GO WITH HEART—that’s all Swishy could do.
It didn’t matter that he wasn’t quite right. That the scarecrow was a scarecrow again…of a kind.
Swishy removed his hand from his nub of a heart, that little starter seed inside him, and evaluated his newest shot at corporeality. He fidgeted around, inspecting, playing a game of what’s-here-what’s-not-here-what-is-it. His arms were the same old straw, give or take some red and orange leaves adorning his shoulders and collar. He kicked his legs out next and watched blackwheat fly in loose strands. He liked that, keeping his darkness low, wearing it like a pair of fitted jeans.
Next came the feet, a straw-woven set of Timbs—but instead of his original murder black pair, his was the most luscious of gold-straw. He hopped; he skipped; he pitter-pattered about. As he play-tested his gleaming gold stompers, the light-bright shavings were left behind in his footprints.
Timberland logos etched in gold onto the ground in many directions, his dancing steps tattooing the ground.
Trey [Zoom]-rode next to him, hovering on a shadowed skateboard. “Very, very stylish.”
“I know, right?”
Trey kicked out his own feet—which wore the original murder black—and nudged Swishy toe-to-toe, a fist-bump but with their feet.
Swishy did an excited shuffle. His cardiac nub almost leaped from his chest. A joke here, a pair of bestie-matching Timbs, and boom—a heart. Swishy loved how this worked. And loved that love was key.
Trey then circled Swishy, studying him closely. His quizzical look made Swishy curious, too, and slightly concerned.
The Sling-ravens patrolled as well, casting sidelong glances at Swishy—but pretending not to.
Something was up.
Swishy continued his self-eval, seeking to discover the physical mysteries that were on his crew’s mind.
The boy’s wings twitched. The dark one first, growing life.
Overhead, the Sling-ravens continued to rip snitchtalons from the sky, squeezing them, wringing them out. Their victims shriveled and pruned and disappeared, leaving only dark vapor and feathers behind. These remnants were what drifted toward Swishy’s shoulder blade, his spirit-forming vines that snatched each ingredient and placed them into their puzzle-perfect placements.
His wing formed in segments. The binding of the parts also created a vessel for Swishy’s old cursed friend.
“I’m back! Praise to the shadows!” Wingy laughed maniacally as it fluttered Swishy’s dark wing.
“Welcome back!”
“You’re looking different.”
“I had a makeover, that’s true.”
Wingy paused.
Swishy felt like it was actually thinking for once.
“Spit it out, Wingy.”
“I…”
“Yes?”
“I think you’ve been getting your ass kicked and I had to be rebuilt. Just say it plain next time.”
It felt like a cop-out but Swishy couldn’t resist the jokey vibe. “One day, I’ll clip you.”
“You’d miss me too much and you know it.”
“I might.”
“Fine, be that way! Great wing, this is an upgrade!”
Swishy was doubtful about that. His wing was half the size that he remembered it being. He and Wingy took turns twitching it, flexing it, rotating it in small circles.
“Wanna see something cool?” Wingy had faith in himself and Swishy was down for the test.
“I always like cool things.”
“Boom!” Wingy flexed—fully—and the small black wing extended. Its default state was retracted, the rest of the feathers and structure packed within his mythical anatomy. From its base, the black wing gathered wings and shadows and grew larger and larger.
The boy noticed that his gold-straw wing was the same compressed size, too, and used his spirit to reveal the rest that too.
Both wings, the black and the gold, stretched and stretched to their full size. Feathers in one, straw in the other, now featured with the impressiveness befitting a full-body rebuild. The wings were larger than he remembered, too, larger than his body, matching the scale of the Sling-ravens.
“I guess we both had something cool to show each other,” Wingy said.
“I guess so!”
From above, Trey poked his head out of a [Zlide]. “You talking to yourself?”
“Maybe, not exactly.”
“Whatever, tell you and your imaginary friend to get moving.”
Trey pointed ahead, his [Heart String] floating with purposeful mysticism.
Swishy smiled, his black flame of a face stretching open.
Trey went bugged-eyed.
“I know, I know, it’s different.”
“I’m going to file that one under ‘understatements’.”
“Jerk!”
“Yes.”
And they were off, Trey zoom-rode into and out of [Zlide] portals, following the glowing thread. Swishy flew after him—the black wing flapped while the gold one rotated.
Trey was Swishy’s escort, his guide.
The woods were darkened.
Everything in the world was still under construction as the shadows were brought together. More scarecrows, more silhouettes, more trees, more buildings. The ground underneath revealed paved roads. There were flowers, picket fences, decorative birdhouses. Miscellaneous stands and kiosks were erected, scarecrows sprouting behind the tables. The business of a civilization pressed on—but in the shaded tones of a streetlight-less night. Colors weren’t a trick that this sector of The High Chasm had yet learned.
And that colorlessness kept reaching upward. Ruby promised heaven and the [Midnight] was coming to collect.
Occasionally, a richer darkness passed over them, Myst’s arachnid form traversing The High Chasm. Eight spider legs. Two human arms. Her limbs created a rhythmic rotation of shadows that both scared and reassured Swishy. He chose not to think too hard about it. [Trust] was the way.
Then there was Ruby. She flew above them all as a faraway black star, drawing in the curses. She was a compass by her own rite, showing her followers the path to paradise. Vapors rose, steering toward her, her presence guiding the chaos.
Swishy flew into the two-toned darkness, ignoring the molding shadows.
Trey led the way, one hand was lit with [Zzt] while the [Heart String] floated from his other one.
As the shadows leaped toward them, Trey’s voltage functioned as an electric fence.
“Just keep flying, I got you bro.”
“I will, I will.”
Meanwhile, Trey’s heart compass did all the work, engaged in a spiritual conversation with The High Chasm’s hostage heart—
At least before the heart piped up, speaking through the Cearth.
Come through! Come through! Free me from this bondage! The first heart made things easy. They almost didn’t need the [Heart Strings]. But nothing about dealing with Ruby was straightforward. The land beneath them gulped. It swallowed—but in reverse. The High Chasm’s tree bark made gurgling sounds, pushing its insides upward.
“The heart is moving!”
“No way!”
“I expect nothing less but damn that’s inconvenient.”
Swishy noticed the heart shuffling, too, following the land’s bobbing movements. The scarecrow was convinced that he and Trey saw the same thing, a heart-shaped outline of a blue soul radiating. The heart’s soul signature was visible through the ground and surfaces and turns of shadow.
Trey’s thread followed it, pulling taut, trying to break from its bodily anchor.
As the heart rose with the [Midnight] curses, progressing toward Ruby, it cried in rebellion. Hell no, hell no, I won’t go! Over and over, a wrathfully silly singsong. But cry as it might, it went against its will.
Dark hands protruded from the surfaces and grabbed the heart, passing it over the terrain in assembly line style. The heart was transferred through the various darkness. Lasso-ing vines extended from the everytrees, and snitchtalons flew the heart into hollows—hollows that served as portals—which let out into an exit gate.
All through The High Chasm, portals were established.
Swishy and Trey didn’t know where they let out but that didn’t matter to them. Trey’s [Heart String] compass was true.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Into a portal, they went.
Inside, an army of red eyes, a tunnel of rustling feathers. Everything was loud and dark. The flurry of snitchtalons poured upon them, their wingbeats as loud as their caws.
But Trey’s [Heart String] formed into an arrow, guiding them along.
“I can’t multi-task here!” Trey called to Swishy. “Handle this please!”
The boy balled his fist over an imaginary rake, unarmed, but the fight motion primed him for ideas. What was a scarecrow, a shadow face, to do?
[Sin Flare]—a new technique but also old.
A spin on the [Grain Mill], Swishy’s released his upgraded technique. The boy didn’t know what to expect. He was along for the ride as his body intuitively performed the magic.
The contents of his head ballooned instantaneously, the phantom textures encasing their enemies in a cloud.
Swishy’s hands traveled to his head and felt around its edges—there were none. Weird…He felt like the [Possessed Guardian] still, more shadow to than rind. There was a firmness slickness that resembled a surface but he knew that his head was gaseous. His obsidian head spread into the rough shape of a cloud. Was it a pumpkin shape? He hoped so.
“Trey, what do I look like?”
“Just a boy,” but he wouldn’t look back.
“That’s just what I am. But what do I look like.”
“Can’t hear you—fumes too loud.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Everything is, little homie.”
His ethereal fumes trapped them all. The snitches were in his head, his mind, and it was all too much. His gloom sapped their energy. Their blackwheat pupils receded to the soft amethyst of a shadowclaw’s normal gaze. Buttons popped from their vest. Sweat dampened their feathers. The rustling of their plumage reduced its tune, turning from a war song to a subdued hum.
The birds drifted away, pressing as far to the edges of the warp realm as they could.
Swishy’s seed of a heart seized, a blackwheat skin progressing slightly.
It’s okay, Swishy told himself. Life is life.
The boys followed Trey’s thread out through the exit.
Back in the world again—Trey riding on a [Zoom] board while Swishy flew. The Sling-ravens met them at the exit, wary and poised, gazing all around.
Trey huffed a deep breath while Swishy’s head had reversed to its normal size. Swishy loosened his hands and straw floated into the open space. Upon a glance he quickly found the source: the Sling-ravens. They spread their six wings open, dropping payloads of straw. Clumps cohered into Swishy’s grip, building a rod, a handle. Once the rake handle was established, the teeth then stretched to fruition.
Trey’s string pointed with fervor, pointing them into a neighborhood. Instead of silhouettes, there were colors, a full neighborhood of huts with red and orange thatched roofs. Curses here and there slug-trailed along the ground. The root-bound scarecrows were tidying the front yards or anchored from building siding and trees. As usual, the scarecrows weren’t very discriminating about their surfaces of choice.
But they all stared at Swishy.
The boy’s less-than-heart pounded on.
Though his core was new, Swishy’s cardiac potential was plain to see. His chest bulged from the thudding. Golden sawdust puffed from his torso.
Swishy and Trey glided upward, hoping for a free pass.
But no, never that, not in Straw City.
The scarecrows sprang at him, their root stakes unfurling into the sky with ease and seemingly endless length.
“All you, my boy,” Trey called.
“I got it!”
“I know.”
Up they went—straight into the clusters of scarecrows that stretched from the adjacent trees, a canopy of arms, a mimicry of branches.
Swishy twisted and twisted, pointing the rake forward. The Sling-ravens also joined his rotations, each of the three equidistant from the others.
The scarecrows opened their arms into hugs.
[Fall Spiral]—the scarecrow and the Sling-ravens blasted through them with their rakes and beaks.
Wood chips and splinters sprayed from the impacts.
Then the crew soared into the next portal.
(…)
Swishy tried to feel the portal realm with his face. He knew something was different.
The boy’s heart was dormant, unbothered for the moment.
Swishy paid attention to the flow of shadows around his face. He noticed that the boundaries of his aura were the darkest shade, a bold tone. Working out the outline in his head, he determined that he was indeed a jack-o-lantern. All aura and no rind. He was headless—in a way at least. With his spirit, he made the same expressions as before. From his peripheral vision, Swishy noticed the blue ghostliness of his orifices. With eyes of blue soul and a mouth containing a cyan tongue-and-tonsil combo, Swishy felt normal. Everything that he remembered about his face and head checked out except for its materials—black ether rather than a grown-out-the-ground pumpkin.
But the moment afforded no time for self-study.
The realm was pregnant with—
“Bullshit,” Trey muttered.
Eyes, Swishy subtitled.
The red slants bled through the shadows, trained on the boys.
More demonic gazes awakened, more snitchtalons regained their bravery, a tunnel of the eyes lingering from above, laterally, and below. They flew through the barrel of hell, one that constricted, suddenly pouncing.
Swishy [Sin Flare]’d them into submission, his head releasing an uncontrolled madness. His jack-o-lantern was cloud-like, a wobbly and disorienting formlessness.
Though some of the snitches closed their eyes and covered their ears. But by the time they recovered, Swishy did too, his head setting back into its normal size, its firm boundaries.
Swishy rake-smacked the flock and soared into the exit gate.
The ascent continued in the same pattern: In the world, there were scarecrows, vines, and looming everytrees. And in the portals, there were snitches.
Trey’s [Heart String] increased its frenzy, curving, looping, twisting itself into knots.
Higher and higher the boys and the Sling-ravens went, leaving the bright world behind.
They chased The High Chasm heart.
And they progressed alongside the sludge and vapors of [Midnight]. Myst was also visible with further clarity. They’d surpassed her thorax and were level with her humanoid ribcage. Myst beheld them with bemused eyes. She extended a leg toward the boys, who then glided beneath her path, using her as a shield.
Red eyes revealed themselves from the treetops, the windows, the hollows, and the clouds. But nobody came to attack them. Myst was the apex and even the rapturous Ruby followers heeded that.
“Thank you!” Trey said.
“No problem, my dears.”
The shadow mistress lifted them to a new level, skipping past several portals. Some snitches darted at them but she smacked them away with another leg—vanishing them upon contact.
“Wow,” Swishy said.
“Wow that they even tried it, honestly,” Trey smirked. He’d relaxed. His arms dangled naturally at his sides while the heart thread signaled the way. The string floated, tugged by The High Chasm’s heart, as if an invisible pet were attached to the end.
From the different branches and abutments in the tree settlement, scarecrows and silhouettes and snitches made attempts on Trey and Swishy, but the Sling-ravens flew around their bodies, guarding them with outstretched wings. The boys were getting a VIP escort toward the first heart.
They landed on a pathway: a massive branch, truth be told, one that sprouted supportive edges and handrails.
“Swanky,” Trey said, skating along.
Swishy, too, glided along as he grazed the rail. “It does feel good, but everyone around can fly, right?”
“Speak for yourself. There’s gotta be humans around somewhere.”
“Somewhere, yeah.”
But both of the boys were silent, smiling hopefully, hiding their doubts from each other.
They landed briefly, cautiously walking their surroundings.
Every step splashed. Swishy’s Timbs were muddied with curses, laughing ones, yawning ones, all forms of open-mouthed shadows. And within their abyssal maws were the lingering intent of HUNGER. That was the only word in many of the mouths, whirlpooling in their bodies.
It didn't seem right, that they should be so hungry while Ruby was greedy.
He thought this was so—but this notion was intercepted by the perceptive shadows, the overwhelming and probing sensitivity of The High Chasm.
How dare you! Spoke the shadows. The voices, the cadence, reminded him of the E-squad. Because these were the same types of shadows, slithering along the roots, emitting the carbonated sizzle of seething rage. He read their names upon the ground, a rhythmic ticker tape of Stormcellar naming sense.
There was Freddie-Fredericka-Ferdinand-Fergy.
There was Geri-Gerard-Gerilyn-George.
Heaven-Harmony-Heathcliff-Heather—and it went on. There were many H's, dozens of them, a family reunion. And, of course, the largest of the shadow worms yet.
They appeared in the land as paper dolls. Their silhouettes rose among the trees with all the flatness of the previously defeated E-squad. And the HUNGER intent was present in them as well. Each of their movements released the sounds of crumbling, their torsos coiling inward, being crushed by an invisible hand.
Swishy wondered if there was a single human left in the land.
He hoped to see somebody as he progressed. He shook that thinking from his mind as he was coming under imminent attack.
They lunged at Swishy. Every time he was attacked, his rake parries would twist the shadows around his rake in pasta coils. He twisted them around and then flung them from his weapon.
The attacks continued but he was undeterred.
Trey released [Zzt] orbs wherever the shadows gathered, aiming for their stomachs. When their bodies receded from the bright light, the HUNGER was exposed. Their torsos struggled to keep themselves together, to keep their whorling hunger under control, but they couldn't. Their black cores looked a lot like Swishy's chasm, violent orbs around which their bodies were constructed.
Stop! Stop! This is our only body! Don't starve us!
But Trey kept the orbs coming, sending bright lanterns through the woods. He only wanted to reduce their bodies, to singe them and disintegrate them a little. But what happened was something far crueler than he bargained for. HUNGER transformed into STARVATION. The F-squad, the G-squad, and the other sibling families were starving together, wailing and wailing.
“That was mean, Trey.”
“Good, something’s gotta work.”
“I know.”
“If you’re hungry, make a sandwich. Who told these fuckers to eat the world?”
“Ruby did.”
“It was a rhetorical question—but yes.”
As the paper dolls crumpled, Myst waved a human arm across them, sweeping their spirits away. A hush remained in the boys’ wake. Seconds later, Swishy heard the procession of paper balls rolling on the ground.
”That was the true meanness,” Trey nudged Swishy.
“I guess she just wants to be number one.”
”I am number one,” Myst’s voice echoed. Her giggles broke the hush of death.
At the end of Trey and Swishy’s road-sized branch was a pathway. Another warp commenced, which let out into another of Myst’s legs.
“You forgot something,” Myst’s voice echoed.
Another of her legs hovered overhead. From there, Swishy’s gourd dangled from a web, slowly lowering.
[Wing Jump]—Swishy met his gourd head-on. The pumpkin snapped onto his body, the flowing shadows condensing into a bonding agent, a magnetic force. His curses then settled, some crawling within his rind while others distributed within his shoulders and upper torso. His thoughts had a container again. Swishy had achieved wholeness.
“Thanks, Myst! I wish you didn’t let me leave without it, though.”
“It was funny.”
Swishy pouted.
“It was pretty funny,” Trey knock-knocked the gourd.
“Uppie daisy,” Myst then flung them into the skies.
Both boys gasped at the stunner of a view. The world below, the path once traveled, had minimized to indecipherable lights. Swishy glanced back occasionally as the red-orange-honeys became squares, then dots, then twinkles. All of these brightnesses interspersed between dense patches of miasma.
Then they broke through a layer of clouds, normal gray skies that turned black—then once more let out into clear indigos.
Stars, a crescent moon, and shadowclaw shapes. Swishy couldn’t tell which were true birds or snitches or phantoms. All he knew was that they were in another part of the realm now, the upper reaches of The High Chasm. He just had the feeling that Ruby was comfortable here in true nature, unmarred and undisturbed, but with the darkness close at hand.
The presences glared at him but were calm. The blackwheat aura disappeared.
Everyone acquired restraint the closer they got to Ruby.
The hang-time was over, the weightless pleasantry of effortless catapulting.
Swishy’s wings carried him while Trey’s Sling-raven assistants caught him by the shoulders—one carrying him while the other two patrolled.
The scarecrow noticed that something was missing.
“Where’s your string?”
“This one?” Trey held his finger up, then widened his eyes at the absence. After a couple sudden neck turns, he pointed. “There!”
[Heart String] was suspended without tether. It floated on, swimming in rhythmic waves, matching the location’s heartbeat. They were near the first heart and their promised reclamation of it. The yarn knotted on its own, then looped, and continued this process until it formed into a construct.
A construct with wings.
A construct that then released from Trey’s finger and flew into the around his head.
One with a foul, soulful mouth, too as it yelled, Hey bitch, get down here, to Ruby.
“Take this with you!” Trey said.
“I will!” Though Swishy wasn’t sure who this was, what it was, and where it came from. But he recognized it vaguely as Trey’s passenger—sans the fretful energy of the others.
I’ll be taking YOU, Swishy. To KILL that witch!
[Heart String] morphed into [Znitches]—but just one. The blue soul runt, rage condensed into a shadowclaw phantom. Znitchy was back, furiously lapping Swishy’s head. It buzzed like a great calamity. The small savage was a threat personified.
“Yo!” Trey said. “I didn’t call you!”
You needed a fiend-killer so that’s what you got!
”Alright, alright, good looking out.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Wingy said, releasing feathers as it spoke.
Swishy blinked twice, clapped his gourd twice, then fastened his hand around his rake.
“If that’s what it takes,” the scarecrow said.
Znitchy landed on the stem of Swishy’s gourd, glaring at Ruby. That’s what it takes, scarecrow. Now let’s murder her!
Ruby’s silhouette flew closer, descending from her slice of heaven. She broom-rode into the semi-light.
“I wish…” she began—then whispered the rest.
And threw Swishy’s heart into the air, Cearthen darkness surging through the skies, closing upon the witch’s offering.