Bellkipeg - The Final Chapter

84)

Alex walked towards the circle, treading carefully with each step measured; his knees slightly bent with each footfall connecting with the heart of Bellkipeg. He knew who the small boy was even though the boy had his back to Alex. The boy turned at this acknowledgement and smiled. It was Alex aged nine.

“Well met, my brother.” The boy said.

“We’ve no need for the façade any longer.” Alex replied, smiling back.

“Awww…” The boy wined. “You take the fun out of everything… but then you always did.” Alex remained calm and simply stood just out of arm’s length. The boy smiled again, more excitedly and stood up, dusting himself down. “Did you see the Fun House exterior? I thought that was pretty cool, and funny. Did you think it was funny?”

“It was lost on me, I’m afraid. I didn’t really understand the relevance of it.” Alex replied, shaking his head.

“You mean you don’t remember?” The boy hung his head and seemed to sulk before looking up again. “Ah, of course, more time would have elapsed for you than it has for me. For me it still seems like yesterday it happened.” The boy laughed, but the laughter seemed hollow. “Believe it or not, it’s where I was born. Do you seriously not remember?” Alex shook his head. “We were nine.. well, I still am.” He sniggered. “There was this fun fair in Stapleford, or somewhere like that.. and nothing really interested us except for this fun house. It looked like the house out of the Munsters.”

“And we wanted to go in alone.” Alex interrupted. “Mum wouldn’t let me, but I persuaded her; wore her down by pleading that we were big enough to do it by ourselves. Eventually she relented.”

“And we walked in, didn’t like what we saw; got lost in the dark and screamed for her to come and get us.” The boy laughed.

“Yes, I do remember now,” Alex admitted. “but I don’t understand how that could have given birth to all this.”

“Do you remember what was in the dark that made you so scared?” The boy asked, wryly.

“No… “

“That hardly surprises me. That memory block is partly the reason why I’m still here. It’s the part of yourself that still can’t acknowledge the whole story despite your 

vaunted awareness!”  The boy shook his head and tutted loudly. He began to walk a tight circle around Alex, gesturing. Every time he gestured a mirror suddenly rose up from the blackness. 

“Inside the dark was a hall of cracked and warped mirrors. There was enough residual light to form glimmering reflections that fractured and splintered each time we moved. It was the first time that you saw yourself as such a fractured and splintered soul, and it was too much for your nine year old brain to handle. That was why you were in a near-catatonic state when mum found you, and she had to walk us out of the fun house. You repressed those sights but in doing so you created me.” Both Alex and the boy were now surrounded by a circle of mirrors and it was then that Alex realised that the light was becoming dimmer.

85)

“I grew in time, fed by your increasing inadequacies. The teenage years were such fertile ground and we grew with each passing year. Don’t get me wrong, we never meant any harm. With each moment of despair or when you felt at your lowest ebb we hoped and prayed that you’d realise the root cause of your unhappiness and rescue us from the darkness… But no!” The boy stopped walking round and faced Alex, his eyes now deep in shadow. 

“You retreated into a world of fantasy, anything you could do to escape your unhappiness. Rather than rescue us you tried to run further away. The fantasy stirred something deep inside of you and part of you responded deeply by writing your own.” The boy shook his head in disdain. 

“But you even screwed that up. It became too real for you and you just backed away from it… but the damage had been done. Bellkipeg was born as a way for you to exorcise your demons and actually find me, but you couldn’t even do that! But I could…” 

The boy smiled as the lights dimmed even more, the reflections in the mirror becoming nothing more than shadows and each of the shadows swallowed up more of the mirrors surface. “I found that I could actually exist in Bellkipeg and grow strong, feeding on all that negativity that was still flowing freely. I could grow stronger and in 

time I knew that I would be able to control the land and then control you. It was me that caused your black-outs and panic attacks, and with each attack I took another piece of you, another sliver of your life essence leaving you weaker. However, there was part of you that would not be denied, that spark in you that refused to be extinguished, damn you!” He pointed at Alex in a stabbing motion. “Bellkipeg flooded your dreams, became waking visions –desperately trying to jolt you into ‘awakening’”

“But I couldn’t see it.” Alex interrupted.

“Didn’t want to see it, more like.” The boy shouted.

“No – I couldn’t bare it…”

“Yeah, you took the easy way out. But you couldn’t even commit suicide properly could you? You didn’t end up where you expected, eh? Bellkipeg’s final, desperate gamble.”

“I woke up in Bellkipeg before dying?” Alex asked. His wrists throbbed again, he put his hand to one and recoiled in pain. His hand was wet and sticky with blood.

“And you’re dying still, you just haven’t realised it.” The boy smiled triumphantly. “And when you die here your life essence will flow to me.” With that the lights were suddenly extinguished and the last thing that Alex saw was the boys smile; one of a great and terrible innocence.

86)

“You forget one thing, young one.” Alex whispered. “We are one another, and if I die, so do you..” He could hear the boy snort in derision. “But I am not dying today, and neither are you.” The light was barely a glimmer to start with. "Everything has led up to this moment, don't you see?" 

The glow intensified and the boy could see it now and took a step back. I had to be brought to this point; reduced to my lowest ebb in order to actually feel it." The most beautiful light was now emanating from Alex."I'm not the only one who was escaping. You were too, retreating into fear and anger... Look at your wrists now.” Alex told the boy. The boy looked at his wrists and recoiled in terror. There was blood dripping from them as there was from Alex’s.

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Alex spoke and placed his right hand on the boys left wrist and then his left and on the boys right. When he took them away again there was no more blood; the cuts had simply disappeared.

“How?” The boy asked in tears. “I don’t understand…”

“You were right about Bellkipeg.” Alex explained. “It was the only way for us to be re-united. We had become irrevocably split for I no longer wanted to associate myself with the lost and lonely little boy that I saw cowering in the mirror, and did everything I could to deny him. You found solace in the darkness of the other, gathering strength from that darkness, but all the time being limited by our journey. And that journey has finally reached its conclusion.” Alex gestured, sending the mirrors scattering off into the distance. “We have no more need of warped reflections. We are the mirror image of each other.”

The boy nodded as tears flowed down his cheeks. “And we must become one.” He said. Alex started to cry too. “Yes, we must become one.” He took a step forward, the boy hesitated before following suit. “I am so sorry for denying you for so long, but no longer.” He said. “I am… We are the Creator, the nurturer and we will nurture each other. We will stronger together.”

Alex held out his hands, as he had with Onyx. The boy reciprocated and as their hands touched Alex could see all his adventures in Bellkipeg flash before him as he closed their eyes and became one. When he woke up again he was surprised to find himself in another wood, but this was the wood he had encountered when he first woke up in Bellkipeg at the start of his journey.

87)

He stood and looked around him. It was exactly the same wood, of that there was no doubt. Behind him was the tunnel of holly, the ground around him still smelt of loam and fresh rain. In front of him the stream still babbled, and as he walked down the

slope he saw the Stag standing magnificently in front of him he understood why he had been brought back.

The Stag was at peace, glowing with the energy of the collective souls of Bellkipeg. He knew what the Stag represented and why the boar had attacked him so mercilessly. He also knew that there would be no further attacks; the essence of the boar had been acknowledged, assimilated and integrated. He could reach his higher purpose and become one with the Stag.

He didn’t know what would await him upon crossing over, it must surely mean a hard road in order to successfully implement what he had learnt, but he knew that it would be worth it. The Stag looked deep within him and nodded its head. It was time.

Walking up to the Stag he placed one hand upon its flank and the other one on its head. As the Stags energy flowed into his own he saw the world of Bellkipeg slowly fade away and blur until he found himself staring into the mirror of his own bathroom… in his own flat.

And then he woke up.

Epilogue.

Morning. A warm, comfortable feeling of contentment soothed me as I stirred in the first dawnings of wakefulness; wrapped snugly in my duvet; in my own sofa bed. I was so reticent to shatter the hopes of this being real that I took a deep breath before slowly opening my eyes. 

I reached for my glasses –they were exactly where I expected them to be; perched precariously on the arm rest. I was calmed by the sense of familiarity as I looked around. The canvas print of Hopper’s “Nighthawks” glowed reassuringly back at me, and the tv reflected the world back. 

The shelves were still crammed with books; cd’s and dvd’s, but there were no 4 inch poseable action figures and a laptop stood where once before a word processor might have held pride of dust. I carefully got out of bed, tried to put my slippers on without teetering over and shuffled to the bathroom in a daze. What the hell had happened to me? How much of it was dream and how much of it had been real?

The knife was still in the sink where I had left it, in a small but congealed pool of blood. I looked at my wrists and there were two parallel lines running from left to right on, just scars. I ran my finger along each of the lines and there was no pain, just a numb sensation. I felt coldly detached from it all, as if any minute now a giant boar would shatter my reverie, or a cloud of ravens would envelope me suddenly but nothing happened. I ran a bath and looked at the stranger in the mirror. I stared at the face reflected back; no haggard, grimy faced boy returned my gaze; just me, myself; slightly bloodshot and hung-over.

Watching the steam dancing around me I saw flashbacks of my time in Bellkipeg and thought of all the people, Unicorns and Skincrawlers I’d met; all the experiences and trials I’d undertaken. But did it really happen? What was the purpose of it all and just why was I left with these scars?

I watched the mirror mist up and ghostly writing appeared upon the surface. “A little something to remember the experience by, Creator; don’t let it go to waste. Do something about it!”

I opened the bathroom door and ran to the easy chair next to my sofa-bed. My mud dried jeans were still haphazardly on the back where they’d been thrown. Rifling through the pockets I found that they were stuffed with crumpled sheets of paper, smeared and worn but still legible; I remembered finding them in a cave and by a stream. In another pocket a black arrowhead and a heart made of turquoise greeted me; gifts from the Faire-folk for the trials that I undertook and I smiled with all my heart; it had not been a dream after all.

And it was then that I remembered a promise that I had made to a Grugrk under a run-down old bridge, and I knew what I had to do next…