Worlds of Ash: Chapter Two

Ash dropped what she held, letting the ball she’d just retrieved roll to wherever it wanted to go, most likely back behind the bleachers, as she yanked open the emergency exit�"luckily, one that hadn’t worked in years.  She screamed her Poppa Henry’s name too.  It felt right.  Since a touch of happiness had returned to her this strongly why not yell, “Poppa Henry, Poppa Henry,” as she threw out her arms.

Poppa Henry smiled. “My Little Ash,” he said.

He pulled her to him as soon as she was near.  He was wearing an old and tattered jacket, a brown one that was worn yet also thick and sturdy, as if it had seen a good hundred years yet could withstand another hundred with ease.  It was out of place in all the heat of the day and, weirder still, it covered a green sweater and dark blue jeans beneath.

Poppa Henry had never been fat, but he had always been thick.  Hard muscles, gained years ago from some hard labor done somewhere for sure�"somewhere he’d never spoken about�"had allowed him to forever just be tall and burly, yet now, his jacket was at the top of way too many layers and it made him look only huge.  Also, the green sweater he wore, something scratchy and not at all soft, didn’t fit well upon him either.  It clashed with his iron gray hair, and bulged in areas where it should have lain flat.

Ash squirmed out of his arms�"he was hugging so tight�"so she could see him better.  He hadn’t been around in over ten months, ever since he’d stopped by for his yearly birthday special, a quick visit where he would always bring way too much cake, and way too many gifts.

Since Ash and Peter had birthdays that were so close together, Ash even knew that that yearly special was only ever done so her Poppa Henry wouldn’t have to endure back to back trips to her house, but that was okay.  Most often he would swing by for Peter’s’ day, and just celebrated Ash a month early because why not.  But sometimes, just sometimes, he would make sure to be there for Ash�"apologizing too for celebrating Peter a little late�"and ten months ago that was exactly what had happened.

It had even been a day made more perfect when Peter had fallen asleep at the dining room table�"too much cake�"which meant Poppa Henry hadn’t stopped by his room to tuck him in.  He’d had hours and hours with Ash alone, enough time to walk her to her room�"telling her all about Penthya along the way, of course�"before he’d tucked her in only to tell her just a little more right after.

It hadn’t even mattered that that more had also been a tad disturbing.  Anything dealing with Isabella Aurora Denthro, daughter of a Dryad and a King�"a Child of Man King at that, one who sat upon a Silver Throne�"would always be pure delight.  The ending, however, could use a bit of work�"just something to make that tragedy not so bleak�"yet the way her Poppa Henry spoke of Isabella (adding in flourish after flourish, as if he’d just remembered another detail about how beautiful her brown hair had been) always made that story Ash’s absolute favorite.  She never got enough.

It was also even a comfort how that story never failed to begin the same, the one part where her grandfather had never added one single flourish.  Isabella always just met some grand hero inside some courtyard of the great Castle Watch, some wanderer from another realm her grandfather refused to name, and that was that.  Yet the last time she’d seen him, her Poppa Henry shocked her.  Right at the start, he’d added in a few new details.

At first, he’d only told her a bit more about a winged, two-legged, creature he’d always said was just called a Thorish.  He’d explained all about how such a creature was the preferred pet of the Nomen, and it would have been so very nice if his new additions had ended right then and there.  But he’d moved on.  Before he ever got around to saying anything about Isabella, Poppa Henry had gone into great detail about Isabella’s dark and evil brother Ophallo, her half-brother really.

Poppa Henry had told Ash so much about how Ophallo had been a thin and white Elf with long brown hair and a selfish mind that could be quite conniving and dark.  Her Poppa Henry had made Ophallo sound like a cancer in the midst of Penthyan perfection, a black-eyed beast with a devious heart that Isabella’s grand hero should have killed the second he’d met him.

And the way Poppa Henry had said it that night, his eyes down to slits and his voice low with fury.  Ash liked it much better whenever he told her something about Isabella’s horse.  How she always rode not on a white steed, but on something as black as midnight.  The description of the wicked Ophallo had only made her grandfather look horrible.  Yet, as she squirmed even more from him, broke his embrace until only his interlocked fingertips kept her from falling out of his grasp altogether, Ash couldn’t help but to see that no matter how her Poppa Henry had looked back then, he was much worse now.

His skin was as white and pale as he’d once said Ophallo’s skin had been, his brown eyes watery and weak.  And when he turned his head and coughed into his shoulder, he sounded terrible.

“Poppa Henry,” Ash began to say, “are you�"”

“Dad, she likes to be called Ash,” her father, Steven, said as he walked around from his side of the car. “I’ve told you this before. She’s not Little Ash anymore.”

“Well, she will be to me,” Poppa Henry said.  He let go of Ash and stood up straight.  But he did it slow, as if the process was harder than it ever should have been. “Just like you will always be my Stevie instead of Steven, she will always be my Little Ash no matter if she is thirty and married and has fifty kids.”

“Poppa Henry,” Ash said.  Her grandfather winked�"her concern momentarily fading.  Maybe he would be alright.  But when he turned and coughed once more, this time longer and into a closed fist, her concern instantly resurfaced. “Dad, is Poppa Henry okay?”

Her father shrugged.  “Honestly, honey,” he sighed, “I have no clue.  Where were you this time, dad?  Still selling Bibles in northern Alaska, or have you switched jobs yet again?  Are you oil drilling in Texas?  Trying to break into acting in California?  Why don’t you tell my daughter where you’ve been for the past ten months?”

Ash leaned over to give her father the same heavy embrace she’d already given to her Poppa Henry.  She had to.  If she hadn’t, things would have only gotten worse.  It was just the way it went.

Whenever Poppa Henry came by, her father had to spend a day, maybe even two, loudly yelling about all the times his father had gone off without anyone knowing where he was and Ash just couldn’t deal with that anymore.  It was because her father really did smile, and, occasionally, he had even surprised her with banana pancake mornings as he would bounce about their kitchen acting a fool.  Yet over the past few months, all of that had stopped as he’d started acting like he usually only acted whenever Poppa Henry swung by.

But why?  Was it her mother?  Was it something to do with his job?  Ash had no clue.  She just missed the smiles, and those occasional banana pancake mornings, because, right now, whenever her father was at home, he really couldn’t help himself.

He would yell about bills or her mother’s more and more frequent commitments at her job�"so, probably, mom was a big reason for his behavior, Ash would have to remember that.  If anything, Ash felt as if she’d had all the yelling she could deal with in a lifetime, and she kept hugging her father until his anger died on his lips.

“What was that for,” Steven asked.  His face was a mixture of shock and delight.  Ash hadn’t wrapped her arms around him in quite some time.

Ash smiled.  “Just thought it was needed.”  She even looked up as she took in her father’s wild brown hair, and his thick black glasses, before she finally let him go.  “You seemed angry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Sounded like you were,” Poppa Henry said.  He gave Ash another wink.  But this one didn’t fill her with comfort.  Even while sick, he’d found a way to make the situation worse.  “I like this new side to you, Stevie, very upfront and bold.”

Steven sighed.  “I told you,” he started to say, “I don’t like Stevie.”

But Poppa Henry wasn’t about to let this go, he just had to keep making things worse. “No,” he said, “I told you, Stevie, the last time we saw each other.  Remember?  I told you exactly where I was headed, so if you have something you need to say why don’t you use this new upfrontness and just say it?”

Steven groaned.  “It’s not Stevie!  And, actually, you didn’t tell me where you were headed when we last spoke!  You only said it was somewhere important and that maybe you’d finally found the way in, which makes no sense!  So where did you go?  Where did you wander off to that has made you this ill?”

Poppa Henry huffed, or at least he tried to huff before another bout of coughing took all the steam from him.  “What I told you should have been enough,” he said once he’d calmed.

Steven took a step forward.  “But you didn’t tell me anything.”  His voice was raised too, and a hand was jabbing at Poppa Henry with each word he spoke.  “You only kept telling me it was somewhere important!”

“And that should have been enough!”

“Stop,” Ash said.

Already a group had formed around the doors she’d run out of.  Coach Littleton was there�"not a surprise, she was his responsibility…and she had fled from the gym without any explanation�"but the ever popular, and ever mean, Emily Baker and a few others were there as well.  That couldn’t be good.

Coach Littleton even appeared conflicted, as if maybe he was about to head their way to see what he could do to resolve the situation.  He knew her father, but he had never met Poppa Henry, and Ash could tell he was just about two seconds away from rushing over.

But as for Emily and the others, they only looked delighted.  At least Emily�"so sweaty from whatever after-school fun she’d already enjoyed�"was doubled over as wave after wave of giggles hit her, and everyone else (especially Phyllis Manning and Freddy King who were her two closest friends) was following her lead.  They were all laughing so hard.

“Stop,” Ash said again.  Her grandfather and father finally turned and noticed the people right outside the gym. “Please.”

Her father immediately went silent.  Poppa Henry did the same, yet he had to add in a tiny wave as he did.  It was quick, and it should have been expected�"it was so him�"but it was also something that added to the mortification Ash was already feeling.  Emily laughed some more, and waved as well.  She even stuck her tongue out at Ash as her hand went back and forth.

“Nice girl.” Poppa Henry sighed.  He dropped his arm.  “Maybe I should go over and say hello.”

“Poppa Henry,” Ash said.  There was so much with Emily, so many years of teasing and taunts and the few times that Ash had retaliated.  With that girl, each second was a balance.  Ash could just see how her grandfather could topple everything.  “Please.”

Her father put out a hand for Ash to take.  “Yeah, dad, please.”  He drew Ash back in for another hug.  “Sorry about that, honey, old arguments between a father and a son.  Forgive?”

Ash smiled.  “Of course, but why are you here?”

Her father looked at her with mock outrage.  Ash even expected a random smile, the surprise of such mock�"was he playing, was this more like banana pancakes and her kitchen�"causing the little happiness she still had to intensify.  She almost couldn’t breathe she was so delighted by this.

“Can’t I come and pick up my kids,” Steven asked.

He even stuck out his tongue.  It was something so not an Emily Baker laughter and taunt, this was playful and amazing and could it…did it mean the arguments at home were done, that maybe this last bit of heat in her school parking lot had ended every yell?

“Speaking of,” but then her father turned to stare over at her school, the mock and play ending way too quick as he got back to what he was trying to say.  “Where’s Peter?”

“In the library,” Ash said.  “He’s where he always is.”

Her father nodded, and let her go, before turning to Poppa Henry.  “Should have known,” he even sighed, “if he is preparing to skip yet another grade, where else could he be?  Dad, can you handle things here?”

“I got it,” Poppa Henry said. “I’m not an invalid.”

“Good.”  But her father was already walking away.  The play truly was gone�"the arguments would never end then…it was suddenly so clear�"her father barely even paying Poppa Henry any more mind as he went.  “I’ll be right back.”

He headed towards the same doors that Ash had come out of, ones that had been host to a crowd of people, but ones that now only had Coach Littleton milling about before them.  Ash was tempted to stop him; to quickly yell a question of what he’d meant about her brother getting prepared so he could skip yet another grade.

Peter had skipped enough already.  There was no way he was about to do something stupid like taking a test so he could keep on going, was there?

For a boy as smart as he was, Peter really didn’t seem to understand the situation he was getting himself into.  Rather than do home school where he could have advanced rapidly�"for someone with his IQ he could have been done with high school, maybe even with college�"Peter had always chosen, had even begged, to remain in the public school system, sometimes making himself slowdown in order to stay at a pace with those who didn’t have half his smarts.

It was as if he was like Ash and feared change.  Yet Ash knew�"and maybe she alone was the only one to have figured it out�"that Peter never did anything for the same reasons as she.

It always looked to her as if Peter liked change, the freshness of some new territory perhaps offering him a chance to observe so many as his unruly brown hair�"so much like their father’s�"would fall over his thick black glasses (just like their father as well) so that he was constantly brushing something aside whenever he wanted to stare.  Honestly, it was rather disconcerting.  How he would look at something new, or at someone new, and shift his head a little to the left or right, his brown eyes slowly judging until he was finished with whatever he was doing.  Though Ash loved how he had recently gained an appreciation for the novels written by Stephen King and F. Scott Fitzgerald�"they at least were helping him to stop talking like some character from Dickens…or Shakespeare�"the staring thing had to end.  Whenever he did that to any stranger he would always just soak them up, not choosing any one spot to stop on, though he did often linger at the eyes until some secret was revealed and he would smile.  It was the single saving grace to the whole ordeal.

Ash knew that anyone could forgive anything once they saw that.  They might talk behind his back, no smile could ever stop gossip and rumors, but when Peter was happy, it was hard not to be happy as well.

And because of that, Peter always either stayed exactly where he was or he advanced only a little.  He would sometimes get bored with the new territory he was in, and would leap over a few grades, but, still, it made no sense why he would want to ruin everything by reaching a spot where he and she would be in the same class.

“Peter?” Ash asked.  She turned to her Poppa Henry.  Her father had made it to Coach Littleton, the coach immediately looking relieved.  Her father must have been explaining what all that yelling had been about.  “Will Peter be going to high school with me?”

Her grandfather leaned over and put a hand on her shoulder.  “Looks like it,” he said. “Your dad told me on the way here.  Peter wants to forget about eighth grade so he can get right into ninth.”

“But he’s too small. He’s too young.”

“I know, but you know as well as I, he could go higher.  He could go to tenth or eleventh or even twelfth grade if he wanted.”

“Yeah,” Ash said.  She was trying hard not to let a welling sadness enter her throat.  “Well, I wish he would.  I wish he would skip them all so I could be done with him.”

Though she hadn’t thought that long on it, Ash had felt, on some buried level, that high school would be another beginning.  Sure, it was also change�"quite a big one�"but maybe this change would allow her to slay all the fear and sadness that had been keeping her down.  But now, she could just see what it would be like when they both walked into a class, she and tiny Peter�"all the kids, Emily Baker especially, would find it so easy to tear them apart.  She’d been ruined before she arrived.

“I wish he would get on and go to college or,” Ash said, “or to wherever.  Just let him disappear.”

Poppa Henry brought his other hand to her other shoulder so he could hold her steady as he got a good look at her.  She tried not to let the sorrow in her throat find its way to her eyes, but his face, the concern it held, broke her.

“My Little Ash,” her grandfather said.  He was done with his study, and he pulled her back in for another tight hug. “What’s wrong?”

“I,” Ash said, “I’m such an idiot!  You’re the one who’s sick, and I’m making you feel worse!”

Poppa Henry hugged her even tighter.  “My Little Ash,” he said again, “you’re not an idiot.  You’re my smart and beautiful granddaughter.”

“I am,” Ash sighed.  She couldn’t help but to end her tears as her grandfather talked.  He always did know the right words. “You think I’m smart?”

Poppa Henry smiled.  “How many times do I have to tell you that?  Of course, you’re smart, and you don’t need to worry about me, I’ll be fine.  You tell me what’s bothering you.”

Ash nodded. “I,” she began, “I guess I just feel sad.  Nothing is right, and I…and I guess I want to be something else, to go somewhere else.  It’s scary, change is so scary, but I hate the way I am even more, and I thought that maybe middle school might help, but it didn’t, and I was hoping high school might help too, but if Peter tags along that won’t do it either.  I’ll always be the same!”

“And what’s wrong with same?” Poppa Henry asked.  He tried to laugh as well, but everything abruptly turned into another round of coughing that he made a valiant effort to keep from the back of Ash’s head.  “I like my Little Ash the way she is.  Why don’t you?”

Yet again, Ash pulled away from him.  He still looked so pale, but she also still had to squirm so hard to get out of his strong arms before she could study him with the same amount of intensity he had just used on her.  What was going on?

“Are you really okay?”

“Sure,” Poppa Henry said, “I’m fine.”  Yet he didn’t bother to get back up.  He looked at her father’s car instead, and hobbled to it before he sat heavy on the ground with his back up against it.  “Only need to catch my breath.  Your father worries about the same thing, he really does.  He wonders if I’m on my last days.  He has even insisted that after we get you and Peter home, I am to go with him straight to the hospital.  But I’m fine.”

“Seriously,” Ash asked, “he’s worried?  I thought he was angry and…doesn’t that mean he only wants to yell at you?”

“He was angry,” Poppa Henry said.  He even winked one more time at her.  “He was quite angry, but that doesn’t mean he only wants to yell.  You see, my Little Ash, it’s the glory of family, a glory you need to remember.  We can get angry at each other, maybe we can even yell all the time at each other�"or get jealous, or envious, or much worse�"but at the same time, we can never forget that we are family and something deeper than any petty emotion binds us together.”

“What?  What binds us?”

“Love, my Little Ash, just love,” Poppa Henry said.  Ash took a seat across from him.  She plopped down without a care in the world that she was on old and crumbly asphalt that could have had anything in it to cut through her jeans and slash at her legs.  “Love binds us, and we can’t forget that because if we do, we could do some terrible things to those who are our fathers, or sisters, we could�"”

Her grandfather paused, his eyes passing from Ash to take in the wide horizon beyond her.  He may have been looking at the playground, or at the soccer field, at people Ash hadn’t thought of�"people with their black and white checkered ball that had probably been enjoying the argument between him and her father just as Coach Littleton and the others had�"but Ash didn’t think so.  Her Poppa Henry was off somewhere else.  He was thinking about things much further away.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” her grandfather said, “just remember the love, remember it even when Peter annoys you or skips hundreds of grades and is either in all of your classes or is in ones far beyond you.  Remember that you love him, and that he is your younger brother, and that you need to take care of him.  If you do that, nothing bad will happen to the two of you.  I promise.”

“Really, nothing bad will happen?”

“I guarantee it.”

“And I believe you,” Ash said before she looked at the school, her father already somewhere inside, Coach Littleton not at the door to the gym either.

She actually scanned the entire area, not seeing anything or anyone in green.  She didn’t even see a large dog of white anymore, and, quite suddenly, the idea that someone had been looking only her way really did start to seem silly.  Yet Ash couldn’t help but to also feel her happiness increase just one last time.  It wasn’t the same kind of joy she’d gotten when she’d seen her grandfather, or the pure delight she’d had when she thought her father’s playfulness might have meant more than it had, it was only…for a while it had been as if something amazing had been about to happen and that kind of happy was back in her veins for sure.  Was it so wrong to hope that that strange man might have heralded something Penthyan?

“Poppa Henry?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Could you tell me about Penthya?”

“Why, it’s not bedtime?”

“I know,” Ash said.  But her grandfather was eyeing her careful.  “What?”

He’d been staring at her for the past few minutes, but the way he glared now made her nervous.  Her Poppa Henry seemed worried, for her, about her, she wasn’t sure.  Ash wasn’t even sure what she’d said that could have made her grandfather be that way.

“What?” she said again.

Poppa Henry smiled.  “Just tell me why you want a story about Penthya.  You haven’t seen anything, have you?”

“Seen what?” Again, the man in green came to mind, but another sudden certainty entered Ash’s heart.  It was wrong to hope for magic.  Magic didn’t exist in her world.  “What could I have seen?”

“Anything,” Poppa Henry said.  He coughed slightly into his hand, but he ended it quickly with a bit of effort.  “Have you seen anything with a Penthyan air about it?”

“But those are stories, how could I have seen them here?”

“Just make an old man happy.  Tell me if you’ve spotted anything, okay.”

Ash laughed.  He was the one being playful now�"she half expected him to stick out his tongue as well�"but she didn’t want to think, or speak, about the green man anymore.  This play had to end as fast as it had ended with her father.  “No,” she sighed, “I haven’t seen a thing.”

“Good.” Poppa Henry said.  A door to the school, one near enough to be heard, opened and closed as he and Ash turned.  They each saw her father, with Peter at his side, walking with Coach Littleton who was now nodding along and agreeing with something her father had just said.  “That makes me feel good.”

“Great,” Ash said.  “But how about a story�"you could tell me in the car?”

Poppa Henry shook his head. “Those are bedtime tales or birthday specials, my Little Ash.  And since it’s not your birthday today, I can’t give them to you until you are under your covers�"just about to go to sleep.  You’ll have to wait until after I get back from the hospital.”

“Okay, but you promise you really will tell me one, right?”

“I promise.”

“And you also promise you’re okay?”

“I promise that as well.”

“And you’re sure.”

“Have I ever made a promise I couldn’t keep?”  Poppa Henry said as he stood and turned to open the passenger side door of her father’s car.  “I’m fine,” he even smiled.  “I promise I am.”