Chapter Two: Fascination

So...here is Chapter Two. Does it seem to work or does all the description of the past get distracting? General comments or whatever are nice. Here tis:

Chapter Two: Fascination

Echo had a fabulous secret. For all his life he had kept it hidden, wanting just one thing to call his and his alone. But as the years passed, he grew more and more exhausted—from both the concealment and from the trials and failures. He was tired of every day being drenched in sweat, having to carefully hide his hands that were marred with scrapes and welts. And he was tired of having nothing to show for it. He had come to hate the stupid thing: kicking it and pushing it and screaming at it until his body gave up and he would fall to the ground, unconscious. This couldn’t go on, he’d thought, and he knew that finally, he had to share.

He still remembered the day he’d discovered it. He was raised by his mother alone, and they’d always been short on money. No, that was an understatement. They had always been nothing more and nothing less than dirt poor. Their house was a small, wooden, ramshackle thing, perched somewhere between the city and the suburbs and backed by an expansive thicket of impenetrable thorny brambles.

It consisted of exactly three rooms: a bedroom for his mother, a closet for Echo, and something resembling a kitchen. It was almost miraculous that the gas and plumbing in that kitchen worked at all. A shower was a bucket over the head and there was an outhouse in the back. Paint peeled off of what wood that wasn’t yet sunbleached, fallen shingles left empty squares on the roof, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a screen, whether on its window or narrow back door, that wasn’t filled with holes and falling off its frame. Once you added the nonexistence of grass, proliferation of weeds, and an overabundance of cobwebs that had conquered every convenient corner, it was difficult to believe that a woman and boy had been living there for nearly eleven years.

But unless someone came to his door, Echo didn’t mind his lifestyle. He knew that he would rather live in a cardboard box than be separated from the thicket, and the door.

He had always been drawn to that forest. Maybe because there no one cared about his ratty shirt, his too-small pants, or his bunched up socks—but the truth was that the forest had attracted him even before he had any notion of his appearance. In the forest he didn’t have to talk to anyone, he could just watch…and be alone.

It was a funny day when he had first had the courage to enter the daunting mass of plants. He was around three and his mother was working, as usual. He knew she wouldn’t be back until late at night when she would smell of tomatoes, or meat or hot plastic…whatever new factory she was working in today. Even when he was that small he learned to be silent and stay at home. Sometimes he would cry, and she would hold him until she was late, and the next day she would smell of something different. Eventually, he stopped ever crying.

So that day when he was three he was sitting out the back door, staring at the ground, his eyes slightly wet…when a termite had wandered past. Later, they would come to annoy him as pests, but at the moment it was the most fascinating thing in the world. It walked purposefully, its skin disgustingly soft, white, and nearly translucent. Segmented body, stubby limbs, round bloated head, he could see every thing in striking detail. Why was it so soft-looking? He thought. Its pincers looked incapable of pincing anything and if he put it between his fingers he was sure that it would burst.

As he watched it, mesmerized, it seemed for an odd moment as if the termite’s head turned to look at him to say, Follow me. With a toddler’s innocence, Echo followed it until he stood, a tiny figure before the tangled expanse, his eyes fixed upon the termite. Without much thinking he followed it further into the thicket to its destination: a very old, rotting stump that was swarming with its fellows.

Suddenly, Echo realized that he didn’t remember the path and feeling lost and alone, his eyes began to glisten with moisture. But a termite reappeared along the path and fascinated again, he followed it. When the termite disappeared beneath a log he looked up and realized that he was once again standing before his home. After that day, and even after he started school, he foraged further and further into the thicket. In time, he no longer needed an insect to lead the way. He found that since he was small, if he took a big stick with him, he could makes tunnels and hollows in the bushes, creating places where no one would ever find him. Soon, hardly anyone could say they knew it as well as him—not that anyone had ever tried.

Yet a year ago, something had changed.

He had been clearing and crawling as usual when the skin on the back of his neck began to prickle in a way entirely unassociated with thorns or burrs. He looked up curiously and saw a faint and distant light flickering through the brush. Surrounded by the shadows of the brambles, the light was both puzzling and enticing. At first he was afraid that perhaps someone had lit a fire, but the light seemed somehow too pale for that. Echo quickly worked his way to the light, but what he found there aroused his curiosity even more than the light itself.

In a hollow that he was sure he hadn’t made, there was a hole in the ground, and the light was coming from the hole. Not knowing what else to do and anticipation beating in his chest, Echo slowly lowered himself down, but where his feet expected a bottom, they found a rusted metal ladder instead.

He climbed down carefully and looked at his surroundings in surprise. He was in a round cave in the ground, like a sort of large burrow. But...where was the light coming from? The room was well-lit, but there was no discernable light source. Since then, Echo had searched the place thoroughly and never found so much as a light bulb.

Yet probably the most remarkable thing about the room was the door at the end. Round and embedded in the wall, it looked a bit like one of those portals you always imagine at the top of a submarine. But it was impossible to get through, the edges locked by two large and heavy-looking bolts drawn across the top and bottom. That day Echo had tried to open it, and the succeeding day, and the next, but with no success. He had also observed the series of strange symbols around the edge countless times, but still couldn’t fathom what their purpose was.

He knew the place was bizarre, and he’d tried to convince himself that it was probably just some long-forgotten sewer entrance, but the fact remained that it was his. For a year it had been his haven, oasis, hideout; a place of solace when his mother worked late at the factories, and from the frustrations that starting a public middle school had caused. But it had been a year, and he was adapting, and a single thought now tugged at the back of his mind: What was behind that door?

After a battle with himself, he decided to show it to Ged, who he always hated to keep secrets from. But he figured he needed the help of more than just Ged and if he was going to reveal his precious secret, then he might as well go all the way. Then he thought about that girl named Ana who always gave him those strange looks from across the classroom. They weren’t hostile looks really, or malicious looks by any means; there was some pity to be sure and curiosity, but mostly he perceived an intense fascination. Sometimes she tried to talk with him, but, bewildered, he never knew what to say. So he would look at the ground, making incomprehensible noises until she would walk away with disappointment. But although she struck him as a bit silly, she had never seemed repulsed by his presence. So he decided to give her a try, seeming sickest just near that house on his daily walks with Ged. Of course, he knew, this meant that he would probably have to tell Simon as well.

Echo didn’t dislike Simon exactly, but despite his friendship with Ged, they’d never really gotten along. Simon was a person that Echo could not understand. For all that he stared at him day after day, he never understood why Simon said his randomly insensitive things, why he seemed so obsessed with pleasing others, and yet why he never seemed happy himself. And not only that, Echo had a feeling that Simon didn’t quite trust him. But he was determined to bring Ana and if he couldn’t without Simon, well, that was just a price to pay. Who knew? Maybe Simon would be able to unlock the door, and what it concealed.

* * * * *

“Mom’s going to kill me,” Simon groaned as they followed the fiercely walking Echo, “I’m leaving the house without permission to go to God-know’s-where and, aaugh, she’s going to kill me!”

“At least you’re not leaving your sister home alone,” Ana pointed out.

“Oh yeah, even better, I’m taking her with me,” Simon said sarcastically.

“Well, the world’s a dangerous place wherever you are,” she countered

“I’m saying we shouldn’t have left, and you guys shouldn’t have come,” he said to Ged and Echo’s backs.

Echo stopped his determined pace and turned towards Simon, his face unconcerned, “Go back and take your sister with you then, I don’t care,” he said and promptly set off again.

“Well I’m going,” said Ana not second after. She was exhilarated: Echo was talking to her! She wouldn’t let this opportunity get away.

“Ana!” Simon yelled, “Come back right now!” He then thought of what his mother would say if he let her walk off. At two years older, he supposed it was his duty to watch out for his troublesome sister. “Wait up!” he said finally, and ran after them.

“Where are we going?” Ged was asking.

“Back to my house.”

Ged blanched, “But we just came from there; can you make it that far?”

Echo looked at Ged and smiled for the first time all day, “Don’t mother me, Ged, I got you once, remember?”

Ged put on an indignant face, “You caught me by surprise, that’s all. I bet you couldn’t do it again.”

“Ha,” said Echo, but that was all that needed to be said; things were back to normal. Ged grinned and groaned inwardly at his friend’s reprimand, Echo hated it when people pitied him, after all. Even on the day they met it was clear that despite the impression he could give, his friend’s pride was not something to mess with.

* * * * *

Four Years Ago

Echo followed with his eyes as his mother opened their rusting front door and shut it with a resigned sigh behind her. With a jolt he dropped the molding piece of toast halfway to his mouth and immediately leaped outside, thinking only of the whole day he had to explore in the thicket. However, he jumped out of his back (and equally rusty) door only to crash into an unexpected figure. Their bodies met with a powerful “oof” that knocked Echo to the ground in a dazed state of surprise. He looked up. Instead of some tall cloaked stranger suitable to snooping around backyards, what Echo saw was a boy a few years older than him, maybe 10 (at the time) with dark black hair and dusky skin who was now feeling his chest intently.

“Uh, sorry,” said the boy with a look of surprise that matched Echo’s, though his eyes weren’t narrowing with suspicion, “I didn’t really think that anyone lived here.”

Echo’s gray eyes filled with annoyance. “So you though you’d spy around? Didn’t you see her...leave...?” Realizing what he was saying, Echo immediately rammed the other boy in the chest as hard as he could.

“Ow! Geez”! the boy yelped, putting out a hand to stop Echo, who now looked as if he was going to try aiming lower this time, “I’m not here to rob you!” Echo’s struggling only lessened slightly, “Come on, look at your house, does it really look worth robbing?” Echo stopped, but this time his eyes were as icy as the rest of his pale features.

“I know I’m poor, okay?” He glanced angrily at his decrepit house, but had to admit it didn’t look very habitable.

Echo returned his gaze to the dark-haired boy. Though his voice was soft and his body calm, his eyes still showed their bitterness. “What do you want”?

The boy looked uncomfortably at the ground and ran a hand through his hair, “I actually, well, don’t really know. I sort of woke up this morning and felt like taking a walk. So I started walking and I’ve been going for like two hours now,” he looked at his watch, “but when I got here, I just didn’t feel like walking any more," he babbled, "so I decided to look around. People say stuff about this place after all, I think. We pass it on the bus.” He then eyed Echo warily and added, “Maybe not the smartest idea.”

Echo rolled his eyes, “That’s the lamest excuse ever.”

“But hey, it’s true!”

“What? ‘I felt like walking and then I felt like snooping’? Right.” Despite himself though, Echo found he was talking easily. Perhaps because the boy always looked so baffled or defensive, Echo did not feel so intimidated by the act of talking. In a lighter voice he said, “What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, Ged. With a ‘G.’”

“‘J’ is cooler.”

“Are you dissing my name?”

“Did you dis my house?” There was a tense pause but Ged cracked a smile.

“Yeah, okay, we’re even.” He looked down at the younger boy, “What’s your name?”

“Echo,” he declared defiantly.

“‘Echo’? How can you have a name like that and think ‘Ged with a G’ is stupid?”

“Echo’s cool, no one else has it.”

“Yeah, except for a girl in Greek mythology.”

“Really?” Echo wrinkled his nose a bit.

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Echo held a brief trial in his head then passed the verdict, “I still like it. It has a story.”

It was Ged’s turn to roll his eyes. “Whatever,” he said, but he was smiling now, and so was Echo. Ged stuck out his hand, “We good?”

Echo took it, “Sure, I guess.”

“You know,” said Ged, “You’re pretty cool for a little kid, I mean, your repartee is quite impressive.”

Echo smirked. “And you sound like a nerd.”

“What do you mean?!” Ged said defensively.

“Come on, ‘Greek mythology’? ‘Repartee’? I don’t even know what that means.”

At this point they dissolved into bickering again until Ged realized he’d been spending his afternoon arguing with an 8-year-old. They parted annoyed, but oddly satisfied. The next day, Ged was back.

“I felt like walking,” he said and shrugged. There was a pause and then they simultaneously burst into laughter. They’d been inseparable since.