I hope that you will find these letters. I have attempted to capture all I know of this place within their pages. My wish is that they will serve as a guide to this strange land. Perhaps you might add to them with your own discoveries and situation. I want to know you are all okay.
(Letter 2, Paragraph 1, Lines 1-4)
Theo woke up where the sky ended and space began.
He hovered for a moment, and the world spun beneath him. A sphere of perfect blue with spans of green forests, yellow deserts, belching volcanoes, towering statues, flowing rivers, giant shells, toxic smokestacks and more and more. And each of these places was in motion, ducking around and between each other as if in the middle of a magnificent dance.
A patchwork planet, in motion.
For a moment Theo thought he was dreaming. Then he started to fall, and realized it was a nightmare.
The wind pulled at his face, dragging his muscles to the back of his neck. His heart fell out of his chest and vanished somewhere in the bottom of his stomach. A scream built at the base of his throat, but it could not escape his mouth.
He was falling.
Down.
Down.
Where was he?
How did he get here?
Sometimes in these dreams he could fly, if only he thought about it hard enough. He tried to focus, to think past the pain as the wind battered him through the air like a broken leaf. He thought of a bumblebee hovering above a flower. A butterfly alighting on a branch. A bird taking wing.
But nothing happened. Instead he just kept falling, like a bowling ball tossed out of a skyscraper.
Theo craned his head downwards, trying to see where he would make his tiny little crater, and found himself looking at a swirling tumor of darkness in the heart of the world.
It was a storm, the mother of all storms. It stretched from horizon to horizon, a rolling sea of blackness lit with bruised purple lightning. It gazed at him like the malignant eye of a giant, and Theo tried desperately to look away.
But he was only falling faster now.
Thunder cracked, and even from a mile above it, the sound hit Theo like a physical wave of agony.
He rolled, desperate for something to stop his fall into the abyss, and to his surprise he found something else floating in the sky.
A castle, with sweeping battlements and tall towers, only upside down, clinging to the underside of a boulder floating through the sky like a wandering leaf.
And he was already falling past it.
Faster now, so fast that he could feel the blood leaving his head. And darkness was creeping in, blessed unconsciousness.
At least he wouldn’t have to be awake when he fell into that unending storm.
In the final moments before his brain turned off all the lights, he thought he saw a shadow on the clouds. The outline of a boy, flying through the sky like an angel. His arms were outstretched, a smile on his face.
And Theo knew no more.
He jolted awake, but this time his back was on smooth stone. A blue sky was overhead, and he heard the hum of people’s voices in the other room. There was the clatter of pots and pans, and the scent of food burning.
Theo smiled. Just a dream, everything was fine.
And then the thunder cracked so loud beneath him that he thought his spine had broken.
Theo yelped, curling into a ball.
The thunder roared again, and Theo could feel it starting. That numbness at the tip of his tongue and the edge of his fingers. His stomach was a ball of acid, eating through his skin. His heartbeat grew louder and louder until it overwhelmed the thunder.
Tears spilled from Theo’s eyes as he tried to get ahold of himself. But he was on the ride now, and there was no getting off.
His limbs shook, a constant shiver rattling his bones and sending his teeth clattering. His thoughts were out of control, racing faster and faster.
He was dead. He should be dead.
Falling, always falling, with nothing but darkness under his feet.
Where was he? How did he get here?
Where was everyone?
They left him. Of course they left him!
Useless Theo. Pathetic Theo!
There was voice whispering next to Theo’s head but couldn’t make out any words. It was calm though, as steady as a rock. Theo tried to grab hold of that voice in his mind, tried to anchor his rampaging thoughts.
And as his limbs shook and his heart bounded, Theo focused on the one thing he could control.
He breathed in, slowly, counting second by second. He breathed until it felt like his chest was a balloon and he was about to lift off the floor.
Then he let it out, even slower. He had all the time in the world, he didn’t need to rush. He did another breath.
He worked his way through the routine, as familiar to him as his own face. His heart slowed. His limbs stopped shaking. The tears started to dry on his eyes.
And he could understand the voice now. “Good weather today, pressure’s low, only a bit of cross breeze. Smells like autumn on the air, don’t you think? Don’t know why, we’re hundreds of miles from any trees, but it just smells like fall to me, for some reason.”
“I smell it too.” Theo said, his voice ragged and broken.
“Right? Maybe they’re cooking up something with pumpkin and cinnamon in the kitchen. Or maybe Tanner’s doing something knew with those candles he’s always yammering on about.”
“Could be.”
“Could be.” The voice said, before venturing slowly. “Are you feeling better now?”
“Yeah.” Theo dragged himself into a sitting position. He stared at his dress shoes while he dried his eyes. “Where am I?”
“Why don’t you look and see?” The other boy said. He gestured with his gloved hand to the wall.
Theo steeled himself, wary of another panic attack. He crept to the edge of the wall and found a gargoyle hanging upside down beneath him, glaring back up at him.
He was in a castle, but it was upside down.
He looked out. There was a curtain wall, but it clung to the immense rock ceiling far above. There was a tall tower, but it stabbed down into the abyss below rather than the sky. There were stone walkways, but now they were decorations on the roof, and narrow bridges of wood and rope connected the towers.
Below, far below this upside-down castle, there was a storm without end. It hung below like a vast tapestry of venomous black and poison purple. Lighting stitched it, and with every flash the storm seemed to pulse with rage.
“Am I awake?” Theo asked.
“I should hope so. You’re talking and what not.”
“What is this place?”
“Ah, difficult question. We haven’t had a guest in decades, and we like our privacy, so let’s just say this is a school.”
“A school?”
“Oh yes, one of the last ones, and the best.”
“I just graduated one high school.”
“Probably not a school as high as this one, right?” The other boy said, giggling at his pun.
But Theo was still too numb to join in. “No, probably not.”
“You’ve made quite an impression by tumbling through our air space. But you seem human, Falling Boy, so I’m not too bothered.”
“Human?” Theo croaked. “What else am I supposed to be? And who are you?”
“Elwyn Burke, Lancer First Class.” The other boy said, sketching a bow. He tripped as he tilted forward, and his feet twisted together as he tried to catch himself. His arms swung as he attempted to find his balance, but he overcorrected and toppled face first into the curtain wall.
“Oh, okay. Well that makes perfect sense. Call me Theo Lambert, then. Confused First Class.”
“Ow.” Elwyn said, clambering carefully to his feet. “Damn. Pay that no mind. It always takes me a few days to get my land legs back after I’ve been flying.”
He rubbed his head and glared accusingly at the wall. He was blond as a dandelion and apparently just as graceful. He wore a battered leather jacket with brass buttons and fur poking out of the collar. His pants were creased khaki, like something out of an old war film, and his boots were high and brown. A strange helmet and apparatus hung from his shoulders, connected to a device of twisting gears he wore like a backpack.
He was cute, Theo decided, and then immediately shushed the thought. He just had an abysmal panic attack in front of this boy, and this was probably all a dream anyways. Or, he thought as he looked at the storm below, a nightmare.
“Alright, Falling Boy, uninvited guests are a bit above my paygrade, and I was on my way to help out with the flying lesson anyways, so why don’t you take along. I’ll let the Professor interrogate you.” Elwyn said and spun on his heel to walk back into the castle’s depths.
Theo, having no idea what else to do, followed but was careful to walk well back from Elwyn in case the boy bumped into something that might fall.
As he walked, he tried to make sense of this odd place. The castle did not stand on solid ground, with blocks of stone laid each on the other to form high walls and parapets. It didn’t stand at all, in fact. It hung like a gigantic bat above the abyss, but the rock it clung to was even stranger.
Theo craned his neck, trying to find what the castle was attached to, but as he followed the roof of rock so far overhead it kept ending in open space.
He thought at first it must an outcrop, something clinging to an impossibly tall mountain. But he could not find that immense structure, try as he might.
He spun until he thought his neck would break. But there wasn’t a speck of solid ground in sight. His breath became ragged, and he forced himself to count it as he reached the only possible conclusion. The rock the castle clung to was not attached to anything.
This castle, this rock, it floated above the void, tethered to nothing at all.
Who would build a castle upside-down, Theo wondered?
The hallway they walked through had new wood floors, but an old stone ceiling with footsteps worn into it. They entered a great hall and stepped lightly around chandeliers that rested on the floor rather than chained up above. They hustled past a grand staircase, but its steps started a dozen feet over Theo’s head, and they went up into the roof rather than down to the floor.
Nausea gripped Theo’s stomach like an iron vice, and he seemed to sway with every step.
Had this once been a normal castle? How could it possibly end up in the sky, and upside-down at that?
What a funny dream he was having. Usually his sleeping thoughts were filled with all the things that could go wrong in his normal world. Missed classes, bad grades, stupid words. Normal fodder for an anxious boy’s nightmares. But flying castles and endless storms? This sounded more like something Huck would dream up?
Elwyn paid it all no mind however, and walked through at all as if it were perfectly normal to wander through a topsy turvy fortress above an endless storm.
He led Theo further into the castle, through still more rooms where the ceiling had become the floor until they arrived at a courtyard next to the great tower.
One side of the room opened into the sky like the mouth of a cave. Pairs of fighters, of all ages, dueled with swords or spears and shields. Some wrestled in groups, others stretched themselves into contortions so complex it made Theo’s muscles ache.
The wind invaded the room in billowing gusts that sent Theo back on his heels. But the fighters barely flinched. Some even seemed to ride every swell, as graceful as dancers.
In the corner stood an old woman in the same sort of flight suit that Elwyn wore, although hers bore the marks of years of service. She looked out the vast opening into the bright blue sky, the wind swaying her iron gray hair.
“So, this is the boy who fell past my castle.” She said, without turning around. Her voice was low, but her syllables were clipped, measured, and unwelcoming.
“Guilty as charged, Strafer.” Elwyn said.
“Knock off the chipper, Elwyn. It’s Professor Litvak when we’re on the ground.” Litvak turned around. For all the woman’s scorn, her face was smooth and unlined, only her clenched jaw showed her irritation. Her eyes scanned Theo from top to bottom, and then hardened like cold flint.
“What brought you here, falling boy?”
Theo swallowed passed the anxiety and forced out “I don’t know.”
“That is the answer of a child.”
“It’s the truth. I just woke up, and I was in the sky.”
“Sounds like a born flyer to me, Professor.” Elwyn said, grinning widely as Litvak became still sterner. “I figured I would take him straight to class.”
“Amusing. You wish me to teach this intruder?”
“Visitor, Professor.”
“Whatever you wish to call him it is clear this fellow has never seen the sky before.” She said, now pacing around Theo. “You should know that I’m the one that sent Elwyn winging after your falling hide. You flew about as well as a dog caught in a hurricane. How Elwyn expects you to soar is beyond me, especially considering how poorly you lie.”
“Lie?”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe you just ‘woke up’ above the endless eye of the Godstrom?”
“It’s not a lie!” Theo said, anger flaring.
“Well it must be a miracle then. But I have trouble believing in such things. Elwyn may think you are an amusing curiosity, falling boy, but I find myself unimpressed. However, you should be happy to know that I no longer think you are a stormkrow. At least they can fly.” She turned back to the window, dismissing Theo with a wave of her hand.
“No, I think not, Elwyn. His form is flabby and weak. He’s afraid of me and he’s afraid of the sky. And worst of all, he’s a wretched liar. Take him back. This boy wouldn’t last two seconds in the Godstrom, and I’ve watched too many of my students tumble past me and into the black.”
“Hold it, Professor. You’re being unfair. I saw Theo above the storm. I’m the one that flew out there, and trust me, he was only moments away from flying himself.”
Theo faced the boy, blush ripping across his face, but he didn’t know how to contradict Elwyn in a way that didn’t have Litvak throwing him off the castle.
Him fly? Impossible.
But Elywn was still talking. “He looked right into the storm’s eye and didn’t scream. He deserves a chance.”
“You’re a precious fool, Elwyn, and too quickly to think the best of someone.”
“Maybe he’s sign, Professor. One even this fool can see.”
She flinched at his words. “I’m not taking chances.”
“I thought this castle was a place of faith, of impossible things, Professor.” She swiveled to face him; her face clouded. “Am I wrong?”
Her hands clutched at her neck, tightening around a pendent beneath her clothes.
“You wish to test him, then? Follow me.”
She led them across the room to the center of a ring that lay in the center of the place of arms. A wooden circle as wide as a wagon wheel lay inside the ring. Litvak directed Theo to stand atop the circle as she moved to a series of levers in front of him. Elwyn stood to the side, arms crossed, but the smile had returned to his face. He gave Theo a thumbs up.
“Flight is an art form, and while the bird and bee instinctively know how to do it, we must study it. Some scholars study for years without ever achieving more than a glide. This castle is littered with those that feel they were denied a gift that the lucky received.” Litvak said as she gestured at Elwyn and herself. Her voice had slipped out of its steady and clipped pace. Now it rose and fell with passion as she continued to lecture.
“But there is no gift, there is only determination. Flight requires an effort of supreme will, of total self-mastery. We shall see if you are capable of such a thing” Theo shuffled his feet and heard a dull tap as he did so. He tapped his shoe, and heard it again, and with dawning horror he looked into Litvak’s eyes.
“Before you can fly we must first study how you fall. Begin.” Litvak said, and she pulled the first lever.
The ground dropped out from Theo’s feet as the trap door opened. He tumbled down into space, desperately trying to grab onto the sides of the hole, until wind shot up that sent him flying upwards.
The wind struck him like a thunderclap, nearly spinning him onto his back. He spread his arms and legs as far as he could and managed to prevent the turn. He hovered in space, caught in an unceasing fall, before the eyes of Litvak and Elwyn who watched him flounder with a professional eye.
Theo tried to adjust his form. Images of eagles, and flying squirrels tumbled through his mind. He cupped his hands, tucked his head forward, and flexed his arms hoping to fall close enough to the edge that he could grab onto it.
The wind raced up his newly positioned arm and along his back, sending the sweat on his neck shooting down his spin. He floated a few inches forward, until he was almost within reach of solid ground.
Litvak spun a new dial, and the wind changed. It pummeled him up so that he soared above Elywn and Litvak’s heads.
Theo’s stomach surged upward, his pulse began to race, and he knew what was coming. He shut his eyes and tried to breath, to control his flailing muscles, but the wind kept battering him, shaking him like a bent leaf. He could not count his breaths, he could not find his heartbeat, and his brain was spinning faster and faster out of control.
He could feel a scream building inside his throat and mind that threatened to consume him.
The wind shut off.
Instead of yards, he fell inches. His head hit the stone floor with a dull thud but did not split open. Litvak had lowered him during his panic attack. They stood over him now, observing.
He felt their gaze bore into his back, that same judgmental stare he had felt all his life. He forced himself to count. Heartbeats and deep breaths ticked by as his body began to relax.
Two panic attacks in front of the same cute boy. He had the worst luck in the world.
He pulled himself into a sitting position. His hands steady again. Theo did not know how much time had passed. Elwyn sat beside him, but Theo would not meet his eye. He looked into his lap and at his own clenched hands. He made sure that they did not shake. Litvak stepped into the corner of his sight.
“It is over. I have seen what I needed to see.”
Elwyn’s hand tried to rest on Theo’s shoulder, but he shook it off. Theo forced his head to lift and saw Litvak staring back at him.
“You were in the air for three minutes, but I only needed one. You have control of your hands and your form. You never tumbled or broke your wings. You even managed to glide for a bit, that’s more than most can manage during their first fall. But there is a separation I cannot tolerate, a split I’m still trying to figure out.”
She crouched down in front of him, and her face seemed to fill Theo’s world. She prodded his head with the point of her finger.
“Here,” Her finger dropped and poked his chest, “and here. There is a disconnect. A break between your mind and your body. You’re afraid of something. Something that the body already knows. But you’re not afraid of me, or of Elwyn. You’re not even afraid of falling, are you?” Litvak said, as her head turned to the side. “No, I can see it in your eyes. You’ve been falling a long time, haven’t you? You’re not afraid of it anymore.”
A shiver shot through Theo’s heart.
“Professor...” Elwyn said, his face filled with apprehension.
“What are you afraid of, Theo?” Litvak said.
“That this is real.” Theo whispered. “That this isn’t a dream.”
“You think you’re dreaming?” Professor Litvak asked.
“I AM dreaming.”
“No, you are not. This is real.” The Professor said and her arms rose and spread to encompass the rest of the room, the rest of the floating castle, the rest of the endless void it floated in.
“It can’t be real! Floating castles, a sky without end. It’s impossible! I’m in a dream, I’m in a dream, I’m in a dream.” Theo said, his eyes shut against further intrusions. “If this is real then where are my friends? Explain that.”
“This is real, child. I cannot speak for your friends. Perhaps they are gone, perhaps they are missing. This is real, and until you accept it you cannot and will not fly.”
“It’s impossible.”
“Yes, and that is precisely what we accomplish in this funny little castle of ours.” There was a soft brush of air, and Theo opened his eyes.
Elwyn floated above them both, his feet inches off the floor. There was not a trace of strain upon his face as he flew in front of them like a visiting angel. It was as if they were the dull ones who had simply forgotten how to fly.
“Seems like falling is a bad habit of yours, Theo.” Elwyn said, floating before them without a care in the world. “Why don’t we fix that?”
Theo lost his breath. It was just like before, when Elwyn had pulled him from the sky. A man flying through the sky as easy as if he were going for a walk.
In his dreams Theo flew far above his fears. Why couldn’t he make that real?
“I want to fly.” Theo said, and his voice was as steady as his hands.
“Are you ready to try again?” Litvak asked.
“I am.” He said, and he moved to the circle as Professor Litvak returned to her instruments.
He thought of his friends, so different from him; brave where he was scared, strong where he was weak. They were lost just like him, but he would find them in this dreamlike world, even if he had to do the impossible.
Litvak threw the switch, the ground dropped out from Theo’s feet, and he tried to fly.