Gossamer Lives

Gossamer Lives

by Mojo Place

Published by Purple Ducks Publishing

a division of Purple Ducks Digital Media, Inc.

POB 251, Granby, CT 06035

http://www.purpleducks.com

Copyright © 2011 by Mary J Place

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s overactive imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons (living or dead) is coincidental. So there. Nyaaahh.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9815365-3-8 (hardcover)

ISBN-13: 978-0-9815365-4-5 (trade paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-9815365-5-2 (Smashwords ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011933281

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author, and thank you for your continued support!

For my friend Perry again—

and for our dear friend Randall Wreghitt,

who continues to touch so many hearts

Contents

Chapter 1—The Dark

Chapter 2—Intersecting Paths

Chapter 3—First Glimpse

Chapter 4—Face to Face

Chapter 5—A Wild Ride

Chapter 6—Making Friends

Chapter 7—Working as One

Chapter 8—The Growing Void

Chapter 9—Returning

Chapter 10—Saving the World

About the Author

The Dark

There were many squirming bodies packed in the darkness. She was the one on the bottom. Couldn't move, couldn't breathe. She spent her whole life making herself as small as possible, trying to bear the growing pressure from moment to eternal moment.

Many times things got to be too much. Bone-tired of it all, heart-weary, she’d find herself teetering at the breaking point. There was always one last insult, then: a sharp knee in her side, maybe, or a big hairy butt pressed right up against her face. She just couldn’t stand it anymore, o she’d say in a tiny voice:

Hey, if you don’t mind, could you maybe get your butt out of my face?

...because even when she couldn’t feel any worse, she was still polite.

The reply was always the same. Shaddup, Yarunt.

Welcome to Yarunt's life. Not much to it. But it was all she knew, from day one, so she never expected it to get any better. To the contrary, it was getting worse—the pressure greater, the weight heavier, the tempers around her shorter.

She wasn't sure how many shared her prison. It was too dark to see, and too stinky to smell. All she had to go by were voices. She could identify dozens of different ones. They all said pretty much the same thing, no matter who was speaking.

Move it or lose it, Yarunt.

Shaddup, Yarunt.

Beat it, Yarunt.

That's how Yarunt learned her name. The others remained anonymous. No one ever used their names. Yarunt wondered about this, in the many hours she spent mashed against the floor. She didn't have anything else to do.

There was another voice. The Outside Voice, Yarunt called it, for it came from outside the walls of their prison. It was muffled, but Yarunt could feel it vibrate the floor as she pressed against it. The Outside Voice was loudly female, tough and outspoken. Still, Yarunt detected—or maybe imagined—a core of simple, honest decency behind it.

"What does everyone expect? The Outside Voice launched into one of her many tirades. I mean, it's all brand new. You have to expect there'll be some bugs to work out. It's a minor glitch. They act like it's the end of everything."

A pause, then the Outside Voice boomed again.

"So we have a council about it. Fine. Do we have to invite everyone? I mean, all of us know what needs doing. We've always known what to do. Shouldn't that be enough? Why do they have to invite all the stupid people, too?"

Another pause, then a sudden leap of both topic and volume. "Tarnation! Are they out already? Get back in there, you little monsters! I said get back in there! No! No! You're five days early!"

The Outside Voice faded as she coped with this latest catastrophe. Yarunt smiled to herself. The Outside Voice always lived in ricochet, careening from one imagined crisis to the next. Still, Yarunt was fond of her. Though rough and loud, it was the closest thing to a kind voice Yarunt had ever heard.

Yarunt lay in the darkness, keeping herself as small as possible. She tried not to think of the hairy, sweaty butt pressed against her right cheek. A dirty foot struck the dirty floor just a fraction in front of her dirty face. Against her own butt an elbow dug for more room. Or was it a knee? Elbow or knee—this was Yarunt's sole guessing game: she could occupy herself for hours. She immediately began analyzing the variables—joint sharpness, weight of the owner, strength of the limb—all clues in her game. This particular pain had the sharp-angled quickness of an elbow, but the broader footprint of a knee. Hmmm...

The pressure lessened so gradually Yarunt was not aware of it. She was more aware of the voices. An excited jabbering seemed to spill out of the prison and around it. Then came an almost imperceptible lightening—a blessed, blessed lightening, both of the intense pressure on her back and the stuffy atmosphere around her. She could see shapes: limbs, hair, fat bellies in silhouette. The prison walls glowed a dull brown, with faint shadows flitting over the surface.

Yarunt's neighbors climbed, scrambled, stomped on her and moved away, giving her room to breathe. Ohhhh, heaven! She flopped and groaned. Pressed into the filth for so long, she was totally encased in a crust of dried goo, like a suit of armor. Now that she could move, she felt the muck crack and peel as she pulled out of it. She left an almost perfect impression of her body half-buried in the floor.

Her exposed skin felt soft, moist, and supple in the cooler air, like new skin under a scab. Yarunt felt oddly reborn. She lay on her back, took a deep breath and reached as far as she could in every direction, a long, glorious s-t-r-e-t-c-h for the first time in her life. Then she balled back up into her usual fetal position, and exploded out of it again, into another luxurious stretch.

Only then did she really notice her surroundings. She was alone. Entirely alone. She could see where they had been held: a small, round, dingy brownish-tan room, made of what looked like a tightly woven fabric. There was a huge rip in the roof. Dim light came through this crack, a thin, long crescent of silvery-orange particles that sprayed and bounced against the walls.

The crack beckoned. Yarunt took a step toward it. Another, and another. Then she stopped, not wanting to go further. She could hear her former prisonmates outside. She caught glimpses of thin legs beyond the crack, waving and gleaming as the silver-orange light bounced off them. Their shadows played against the papery brown walls.

The Outside Voice made her jump. Yarunt was not prepared for it, so unmuffled by distance or prison walls or what-will-the-neighbors-think propriety. The Voice was just outside the crack in the ceiling. And she was not happy, not one little bit, as she dealt with this latest crisis in her life.

"Get down off of that! No, you, young man! Get down off there this instant! I mean it! You are going to get such a spanking!"

The Outside Voice spent all her time threatening, complaining, or both. Everyone was used to it. She was ignored, which made her madder.

"You! Don't eat that! Get that out of your mouth! You don't know where that's been! An explosive sigh of resignation. You are just like your father!"

Yarunt could hear familiar voices, chattering and fading in and out as her former neighbors explored. She wished to join them, but she felt unready to leave the gloom they had all known. She crouched in the dim light, torn with indecision, while the Outside Voice continued.

"Do you want a spanking? Well, do you? Just keep it up, Mister! Go ahead, try me! I've eaten bigger breakfasts than you!"

When that didn't work she tried changing tactics: an obnoxious singsong. "I hope everyone's out of there, she wheedled, because I'm getting rid of this thing— ...and then, losing patience, back to a bellow... —right now!"

The prison walls shook. Everything moved, a frightening wrench to one side. Yarunt was always aware of a sort of gentle floating, but this was a prisonquake. The entire structure heaved, tilted, and spun back and forth on an invisible pivot, slowly coming to rest.

Hey! Yarunt squeaked. "I'm still in