The Ankulen Page 2

Chris shrank back and lowered his head respectfully. “Yes, Jen.” He turned a pleading look in Tisha's direction.

  “Jen has forgotten her imagination,” Tisha explained. “Every bit of it. She remembers you only as the brother you claimed to be. She's even forgotten the Ankulen.”

  “The Ankulen?” I flung the unfamiliar word back at her, my only weapon against the confusion.

  “See?” Tisha buried her head in her hands.

  “How?” questioned Chris. “Is it because …?”

  “I don't know,” said Tisha. “When I first arrived she could remember – all too well – and for a few weeks after that … but then … It happened overnight, Chris. She went to bed one night, and the next morning. … I thought at first she was pretending … trying to make me feel worse … but … Jen has forgotten her imagination.”

  I frowned. She had never said anything about that before. I remembered it being a rather sudden process, but I had always placed my forgetting at Chris's disappearance.

  “I'm standing right here you know!” I exclaimed. “I can hear you! Why don't you just tell me what this word Ankulen means. It's just syllables to me.”

  Tisha looked up and bravely met my eye. “The Ankulen is a special bracelet that you always wore. It's what used to bring your imagination to life – to bring us to life.”

  “You're wearing it in that picture,” Chris added, pointing to the notebook I clutched to my chest.

  I glared at them skeptically as I turned the notebook around so I could examine the picture. I had no memory of a bracelet that I “always wore,” much less one that I used to “bring them to life.” I forced my eyes off of Tisha and Chris and onto the picture, and my eyebrows went up. Sure enough, I was wearing a bracelet. It was pretty, too – a golden band with three large, circular purplish-pink gems. There was only one problem with it.

  “I don't remember ever owning a bracelet like that.”

  “I know,” said Tisha. I looked up and saw that she was standing again. “You've forgotten about it. But it was your bracelet, your Ankulen, and you did always wear it.”

  “Until I lost and forgot it?”

  Tisha sighed. “It was already gone when I got here. I don't know what you had done with it. I didn't dare ask.”

  “You had it when I last saw you,” said Chris, staring at my wrist. “You used it to get out – we were in at the time, Tisha.”

  “In where?” I asked, finally questioning the fact that the words “in” and “out” were being used quite frequently with no reference to the location

  “In your imagination,” said Chris as if the answer was obvious.

  “I don't have an imagination,” I argued, tossing the notebook and pencil to the ground and folding my arms over my chest.

  “But you used to,” said Tisha. “You used to have an amazing imagination, and because of the Ankulen, you could make it real. But then …”

  “You got mad at us,” finished Chris.

  “Well, I do remember yelling at you,” I admitted. “But I don't remember why.”

  “You had discovered what we did,” explained Chris. “That we had gotten out, and you didn't like it. Jen, I really wouldn't blame you if you decided to send us both back in and forget we ever existed as we watched our world crumble to dust around us. It would be a fitting punishment.”

  “Frankly, that sounds tempting,” I admitted. “Problem is though, I haven't the faintest clue how to do it. Perhaps …” I allowed a sigh to escape me, my arms to fall to my side, and my eyes to land on the discarded notebook. “Perhaps if you'll help me get my 'amazing' imagination back, I'll forgive you for 'getting out.'”

  “We would if we could,” said Tisha, her voice tainted by frustration. “Oh! You have no idea how much I've wanted to help you get your imagination back, Jen. But we don't know how, not with your Ankulen missing.”

  “Well, then, could you at least show me how to get 'in'” I asked, folding my arms as I allowed my eyes to drift over the stream. “Maybe if I see it, I'll be able to remember.”

  “You need the Ankulen to get in,” said Chris.

  “Okay … so I need the Ankulen to get my imagination back,” I exclaimed, throwing up my arms in exasperation. “The Ankulen, which I lost sometime between when Chris disappeared and Tisha arrived. That's four days! It could be anywhere!”

  “That it could,” said Tisha.

  I sank to the ground and put my head in my hands. This was worse than before Chris appeared. Now, instead of me simply not knowing, my imagination was being held tantalizingly just out of reach. For want of nothing better to do, I grabbed my discarded flip-flops and thrust my feet into them, glaring at my toes.

  “Oh, Jen,” said Chris. “We want you to find your imagination, too. We live there … and without you, it's crumbling. Especially since It's there.”

  “It?” I looked up and gave him a questioning look.

  Chris drew in a deep breath. “The Polystoikhedron.” The horror I saw in his face almost made me regret asking the question. “It appeared right after you left. I don't know how it got there but …” he looked at me with small, scared eyes. “It eats imagination, Jen. No one can stand before it, not even me.”

  An unexpected shiver ran down my spine. “So … my imagination is being eaten.”

  Chris nodded. I allowed my head to fall back into my hands.

  “Oh! That's terrible.” Tisha's voice was panicked. “We must find a way to – Oh, Jen, do you have any idea where the Ankulen might be?”

  “I thought we had already come to the conclusion that your guess was as good as mine.” I gave her a pointed look, then softened. “Hey, tell you what, you can search my room – if Mom asks questions you can tell her that I sent you in search of something. Chris and I will search out here.”

  Tisha didn't wait for me to repeat myself.

  Chapter 2

  In Which I Acquire a Flashy Bracelet

  WITH Tisha gone, I turned to Chris. “So … any idea where it might be if it's out here?”

  He shook his head. “You were wearing it when you left, so I'm pretty sure that you hid it out here somewhere. Unless …” he looked down and bit his lip. “Unless you sent it back in.” Panicked eyes flew up to meet mine. “Oh! Jen! Please tell me you didn't! Then we'd never be able to find it!”

  “I don't know what I did with it,” I said, irritably. “I didn't even know the thing ever existed until Tisha brought it up. Even if it's 'out' here somewhere, it's still like looking for a needle in a haystack – especially if I hid it out here in the woods somewhere.”

  Chris sighed. “Things would be so much simpler and easier if Tisha and I hadn't gotten out.”

  “That may be the case,” said I, “but wishful thinking isn't going to get us anywhere. Let's … let's start looking.” I stood up and, after carefully positioning the notebook and pencil on a nearby stump, began kicking at the dead leaves that carpeted the ground at my feet, looking for the glint of gold.

  I saw none.

  “This is going to take a while,” I muttered.

  While I kicked at the dead leaves, Chris drew his sword and began hacking at the pricker vines which are far too prevalent in our woods. For a moment, I just stood there watching him, then I began carefully backing away. “Um, how about you look on this side of the stream and I'll look on the other?” I quickly crossed the stream before he could respond.

  “Oh, why?” he asked, looking at me with curiosity.

  “Um, well let's just say I prefer it if there is some water between me and your sword.”

  He looked down at his sword. “It never bothered you before.”

  “Well it bothers me now!”

  “Oh.” He shrugged and returned to hacking. “It's how you made me up. I was the bold knight, skilled with all manner of weaponry. It was my job to protect you and the Fair Maiden Letitia against whatever danger you found yourselves in.”

  “Is that so?” I kicked at some more leaves. Still no glimmer of gold.<
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  “It's not that you needed me,” Chris continued. “Nothing can hurt you in your imagination unless you want it to. You just thought that since all of the stories you read about fair maidens had valiant knights to protect them, it would be fun if you and Tisha had one as well.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I admitted. “But … still. Keep the sword away from me.” More leaves were kicked but I still didn't see any sign of the Ankulen. “So if you were the valiant knight, who was Tisha?”

  “Tisha was your best friend.”

  The words were so simply stated that, though I wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to contradict them. Tisha was the last person I would have picked to be my best friend. And yet …

  “So, if I made you and Tisha up, how did you become my adopted brother and sister?”

  Chris didn't answer. Even the sound of his hacking stopped. I looked up to find him just staring into the woods.

  “Well?” I questioned, annoyed at the lack of response. “How did you become my adopted brother? I would think that you of all people would know that.”

  He turned to me with a very serious look on his face. “One would think that, wouldn't they? But I don't know. Tisha might, but I don't. You – you wiped my memory of it, so I couldn't pull 'that stunt' again. We did it on purpose – I remember that – but I don't remember how.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at the ground for a moment, then back at him. “I wiped your memory?”

  He nodded. “You were mad and didn't want me to get back out.”

  I bit my lip as my gaze returned to my feet. “Well, I guess we ought to get back to our search. We aren't going to find the Ankulen just standing around talking.”

  “Probably not,” agreed Chris, turning back to his hacking.

  We hacked and kicked for several minutes in relative silence. At length, however, I spoke. “Do you know how you got out just now?”

  Chris paused his hacking to shake his head. “No, I don't. It was so sudden. One moment I was fighting a dragon, and the next thing I knew, I was ankle-deep in water, and there you lay before me.”

  “I see,” said I, frowning. “Had anything like this ever happened to you before?”

  “No,” said Chris, “you didn't take me out as often as you did Tisha, but when you did, it wasn't a bit like that. Except …” he cocked his head to the side, “there was that time when you summoned me from out here. That was kinda like this … but you were still involved. You supposed to be involved for anyone to get in and out of your imagination.”

  “But what about …”

  “What Tisha and I did to get out that time was not normal,” said Chris, shaking his head. “As I said before, you wiped my memory – but I do remember that it was nothing like just now.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at my feet again and kicked at some more leaves. Still no Ankulen. “Well, I did wish for you to come back so that you could tell me what you had done with my imagination,” I admitted. “Might that have had anything to do with it?”

  “It might,” Chris admitted. “But the Ankulen always had to be involved as well.” An eager light suddenly broke across his face. “Where were you, Jen? I bet the Ankulen's there!”

  I pointed to the place where I had been sitting. “Right where you saw me,” I told him, “sitting with my feet in the …” his words sunk in. “Do you think?” I asked excitedly. “Do you really think it might be there?” I didn't wait for an answer. I ran back across the stream and began searching all around where I had been sitting. Chris sheathed his sword and joined me.

  For several excitement-filled moments, we combed the area for the golden bracelet. He sifted through the leaves I had been sitting on. I sorted through the pebbles and rocks that I had been running my toes through.

  I caught my breath when a golden glint shone out from under the rock I had just turned over. With doubled fury, I dug away at the pebbles that surrounded it. There it was – the golden bracelet I had been wearing in the picture.

  For a moment, I just stared at it, not quite trusting my eyes that thing did, indeed, exist. Deciding to prove it to myself, I put out a hesitant hand and pulled it out of the water. My fingers confirmed what my eyes saw. “This?” I asked, in a breathless whisper, holding it up for Chris to see.

  “That's IT!” he exclaimed. “You found it, Jen! You found it! Oh! Put it on! Put it on!”

  I laughed and thrust my hand into the circle. “All right! I will!” Holding it up so that the purplish-pink gems caught the light, I commented, “Doesn't look any worse for spending eight years at the bottom of the stream,” I commented.

  “Well, it's the Ankulen,” said Chris. “What do you expect?”

  I didn't answer, as I was too absorbed in examining the bracelet. The band was a perfect circle, about a quarter of an inch thick at the thickest and about an inch wide. Covering it were vine and flower etchings, but the truly eye-catching part were the three circular purplish-pink gems that took up the entire width of the band.

  “What are you waiting for?” Chris asked, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Let's go in!”

  “Shouldn't we wait for Tisha to get back?” I asked, lowering my arm.

  Chris appeared to think for a moment. “If you would like, Lady Jenifer,” he said at last. “But I don't think we should. It's not safe for her there.”

  “And it's safe for me?” I gave him a Look over my glasses.

  “It's because of the Polystoikhedron,” Chris explained. “It would eat her, but I don't think it would eat you. You're not imagination.”

  “Oh I see,” said I, sitting back on my heels. I'm not sure why, but with the Ankulen on my arm, every bit of my skepticism came back. “And it wouldn't eat you?”

  “Oh, but it would!” insisted Chris. “I'm imagination too. Not even my weapons could do the least bit of good against the Polystoikhedron. But I'm – I'm prepared to take the risk. It's wrong to endanger a fair maiden. It isn't chivalrous.”

  “Don't you think Tisha might want to come with us?” I asked. “My imagination is her home, after all. I would think that she would want to see it again after eight years.”

  “Oh, I don't doubt that she wants to see it again,” said Chris, sadly. “But not as it is now. It's all dead and dying now.”

  “And you think that I want to see it like that?” I asked.

  “No,” said Chris, sighing, “but you don't remember how it used to be, so it won't be so bad. Besides, you can fix it – she can't.”

  I ran my hand over the etchings on the bracelet. “I'm not going without her.” It was cruel, I knew, but I wanted to hurt them. They were the reason I had lost my imagination, and I wanted neither of them to forget that fact.

  “Well, if she must, she must,” Chris conceded defeat. “But don't just wait for her to show up – call her! Summon her! We don't need to waste time!”

  “What's the sudden rush?” I asked. “Weren't the last eight years wasting time, too?”

  “Oh, they were!” Chris insisted. “But we couldn't do anything. Now we can. Hurry, Jen, please hurry.”

  I stood up and stepped out of the stream. “Fine. I'll go get her.” After a few steps in the direction of the house, I paused and turned back to him. “One problem, though. I'm locked out of the house.”

  “Well, you don't have to go to the house – you can summon her!”

  “Summon her?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “How?”

  “With the Ankulen.” As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  To me, it wasn't. “That's really helpful. I've had this bracelet for all of ten minutes – if that. All I know about it is that it's pretty and that it brings my imagination to life. How do I summon Tisha?”

  “You tell the Ankulen to bring Tisha to you.”

  I raised both of my eyebrows as I lifted my wrist, holding the Ankulen like I've seen spies hold their communicator watches in movies. “Attention Ankulen. Bring me Tisha.” Self-consciously, I lowered my wrist. “Like that? Wh
at's supposed to happen?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You have to tap it!”

  “Tap it?”

  “Yes, tap the gems,” said Chris. “Then you say 'Bring me Tisha.'”

  I lifted my wrist back up, but this time not as high and tapped the gems. “Bring me Tisha.” I gasped as they emitted a flash of purplish-pink light. When the light cleared, Tisha stood in front of me, an expression of compete surprise on her face. Surprise turned to delight and she sprang forward and threw her arms around me. She caught me off guard – otherwise she wouldn't have gotten away with it.

  “You found it!” she shouted in my ear.

  “Um, yeah, I did,” I admitted, pushing her away and rubbing the offended ear. “It was right under my feet of all places. You don't have to get all excited about it.”

  She fell back rebuked, folding her hands at her waist and fixing her eyes on them. “That means we can go in now – doesn't it?”

  “I guess it does,” I admitted. “Anyone want to tell me how to do that?”

  Chris volunteered the information. “You tap the gems and tell it to take you, Tisha, and me in.”

  I held up the Ankulen again, but didn't tap the gems just yet. “What if I don't want to take you and Tisha?” I was having second thoughts about all this, and biding for time. Sure, I wanted my imagination back, but the Polystoikhedron didn't sound very appealing to me, despite the assurances that it only ate imagination.

  “Then you simply tell it to take you in,” explained Tisha. “We don't have to go with you if you don't want us to. We can just sit out here and wait for you to get back. But since you don't remember your imagination, you might want us to come with you so that we can help you find your way around and tell you how to use the Ankulen – at least until you remember for yourself.”

  “Aren't you scared of the Polystoikhedron?” I asked, all innocent.

  “Yes I am,” said Tisha, looking up to meet my eye. “But it's a fitting punishment for what Chris and I did.”

  I arched an eyebrow in her direction and tapped the center gem. “Take Tisha, Chris, and I in.”