Chapter One: The Magic Stone

In the woods, in a cottage, dwelt an old man and an old woman. Their names were, respectively, Roger (RH) Hawkins Farnsworth-Seekins and Martha Jean Stapleton-Hawkins, but they were married anyway, despite what their names would otherwise indicate or suggest to the curious. They had retired from life outside the woods when they were still young, and had grown old together there in their little cottage (littler on the outside than on the in), he with his plants and paintings and watches, she with her photography and writing.

It was a life of focused effort run through with frequent but vague expressions of annoyance, both verbal and non-verbal; and the living they made, they made do without much effort, mostly by means of a used vegetable stand set up at the edge of the woods where they displayed their wares. To that extent they were partners and shared the upkeep of the stand, a simple sweep-through or two and a dusting they gave it every other month or so. The tourists flocked there, though they were never seen by the couple, nor did the tourists see them. They used a can for collection and both sides had faith in it.

What was in the can when they looked to see, was what sustained them, for they needed nothing anyway. Lacking health insurance, they depended wholly upon a magic stone given them by their youngest son on his twenty-first birthday. With it, they needed no health insurance (this he had assured them). He had been given the stone, along with an invisible cloak (not intended for military use but for amour), by an apparently ageless crone by a well—or so he maintained. According to him, the well itself was located deep inside a newly excavated 21st century nuclear fuel processing facility in Iran, that being used by one of his friends as a backdrop for one of his innumerable movies depicting his own life, a gift of course for the friend's parents: it was full of irony and symbolism, and best of all evoked nostalgia, which of course they loved, being deeply traditional as they were.

The old couple's son, whose name was Jack, had done the old crone a favor, specifically had filled in for her at a team meeting she was having difficulty attending. He had attended it instead for her, disguised as her, undignified and unsettling for him as that must have been; and she had been so grateful of his doing that for her, that she had given him the stone then and there; and so he in turn had given it to his parents, thinking that they needed it more than he did (boy, would he rethink that one some day!) What her name was--their son's benefactor the crone--of what her education consisted, and lastly, most importantly, how well she spoke.  They demanded he tell them at once, of course, without further ado—they weren't fools. Amanda-Lou Fern Chan, home-educated, and so-so, he had answered in their questions in order and honestly, in as casual a tone a tone of voice as he could muster, yawning in a tic-like sigh. Why look a gift horse in the mouth he figured privately, though he didn't say so aloud

The magic stone was way better than Medicaid, Jack made sure they knew--or would be in twenty-five years when Medicaid would be a pay-in rather than a pay-out affair; in fact, it was better than even Medicare Part Eight A -Option 12 would be worth right now, if they needed it, which of course they didn't--yet. But the old couple was not convinced. Wasn't this what people had been saying for at least two hundred years, maybe longer, about every new health insurance plan that had come up?

They fussed and fumed and laughed at him further. Why should they have to believe what an old crone had said? (Not that they were in the least bit ageist, of course, for they had been careful to raise their children ist-free; but this was different.) Patiently enough, he explained: You had to believe what she said, because shortly after she had given the stone and cloak to him, she had turned into a beautiful nineteen year old knockout, very hot, with long, raven hair, sparkling eyes, a gorgeous smile, and perfect teeth. And, he said, her real name was Gloria—just Gloria. Did they still want to know where she went to school and how well she spoke English? This he said with just a shade of sarcasm detectable only to his mother, and she let it go. After this, he would say no more; he packed up his fretless bass and left--he said, to go to a party. His, he pointed out, making them feel slightly guilty. It was his birthday, remember? And then he was gone.. They had not seen him since.

The old couple were a little skeptical still about the stone; and yet as the years went by and they saw their health only improve and their vigor increase, they began to believe the stone was indeed as good as health insurance--was, in fact, magic. They ceased to worry about such things as mortality and aging and instead concentrated on their art, which they believed sufficient to sustain them for eternity—or thereabouts. It was a huge shock then, when Roger, the old man, woke up one morning to find Martha, the old woman, dead beside him in bed, her hand still gripping the paper she had been writing her sonnet on the night before, the fine-pointed pen she had been using to write it with fallen to the quilt-cover, an old photograph from their early years lying beside it on the bed. Her eyes were slightly open, he noticed, as though gazing at something she was trying to make out in the distance, though it was only the wall she was looking at. He knew she was dead without a second glance.

Almost instantly the old man reached for the stone on the bedside stand where they kept it. Was it there? Yes—there it was. He looked at his dead wife dumb-founded. But how? Why? What could this mean? And for the first time in years, fear crept into his heart.

Roger's heart was broken, though it took him several months to realize it. At first he thought nothing but happy thoughts about Martha, but the month following her death, when he took her turn sweeping out the stand by the edge of the wood, he realized with a new, mournful awareness how much he loved and missed her. Even more apparent to him was the knowledge that that thought was intensely painful. Looking backwards he thought she could do no wrong. She had been the best of wives, the best of mothers; even, he began to think, the best of artists. Why did it hurt so? He realized it was because he would never see her again.

He began to appreciate her photography and poetry, thinking of framing the photographs he liked the best (he liked them all, he discovered) when he looked at each one; and of gathering her sonnets together to submit to poetry contests as she had always thought of doing. Hopefully they could be published postmortem and that would please her wherever she was, or please his memory of her at least.

And still another thing changed which he could not explain to himself. He no longer thought of himself and of her as an old couple who had lived in a little cottage in the woods, even if that was what they had been together for so long. He thought of her simply as Martha, and of himself simply as Roger, an old man who had lost his best friend. Sometimes, looking at the can by the stand he would weep, whether it was empty or not. Only his beloved watches kept his mind off Martha for a little while.

And then, as though the forces of the universe were conspiring to confound him, inexplicably the items at the farm stand began to actually sell like hot cakes; for he found the can full of all sorts of things given in exchange for them, bartering being very much the in-thing now to do. This was because no one used money any more, but only accumulated credit or dispensed of it, a rather boring, mundane transaction without much tactile pleasure to it. More and more often, more and more plants and paintings, watches and photographs, even the poetry, seemed to be missing from the farm stand trays, whereas before Martha's death things had stayed there for months, sometimes even years, and nobody cared. Martha's photographs and sonnets seemed to have become phenomenally popular, in fact, with the tourists, and he watched them disappear one by one as time went on.

He was actually thinking he would need two cans next, and heaved many a sigh thinking how surprised Martha would have been at that. The stuff he collected in the can, though, seemed of little value to him now, without Martha, so he gave them away to the almost extinct Poor People through the charities, themselves failing miserably for want of takers. If forced to, of course, he took credit for them, though his pension was already embarrassingly ample, since he was an artist and an amateur at that. His most treasured moments were his walks along the road beside the woods, now unfortunately without Martha. He tended to keep the stone in his pocket when he went for a walk alone, which was virtually every time.

The autopsy finally was completed and revealed Martha had died of natural causes; and when he had them repeat it (for he'd never heard of such a thing), the results were the same. There was no explanation readily forthcoming from prior experience, when Roger tried to think about what that meant (natural causes?). He hadn't a clue. And he told no one that the findings worried him more than they soothed him, though they sounded un-alarming enough. He did have the coroner's license traced, but it was to no avail. Natural causes. She had died in her sleep, that was all. But was that the same as natural? Roger kept quiet and pondered these unanswerable questions in his heart, though even why he did that he didn't know.

The children (all but Jack) joined their father at the funeral for a few days, after it was finally held, months and months after the death (as so many are these days, since, let's face it, risks are involved; and, no getting around it, funerals take time.) They offered him their constant support, along with that which came from their various relatives, most of whom attended in hologram. It was almost like their being there.

The oldest son, Philip, always an especially thoughtful son, had offered him an upstairs loft to stay in above the living room play-station pit in Philip's house—originally Roger and Martha's house before they moved to the woods. Now it (the pit) was the actual location of his son's burgeoning antique video game restoration business. Philip made credit up to his ears restoring, displaying and/or dispersing and uploading old video games anywhere, any place, any time all over the planet. They were pirated usually, despite the obsolescence of the word—really old and rare video games, some from the 20th century, though that was a bit hard to believe. The word “pirated,” Philip explained, lent flavor and nostalgia to the sale, and he insisted on its use.

The only problem was, Philip continued, compassion shining in his brown eyes, his father would have to leave his watches and his paintings and his plants behind at the cottage (transposition being far too credit-stressing, even for him), along with his mother's poetry and photography. All their effects, in fact, would have to remain in the cottage, he took time to explain, because there was no real room for them in real space anymore in that house (he emphasized the “real”)--did his father understand what he meant by that? He started to gently explain what he meant by that exactly, but his father waved him off. He knew when he was defeated; he was no fool. And yet unknowingly almost, his hand sought the stone in his pocket, and he took a bit of comfort there; and as he considered his plight in the peculiarly calm silence that followed Philip's proposal, Roger was almost torpidly respectful, and careful not to sustain the conversation longer than was necessary. For he was, actually, no fool.

His daughter Hattie Ophelia immediately too offered to have them (her father's paintings, plants and watches; and her mother's sonnets and photographs) embalmed, so to speak, in atomite, fully inspectable everywhere, anywhere, anytime; for wasn't that her business? She ran it (of course) from home and she was full of stories about how pleased customers were with her preservatives. That way all his things—and their mother's too if he so desired—could be easily e-posited in the room over her brother's (precious, unstated) pit, without their actually being there taking up real (she didn't bother to emphasize the real) time and space—did he want that? Because, wouldn't that solve everything?

He almost relented and said yes, because his daughter was the only one of his children left who was still toying with the idea of having children. Other than Jack that is—and who was thinking about him? His father, for one, was; especially since Martha's death. But nobody had seen Jack for a long time.

Some of Hattie Ophelia's protochildren had indeed been alarmingly cute and adorable, even when projected into middle age, which Roger found strangely disturbing though he couldn't understand why really. Nevertheless something always kept her from going through with it to the next step, actually having the child, male or female. After an agonizing bout of apparently reputable reality therapy, usually induced in faux utero (terrifically realistic these days, and entirely safe) followed by a bit too much of her favorite champagne, she would always finally choose delete, only to begin all over again a few months later.

During the funeral service, Roger had an epiphany of sorts which made him decide against his daughter's suggestion to embalm his and Martha's effects, despite the suggestion itself being fairly rife with multiple ope-ended options and free choices—enough options and choices, in fact, to please anyone. Hattie Ophelia, for all her ever-ready creativity, was a bit too much like his own mother, the original Hattie; and probably the real grandchildren would never really arrive, unless by accident—not likely to happen. (Accident? Hattie Ophelia was not familiar with the concept.) She liked her holograms just a tad too much perhaps, he mused to himself; and her possibilities just a tad bit more than her realities, just like her grandmother. Roger patted himself on the back, thinking that, since Martha's death, he had grown a little wiser, if lonelier. And he did have, after all, one son left.

After the funeral service, when everyone had departed, or faded, or, in one case, remained perpetually on-line (essentially a token connection, since the perpetually undeparted funeral guest was not then, or apt to be ever again actually accessible either), Roger went to the bedstead and put the stone in his pocket and went out to find his son Jack.

He found the trail leading to Jack starting back at the cottage, which of course was still there just as he had left it, on pause. The twenty years (or was it twenty minutes?) since Jack had handed his parents the magic stone on his 21st birthday and departed had not obliterated the footprints he had left behind, though Roger couldn't remember having seen them there before. Perhaps he had just taken too little notice of them. He shook his head mournfully and set off immediately, following the now only too obvious footprints..

Almost immediately he found himself in a pastoral scene he didn't believe still existed anywhere, but here it was. The road passed under and then up over a gently sloping hill and down again into a green valley. Nestled against another hill in the distance at the edge of the forest was a small collection of cottages, far away but clearly discernible. It was then he spotted the bean stalk, for if he was not mistaken, that is what it was, though at first he had thought it was an enormous tree, under which the whole valley was seemingly shaded.

In fact it was a bean stalk (Roger knew his plants); and Jack's footprints led directly to its base with its great gnarled and intertwining roots. On his way up (for Roger began immediately to climb it) he paused periodically at various vantage points to admire the way the foliage through which he was climbing allowed the sunlight and shade to chase each other in patterns across the valley below and around it in an ever-changing display of shape and color--he was a painter, after all, and noticed such things. The climb itself was much easier than he thought it would be and yet took much longer than he thought it would take. By the time he reached the top, with several stops to admire the view, he was not out of breath but surely ready for something new.

It took his breath away, what he saw at the top of the beanstalk. There was a large castle wall with seven gates in it—Roger counted them as he circled its circumference—and over the arched iron and barred gate of the central one (which was either the first or the last in the series depending on how you counted) was an almost perfect facsimile, etched in granite, of the grandfather clock he had worked on just last week—or (and here he lingered only for a second)--could it possibly be that one on the mantle piece of his childhood home's sitting room, the one he had taken apart when he was nine?

Imperceptibly, in that nanosecond in which he considered this other possibility, even while he stared at it, the lithograph seemed to change, redrawing itself into the mantle clock before it resumed its grandfather clock visage once again. Involuntarily he reached for the stone in his pocket, and as the stone touched his hand, he heard and saw the iron gate open before him, causing him to leap back to avoid impact with it. Just for a second he paused, and then he passed through it.

He thought he heard a distant resonant baritone fee! fie! fo! fum! echoing from somewhere, but when he tried to focus on it, it faded. It was an ambient recollection eked out of an almost forgotten memory by what he saw around him which had caused this phenomenon, but of this he was quite unaware. He just wanted to find a pattern in this strange world to which his son's footprints had so unerringly led him, a pattern which would allow him to make sense of it all.

Next he noticed a little boy peeking out at him from a hiding place in a hedge across the lawn, obviously trying not to be seen; and there was a group of people across the court yard standing and listening to a man speaking under a beech tree. But when he tried to focus on them closely, both the boy and the group tended to fade and finally disappear, though the hedge was still there and the beech tree remained as tall and green as ever. He took off his glasses to see if that was the trouble and noticed how well he could see without them.

It was then he spied Jack. Jack was just entering a door, a beautiful raven-haired woman at his side, and several children following them (Roger couldn't quite count the number). They were all in the process of entering a door leading by a side entrance into a large building situated just behind and to the rear of the beech tree and just in front of what appeared to be a large garden. This time, when he tried to focus on his son's face, instead of fading away, it came into sharper focus. As it did, he saw Jack turn and look directly at him, beckoning him to follow them into the building, just as though he had known his father was there all along. Without hesitation Roger rose and followed him. Suddenly he knew where he was and what would happen next. It made him very, very happy.

To his delight, but not to his surprise, not many minutes later Roger found himself-- along with Jack and his family (for such it was as it had appeared to be, Jack's family) in the tower room of the building they had entered, after ascending a broad and steep staircase--standing next to his dead wife Martha. Only it was clear she was not dead, but only sleeping--and she was as young-looking as the day he had spotted her by the waterfall, writing poetry on a soggy pad of paper with a pencil which kept breaking, her wet bathing suit clinging to her, making her shiver a little in the breeze. She had looked particularly beautiful then to Roger, and it occurred to him now that she did so again, only more so.

Here, now, in death-like sleep she had been placed upon a bier of flowers, and the youngest of Jack's children (which he recognized as the child who had been peering out at him from behind the hedge only moments ago) informed him that Martha, who he referred to as “the princess,” had been sleeping like that there for a hundred years, and that they came there every day to see her. Roger, who was no fool and furthermore was growing wiser by the moment, knew well this story's ending—he kissed his wife and she woke up.

But as she awoke and smiled her beautiful smile, opening her eyes to him, she slowly aged into the wife he had last seen dead of natural causes in their very own bed at home in the cottage in the woods: she aged before his very eyes even while he watched. And he saw that she was indeed even more beautiful to him than she had ever been before; and he embraced her with grateful, loving arms and made her promise never to leave him again.

“I told you it was better than health insurance,” commented Jack, whose mother never had been able to teach him not to say things in an I-told-you-so kind of voice.

“He means the stone, dear,” said Martha. It was then he noticed that the raven-haired beauty by Jack's side (this must be Gloria, he surmised) still looked young, though he could see Jack looked exactly as old as a father of many children ought to look, the lines of worry and laughter etching the edges of his eyes and mouth, his hair thinning a bit on top and graying at the edges. Gloria, though, looked better than young; she looked....ageless.

It was not long after that, that the old couple became the old couple again in their cottage in the woods. Their art work was again on display on the farm stand, and the can was never empty, to their great pleasure. It began to fill up with doll houses and swings and old wooden croquet sets which the little man delighted in painting and the old woman enjoyed photographing whenever their grandchildren visited and played with them. This was almost every day, since Jack used some golden eggs he had “found” at his previous residence to barter for the cottage next door, a cottage the old couple hadn't even known existed until then.

As for the stone, the children's mother borrowed it from them one Easter, having run short of eggs she needed for the hunt she always had for the neighborhood children in her garden, children of neighbors the old couple had never noticed before either. They watched her hide it under the rhubarb leaves where the youngest children loved to hide when they went out in the afternoon to play hide-and-seek. At any rate, they never gave it another thought; surely though, someone must have found it. Or would some day.