Mist was almost brought to her knees by the orbiting bovine snorting, lowing somewhere unseen in the darkness and the staggering visual whirlpool was beginning to set her stomach turning. Reeling unsteadily backwards, she pressed her hands over her ears as tightly as she could. Where was all of this coming from? Were these peculiar things stored away in her subconscious? Breath coming in gasps, she stumbled back further, as a great, monstrous figure heaved from the centre of the swirl, some kind of behemoth, a goliath, a giant or something, or someone?

“Er... Gum?” Mist squeaked in confusion. These were subconscious expressions then. However, she looked closer and realised in terror that it was not Gamaliel at all. It was something not human; Mist cringed, expecting it to yell or roar or drool or something. Instead it didn’t even seem to notice Mistletoe.

As she swallowed, the sound about her abruptly shifted, instantly became remote, less resonant, like the impression of an enormous helicopter heard from afar. Everything seemed to fall into slow-motion. It felt like standing in the eye of a hurricane.

In the eerie hush, the giant sniffed the air and looked around suspiciously. Mist held her breath whilst it scanned its surroundings as if expecting something or someone. Deflated, the huge figure sighed and finally turned its gaze upon Mist.

“Oh, I'm in for it now,” she thought, shrinking away. But instead of violence or abuse the giant frowned and leaned closer. Mist could now hear her own breathing, feel her own stillness; time seemed to hang as the pair steadily regarded one another.

The moment was drawing out, delaying, winding down, slow, so slow - eternity threatened - she distantly felt her own eye blink, an event of astronomical enormity - slow, so slow... Until...

The flap of a butterfly’s wing. From the corner of her eye, Mist saw a bright blue butterfly fluttering into the space between the motionless couple. The giant scowled and raised both hands as if to clap the insect or maybe to ward it off. As he did, he inadvertently dropped something that he had been carrying. A metallic egg of some sort, with slender legs on it, slipped from his fingers, bounced off his knee and struck his foot. Not wanting it to go, Mist reached out to grab for the iridescent butterfly.

She felt it flutter in the hollow of her hand. The huge figure reached for the metal object, but abruptly lurched backward, as if some unseen hand had grabbed his collar and pulled with all its might. He managed to croak out, “Well, I say!” and was gone.

Mist didn't know if some unstoppable force had dragged him back to the place whence he came or if he'd been eaten up by swirling darkness. The device seemed to purr with satisfaction, then shuddered to a halt and went briefly transparent.

A red spot on one side of the device flickered, perhaps some arcane process was underway inside - or was the thing thinking? The butterfly seemed to have triggered a change: the awful, bullish bellowing echoed mercifully away out of existence, the sickening swirling sensation was gone and Mist was left alone, heart pounding and hands trembling. The device surely would follow all the other assorted oddments off into oblivion; but no, unexpectedly, it dropped to its side and rolled all the way to the tip of Mist's toe. She stared at it, unmoving.

Looking at her hand, she held, not a blue butterfly; instead there was a small, flapping piece of paper. “This is all so weird,” she mused. “It doesn't even feel like my dream anymore... wait, I am dreaming? I think I must be. But this doesn’t seem like something I would dream about. I know my dreams can be odd at times, but all of this just feels like... well, like... like random stuff, other people’s things, other people’s dreams.”

She was about to see what was written on the paper straining to fly from her fingers, when her eyes fell again on the egg device on the ground. It remained there, luring her. She picked it up. Mistletoe was truly perplexed. What? What was this thing? She had never had a dream quite like this. It had all the cloudy, soft-edged oddity and unlikeliness that she had become accustomed to but there was a special peculiarity this time that she just couldn’t put her finger on. It seemed almost real. But then dreams did, didn’t they?

She gazed into the strange egg-like device, conscious of the unnatural serenity surrounding her. It still felt like she was standing somewhere within the eye of a storm, its deceptive, funnelled walls howling quietly not far away.

“What next?” she asked herself. This pregnant calm made her wonder whether the eyewall might at any moment drift, exposing her again to chaotic horrors. Indeed, the winds of change were gathering.

As Mist clutched the shiny device, the fact that she was gradually rising into the air went unnoticed at first - until the hush was broken by a voice that seemed to electrify her whole body. It burst forth from the gloom around her and cut into her like the hot entry of the sharpest of knives.

“Take heed, fair maiden, you and your friends are in great danger. Take care, for the odour eater has found you.” The voice resonated with the clarity of a new bell, like the voice of a goddess portrayed in old Greek mythological stories.

“What? What’s going on now? Cows, ogres, butterfly paper, voices? And now... now I’m flying?” Mist screamed. Then, regretting the possible repercussions of her outburst as the words reverberated in the air, she muttered more slowly, “What’s an odour eater? Is it something to do with all those shoes? Someone tell me? Tell me so I can wake up!”

There was a long silence and Mist continued to drift upward, waiting for a reply until, as suddenly as the first time, the silence was rent by the exhilarant voice: “Take heed fair maiden, you and your friends are in great danger. Take care, for the ogre eater found you. Peer into the eye. Yes, peer into the eye-bald and all will be revealed.”

Mist peered into the egg object and it seemed to be pulling her in towards it. She gazed at the swirly, reddish-coloured eye which was misty, beautiful, ever-changing. It curled hypnotically before her, until she began to feel that she’d had enough swirls to last her a life-time. Then, as she squinted into its murky depths, she muttered, “Ogre eater not odour eater!”

To her surprise, she saw an image appearing from the eye that had to be from another world or place or time. Leaning close, she saw what might be the end of a horrific tussle, rather one-sided, but a tussle nonetheless. It involved the same muscular giant or ogre that she had just encountered, being upended by a hairy beest-like monster. There followed loud screams and shouts before the ogre was thrown down whilst the beest seized a device identical to the one she held in her hands and fled. What did it all mean?

*****

Elmo, in his rat body, didn’t belong to this time. The rat body didn’t belong to him. Roan, Gum and Heather, along with Holi, all looked at the Elmo who did belong to this time, lying among the trees where he had fallen. Once his ‘hair’ had got the best of him, it had fled. Worried for his well-being, the four crowded at his side. Elmo groaned, sat up.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Meanwhile (in danger of hyperventilating from his awful transformation) Rat Elmo clung shakily to the rather knobbly, hairy knee that seemed the best place of refuge for now.

“Not happening. Not happening.” His little chect heaved.

From deep within the shadowy trouser-leg, he could hear the conversation between the five friends:

"Elmo?" that was Holi's voice. She sounded distraught.

Rat-Elmo felt a hand venturing up the trouser leg toward him, he dug in his claws and clung on to the knee for dear life.

“They disappeared as quickly as they came!” he heard his host mutter as the hand falteringly pulled at him, flinched, then hurriedly withdrew with a series of panicky jerks. He could feel Past-Elmo beginning to sit up - and as he did, the others all gasped audibly.

“You took the device,” Rat-Elmo could hear Past-Elmo groaning.

Then Holi's voice, “What device? Who did? What's going on and what on earth is that?”

Deep within his rodent brain, Rat-Elmo felt sorry for Holi, along with an urge to scratch himself, gnaw important things and eat filth. He shuddered violently.

“I don't like to worry you,” came Gum's slight West-Country twang, "but you're lying on some sort of green midget."

“This is all wrong,” thought Rat Elmo, “It didn't happen like this - Roan, Gum and Heather weren't here. I'm supposed to go off looking for the portal. Use the device, create a portal. Meet my future self and get sent back to stop myself meeting myself.” He heard the madness of it all now. Poor Holi, she had known it was madness. He frowned, attempting to gather all his ratty mental faculties. “But then again - maybe this might just work out.”

He heard Past-Elmo begin to get excited, “What device... ‘What device?’ she says... What device do you think Holi?” There was a pause and then, “I'm sorry. That thing was important. I found it. Why did I find it? As for this green thing - I don't know what it is.”

Roan cut in, “I think we need to talk, there are a number of seriously weird things going on here, not least of all that green thing - what is it? It doesn’t look human. Must you hold it by the ear?”

Rat-Elmo edged a little higher up over the bulbous kneecap as he felt his host start walking. This was different, this hadn't happened before.

“Why don't we get out of the rain, sit in the car and you tell us what's going on, where that thing came from?” Gum suggested.

“That's it,” thought Rat-Elmo, “Go to the car, have a chat, drive away nice and easy and then I don't meet myself.”

As the rain soaked through Past-Elmo's trouser leg, He heard the friends settle into the comfort of the car and counted the clunk of doors shutting: one, two, three, four… five?

“Do you have to shut that thing in my boot?” he heard Roan enquiring, “What if it gets at the jack? Come on! What is it?”

“Look, can’t I just explain on the way? I was holding it by the ear because it needs to know who's boss. They can't have just disappeared and that thing knows it."

“Yeah - and now it’s in my boot!” Roan protested.

“What were you doing out here in the rain with that... that... thing?” Heather asked.

“Is this why you called us half-way across the country? To show us your goblin?” Gum added. “What even is it?”

“I didn't call anyone!” Elmo protested, sounding genuinely puzzled, “What call? My goblin? Why are you all here?”

Rat-Elmo heard Elmo sigh then. “It attacked me. It and two more like it. They came out of nowhere, after my device.”

“Is it dangerous? I can hear it scratching,” Roan complained. “You did call though. You said we’d been compromised.”

“I didn’t," Elmo continued whilst Rat-Elmo wriggled and squirmed his way higher, trying to hear better. “We have been compromised though. Someone knew I had it. Holi, where's that paper I gave you? I drew the it. Someone knows about it!”

Some rustling followed and then Elmo's voice again, “Turn it over, no over, unfold it. There! Look at the pictures there.

Rat-Elmo emerged from the neck of his host's jumper then, in time to see the scrap of paper upon which he had written rim gum baldy. Pictures of something resembling a mechanical egg or beetle or sea urchin filled the paper.

"I don't remember drawing anything on that paper," Rat-Elmo thought. “This is different in this timeline.”

“I told you about it Roan, you remember, I didn't know what it was,” continued Elmo making a snatch at Rat-Elmo, who narrowly escaped by darting into Elmo's damp armpit, causing him to squirm vigourously. He shrieked, “All I know is someone wanted me to find this Rimgumbaldy thing. Look, I need to get this rat off.” The expressions on the faces of the others made it clear that explanations had to come first.

Roan wiped a misted window with his coat sleeve and Elmo went on, “As you know, the thing in the pictures turned up in my own dustbin. I was taking out the rubbish, there was a rat in there too! I brought it with me on holiday,” then, noting Holi’s expression, “Not the rat! I knew I had to do something with it. But someone knew and now midgets have stolen it.”

Rat-Elmo was feeling more and more uncomfortable, and not just from Past-Elmo's luxuriant underarm locks. This timeline was embellishing things, adding things that hadn't happened. He sneaked a peep at Holi over the neck of Elmo’s jumper - she wasn't his Holi was she? His Holi was now somewhere ten minutes off in the future. This Holi already had an Elmo. She wouldn’t be happy when she saw him… would she see him again?

Rat-Elmo felt a churning sensation way down low in his stomach, breathing faster and faster. This wasn't going away, he was still a rat. His throat tightened. If he didn't meet Future-Elmo, he would surely not get back. Through smothering hysteria, he saw it: he didn't need to stop himself meeting Future-Elmo, he had to make sure that he did meet Future-Elmo!

With a rush of determination, he made an audacious dash round Elmo’s neck, scrabbled onto his head and began burrowing through Elmo's hair with his little claws.

“Ouch! You little...” Elmo screeched.

“Aagh!” Holi cried, recoiling in panic.

Then Heather, clambering backwards, “It’s on your head! Your head!”

“It’s like Ratatouille!” Gum laughed.

“Keep away from me,” Heather cried.

Gum was peering about him, looking for something to whack the vermin with, when, without warning, Rat-Elmo yanked on two claw-fulls of thick black hair. Elmo leapt up reflexively, banging his head on the roof, almost squashing his rodent assailant. That was it: he had to get the thing off; the Golf door was flung open and Elmo was out into the rain once again. Rat-Elmo tugged as hard as he could and even tried pulling at some strands with his teeth. Then Elmo was off, slapping at his own head and lolloping crazily at a really peculiar angle into the darkness of the trees and the wet night.

Holi, Gum, Heather and Roan watched open-mouthed from the car.

“You had better not be thinking that I'm going to chase him,” said Gum, I’ve a sore ankle from yesterday’s Chicken-Scratch match.” Roan's eyes remained upon the rapidly disappearing Elmo, yet puzzled by this remark, he looked at Gum for an explanation. He caught Heather's eyes roll, with a slight shake of her head.

“Chicken what? you have chickens now?” he asked incredulously.

“No, we don’t have chickens, I was ‘Chicken-Scratching’ yesterday, and I’m suffering for it. can’t keep up with the younger ones now.”

“Still keeps playing with them though,” threw in Heather, grabbing the opportunity. “I told him this would happen! He’s not as young as he thinks he is! That ankle’s going to swell right up for sure."

“You didn’t have to stand there taking pictures of me though!”

“I can see it now. Brace yourself for a crash, Gamaliel Jonas”

They were out of the car now and staring into the rain-drenched trees amongst which Elmo had vanished. No one seemed keen to get wet again, least of all in the darkness of the woods. Putting off the inevitable for a few moments more, Roan asked, "What is ‘Chicken-Scratching’? I’ve a mental image, but hope that it's not even close.” Thoughts of Gum, squawking birds, flurries of feathers and claws were beginning to dominate.

“Well, it’s like rugby, in that we have a ball, and you run with it, but that’s about where the comparison ends. Anyway, now is clearly not the time for explanation, I'll teach you later. Suffice to say, I made it up, and it’s proven very popular with the antipodeans in our area.”

“You made it up?” asked Roan, with just a hint of suspicion.

“Yeah…” Gum assured him. His voice started to take a slightly distant tone now however, as if he was recalling something that he was not quite sure about. “Odd really... ‘inspiration’ I suppose. Not sure where the idea came from, I was younger, back home.”

“What are we going to do about Elly?” Holi’s clarion call back to the present refocused their attention on the immediate problem. Roan glanced anxiously at the boot of the golf, Gum scowled and turned up the collar of his jacket. “Come on then. Let’s get after him.”