Harold's Secret

I set a brisk pace back to the hotel to find the party gathered in the lobby, the anticipation of a long journey etched on their faces. Kyle was tapping the armrest of his chair with a tireless finger, while Leo was trying to convince Paelyn that there was no immediate hurry to leave.

I sat down across from them and struck up a conversation with Kyle about what supplies would be necessary for the trip. We would need food that could travel and a tinderbox. Had Lilian taken one of the tents? She had–we would have to replace it. We had about compiled a shopping list when Harold waltzed into the lobby, still wearing his robe.

“Harold, there you are. We need to know if you’re coming with us to the event.”

Harold made a groaning sound in reply as he passed, returning a few minutes later with a cup of coffee. “What was it you wanted to ask me?”

“Whether you are going to be traveling with us to the event. It’s in one week’s time and rather far away.”

“You’re leaving in a week?” said Harold, sipping the coffee, his eyelids half shut.

“No, we are leaving today or tomorrow–we haven’t decided which. The event takes place in a week, so we have a week to get there.”

“Oh I see. He’s not going to beam us in like last time?”

“Apparently not,” I said.

“Well that’s disappointing. I’d rather he just sent RSVP’s. 'Check yes to be spirited away, no to sit tight where you are.'”

“Are you going to come with us?” I asked to spare Kyle from having to ask a third time.

“I don’t know…depends how I feel.”

“We’re leaving soon. It could be as early as this afternoon. Can you be ready by then?”

“It depends how I feel at the time. I’m not going to commit to making future plans.”

“This isn’t really future plans,” I said.

“We need to know now so we can make appropriate arrangements for food, shelter, et cetera,” said Leo.

“Yeah, it doesn’t really work for you to not decide if you’re coming,” said Kyle irritably.

Harold yawned, standing up. “You’ll hear from me if I decide to come. Otherwise you won’t,” he said.

“So, am I adding supplies for him or not?” asked Leo, holding pen to paper.

Kyle shook his head, standing up. “I don’t know.”

“Right,” said Leo.

We settled on leaving early the next morning. I told Harold that evening, when I found him at the hotel bar, but he still would not answer whether he would be joining us.

The next morning we gathered in the lobby. When after ten minutes Harold was still nowhere to be found, I went upstairs to his room and yelled through the door that we were leaving. When no answer came, I went away and rejoined the others.

We stopped at the bakery on the way out of town for a last, quick bite of decent food, and started down the hill. At the bottom we turned left at the fork. Our maps were incomplete, but we could tell the general direction we were heading and where we needed to go. By then we were out of the woods, and the road, lined with tall cypress trees, could be seen stretching far away over the hills.

“I’ve missed being on the road,” said Leo. “It gives life and meaning to everything.”

“It gives life to my melancholy,” said Kyle. “How can you get excited about hiking all day, sleeping on the ground, and eating terrible food?”

“The food isn’t terrible,” said Leo.

“Ah, the food wasn’t terrible,” said Kyle, correcting him, “when we had Lilian to cook for us–who do you suppose is going to cook the meals now?”

“Oh, uh–Paelyn, you know how to cook, don't you?”

“Not really…” she said.

“Guessing you don’t either,” he said to Kyle.

“Nope, which means it’s up to you and old goblin hands to figure it out.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry! I know the rule I just forgot–no singling out your weird goblin features.”

“You’re not supposed to call them weird either,” said Leo.

“Whatever, anyways, I think you’re going to find the food may very well be terrible.” 

We walked on for a bit when Leo had a sudden thought. “Uh, do we have a pot to cook in?” 

“The pot that Lilian always used?” asked Kyle.

“Yeah…”

“I’m gonna guess that Lilian has that,” said Kyle.

Leo sighed. “Alright, the food might be terrible.”

When it got hot in the early afternoon we stopped to rest in the shade and eat an assortment of fruit: oranges, apples, grapes, and kiwis–which were refreshing after walking all morning in the sun. Dinner would be a different story. As evening approached, I heard Kyle and Leo arguing about whether you could eat a raw potato. In the end I suggested we roast them, skins on, in the fire. Not a bad idea on its own, but we were worried about the skins getting too black and pulled them out early. They were a bit hard in the middle, but with some salt and butter they were edible.

While we were eating Paelyn suddenly looked worried.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I think someone is watching us,” she said.

I told the others to be quiet.

“What is it?” asked Leo.

“Paelyn thinks she hears something,” I whispered.

“I don’t hear anything,” said Kyle.

“You’re not an elf,” I responded.

Kyle nodded thoughtfully.

We all strained to listen. Just when I thought I heard a twig snap, we were startled by a loud “There you are!” which almost made me fall off the wobbly rock I was sitting on.

“Harold!” we all yelled in unison.

“I’d hoped to catch up to you earlier. Pretty rude of you to leave without me.”

“We didn’t think you were coming,” I said. “We looked for you this morning and couldn’t find you.”

“Well I was out making last minute preparations for the trip.”

“What preparations?” I asked.

“I was getting my hair cut.”

Kyle put his palm over his eyes.

“Don’t you act like that. You need one most of all. You look like a mushroom.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the subtle changes that a month had wrought on our appearances. Seeing Harold with the sharp undershave he’d had when we first met put the time we’d spent in Eutopia in an interesting perspective.

“You didn’t happen to make any other preparations did you? More practical ones?” asked Leo.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, like buying cookware?”

“Cookware? You mean like a pot?”

“We don’t have one,” said Kyle.

“Then how did you make dinner?”

“We put potatoes in the fire,” I said.

Harold sighed. “And here I was telling myself that when I caught up to you I’d have a nice warm meal to cheer myself up with.”

“Shall I put a potato in for you?” asked Leo, poised by the fire, potato in hand.

“Yes. Please. Ugh, I just knew I should have stayed in Halcyon. Make it two actually, I’m starving.”

“One’s all you get!” shouted Kyle. “We don’t have rations for that because somebody didn’t tell us he was coming!”

“Okay! Calm down, my goodness…Who burned your potato?”

I went to get firewood to extend the life of the fire. When I returned, I found Harold and Paelyn sitting by the fire, while Leo and Kyle were trying to play a game.

“You’re cheating again!” said Kyle.

“No I’m not. I just tossed it,” said Leo.

“No, you’re using your super-accurate throw skill.”

“I don’t know how to throw less accurately,” said Leo.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get a third tent,” I said to Harold. “But three people is kind of the maximum.”

“No worries, Paelyn said I could sleep in hers.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” I said.

“Don’t be weird about it!” said Paelyn. “I’m not gonna make him sleep outside.”

“No, that’s nice! I only meant you guys seem to have a good relationship,” I said. And no romantic chemistry, but I kept the second part to myself.

In the morning we had fruit again, since potatoes needed too long to cook and many other rations required a pot or pan, like our bacon. When it was time to go, I noticed I hadn’t seen Harold. I asked Paelyn, and she said he was still asleep in the tent.

“Why didn’t you wake him?” I asked.

“I tried,” said Paelyn.

“What do you mean, you ‘tried’?”

“Come on, I’ll show you,” she said, leading me to her tent.

We entered the tent, now cleared of everything except Harold and his sleeping cover.

“Hey Harold get up, it’s time to go!” I almost shouted, kicking him with my foot. Harold didn’t stir.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“That’s what I thought, but he seems to be breathing,” she said with a nervous laugh.

I rolled him onto his back to get a better look at his face. He looked ashen pale, and for my part I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

“It could be a bug, or there could be something wrong with his Scuba,” I said.

“Can you do me a favor?” asked Paelyn.

“Of course,” I said.

“Tell the others Harold is feeling a little under the weather, but don’t give them specifics. Say I’m going to stay behind with him until he’s feeling better and to go on without us.”

“Okay, but why?”

“I’m sure Harold wouldn’t want to hold everyone up, and he probably wouldn’t want to have everyone worrying about him either. I know I wouldn’t. Can you please do this for me?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I’ll let the guys know.”

“Thanks.”

That day’s hiking brought us to the edge of a mountainous place. The road wound to the left, and it wasn’t clear if it was going around the mountains or veering off entirely. Given our uncertainty, we decided it was a good opportunity to stop for the night and let the others catch up, even though it was still relatively early.

“While we wait, I thought we could play a game,” said Kyle.

“What game?” asked Leo.

“The game is to see which of us can hit that tree over there with a rock.”

“You’re just going to lose again,” said Leo.

“I haven’t told you the rules yet,” said Kyle with a grin. He put the rock in my hand. I looked at him funny but took it.

“Now, equip your barrels,” he said.

I did as he instructed, and the rock shot up into the air. “The game is simple. Place a stone in Bastian's hand, adjust his body to aim, then when you’re ready you say ‘fire’, and he equips his barrels, sending the rock flying.”

“How did you come up with this?” asked Leo.

“I had a lot of time to think today, okay?” said Kyle. This new game proved surprisingly difficult and interesting, and a few unexpected results of failed strategies had us all in fits of laughter. We took a break to start a fire, and shortly thereafter Harold and Paelyn arrived. Leo, to Kyle’s enormous satisfaction, was not very good at this new version of the game, and after Kyle had won several times the rest of us even had a go. Dinner was roasted potatoes, much to everyone’s disappointment, and Kyle’s voluble disapproval. Leo asked if Harold was feeling better, and he said that he was. Neither he nor Paelyn mentioned anything additional to me, and I didn’t ask.

By the third day we were all feeling very sore, but mentally we had passed a hurdle. It was easy now to get lost in the natural landscape, as hours went by. I even started to enjoy the food, not for its taste but for the energy it gave me, and the fullness in my stomach. Our route took us largely around the mountains, circling the high snowcapped peaks along the ridges of the foot hills, and the views were spectacular. There were no monsters there to speak of besides the occasional bear fishing in the river, but we left them alone, and they didn’t bother us.

At last on the fifth day after our departure, we arrived at the place marked on the map, a kind of outdoor colosseum at the foot of the mountains. There were some fifty or sixty people there when we arrived, with more wandering in all the time. I glanced around from time to time but didn’t see Lilian or Ori.

“Nervous about seeing old friends?” asked Harold.

“Old friends. Old–I don’t even know… You?”

“I don’t have anyone I care about seeing.”

“You seemed to like Lilian,” I said.

Harold blushed. “She didn’t say goodbye to me either, you know. Do you think she and Baylor are going to get along?” (Harold had picked up calling him Baylor from Leo and Paelyn, though I still called him Kyle.)

“I don’t even know if they’ll speak to one another. Maybe they’ll act like nothing ever happened. I just don’t know.”

“I’m surprised there aren’t more here,” said Harold.

“I think quite a few have come in since it got dark, and more will probably show up tomorrow morning before things kick off.” I looked at Harold and found his face strangely focused.

“Woah, what has you so serious all of a sudden?”

Harold smiled. “Sorry, I was just thinking about the event tomorrow. This is the chance for people like you and me to catch up. We can’t afford to let it go to waste.”

“Right,” I said.

“Oh, and another thing. I know you guys might think now that we’re friends that things will be different, but I want you to know I’m still the same person who connived with Lilian. I plan to win this event, and I will go through you if I have to.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

We sat quietly for a few minutes. I was nervous to see Lilian, but the person I was most anxious about seeing was Ori. Would she treat me like an awkward former acquaintance or greet me as an old friend? I voiced my fear to Harold.

“Honestly, it doesn't really matter does it? I mean we’re almost a third of the way through this whole experiment now. If she wants to be your friend great, if not you’ll both be dead in four months anyway–if neither of you wins, of course.”

I was about to tell him that I couldn’t win the competition when I checked myself, remembering my promise to Pascal.

“Paelyn told me that you saw me in the tent,” he said, after a pause.

“Oh?” I said, unsure of how I should respond.

“Thanks for not saying anything the other day, and not pestering me for an explanation.”

“You’re welcome. I figure we’re all owed a little privacy.”

“Yes, well, I wanted to tell you not to worry. It’s something that happens to me every so often. I’ve talked to Pasqual about it. They aren’t entirely sure if it’s a problem with my acclimation to Scuba or if it’s something going on with my real body. Apparently when it happens my body is often having a seizure, but it makes me appear–down here–like I’m comatose.”

“Wow,” I said, trying to wear the appropriate expression. “Can that happen like anytime?”

“I don’t know, but it’s always happened at night when I’m sleeping. I didn’t even realize it was happening at first. I just thought I was oversleeping. It didn’t make sense that I was waking up so tired, but I didn’t really think there was anything worrying going on. Anyway, now you know. I told Paelyn the other day, but no one else knows about this.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said.

“Please don’t,” he said. There was a moment’s silence. “You’re not going to tell me your secret are you?” he said with a wry smile.

“I–how did you know?”

“I told you before: I have a sixth sense about people. It’s fine. I told you my secret because I wanted to–it doesn’t give me the right to know yours.”

I took a deep breath before answering. “You’re right to think I have a secret, but it’s not that I don’t want to tell you. Pascal made me promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone. I slipped up and told Lilian, but I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else–not even Ori knows.”

He clapped me on the back and got up.

“I’m turning in. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight,” I said. I stared out across the campground a while longer, watching the shapes of people moving in the dark, or silhouetted against one of the many firepits. It reminded me of being a kid and going camping–not in the wilderness, but at one of those preset camp sites where you have neighbors all around you, just on the other side of the trees.