In the end, the pool wasn’t hidden in some deep, remote piece of jungle. It wasn’t exactly accessible, but it could be found not even a full day’s hike from the nearest town. The afternoon sun was still well above the horizon, streaming through the palm fronds when he padded across the mossy ground that led to the water’s edge.
The stillness of the area was overpowering. The man stopped, just a few steps from the water, and listened. Silence. Not a wisp of wind moved through the trees. The water itself was so calm it looked like a solid, enormous mirror. Somewhere in the distance a bird squawked, but it faded quickly, and silence returned.
A crackle in his ear. “Is that it?” a voice asked.
He lifted his finger to the little communicator wedged in his ear. He clicked the volume way down and spoke as quietly as he could manage. This place inspired quiet.
“Yeah, this is it.”
“Are you sure? We’ve been in the jungle for almost a month with three false alarms.”
The man crouched by the pool. He scanned the perimeter, slowly, but didn’t see any sign of danger. Or, worse, of other people. The stories about this pool were varied, each more wild than the last, but there were two common threads. The nature of the pool’s particular ability and a warning – do not look at anyone’s reflection but your own.
He eased his backpack onto the ground and zipped it open. He pulled out the three different maps he had gone to great lengths to acquire. With care, he laid them out, smoothing them on the soft ground. The first two, both so old they were done on animal hide rather than paper, were sparse in detail. Neither showed any mountains near the X that marked the fabled pool. That was helpful – the day’s hike had been across flat land the whole way. One of them also showed rudimentary depictions of palm trees around the pool.
But it was the third, and youngest, map that held the most promise. Whoever drew the map at the beginning of the last century had done him a huge favor and sketched the area. But the sketch wasn’t a perfect match, and he bristled at slight inaccuracies. There was no notice of scale, for one thing, and the north edge of the pool seemed to have a more rounded line in real life than in the drawing. The man shook his head, and took a moment to let his frustrations ease.
The third map wasn’t animal hide old, but it wasn’t recent either. He couldn’t really expect it to match exactly. Trees grew, or died and fell, only to have new trees spring up in their place. During storms, the water would slosh, eroding and changing the natural pool’s outline. No area stayed exactly the same for a century. So he had to admit, against his instincts, that the little sketch on this third map was very encouraging.
“Sure as I’ll ever be,” he finally answered.
Quickly, he folded the maps and put them back in his bag. His heart thumped in his chest, and he momentarily wondered if it was loud enough for any tigers lurking nearby to hear. Probably not, but who could tell with tigers?
“Alright. We don’t have another blessed shoot,” the voice pointed out. “So if this doesn’t work, it’s going to be a while before you can try again.” The voice didn’t nag, but something in the tone belied its speaker’s concern.
“I know that,” the man answered. He dug into his bag once more and extracted a thin bamboo shoot.
“I’m saying that last priest isn’t likely to help again.”
“I am aware.”
“If you’d just shown him a little patience-“
“He was a crook,” the man said in a clipped tone. “We paid him twice the going rate, and still he tried to send his monkey to steal the maps.”
“Only after you threatened to kill the thing,” the voice countered.
“I wouldn’t have had to threaten it if he hadn’t ordered it to poison my drink.”
An exasperated sigh vibrates his ear even with the volume turned low. “This has always been your problem.”
“What?”
“You have this quixotic, foolhardy notion in your head of these things being nice and tidy.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
The voice laughed, and the man noted a very faint vein of mean in its tone. “It is true! Tell me this. You looked at the maps, yes? Did the sketch match the area? I mean match it exactly?”
Silence in response. The man could practically hear the wry grin on the other end.
“Look,” the voice said, softer, a little more composed. “This is your thing. My interests are entirely academic. But we’ll both be set back at least another year if that isn’t the right pool. And that wouldn’t be the case with a bit more forethought, or more diplomatic primate relations.”
“Fine,” the man said, knowing when he was in the wrong. “Fine. I get it. But this is it. I’m sure of it.”
“Ok. Give it a shot, then.” The voice did not sound overly confident.
The man walked right to the edge of the glassy water. The bamboo shoot felt smooth and utterly unremarkable in his hand. Still, he knew it was the key to this pool’s specific bit of magic. He tilted the shoot, and looked down the hollow center. The little slip of paper was still there, tightly rolled and stuffed inside.
With a slightly unsteady hand, he extended the shoot out over the still water. He held it over the glassy surface and paused.
“He would have deserved it.”
“Who?”
“That damn monkey.”
And with that, he pressed the bamboo down. It slipped into the water, and the man had a brief sensation of it passing through something more substantial than water. Something just a little too stiff, solid, something not entirely liquid. The feeling went as quickly as it came. The feeling went as quickly as it came. He stopped when half the length was under water.
For a long moment, he waited, still as possible. Only a few ripples grew out from the bamboo’s entry into the water. And even then, they were so frail, they dissipated before they made it even halfway across the little patch of water.
Then he heard a very soft sliding sound. He leaned out a bit and looked into the shoot’s hollow interior. The little slip of paper was gone. Then the sliding sound came once more.
And another piece of paper came up through the shoot.
Gingerly, not wanting to upset anything about the process, he reached his other hand out over the bamboo shoot. He took the slip between two fingers and lightly lifted it out.
“Well?” the voice asked.
The silence had been so complete, and the man’s concentration so total, he jumped at the sound. His hand jerked up, and something crunched on the bamboo beneath the water. Nerves shot, he dropped the little green shoot and watched it vanish beneath the water.
But in his other hand, he had the new fold of paper.
“Come on, what’s happening?”
“It.. it worked.”
Silence from the other end. But only for a moment. “It worked. Huh.”
With great care, he unfolded the paper, wondering why it was so stiff. That question answered itself in a moment. It was a small envelope.
“Is it from you?” the voice asked.
The man looked at the envelope, and the little note on the front. The handwriting was definitely his own, but it was something he’d never written. And wouldn’t, not for another year.
“Yeah.”
“So what does next year’s you have to say? Did he answer your question?”
The man didn’t answer. He just stared at the note on the envelope. It was possible he fell into shock. That or he was just too surprised to feel angry.
“Well.. what did you tell yourself?”
“It’s an envelope.”
“Ok. What’s in it?”
“I haven’t open it,” the man admitted.
“You haven’t… what are you waiting for!?”
The man folded the envelope again, left it unopened. He shoved it into his pocket. He packed the bag quickly, suddenly very eager to be gone from this pool that ignored the laws of time.
“I can’t open it.”
“I don’t understand it.”
“The answer is inside, but there’s a note on the envelope. I wrote myself a note, from one year in the future.”
“What does the note say?”
“It says, ‘The answer is inside. Do not open for one year. Consequences dire.’”
The voice laughed, uproarious and hearty. “We spent all this time, learning all the… we did all that work. And we succeeded in asking a question to someone who currently exists in the future. And it turns out that person is some mythical version of you with a sense of humor.”
“Yeah. It’s upsetting,” the man said. “I’m coming back.”
“You have to open it.”
“Maybe,” the man answered, then shut off the earpiece. He needed just a few minutes. Finished packing, he hoisted the bag onto his back. He turned and took one last look at the pool. It was as still and silent as he’d found it.
He’d succeeded. He’d sent a note to his future self, and he’d been given a reply. All that time trying to get that impossible edge, to have the knowledge of the future in advance, and he almost instantly realized he didn’t want it. With the proof of concept now in his possession, he didn’t actually want the information inside. And he thought, or at least hoped, that it was because he had achieved what he set out to achieve, and not as a reaction to the envelope’s dire warning.
The pool worked, and now he was one of two people who knew where it was. For now, at least, that was enough. He didn’t know how he would feel in the morning, or in a month, or six months. It’s possible his willpower would fade, and he would open the envelope early. He didn’t think that would happen, but how could he know? The future was, of course, entirely unknown.
“Well, not entirely,” he whispered to himself, patting his pocket and the little envelope stashed within.
The Tall Tale Year 