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Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Bloomtree Press
ISBN-10: 1480008095
Type: Fiction
Pages: 276
Copyright: April 30, 2013
ISBN-13: 9781480008090
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
A boy facing a difficult life decision is magically turned into a bug by a giant oak tree, forcing him to take an extraordinary journey that brings startling changes to himself and those around him.
When a boy is faced with a choice between two tracks for his future, an unlikely source sends him on an incredible expedition across a meadow-- becoming a bug in the process. Forced to trust his instincts and follow his heart, he must complete his fabulous and terrifying quest before it is too late to return to the land of humans.
A fantasy of astonishing depth and resonance, Monk's tale of self-discovery and escape from family pressures is as entertaining as it is fulfilling. His use of Marcel's metamorphosis as metaphor exposes the weird and wonderful world that exists right under our feet.
Sans wizards, witches, or dragons, Strange Metamorphosis instead features dragonflies, a legendary tree, and a gallfly in one of the most extraordinary adventures you will ever embark on.
Excerpt
1
A Case of the Conscience
In a shabby brick cottage that sat on a plot where machines seemed to grow among the bushes, a teenage boy was tilting pensively on a wooden chair. The legs squeaked and bits of straw fell from the seating as he balanced deliciously over the center of gravity. It was his habit to loll back his head to one side to let his cat intermittently lick his dark thatch of hair. She was lounging half in the sun, half in the shade, on her tatty old cushion that lay among the various odd devices that intermingled with the other sideboard residents. In fact, virtually every surface of the cluttered dining room was occupied by “alternative ornaments”: a sparkplug here, a bulb there, a piece of rubber tubing, an odd set of screws in a jar… Needless to say, the boy had a passion.
He sat with one foot outstretched and a big toe acting as a counter-stop beneath the lateral support of the dining table. This unlikely posture was quite possibly Marcel Dassaud’s optimal thinking pose. Of course, some questions in life deserved such careful deliberation; their outcomes may have irreversible consequences.
***
Beautiful butterflies and gilded beetles adorned the walls in the plush furnished drawing room at Villeneuve. A bee bumbled insistently against the tall French windows as Philibert Deforge, the proprietor of the manor house, put down his newspaper and pulled out his pocket watch in exasperation.
‘I’m sure he won’t be long, dear. He’s probably busy helping his mother,’ said his wife peering over her spectacles while continuing her game of patience. ‘She did say she might hang on a while and take the midday coach. Poor woman, she’s quite prepared to let him go, but she always has been such a ditherer.’
Philibert Deforge sprang up from his high-backed armchair, rolled his paper into a club, and strode toward the bee with a watch-out-here-comes-the-bug-buster look on his face.
‘Besides, he might be a boy wonder, but you know Marcel lives in a world of his own, Papa,’ said Henriette, who broke off stumbling through her arpeggios at the grand piano in a corner of the room.
‘Somewhere between planet auto and planet loco, that’s where you’ll find Marcel Dassaud,’ said her cousin Julia, who sat beside her to turn the pages.
‘I mean, have you ever known him to be on time?’ continued Henriette. ‘He never thinks about anyone else; it’s just beyond him.’
‘He does have mitigating circumstances,’ said Madame Deforge.
‘Like living in the...
2
The Great Oak Tree
He let his stride carry him past the magnificent cedar tree where the peacock was proudly preening its feathers on a low bough. Then he walked across the alley of horse chestnut trees and over the sun-splayed meadow toward the thick shade of the grand old oak, a veritable monument of nature.
Many a time he had climbed it to where the trunk ramified into seven solid branches. There he would sit seven meters up, inventing things in the mossy pit while his father, the late steward of the manor grounds, went over the accounts with Monsieur Deforge. A smile crept along the boy’s lips as he recalled his dad whispering in his ear that it was a magic tree, a wise tree in which you could confide a momentous secret or share the burden of a clogged-up mind.
The great tree, which measured a staggering twelve meters in girth, was over a thousand years old, the earliest mention of its existence being recorded in the local cadaster of 1096 as the wise man’s oak past which the road runs to Jerusalem. The wise man in question was the just and revered Guy Darasus, an herbalist versed in the secrets of plants and a wise counselor by nature. According to the legend, at the close of his life, local folk asked him where they could turn for support and advice when he was gone. So the old sage arranged for his body to be buried beneath the already twice centenarian oak in the promise that his wisdom and counsel be passed into its grain. In this way, on his deathbed he was able to vow that those brave enough to confront their conscience beneath the tree’s boughs may find guidance and peace within.
Some strange fairy tale, thought the pragmatic lad as he strolled up to the foot of the tree. Though he had to admit it was certainly true that he had found no place better for comfort and inspiration.
Marcel placed his hat and parked his posterior on the plinth of a Virgin Mary statue. He propped his net beside him and steered his thoughts back to his single most favorite subject: his Vroomster, a fabulous 4-cylinder 1500 cc automobile, which he believed would replace the horse and cart and take even the humblest of humanity rolling effortlessly into the twentieth century.
It wasn’t long, though, before something else came nudging its way between thoughts. That two-faced dilemma he had been trying to ignore over the last weeks was back and now wearing Madame Deforge’s smirk of triumph on one side and Julia’s blazing glare on the other.
All right, being awarded a scholarship was quite an achievement for someone not yet fifteen, but what of it? It would mean going to the city, where he knew no one, and competing with the street-wise city kids. It would make things easier if at least he could know if he had it in him to rise to the challenge. And what about Deforge, who expected him to start on the estate? True, it was a rare opportunity for one of his humble background, not to mention one that would enable him to stay at home. And he would have happily walked into it if Julia had not come along and talked him into taking the scholarship exam. The last post to send off his acceptance fell at noon Saturday next, ironically the same day as Henriette’s birthday party.
‘Well, should I stay or should I go?’ he said to himself, gazing up toward the pit of the tree.
Of course there was no answer amid the summer song of cicadas; only the rustle of green leaves whispered in the boy’s ear as he watched the sun filter through them. But then the tree began to creak. This was followed by a gut-churning crack of timber as the whisperings grew into a deafening crescendo. Marcel suddenly felt his blood course through his veins. An ominous shiver bolted down his spine and rooted him to the spot. He then became aware that the low boughs were growing higher and higher, that the tree’s trunk was growing fatter and fatter, that it was all shooting up before his very eyes. He shook his head, screwed his fists into his eye sockets, and again looked up in wonder at the thick boughs that now seemed a thousand meters above his head, until, looking round toward the house, the boy at last realized that in fact the tree had not grown at all. Judging by the canopy of giant grasses that lay before him, it dawned on him that he had shrunk!
3
A Message in an Oak Apple
He found himself on top of the plinth, lodged in a fold of the statue’s plaster of Paris robe, near its right foot.
‘Crikey, what’s happened to me?’ he deplored in horror as he got to his feet. ‘I can’t be more than two centimeters tall! What will Deforge say?’ he fretted, measuring himself against his boater. But his panic attack gave way to sheer terror the moment he looked over the ledge at the mosaic slab on the ground below. It was like he was standing on the plinth of the Statue of Liberty. Then, caught between consternation and anger, he coiled back into the fold and howled out above him: ‘Why is this happening to me? What have I done?’
There was no answer. Nothing else happened. Pulling himself together, he stood up again with a resolute stamp. ‘No, this is impossible, this-is-im-poss-ible,’ he said, hammering out the syllables to make them ring true. ‘This cannot be happening. I must be dreaming; I am dreaming, come on,’ he said, braving a step out from the fold. ‘I know…if I stand on one foot and count to five, I’ll wake up.’ But he had not got past four when someone took the next word out of his mouth.
‘Five thousand and seventy-six, five thousand and seventy-five.’ Marcel nearly stumbled clean over the plinth as he looked over at the nearby hawthorn bush. A brownish caterpillar resembling a twig was counting its strides as it looped its way down the stem. The boy steadied his stance and stood gawking at the insect. Even though there were at least two meters between them, he was fascinated to find he could make out every detail as clearly as looking through a magnifying glass: the outgrowth on the creature’s back, the pores on the side of its abdomen where it took in air. He was wondering if he had ever seen anything quite so hideous when the caterpillar suddenly stopped its descent, looked up from a lush leaf, and said, ‘Watchoo stawing at?’ It had a language impediment that, transcribed from the vernacular, was comparable to it putting a w in place of a consonant r.
‘Wow, this is just crazy. So I did hear you talk!’
‘Talk? Course I can talk. It’s a wonder how you can, though, without any antennas!’
‘Euh? But you’re a brimstone caterpillar.’
‘I beg your pardon, young sir, I’m an inchworm, born of a family of geometers,’ said the insect before nibbling into another juicy leaf.
‘Of course, sorry, my mistake. Yes, a brimstone inchworm—’
‘But you can call me plain Bwimstone, or Bwim for short. What do they call you then?’
‘Er, well, I’m a human. But you can call me Marcel if you like.’
‘I’ve always wanted to meet a marcel,’ said the inchworm. ‘I must admit, though, I always thought they were taller.’
‘I am taller, normally, but I’ve shrunk.’
‘Huh, I bet that’s what they all say.’
‘No, but it is true; I’ve been shrunk. Listen, Brimstone, I can hardly stay like this. I’ve really got to grow back and quick. See, I’ve got to go to a girlfriend’s birthday party in a few days. What would she think?’
‘I do know how you feel, Marcel. I mean, the things you have to go...
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