The Different States of Craziness
"What's Vacordia?" asked Edmond.
"Obviously where we are now, you idiot,'' said Jasper.
"Don't star fighting here, too!" ordered Mallory.
Jasper rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He was sick of everyone treating him like a kid. He was sick of Edmond in particular. Standing near his brother was sickening the boy, so he decided upon distancing himself from his siblings and sitting by the edge of the stream. Jasper let himself drop on the ground, his sneakers plundging into the clear water.
"What is this place, really?" asked Beatris, examining their surroundings.
Just as Mallory turned to answer, there was a splashing noise, coming from where Jasper was sat, and with it Jasper was gone.
"Where'd he go?" Mallory's anser turned into a question.
"Probably just hiding, the little turd," said Edmond, annoyed.
"I wasn't kidding," said Mallory.
"Neither was I,'' said Edmond.
"Jasper?'' Mallory looked around.
There was no sign of Jasper. The only thing in sight was the beautiful paysage and a harmless butterfly, soaring higher and higher into the sky. No Jasper.
"Jasper!" Mallory was now yelling, "This is serious!"
"Ugh!" sighed Beatris angrilly, "I'm tired of Jasper playing kiddy games and doing all of this. It's sickening! And on top of it all, we're somewhere we have no idea where it is, and instead of helping find out more about this Vacordia thing, Jaspre's gone 'missing'." she put airquotes while saying 'missing'.
Suddenly, as if out of fin air, Jasper materialized himself, "Hi, guys." he said.
"Where the hell were you?" said Mallory through gritted teeth.
Jasper shrugged, "Nowhere in particular? Why?" he smiled.
Jasper smiled. Not sneered, or smirked - he smiled a genuine smile.
"Jasper," Edmond looked bewildered, "Are you... Smiling?"
"Yes!" beamed Jasper, "Why wouldn't I be?"
"What is wrong with you?" asked Edmond.
"I'm just happy to be with my favourite people in this world." Jasper wrapped his arms around Mallory.
The girl shrugged him off, saying, "What do you think you're doing?"
"Hugging my beloved sister, of course!"
Something was wrong with Jasper and it wasn't too hard to make out. He never acted like this. Then again, this was Jasper Graves.
Mallory didn't want to play around and ask what was going on, so she decided examining a tree. Yes, a tree. Not a tree like the others, though. This one was different. Its bark was golden in the sunlight, its leaves were the size of Mallory's torso, and it's width was, if it was even possible, as wide as two park benches.
The girl walked towards the magnificent perennial plant, observing its colour. The bark was in fact glowing golden. Mallory seemed hypnotized by it's radiation, so she reached her hand out to touch it, stroking the surprisingly cool bark. She was touching the tree so tenderly, careful not to ruin something, it almost seemed as if she were -
"Mal, why are you tickling the oak?" came Edmond's voice behind Mallory too suddenly.
"What?" the girl jumped, a little scared of the sudden appearance of her brother.
"What are you doing?" Edmond asked.
"No! Don't stop, Mal!" urged her Jasper.
"What? Why?"
"Just keep tickling the oak," said Jasper, "Here, I'll help you." and he started tickling the tree's bark.
At first, nothing seemed to be happening, and Mallory felt like an utter fool. But then, the trunks of roots of the tree began moving under the children's ffet. The roots kept moving, no - growing, larger and longer under the ground, it felt as if -
"Look!" motioned Beatris, "The tree's opening!"
And it truly was. The roots finally stopped elongating, only to reveal a large aperture in the tree. Jasper proudly walked towards it, but Mallory grabbed his arm, preventing him to go through.
"Where do you think you're going?" she asked.
"Vacordia, of course!" said a voice, which did not belong to Jasper.
Everyone, except for Jasper, jumped at the sound of the stranger's voice.
It was odd, squeaky and low at the same time. But the voice was not by far the oddest part of its owner, it was his looks.
What had talked instead of Jasper looked a lot like a skunk, only it was larger - human-sized even, growing just as tall as Edmond. It was walking on two, er, paws, and its fur was blond. The creature's eyes looked violet.
This animal, or whatever on Earth it was supposed to be, was the strangest specimen the Graves children had ever come across.
"Excuse me, sir," Beatris stepped forward, "What exactly is Vacordia?"
The skunk looked at the little girl with a look on his face that said, "Stop playing around, kid". But when Beatris didn't in fact respond to this look, the skunk's eyes widened.
"You've never heard of Vacordia, have you?" it asked in amazement, only to reveal fully its Italian accent.
"No," aid Edmond, "Not until we came through this upside-down door, after we crossed these endless - "
"An upside-down door?" the skunk looked even more amazed, "What an odd method of entring through a portal... What are you doing here?"
"We just opened the ruddy door and found ourselves here," said Mallory snappily as she was getting sick of listening to a bewildered-looking skunk's stupid questions, "We didn't come here purposely."
"Nothing ever happens without a purpose,'' said the skunk, "You were sent here for a reason."
"What reason?" asked Beatris.
"Only time will tell." the skunk said.
"Wait, time?" said Mallory, "We have no time! We have got to get back to the real world!"
"Pf, who needs the real world, Mal?" asked Jasper, "Come on, let's go." he said,and before anyone could tell him anything whatsoever, he was gone, swallowed by the tree.
"Where'd he go?" asked Beatris, looking panicked.
"Into the portal," said the skunk.
"Well," said an even more panicked Mallory, "What are you waiting for? Make him come back!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, child. This portal goes only one way." said the skunk.
"Then how did you come?" said a quite unnerved Edmond.
"I was summoned, that's different."
''Alright," said Mallory, crossing her arms in front of her chest in skeptisism, "How do we get him back?"
"You go into the portal."
"Wait, what - "
Before any of the Graves children could do anything, they were walking on air. Or so it seemed. The sensation of passing through the Vacordian portal lasted no more than a second, though it was so sensational, so incredible, so light.
And just as suddenly as it had started, it ended.
They found themselves in a dark cave. It was long, narrow and very cliffy. The skunk made them climb their way up. They climbed for a long time, and by the time Beatris felt dizzy from all the walking up-stream, light appeared at the end of the tunnel.
The skunk paced up ahead, the children following. Pretty soon they stood at the edge of the cave, where there was a large exit hole, blocked by a hanging old curtain. Jasper was already there, standing immobilized in front of the curtain, not daring to pull. The skunk noticed the grossed expression on Jasper's face, so it extended a bony arm and pulled the piece of cloth.
There was a hill ahead of them.
"Oh, great," sighed Beatris in exasperation, "More climbing."
"Let us climb, then," said the skunk enthusiastically, "We are almost there!"
And they climbed. And climbed. And climbed. They had never expected that they would have to climb so much in one day. Stairs, caves, hills...
Even Mallory was out of breath.
"Are we there yet?" she finally asked.
"Yeah," echoed Edmond, "Are we there yet, mister, er, Skunk?"
"Oh, please! Call me Sergei!" and Sergei stopped at the top of the hill, "And yes. I officially welcome you all to Vacordia!"
As Mallory, Edmond, Jasper, Beatris and Sergei got to the top of the hill, the view ahead of them grew more and more spectacular.
It was a rather small village, perched on a rocky mountain, surround by a beautiful turquoise sea. The houses were coloured in different pastel colours, had three floors each, and were aligned in rows along the yellow-paved streets. On each street there was a little cafe, a little bakery and a small candy shop. The trees and the bushes were all shaped like animals.
"Wow!" gasped Edmond as they entered the village.
"This place is beautiful," said Beatris.
"You haven't seen anything yet!" said Sergei.
And Sergei was right. Vacordia was incredible as it seemed, though with each several steps the Graves children took through one of the streets, they encountered more and more incredibilities.
There was one thing that did not seem right about the place, though - the inhabitants. They were all either children, either really young adults.
Edmond was the first to notice this, "Sergei?" he said, "How come everyone in Vacordia is so young?"
"Yeah," said Jasper, "Where're all the older guys?"
Sergei laughed a high-pitched laugh, "Oh, my dears! This is not all of Vacordia. This is just one eighteenth of it. We are currently in the Westest part of Vacordia, in the lands where it never rains or snows, where the weather is always blissful, where you're young forever. We are in Adulescentia."
"How come you're young forever?" asked Beatris.
"You simply stop aging at the Master Age, twenty-six, little one." Sergei's face straightened suddenly, becoming serious and dark, "It's always been like that, though seeing that he has been developing a new regime, Adulescentians might as well die away really soon."
"Who is 'he'?" asked Edmond.
"The Vacordian king, Morte Clark."
"Cool name,"" said Jasper.
"Awful personality!" came a voice from one of the street cafes. Pretty soon, a young boy aged of no more than ten stepped out.
"Louis!" gasped Sergei, "Gosh, you've grown!"
"Sergei?" Louis's eyes brightened, revealing a very beautiful young face, "How long has it been?"
"As far as I remember, and that's a lot, six years! Why you were only four years old the last time I saw you!"
The little boy turned to greet the Graves children. It was in fact very beautiful.
"I'm Louis," the boy beamed, "Nice to meet you,"
"I'm Edmond, this is Jasper, Beatris and - "
"I can introduce myself, thank you very much," snapped Mallory, "My name is Mallory."
"Awesome!" said Louis, his dashing smile never leaving his face.
"So Louie-boy," said Sergei, "Where's that brother of yours?"
Louis raised his voice to yell out, "Aleczander!"
And out of the cafe stepped out the most beautiful and surreal human being any of the Graves children had ever seen. The young man was tall, handsome and so blissfully beautiful, that the sun seemed to be radiating against his skin. It would be difficult to describe Aleczander with words, because there are simply no words to describe someone with looks like his. Simply take the most beautiful boy you know and imagine him a dozen times more beautiful. You will then visualize Aleczander.
"Yes, Louis?" he said, and if it was even possible, his voice was just as beautiful as his appearance.
The people in the cafe, and walking on the streets, turned to get a better look of the boy. It wasn't only them, though. Mallory seemed awestruck and unsane even, too.
"Oh, hullo!" Aleczander spotted Sergei, "Sergei, how are you? How long has it been?"
"Six years, my dear boy, six years!" said the skunk.
"My!"
"Tell me, Alec, how old are you right now? Eighteen, nineteen?"
"Twenty-two," moaned out not Aleczander, but Louis, "But don't start on that subject, Aleczander gets very big-headed while talking about his 'mature age',"
Aleczander patted Louis on the back, "Don't listen to him, Sergei, he's just jealous that I'm twenty-two and he's ten,"
"See?" sqeaked Louis.
Sergei laughed.
"Oh, Alec, meet the newcomers!" he said.
"Hi, I'm Aleczander," Aleczander beamed at the Graves children, "This is my little brother, but I trust you already know him. How do you do?"
Mallory swore that her knees were about to melt.
"We, er, we - '' she began saying.
Aleczander just then looked at her for the first time. Directly at her. Mallory's cheeks began burning, bringing colour to her pale face.
"What's your name, beautiful?" asked her Aleczander, smiling a dazzling smile at Mallory.
She swallowed hard, not sure how to answer.
He called her beautiful.
He called her beautiful.
He called her beautiful.
Mallory tried keeping her cool in front of him, "I'm, er," she couldn't, "Mal, er, Mal - "
"What an odd name," said Aleczander, stroking his chin, "Mal-Mal?"
"Her name is Mallory," said Edmond, "She's just in awe of you right now."
Mallory's jaw tensed in anger and humiliation, but Aleczander seemed to find Edmond's comment quite funny.
"Well, Mallory, Mal-Mal for short,'' Aleczander coughed in order to straighten up, "I'm Aleczander, Aleczander Vera." and his extended his arm out so Mallory could shake his hand.
As the girl did so, she felt something strange and unknown to her. She actually felt that sensation Beatris read about in her stories.
She felt a spark.
~.~
"So how did you actually get into Vacordia?" asked Aleczander as they were having dinner that same night, "I mean, it isn't as if we get visitors here every day." he was looking at Mallory for an answer, but all the girl did to respond was giggle like a fool, which was very unlike her.
"We, er, I mean Mallory and Jasper found this locked door at our home and so they called me and Beatris to check it out, and - "
Mallory felt her temper rise at her brother's words. Now this was more like her,
"Lies, you idiot," she spat.
Just so she could make out a whole sentence without giggling, snorting or flushing scarlet, she decided upon looking at Louis whilst speaking, "Me and Jasper were supposed to clean the third floor of our house. As we went up to it, we found a locked door at the end of the corridor. As we unlocked it and walked inside, the room revealed a narrow staircase. We started climbing it, believing we would end up visiting no more than an attic. Wrong, of course. Jasper, you go on."
Jasper, who was about to feed himself to a slice of green tomato, dropped his fork in his plate at the sound of his name. His eyes read bewilderment and fear.
"Yeah, uh, we... uh, we climbed the, um," he was nervous, as if he didn't know what he was talking about, what he was supposed to say, "the stairs and we, er, the stairs, er - ''
Mallory sensed that there was something wrong with Jasper. He was the least shy person she knew, yet here hewas, er-ing between every two words like a first-grader.
"I'll just tell the rest," she said, and Jasper sighed in relief, resuming his tomato-eating, "Yes, we climbed the stairs, alright, but they seemed endless," Mallory was talking with so much emotion and dramatism in her voice, it looked as if she was in a trance, "It felt as if we were going on for more thana quarter hour, which wouldn't be normal if we were in fact heading towards an attic. We suddenly reached a spot in the staircase, where we saw..." she stopped herself in time, not wanting to humiliate Jasper and share his secret, " - things. We got scared, so next thing we knew, we ran back down the stairs, out of the room, shutting the door hard behind us. That's when we ran into - "
"Us," said Beatris, breaking Mallory's trance, "So we decided we'd check the room out after dinner. But then this loud crash came from upstairs, so we cut on dinner and went to see where the noise had come from. More noises were coming from inside the room. It was locked. We somehow managed to unlock it. We went in and up the stairs. We reached a floating door. We opened it. We entered Vacordia. Jasper disappeared angry, then reappeared all happy. Then we met Sergei. And here we are now, getting to know you." Beatris then turned to Mallory, "You can thank me for turning your five-hundrend-page novel into a resume later, Mal."
Mallory rolled her eyes, crossing her arms, "It's not my fault that I want to become a writer and not a unicorn when I grow up."
Beatirs scowled at her older sister, whilst Edmond moaned out, "Yeah, yeah, we all heard it..."
The Vacordians at the table the Vera family were all letting each word the Graves children had said sink in.
For the rest of the night, they were talking agitatedly about what Vacordia will present to the kids and how much they would love it.
After dinner, everyone was heading towards their rooms. Aleczander offered to escort Mallory and Beatris to their room, as the sisters were sharing one.
When they got to the door, after Mallory had knocked several porcelaine vases down and had stepped on Tabby, the fluffy cat's tail in nervousness, Aleczander finally decided to speak up, "So... tomorrow I guess I'll show you around, tell you a little more about Adulescentia and Vacordia, as it is. And maybe you can tell me a little something about the Outside World and, well, yourself."
Beatris swore that if she hid her laughter a little longer, she would lose several ribs. All Mallory said was, "Hee-hee-hee," and she tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.
Beatris decided she couldn't take her sister's humiliation anymore, so she entered the conversation, "What she means to say is - 'Sure, Aleczander!',"
Aleczander flashed his dazzling smile, revealing pearl-white, perfectly-aligned teeth and a pair of charming dimples, not even looking at Beatris, no matter that she had talked, "Great, I will pick you up after breakfasat tomorrow, okay?"
Mallory nodded, playing with the ends of her hair.
"Alright, see you in the morning, beautiful," said Aleczander, making his way back to the staircase at the end of the floor's corridor.