in it. What could he do
now? Run away? There was no doubt in his mind now that this was magic,
no, Magic, with a capital-M, and they could probably turn him into a
frog as easy as help him. And if they were magic, but thought he could
somehow make it home, what of the next people he might meet? What if
he went running, only to discover the dark wood was full of
werewolves, or vampires, or he found a real witch's hut and she
decided he looked nice and tender now?

They knew something, that much was obvious, and he was already in for
it. Even if the thin man came back this instant, how could he explain
being what, twelve now? He sighed and tucked back in and set to
finishing his stew, paying more attention now to the sensations as he
shrunk, dwindling back into childhood.

He also watched as the other two youthened as well, though not to the
same degree. When the old man mopped up the last of his stew with a
hunk of crusty black bread, his hair had darkened further from a gray
to a deep, glossy black like that of his wife. At least, James felt
sure they were husband and wife, though neither had said anything as
yet that would confirm it. Both were now largely free of wrinkles,
though he had little crows feet around his eyes, and a wrinkle on his
brow, while she had slender laugh lines.

The rest of the meal had passed in silence, James not knowing what to
say, it being far too late to protest what was happening, the other
two apparently content with the quiet. Without a word they stood and
began putting away the dishes in a cupboard, without even bothering to
wash them so far as he could tell, and then moving the table back out
of the way.

"Now, James," the man said finally, acknowledging his name for the
first time, drawing up a chair to sit facing the now quite small boy,
"You've got a lot to learn, before you can get home."

"Why can't you just take me home," the boy said, pouting and crossing
his arms. "If you could shrink me, you could take me home."

The man shook his head. "It isn't that simple, much as you might wish
it to be. I am not a Walker, nor is Battie. We cannot take you; and
even if we were, we'd not know where to take you. No, this is
something you'll have to do on your own, and to do that, you must
learn to learn."

"I know how to learn," James grumbled rebelliously, holding his temper
with difficulty by trying to remember that he did not want to be
turned into a frog, "I went to school. I was in college even, before
you did this to me!" He huffed, gesturing to himself and the clothes
he was now struggling to keep on, as though he were a child playing
dress up in his father's wardrobe.

The man shrugged and waved his hand, and James goggled as his clothes
shrank down to fit neatly. Even his shoes leapt back onto his feet and
shrank to fit. "You know how to learn what a school would teach you,
perhaps, but you do not know how to learn for yourself, nor how to
learn what you must."

James nodded, a bit stunned at what had happened to his clothes. His
own de-aging was a shock to the system, but it could have simply been
the result of something they had, or had been given. Water from that
Spanish guy's Fountain of Youth or something, though that was supposed
to be in Florida somewhere, he thought. Waving his hand and making his
clothes shrink, precisely enough to fit him?  

Somehow the sheer intentionality of that impressed him. Making them
younger was just sort of a weird traveling back in time thing,
something you could attribute to something as banal as a fountain of
water. His clothing, on the other hand, and especially his shoes,
which were modern comfortable walking shoes made of many different
bits of cloth and padding all sewn together, had never been smaller.
He wondered if they still had the same number of atoms in them?

"You going to teach me how to do that?" he asked curiously, his face
finally losing that red tint it had held through much of the meal.

The man shrugged. "You will learn how to learn," he said again, "what
you learn then will be in your hands, not mine. But we will come to
that in good time."

James huffed and leaned forward, "Fine, what's first, then?"