Learning to Jump

            The stagecoach, although large, was crowded. It smelled of too many bodies and horses and distance. Miles and miles ago the seven strangers had begun their journey chatting amicably, sharing stories and gossip, inquiring about each other’s destination. But now, seven or eight hours since leaving the capital city, all was quiet, each member of the assorted company sleeping or lost in his own thoughts. One traveler had been quieter than the rest from the beginning. The first to board the vehicle, he had secluded himself in a corner, drawn his long, tattered black coat around himself, pulled his dirty hat down over his eyes, and appeared now to be deep in sleep. He avoided conversation as a matter of habit, and feigning sleep was an easy way to fend off nosy albeit well-intentioned questions.

            Abruptly, the coach halted. Those asleep were jerked into consciousness, and a couple of people knocked heads audibly. All was silent for a moment, and then murmurs of a heated conversation came drifting down to the travelers from the driver’s seat. The man in the corner sat up, slightly annoyed at being pulled out of his musings. He pushed his hat back from his eyes, revealing a young face that despite his age looked weary of the world. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and a scraggly light brown beard was trying to make its appearance. With a dirty hand he pushed a stray piece of hair from his forehead, then leaned forward and opened the window opposite the door. The voices became more distinct.

            “What do you think you’re doing? Gimme back those reigns!”

            “Boss, I don’t understand. Why are we taking a road that’s not on the map? We had a route planned before we left.”

            “I–uh–think we’d better save a little time by going through the woods. It’s–it’s more convenient.”

            “But people avoid these woods for a reason! I had a friend just up and disappeared in there. I’m not making this up. People go in and don’t come out.”

            “Aw, you’re just yelleh’. What’s wrong, do you need your mummy here to hold your hand? I don’t care about any old wives’ tale. Going around would add hours to our trip…no one wants that.”

            The quiet traveler leaned out the window and addressed the speakers. “’Scuse me.”

            The driver and his companion fell silent and twisted around to see a head sticking out of the window.

            “Might you be good enough to explain our delay?” the owner of the disheveled head asked.

            The younger of the two on the top seat snorted. He hadn’t imagined the strange, hatted traveler had any manners.

            The driver shot him an angry look and replied, “It’s nothing, sir. This little boy here,” with a sideways glance at his companion, who was at least seventeen, “is scared of these woods. Nothing to mind. Only some silly stories.”

            “They’re not just stories! It’s true!” Turning to the head protruding from the window, the youth continued. “They say something odd lives in these woods. Something else. Something that doesn’t belong.”

            “Oh come off it,” the driver snarled, with a cuff to the back of the boy’s head. Then, turning back to his passenger, “We’re just taking a shortcut that’ll put us all in the city before suppertime. There’ll be no more delays, sir, I promise.” He snapped the reigns, having reclaimed them from the boy, and the stagecoach, leaving the main road, veered onto the narrow path that led away into a dark wood.

            The traveler pulled his head back inside and shut the window. He was immediately assailed with questions from the other passengers who hadn’t heard the exchange. Once they were satisfied with his brief answers, he settled back down in his corner, and found a pair of eyes on him.

            They belonged to the only child in the vehicle, a little urchin of about seven, with straggly blonde hair and a smudge on her nose. It wasn’t directly obvious whose child she was; she showed no particular affiliation with any of the adults in the coach. She was holding what could only be described as a doll, but it looked at if someone blind had put it together. It appeared to have a multitude of limbs, or maybe one of those was a long neck. In any case, it was obvious that this child lived in some form of poverty. He felt the slightest connection to her at that realization. They had something in common.

            Uncommon as the action was for him, he gave her a small smile. She grinned and hugged her doll more tightly. He turned his gaze back toward the window. Although it was only early afternoon, it looked more like dusk outside. The forest was so thick now that the trees were competing for air space, and had formed an immense canopy stretching for miles in every direction. Were it not for the rocky path they were on, it would be impossible to orient oneself in this maze.

            The stagecoach stopped again. Rolling his eyes, the young man prepared to open the window again, when a strange sense he couldn’t name told him something was wrong. He looked around at his fellow passengers and found them all asleep. He thought this a little odd…surely at least a few of them had been awake mere seconds ago. Then he noticed that he had missed the smallest member of the company: the little girl was the only one awake, staring at him again, this time with fear and confusion in her expression.

            “I’ll figure out what’s going on,” he assured her.

            She remained silent. He opened the window again and called to the driver. No response this time. Strange. He withdrew his head, shut the window and clambered out of the crowded space, stepping down onto the path. He started in surprise when he saw the driver and his companion both asleep as well, the youth’s head on the driver’s shoulder and the driver snoring uproariously.

            “Hey!” the man called. There was no reply. He reached up and shook the driver’s arm as hard as he could. Still no response. “WAKE UP!” He yelled, loud enough to wake anything sleeping for miles. However, the inhabitants of the coach slept on. Suddenly the little girl was on the path beside him, still clutching her other-worldly doll.

            “It’s alright,” the man said, trying to reassure himself as well as the child.

            “Will you help me find my mommy?” she asked. The strangeness of the question made him pause before answering,

            “Isn’t your mommy in there?” as he pointed to the coach.

            She shook her head, swirling her dirty hair around her face. Tugging on his sleeve, she walked to the front of the coach and pointed ahead and off to the right. “She’s in there.”

            He furrowed his brow. “She’s not in the woods. What about your daddy? Is he in the coach?”

            She shook her head vehemently and kept pulling his sleeve toward the forest. “I need to find my mommy! She’s this way. Please help me!”

            Her eyes were huge and sad, and a less rational person would certainly have been swayed by her plea. However, the young man knelt to her level and put his hands gently on her shoulders. She released his sleeve.

            He spoke slowly. “I don’t understand. Why do you think your mommy’s in the forest? No one goes into this forest. There’s nothing in there but trees.”

            “No!” she declared. “She’s in there. I was supposed to come too, but I got lost. That’s why I travelled with you.”

            “You got into a stagecoach all by yourself to come here? To the woods?”

            She nodded. “Yup, and I told them to take the shortcut. This is where I was supposed to go!” Taking hold of his coat, she began pulling him toward the woods again.

            Her belief that she had any say in the route of the coach made him smile. Then he stood and looked doubtfully into the trees. He turned and looked back at the coach. The entire company was still as peaceful as anything. He looked back into the woods. The child was still eagerly pulling on his coat.

            Finally, shaking his head at his foolishness, he decided to humor the girl, but told himself that he would not go far enough to lose sight of the coach. At his first step in her direction, the girl gave a giggle of delight.

            “Come on,” she said, smiling. “You can meet my mom and my dad and my cousins…”

            He stopped abruptly. “Wait a second, how many people are lost in this forest?”

            She giggled again. “Not lost, silly. I’m lost. But once we find them I won’t be lost anymore.”

            He sighed. He had never quite understood children, but was aware of their intense imaginations. This must be a game to her.

            As they continued walking he kept checking over his shoulder for sight of the coach, still exactly as they had left it. He tried to think what could have possibly come over everyone. Were they drugged? Was it in fact something about the forest, as the youth had claimed? And why was he, out of the six adults on the coach, the only one still awake? Questions without answers seemed useless, so he shrugged it off. After this little girl was satisfied that her family was actually elsewhere, he would return to the original problem.

            Finally they reached a point where he was beginning to second-guess whether he could actually still see the path. Yes…that was it. A needle-thin line on the forest floor that was a lighter-colored dirt and not covered in leaves. The coach had already disappeared, obscured by the trees that were as thick as two men and spaced no more than three or four feet apart. He stopped walking. The girl pulled on his coat and frowned up at him.

            “We can’t go farther or we’ll forget the way back,” he explained. “See?” He asked, gesturing at the woods. “There’s no one here.”

            “We haven’t gone far enough!” she complained, still pulling at him.

            “Listen,” he knelt again, “there is no one in this forest but you and me.”

            She looked like she was thinking about believing him, and her face grew frightened. “But­–but…they have to be here! We were all coming together! I just got lost because I came the wrong way.”

            “What do you mean, ‘came the wrong way’? How did you lose your family in the first place?”

            “Well, I’m still learning how to jump. I usually hold Mommy’s hand and she takes me, but this time I tried it by myself.”

            He shook his head to clear it. This was a stretch, even for this wild little creature. “Jump? What in the world does that have to do with anything?”

            “We jump here from home. Didn’t you?”

            He had no reply. Either the girl was having a ridiculous game with him, or she was legitimately insane.

            She continued. “You had to jump. There’s no other way to get here. I knew you weren’t one of them.” She pointed toward the stagecoach. “Otherwise you’d be asleep too.”

            She instantly had his attention.

            “Asleep? How…do you know why they’re asleep?”

            “Of course. I made them sleep so the vehicle would stop. Just like I whispered in the driver’s head that we should take the shortcut.”

            He stood and took a step away from her, telling himself again that she was just playing a game. However, that strange sense he couldn’t identify was whispering to him, saying that she was right. He shook his head again.

            “Who–who are you?” he asked slowly.

            “I’m me!” she giggled.

            He was getting angry, and decided he was finished putting up with this nonsense. “Come on,” he said sternly. “We’re going back.” He turned around, but a cry of delight turned him back. The girl was running away into the forest. He drew breath to call her back, but then saw that she was in fact running toward someone. Whomever she was meeting was too far off to see properly. He swore under his breath and started jogging after her.

            As the other person approached he saw it was a woman, and as she swooped the child into her arms he saw that she had been crying. He stood a few feet from the reunited pair, panting. After the child was done being cuddled, she squirmed out of the woman’s arms and ran to the man.

            “Look!” she exclaimed. “I told you she was here!”

            “Yes…I guess you were right,” he said hesitantly. He noticed that the woman was staring at him curiously, much as the little girl had done on the coach.

            She spoke softly to her daughter. “And who is this? He…belongs with us, no?”

            The little girl fixed the young man with a fierce stare that he met with confusion. After considering him for a moment, she answered her mother. “Well, I think so. But he’s awfully strange. I think he’s lost here, too.” She giggled. “He doesn’t even know what jumping is!”

            The woman examined him closely, nodding in agreement with her daughter.

            Finally, exasperated, he spoke. “Please, I’m sorry. I don’t understand at all. Who are you? What are you doing here in the forest?”

            The woman gave a small smile. “You don’t belong here, do you?”

            “Here in the forest? Certainly not.”

            She shook her head. “Here on this planet.” He was silent. She smiled again, seeing his confusion. “We—my family and I—jumped down for a little vacation time, but this one didn’t time her landing quite right.” She tweaked her daughter’s nose affectionately.

            He shook his head again, becoming more bewildered by the second.

            The woman chuckled, seeing that her approach wasn’t working. “Perhaps it will be easier if we show you. We’re not supposed to leave this form while visiting the planet, but,” she glanced around at the woods, “I think it’s safe, for a second.”

            Then the young man began to wonder if he actually was asleep with the rest of the passengers and simply dreaming, because the woman and her daughter started changing shape right in front of him. Their clothes melted into their bodies, their arms and legs grew, and more limbs sprouted from their torsos. Their necks stretched up and their hair shrank in, and finally standing before him were two creatures of a soft pink with eight indistinguishable limbs each, four of which they stood on. The mother (he assumed) was now two heads taller than he was, and the daughter a head shorter. The daughter also appeared to be covered with extremely fine white hair or fur (he couldn’t decide which), so fine that her pink skin showed clearly through.

            With a start, he realized that they looked exactly like the misshapen doll the girl still held. He staggered back a couple steps, trying to catch his breath.

            “Now you realize,” said the mother, her voice now deeper and more resonant but still female, “that we would never have shown you this were you completely human.”

            It took him a moment to find his voice. “What do you mean? I’m not human??”

            “No. At least, not entirely. Have you never suspected it? You don’t belong here.”

            He considered this. He would have passed this off as himself going crazy, were it not for the fact that, in the farthest reaches of his mind that he was never quite conscious of, he had suspected it. Not that he was from another planet, of course, but that he didn’t quite belong here among all these…humans. The word suddenly seemed foreign. He had never known his parents. Perhaps it was possible that they had been strangers here as well, as the two beings before him certainly were.

            “How…” he paused, not sure of the question he was trying to ask. “Do–do you think I belong on your world then?”

            “I think it likely. Why don’t you come and find out?” She offered a slender, four-fingered hand.

            His heart stopped beating. He looked back toward where he thought the coach must be, although he could no longer see it.

            “They’ll be fine,” she said with a smile. “I’ll awaken them once we leave.”

            He looked back at the hand she offered. Then another hand, smaller and downy, presented itself.

            “Come on!” the girl whispered excitedly. “Jump!”