The Door Into Elsewhere
The Door Into Elsewhere
A Roger the Dragon Story
It is not so much that Elsewhere is an alternate reality. After all, why would reality need multiple versions? On the other hand, there's also no good reason why reality should be the same everywhere. It is true that people have always assumed that the simplest explanation was best, or at least tried to keep the explanations as simple as necessary. But how would we know beforehand how complicated they would need to be?
So it turns out that there are places in reality where things are a wee bit ... different. Not obvious things like sunlight or gravity. But there are places where the creatures of our dreams live. And this makes perfect sense: otherwise, how would we be able to imagine them? Dreams are no place for any self-respecting creature to live.
In fact, the Enchanted Forest is just one example of such a place. Elsewhere is an entirely different one.
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The Door Into Elsewhere was not very large, so it was a good thing that Richard was not, either. In fact, it was not even a proper door. It was simply a dark archway under the hedge at the bottom of the garden. If the other boys had not been pursuing him, he might not have found it at all.
One minute he was running along the thick old hedge through long wet grass after a rainstorm. The next he had ducked into the dark opening, hoping to get far enough into the hedge to hide from his pursuers. Only, instead of a dripping dark hole full of spider webs, he found himself suddenly on the other side of the hedge, in a forest of tall trees. The weather was unexpectedly different, too: here the sunlight was the warm silver of an overcast summer day, the air dry and warm. On this side, thrushes were singing here and there in the distance, and there were none of the human sounds of the neighborhood he had left, most especially no calls from the boys he was running from. Nevertheless, he decided to run deeper into the woods, just to be sure.
One cannot run forever, though, or even for very long. After a few minutes, he stopped behind the thick trunk of a tree to catch his breath. What surprised him was that no one had caught him; in fact, no one had even come through the hedge, as far as he could tell. It appeared that he had lost them.
Unfortunately, it also appeared that he had lost himself. For when he returned to the hedge, he could no longer find the Door, even after casting up and down along it in longer and longer sweeps. Everywhere he looked the bushes grew in tangled clumps. Nowhere was there a space he could even try to wriggle into.
Fear, which had only recently left him, returned. He yelled for help, his former predicament forgotten. There was no reply. The woods, which had seemed warm and welcoming earlier, began to seem forbidding and harsh compared to the lawn on the other side of the hedge. He wanted to go home now. He sat against a tree trunk facing the hedge and began to cry.
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June had watched Richard running from the other boys from a hiding place across the lawn. She had something of a sixth sense for trouble, and perhaps a seventh for trying to stop it. There was not really much she could do against the whole crowd of them, though, so she had been forced to watch.
She saw Richard desperately throw himself into the little archway in the hedge. She watched the pursuers overshoot his hiding place, then spread out to look for him. One boy even looked under the hedge at the exact spot where he disappeared, but somehow failed to see Richard. She made a mental note of the spot, though. Eventually the boys became bored and ran off screaming towards some other mischief. She carefully left her hiding place and ran home to fetch Roger. She was sure he would know what to do.
She was sure of that because Roger was a dragon, and dragons have many abilities besides flying and fire-breathing. They are an ancient and noble race with much secret lore passed down among them. Not that they are known for being extremely intelligent, but they are subtle. Well, and as the saying goes, quick to anger.
Physically, Roger was a fairly ordinary dragon except for one thing: in an encounter with a deceitful wizard, he had been shrunk from the size of a house down to someone that June could carry easily. Picture, to start with, something a bit like an iguana, with splayed legs and a whiplike tail. Add bony ridges over his eyes, a crest at the back of his head, and of course, leathery wings stretched over bony struts to give him exquisite control in flight. Examine his blackish-grey scales and the thick hide that makes dragons all but impervious to damage. Then, look him in the eyes, and note the pride, the sadness, and the nobility of one who ought to be ranked among the kings of beasts. His eyes say that even though he may be currently living in the back of a little girl's clothes closet, he is still a personality to reckon with. And he had chosen June as his friend.
So, when she arrived back home breathless and calling for him, he flew to her shoulder and listened to her explain what she had seen.
"And now I can't find Richard anywhere!" she concluded.
She listened as Roger planned out their search. Then she ran off to fetch the household items he had asked for. Finally, they set off together for the great hedge and their adventure into Elsewhere.
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