The Search for the King of Nowhere

I

Long ago, there was a Little Ghost. She lived in an upstairs bedroom in the remains of an old castle. At one time, the Little Ghost had a name but she never told anyone what it was. Few people find the Little Ghost when they look for her, partly because the castle had many broken passageways and abandoned rooms. But still, if you look hard enough, the Little Ghost lives there, tucked among the sprawling corridors, snug in the heart of her favorite place.

Of course, she didn’t live by herself in the old castle. That would be lonely, and it’s bad for ghosts to be lonely. She lived with a young King who was her best friend, five different Colors that looked like fireflies, and Cocoon who it is almost impossible to describe.

One night, after everyone went to bed, there was a band of marauders from the North known as the Dangerers. They rummaged through the corridors and dungeons, searching for riches to take with them. Despite all the clashes and the clangs downstairs, the Ghost slept undisturbed. She dreamt of the corners of rooms, displaced floorboards, and secret cupboards to hide in. All of her favorite things.

When she awoke, she found the common room covered form floor to ceiling in a slimy, sappy, morass, left in the wake of the monsters that had swept through the castle. Cocoon frantically zoomed around the castle, finally finding the Little Ghost.

“Little Ghost! The King is gone! They’ve stolen the King!” Cocoon exclaimed.

The Little Ghost barely had time to react before dashing upstairs to find her adventure cloak. It was made of shadow. Cocoon, who had learned sophistry specifically for the task (or was it sewistry?), had meticulously tailored it for her to wear at the Festival of the Moons.

She met back up with Cocoon in a hurry, but in their frantic flailing they forgot one important detail: they had no plan. And what were they supposed to do? There was just a Little Ghost and her friend Cocoon, cowering in a big castle, in a big world, with big monsters that had stolen their dearest friends. Know that they would have embarked on a rescue mission in that instant––they had the heart and their knapsacks. But they were afraid, and couldn’t quite agree as to where North was, or how to ask him when they met him.

They paused for a moment looking dumfounded. Then Cocoon had an idea, as he was known to have. He gathered the five Colors together and they all had a meeting. The Little Ghost wasn’t allowed at the meeting, so she was patient, waiting for them to finish their hushed planning.

“We have an idea,” Cocoon spoke boldly. “We need to rescue the King, but we can’t face monsters on our own, which made us think about what we’re good at. Admittedly, we couldn’t think of a lot, but here’s what we have.

“After the first rain,” Red began, “there were the Archers. They were born before the seas and the mountains and the tundras. And while the world was still being created, they thought it was missing something. So they each came together and had a brilliant idea. They loaded each of us colors on an arrow and shot us far into the sky. That’s why they call it a Rain Archery even until today.”

Blue spoke up. “If we can get us all in the sky, the King will see the bright light and find his way home! We’re sure of it.”

“Almost all of us are sure of it,” Purple corrected.

The Little Ghost wasn’t sure of the idea, but she decided to trust Cocoon.

“There’s only one problem. We’re missing Orange.”

“What happened to Orange?” asked the Little Ghost. “I thought there were only five of you.”

“Orange made a wish at the Wishing Well,” Cocoon began. “The Archers told us never to go there. They said it doesn’t grant wishes, it creates them. We have to rescue Orange before we can signal the King to come home”

Before the Little Ghost could ask for any further explanation, Green began to ramble ecstatically about his new butterfly Greta. He kept her in his pocket. The Ghost didn’t know the Colors’ had pockets, and she forgot her question. Green kept talking about how beautiful Greta was as they rushed out the door, singing an adventure song. Should you have heard it, it was adorable:

We’re off to the Wishing Well,

Where we were never supposed to tread.

We’d like to wait and hear the dinner bell,

For we’d rather be home instead.

We’re off, We’re off, We’re off.

We’re off to the Wish Wellling,

Where we were never supposed to go.

You know, we’d never dream of telling,

Because we’d rather stay and glow.

We’re off, We’re off, We’re off.

We’re so lovely and so colorful.

We hope the Wishing Well isn’t too bad.

Because our colors may get squashed and dull,

But we want to make the Ghost not sad.

II

Not too many songs later, they stumbled upon the Wishing Well. The Well looked to be made of the same stone as the castle. Around its base grew different types of moss, some the color of emerald, others lighter, like the color of dying grass before it turns brown.

A slow gurgle echoed beneath the ground where the foundation was lain. Suddenly, there was a violent rush of wind that ran vertically from the tunnel of the Well and up sprung a woman wrapped in vines, whose form seemed to shift in and out of the wind surrounding her. She was similar to a statue, in that that they’re crafted from stone but no longer resemble what was used to make them. In kind, she too was made of the wind, yet was other to it in a way that made one question whether the wind was adding to her or was her.

None of them spoke until Cocoon, who had just a moment ago awoken from slumber, began,

“I think––“

In a tone that would make the scales fall from a dragon and render the beast’s already cold blood gelid, she spoke for the first time, “Don’t think. It doesn’t suit you.”

Cocoon decided that she was probably right.

“Few wanderers venture to my Well. It is forbidden. Tell me, then, why you’ve come.

She sat with one leg on the stone of the Well with her back against the wooden posts. She would readjust every couple seconds as if she weren’t comfortable, and started to pull petals from the nearby flowers and violently tore them away from the stem, tossing them to the depths of the Well below, barely attending to the newly conceived conversation. As she breathed, there was a surrounding bluster that haunted even the Little Ghost, a difficult accomplishment all things considered.

“We are here to search for a friend.” The Little Ghost had conjured up enough courage for one frail sentence.

“I have no friends, darling. You know as well as I that this Well is my home because it is the source of every wickedness, every misdeed.”

Everyone didn’t know this. And if they had, they may not have come. The gods used the Well to create the futures of the world; however, anything less than a god could not be trusted with its creativity, its innumerable wishes. The Spirit, they would find out later, was originally commissioned to guard the Wishing Well. As thousands of years passed, she grew bored and started imagining the futures of the Well until it consumed her. She was no longer a spirit, but a phantom. Its guardian became its temptress. They say her presence is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as one has lived a complete and fulfilled life, with no regrets.

Blue, inspired by his companion’s fading bravery, asked further about Orange, though it was obvious the Spirit’s only desire was to barter their destruction.

“He was your friend? He is no longer. Now he only remembers what he lost.”

“No!” cried Red. “That can’t be. Orange is a Color, he remembers us!”

“You don’t understand. All your friend has is hopes, all of that which he does not have and never will. Fiction is obliged to stay with possibilities.”

The Colors did not know what to do with this, except for Red who was known for his ability to doubt even the most obvious truths. “If Orange is asleep, we would like to wake him up. We need him for a mission.”

For the first time, she tilted her cinder eyes to look directly at the little Color glowing softly in the twilight, causing Red to pale into lighter hue when he noticed all of the things in her eyes that weren’t. Nothing was so ash, not even black; and, compared to her, the darkness they knew looked like the rising sun.

“Where is he? Will you at least tell us that?” asked Blue.

“He’s at the bottom of the Well. You won’t be able to reach him because he doesn’t want to get out.”

Cocoon bolted as fast as he could towards the Well’s edge, all the while shouting for Orange, but the Spirit quickly obstructed his efforts with her thorny vines.

“What if we offer you something in return to allow us to visit with him?” asked the Little Ghost. “For a moment, please.”

“There may be a day, darling, when someone tricks me. It will not be today, it will not be you.”

“We just want to see him for a moment. We might be able to show him who he was, who he is, who he has the chance to become.”

“You do not understand. Your friend only has the ability to desire futures he will never possess, that is what the Well does to anyone. And because he desires those futures so badly, he will now not only be disappointed were he to return, he would be unable to bear being who he is.

“Please, please,” The Little Ghost begged.

“I am not one to pity, so I shall not. I cannot, however, resist making you worse off than when you came to me, I will propose to you this: you can see your friend if you give me what’s in Green’s pockets.” She smiled wickedly.

Green was horrified and looked at all the other Colors shocked. His affection for Greta was unmatched. Green had never seen anything as pretty as Greta. He looked at the petals surrounding the Well and had brief daymares.

“I…I can’t. Not her. Take me.”

“I didn’t ask for you, darling. I asked for her.

All the Colors stayed silent, and Cocoon looked particularly mournful. Green wasn’t sure what to do, but he knew somehow that his friends needed him, that he needed his friends, that friends don’t just love some of the time, they love more than that. Out of his pocket he pulled Greta who had been snug tightly inside for the last sixteenth moon, quietly enjoying the dreams he had planned for her the night before. He kissed her gently and made promises about seeing her again that he probably shouldn’t have.

The Spirit of the Well silently took Greta into her hand and let her rest on her finger as the translucent butterfly fluttered her wings, looking now like the color of a swamp from the light of the Spirit.

“So pretty.”

With those words, the Spirit ripped each wing slowly from the butterfly, like one creasing paper in order to tear it exactly. Greta fell to the ground without a sound, soon to be buried under scattered petals and animal carcasses. The smell became terrible, the scent of assorted deaths.

As soon as the Spirit tossed the remains into the Well, there was a soft orange glow near the edge.

“So pretty…” she said again, but everyone was dashing for the Well.

III

Cocoon found Orange laying in the muddy earth of the Well, not looking his best.

“Orange!” Yelled Cocoon. “Orange! I can’t believe we found you!”

Orange said nothing. Orange looked like a rock. The only sound one could hear was his exhausted exhales weighing down the earth.

Cocoon had no time to waste, so he grabbed Orange briskly and bolted out of the Well. That was the closest Cocoon ever got to going faster than the speed of light.

“We must show Orange a future he can possess,” encouraged Cocoon. “We must show him that this reality is better than all the others he foolishly imagines, that he doesn’t have to only live in possibility.”

Cocoon, Purple, Blue, and Red all gathered together and began to tell Orange stories of their past.

“Orange,” offered Yellow, steadying herself. “Do you remember when we would play together? Do you remember the Rain Archeries? You remember how we could look down and see the children smiling, the mountains talking to one another with the clouds floating softly near their pinnacle, the waterfalls and all the fishes rejoicing; doesn’t that mean anything? We were a theatre for the world, and everyone everywhere would pause for just a moment during their days, cluttered by distractions, and look up at us and smile. Even the tragedies themselves would glance up and recognize the beauty, if just for fleeting second. Wasn’t that worth it? Wasn’t that little gift of beauty worth more than every future you’ve ever desired in the bottom of your muddy pit? Red, Blue, Purple, Green, me, the future, the past, life––it’s all yours. Don’t you want it?”

Orange paused for long, long time. “Perhaps you’re right,” exhaled Orange.

That was all he said.

IV

Now there were six. Onward they went, searching for Solomon, one of the last Archers.

Solomon was nothing special to look at. He was a normal man with a normal height with a normal voice. However, in the eyes of the Colors, he was a god. And they were not too wrong. He was easy to find, since they had memorized the way to his home by heart. The gang arrived at his doorstep in a frenzy, each zooming around the other trying to talk to Solomon first. The clamor rang through his home and out he came.

“Friends,” he warmly greeted, “It has been too long.” His words were smiles.

A happy ruckus followed.

“Cocoon, why is everyone so excited? What’s going on?”

“There’s no time to explain! We need you to shoot us into the sky! We have to make a Rain Archery so that the King will come home! He’s been captured and he won’t know how to find his way home unless we show him.”

“Don’t you mean a Rainbow?”

Purple would remember that. But before he could even attempt to object to their demand, the Colors climbed all over him and pulled him in the direction of his archery set.

It was beautiful, really, all the Colors shooting across the sky with the hope only those with loves lost could have. Even if all the seas on earth caught fire, it would not have compared. It was undyingly gorgeous. They stayed as long as they could in the sky, hoping that it was enough.

V

Far away from the old castle, the King was unaware of the events happening elsewhere.

The Little Ghost and Cocoon were under the impression that when the Dangerers sacked the castle and ruined most of the furniture as they went, leaving the castle an utter mess, that their purpose was to sabotage the young King, take him captive, and ransom him off––or worse. But this was not so. He was not taken captive at all. The King, having awoken from the banging and clanging, the clashing and bashing, ran upstairs to secure the Little Ghost’s safety. But as you well know, when ghosts sleep they take off their sheets, not put them on, so as he frantically searched, he saw only an empty room. In his panic, he failed to remember that there could be a Little Ghost sleeping soundly in what looked like an empty bed. Indeed, she was still sleeping, undisturbed by the madness downstairs, but he didn’t notice, and assumed that she was captured.. As it happens, they were both mistaken.

In a rush to save his friend, the King chased after the Dangerers. He pursued them East and North and West and South and Up and Down and In Between, all the way from Somewhere to Nowhere. He had little idea of what to do after he caught them. He thought that he may duel their leader in hopes of winning the Little Ghost back. Out of the possibilities, that seemed like the one with the greatest chance of success, and the greatest risk of death. This pleased him.

Finally, after a few days of unrelenting pursuit, he rushed into their camp, his sword high in the air, shouting a battle cry characteristic of the true confidence only children can muster. The Dangerers looked around in confusion, far less scared than amused, more curious than intimidated. After no one roused themselves out of their breakfast, the King began to look around at the dining hall he had just burst into, shocked to find no monstrous creatures, no scary beasts.

From out of plushy, opulent eyes, and mouths half-filled with French Toast, a group of stuffed animal faces looked back at the King, happy to have a guest over for breakfast – the meal they were known for – even if he was a loud one who believed his toy sword to be real (he didn’t, but they didn’t know that––and since he threw the doors open during breakfast, waving it carelessly like a weapon it was really the only sensible conclusion). In a far corner of the hall, he heard the first voice to break the ubiquitous surprise.

“Do come in, Sir. I do not know why we did not invite you sooner. Perhaps we could have prevented the noise had we shown more hospitality. We saw you behind us for a while, but we thought you were in on the game of tag we’ve been playing with the fairies. It seems not. So, why do you not join us for some breakfast?”

This plushy tenor came from a polite bear who introduced himself as Honeybunch, the Second Lieutenant of the Dangerers. The King was later informed that the First Lieutenant had an accident with a garbage disposal. He lived on in their hearts, they said, following a prolonged silence, since after the incident each member of the gang took a little piece of his fluff and put it in their lining. The King thought he would have to tell the Little Ghost about this tradition after he rescued her.

“Some pancakes would be nice,” said the King, “but I am on a mission of utmost importance, one that cannot be detained even by the best of breakfasts. I apologize for my impolite entrance, but you have stolen my friend and I will do anything to get her back.”

A terrible look of offence struck Honeybunch. “Sir, you do not suppose that we are some sort of friend-nappers?”

His honor was indeed hurt.

“With all respect that is due good breakfast-makers, you ransacked my castle a few moons ago, tossing furniture aside, making a mess everywhere, leaving a secreting goo all over! Most of all, you stole my friend!”

At this, Honeybunch went pale as a ghost. He paused, deep in thought, and reached for the maple syrup.

“I see we may have misunderstanding,” admitted Honeybunch timidly.

“Where is my friend?!” the King demanded pouting.

Honeybunch sighed. “We did not friend-nap your Little Ghost, Mr. King. I have no idea what happened to her. We were at your castle for other important reasons.”

“You’re lying.! Your soldier’s tunic doesn’t fool me. You’re––You’re a scoundrel. You stole my friend!”

Honeybunch’s honor was again offended, less because of the King’s suspicion, and more because he was very proud of his Second Lieutenant uniform. He had ironed it this morning after all.

“I would never lie,” he protested, as tears began to brim in his little button eyes.

The King was convinced that whatever flaws this bear might have, he was not a lying-bear but a truth-telling bear.

“Oh––how can I not believe you? I just don’t know what to do––I just need her back!”

“We did not know anyone was home, honest. We just needed another waffle maker and the old castles usually have kitchen appliances around for the taking. We are very sorry, Mr. King.”

I’m sorry for being angry, Honeybunch. Your cause was valiant and I’ve misjudged you.

Honeybunch’s honor was restored.

“I would like to apologize for our mistake, Mr. King, sir. And for the mess we made. We had breakfast before we left and failed to clean up after ourselves.”

“The sap!” the King thought. “No harm done,” he said aloud. “Now I’m in a pickle. I still need to find my friend!

“A cucumber indeed,” agreed Honeybunch.

“Thank you, dear Honeybunch. I can truly call you a friend. I’m sorry for disturbing your breakfast, and despite you causing me an inconvenience, I know you were doing your best for your friends.”

Honeybunch apologized too for all the trouble he had caused the King, and expressed his hope that they would be able to have breakfast together before the end of the moons. They hugged, because that is what friends do.

VI

The King was lost in heart and in real life. On his treacherous journey home, he didn’t know where to go since no one in this story – except for Blue – is very good with directions, and even he gets lost without a map. However, he was not lost for long. You know how that happened.

About halfway home, while the King was beginning to drift off to sleep, he saw a faint flash in the West. For just a second, there was a colorful light in the distance, like an beautiful bow hung in the heavens. Rubbing the tears from his tired eyes, he bolted off in the direction of the colorful sign. He didn’t stop running after that.

Very early in the morning, the young King arrived back at his castle, exhausted from the long way home. He tried to make it up the stairs, but only had the strength to lean against the first post.

On his way home, he realized how silly he’d been to rush off in the middle of the night before checking if the Little Ghost was in her bed or not. He was sure he knew now where the Little Ghost would be. Friends know where friends hide, and she knew where to be found. Soon, the room became just a little brighter.

The Colors were as surprised to see the King as he was to see them. Their joyful embrace strengthened him enough to stand up and all was occasion for happiness. Each began to excitedly share their adventures, but the King paused them.

“Before we can celebrate, I must hug the Little Ghost. I have missed her very much.”

Once he reached her little room, he opened the door quietly and saw her look up at him with friendship eyes.

“I’ve brought you something,” said the King kindly. He pulled a plate of pancakes from his backpack. He shared. That made everyone happy.

For the rest of the night, they told tales to each other, tales, tales that made every soul want to listen. They told of the Colors’ last Rain Archery. They made the Little Ghost tell about her bravery, and Green’s sacrifice. Even though they had been through so much together, they all had the story. And that was enough.

Ep.

She looked at the sky to see a flicker of color over the horizon. Seeing it made her begin to remember rather than to imagine. She remembered when the Archers had first thought of color, and how happy they had been. She remembered how proud they were when, after missing the first few times, they hit their target, with each line arcing perfectly above them. Something in her moved. With something in her arms, she walked towards the edge of the castle, where, in the distance, there were a few little balls of light darting around after dinner like fireflies.

After they had finished their work, little stitches could be seen along a butterfly’s spine as it skipped through the air. It reminded the friends of the very truth that had carried them on: all that is lost shall be returned. And it didn’t hurt that Cocoon knew sophistry.