by Aaron D. Key
“That is reassuring. I was beginning to worry that I had turned my back on all the people I grew up with, just as they needed me most.”
“They will survive without you and the new protector will support the people you were training to be healers, just as I intend to support you.”
“I would like to go home though,” Koa said contemplatively.
I felt as though I had stepped on a piece of floor that inexplicably was not there. Koa had become an essential part of my life: a part that, if missing, would leave a dull grey void. I thought that we understood each other and that we were content. I thought that the danger of him leaving was past.
All I could think of to say was, “But what about your garden?”
“I’m sure Monta or Cailo between them could keep it alive for a few days.”
The implication of this hit me slowly as if my brain was heavy from lack of sleep, and then I realised that he did not want to leave me forever. In fact, the possibility was something he had not even considered, or he would have made it clearer that it was only a short visit he craved.
“I’m sure something could be arranged, as long as it does not have to be straight away,” I said, enthusiastic with relief.
A few more people came into the hall and headed for our table; among them, Ann with Cailo and Jack. Herai and Monta followed soon after. The conversation became more general. I was content to be part of the crowd and to enjoy the banter without having to contribute.
So I sat on the edge of the conversation and listened in. I realised with some surprise that Cailo was not what I imagined from my previous experience of him. I had expected a solid and inflexible mind from his occupation as Glant’s head guard. He showed instead a lightness of soul and understanding that reminded me of a carefree butterfly, while still carrying a degree of sense and loyalty. I could understand why Ann had quickly decided that she liked Cailo. He had the sort of face that made you think you had already met him. I had, of course, and I was trying to forget this. The one thing I felt redeemed him slightly was that just underneath the immediately perceivable level, he was consumed by an unaccountable guilt. I resisted the temptation to explore further with a sense of regret like nearly getting to the end of a mystery novel and losing the book before finding out why the mystery occurred.
He took the opportunity to speak to me quietly when the conversation moved to another subject, absorbing the rest of the table. “Ann says you are prejudiced against me because you found me torturing Rael?”
I did not know how to answer.
“I wanted to justify myself,” Cailo continued. “Glant ordered it, and Koa asked me to do it as kindly as such a thing is possible. Glant may not have been there but he was watching. If I had not volunteered, we could not have been sure of the outcome. It was not something that was enjoyable for me.”
“But you were enjoying it?” I said, remembering that feeling I had listened in on.
“Have you never, with a difficult job to do, imagined you were doing something else?” Cailo said with a frown. “You couldn’t argue with Glant. You just found the best way to do the job in hand.”
“It isn’t my job to judge you,” I said, “but still I am reassured that Ann has faith in you.”
The conversation dropped so that we were back in the group, expected to contribute and to appreciate. I noticed that Herai was looking more cheerful and was taking pains to entertain Jack; Monta looked on with a tolerant expression.
Elena came in as the night grew later and the chatter more subdued and desultory. She looked in my direction with an unexplained expression of relief.
“Hello, Damon Ich,” she said sheepishly. “Everything I do seems to cause you trouble. I’m feeling guilty about this, now I know I am your mother and should be helping, not hindering you. All I can do is apologise.”
“Our lives are not simple. It is hard to be always right,” I answered, smiling.
“I understand you have spoken to Rael and know what must be done. Are you content to resolve the issue of your younger self in the morning? I will try to be prepared for the things I know you must do after a night of sleep and contemplation.”
“The morning will be fine,” I said with relief that I was so close to restoring order.
After smiling apologetically in my direction, she spoke to Koa.
“Koa, there is something I need to talk to you about, if you are free?”
“Of course.” Koa stood up and followed her with an elusive expression. It seemed to me that he was boosted in confidence to be needed in this way as he had not been since his arrival in Herron.
“I hope you don’t mind, Damon Ich, but she is still in your room.” I turned round to Ann, who was looking at me with a slightly worried expression.
“I’ve got somewhere else to sleep,” I said. “I’ll just go up and get some clothes before bedtime. I can easily survive another night.”
“I should wait until Koa comes back. I think he and Elena have important things to discuss,” Ann said with a frown, as if she knew what it was. I would have to wait until Koa visited me and shared the conversation. I took Ann’s advice and patiently waited. Time passed and people drifted off. Although I did not admit it, I was curious to know what Elena had needed to talk to Koa about. Was there another problem with the baby me? Was he ill? Neither Koa nor Elena returned.
I made my way back to my room and shouted a warning that I was on the stairs but got no reply. I went to my wardrobe and saw Elena already asleep with the baby lying beside her and a pillow beside him – presumably to stop him from rolling off the bed. They both looked happy. I retrieved my clothes and made my way down to Koa’s old room.
I was hoping he would be there already but the room was empty, cold. Another long day, although a pleasurable day on the whole, I pondered as I sat up leaning against the pillow. Tomorrow the last part of the puzzle would be put back into place and life could begin to return to normality. I would miss Elena in a way, but at least I would know she was happy in her new home and back where history needed her to be.
I rested on the bed waiting for Koa but he was too long. Sleep came while I was still uncomfortably hunched up, until the position woke me and I shrugged into a proper sleep.
* * *
I woke later than I had intended, and breakfast was well on its way. By the time I got down to the hall, Elena had already finished eating and was chatting to Ann.
“Good morning, Damon Ich,” Elena said demurely. Every time I saw her she looked slightly different, younger and more like the girl she had once been when Rael first met her, as if her memory was getting better.
I was nervous and I ate without appetite. Why hadn’t Koa visited? Was there another problem I didn’t know about? I was feeling paranoid. In a way I would be glad when the baby had been returned to his proper place so I could work out whether they were my emotions I was feeling or his. Our minds were closely linked. I had an unquenchable thirst for milk that I knew was not real.
I was wondering why Koa was avoiding me but I deliberately avoided thinking about this until I felt more like myself. I finished eating and waited for a while, not wishing to hurry Elena from the table but eager to go.
She looked over in my direction and smiled at my evident attempt not to be looking at her. I carried on looking out of the window, trying to look as if I was relaxed and not itching to leave. It seemed a callous and heartless thing to be desperate to be rid of a parent so newly acquired and never to be seen again. Yet it was as though the pressure came from time, the unbalanced universe waiting to be put back to rights, and this pressure was so intense that human emotions were of no account, like flies squashed under an elephant’s foot.
I thought this to salve my conscience and more than half believed it. Eventually I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to find Elena and Ann standing beside me. Ann carried the baby and seemed happy
to do so, as if he had some relevance in her life. I could not see it. To me the child was an inarticulate and helpless version of me; it seemed wrong to let Ann carry me, especially with such enthusiastic interaction.
We made our way to the door and Ann fell behind, although I could still hear her babbling as she tried to stimulate a response from the baby.
Elena seemed tense, walking beside me like a prisoner on the way to the gallows. I could see by her pale skin and the hint of a shake in her hands that she was nervous, though I was not sure why.
“Rael is looking forward to seeing you again,” I said. It was the only positive thing I could think of to say.
“I do not deserve it. I will not know how to face him. I have been gone so long and changed so much.”
“I don’t think you have anything to be ashamed of, if that is what you mean,” I said. “Rael certainly didn’t seem to think so. You have been a victim of this tangle as we all have, and we have worked together well to sort out the mess, don’t you think?”
“But the things I have done … in Glant’s name. I can hardly believe them myself.”
“Maybe that’s because you did not really do those things yourself. I think your worst deed, although devised by Aeth, was to bring Rael into this world just to torture him and to send him to me as a messenger, but imagine if this had not happened. None of us here would be alive. You and Rael would never have met. He would have died a shameful death and your life would be an unknown drama set on a distant planet.”
“That one worked out well,” she said calmly, dropping her head further towards the floor. “But perhaps that was not my most shameful deed. I hope nothing else I have done interferes with your life once I’ve gone.”
Again, I felt that feeling of dread, of fearing that she was keeping something from me. I could not think what it was, so left it for another time.
Still, I kept my eyes open as we walked through the garden on our way to the outer walls, but the gardens were unusually quiet. Ann caught us up and manoeuvred the baby into my arms.
“Don’t you think you should say goodbye to yourself? This may be your only chance.” She put her arm through Elena’s, who looked cheered up by her support. We were now at the bottom of Rael’s Hill, and I gathered from Ann’s conversation with Elena that she was not planning to climb the hill with us. So as they said their farewells, I looked into my eyes with a strange sense of dislocation. This baby already looked better than the small bundle I had extracted from the rubble just a few days ago. Its face was plump and contented; its eyes steady pools of darkness. Not really like mine at all, but the look that stared out was so completely me I felt that I had lost my own soul and was an empty shell of purposeless warm flesh.
I wondered how many days Elena had stayed away, perhaps even weeks or months, when she had disappeared; almost certainly more time than had passed in Herron. I could not blame her for stealing the time when no one would notice.
Ann waved and walked away as Elena and I, still carrying this warm, distorted mirror of myself, carried on up the hill.
I wanted to make sure everything was as it should be.
“Do you remember this day at all, Elena?” I asked as we entered the embrace of trees. “Do you remember what made you or Rael decide to come to the hill where you found this child?”
“I brought me here,” Elena said mistily, as if lost in the memory. “I presume this is a job for me. I told myself that you had found our child, that you had been unable to bring him back to the café as you had promised but finally you had brought him to be reunited with her. She went to get Rael. We met back at the hill.”
“It sounds like you know what to do.” I smiled and was relieved as we passed in time with almost no change in the world around us. “I will wait here for you.”
I sat down cross-legged and put my younger self on the grass beside me. I gently poked his stomach, which he seemed to like, trying to grab my fingers with huge concentration. I would feel no sense of loss at parting with this version of me. Getting him back into his place in time would be like placing the last piece in a complicated jigsaw.
I made sure no one would be able to see me, although I doubted that this device would work on Rael. I was sure, though, that Rael would obey the rules and at least pretend he could not see me.
Eventually Elena returned with a basket. We wrapped the baby up in blankets and left him in the middle of the circular lawn as we fell back to the edge. His eyes followed ours as if bewildered but not scared, and again we waited. His hand waved over the edge of the basket as if trying to tempt us back. Then suddenly two people entered the space on the hill. They were talking. I could not hear what they were saying, as if the noise was distorted, bounced around in a small metal ball. I looked at Elena questioningly. “We should not listen,” she said. “It would be wrong.” The younger Elena kneeled to gather the baby up. Rael looked troubled. They seemed to be arguing.
Rael crouched down on the hill beside Elena, who was intent on amusing the small bundle. Although this version of him was younger, Rael looked even older than he had seemed on the beach; hunched, unsure, unhappy. I could tell by the way their heads moved that they were still talking but still I could hear nothing. Eventually Rael’s posture began to relax. He even reached out a hand and touched the bundle. It was as though this signified agreement. His Elena embraced him, and they leaped up. Still cradling the small bundle, they disappeared – Elena with a last smile in our direction. Then the world was silent and empty. Elena and I sat there lost and lonely, but we were able to move and at last we did.
“Do you think that is the end of everything we need to do?” Elena asked in a hushed tone, as if in awe.
“Once you are returned to Rael, I believe so,” I said with heartfelt relief.
“Then you had better take me there.” She smiled grimly.
A moment of concentration and a flicker of light and we stood in the same place at a different time.
“I wish you all the best for the rest of your life,” Elena said as she gave me a quick embrace. She swiftly left the protection of the encircling trees before I had time to reply. Her embrace was rich with power, as if she were covering me with a golden light. I felt warm and protected with the memory.
Rael was waiting at the side of the lake. He turned around as she approached him, looking unsure as to his welcome, but he was left in no doubt when Elena ran the last few steps towards him and held him tight as if she never intended to let go again.
My work was done. I slipped back home, letting the pull of gravity and place bring me home, like a drowned body washed ashore by the current and whims of the sea. Once home, I lay at the foot of a tree, feeling the tug of the teasing wind in my hair and the sun falling upon my skin in patches between the dancing leaves. Everything was done and I was undone, unsure what to do next, purposeless and alone.
I contemplated returning to work straight away and waited for a while for the power to give me a sign as to where I would be useful. Pictures of other worlds and other places flickered through my head as if I were sifting through a photo album, but none stood out. As I drifted in and out of sleep, I thought I saw my mother again … and was that Aeth?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Winter in the Gardener’s Heart
That is the end of the strange story I have in my head. There are no other fragments to attach to the end: no explanations. What had happened? Why had the world ended? That was the only explanation I could find for the strange deadness, the lack that followed the last silent thought. The world had ended.
My lack of understanding used to make me feel an almost paralysing fear, despite how the world seemed like a distant dream, all the characters in the story like characters in a movie. Sometimes I felt that I would have liked to have been Damon Ich, especially when I felt old, grey, and dull. Other times, I compared myself to him and thought how little there was
in him compared to the deep chasms of my memories.
I used to think that if I could only work out how all the events connected, I could help the story progress, release the next instalment into my brain. Now I’ve accepted that nothing can progress the story. It has ended and can never be reinstated.
* * *
This was a day typical of the last year of my life: I woke alone, I breakfasted alone, and I drove to work. I was currently working in a garden of great stature. I found it gave me more pleasure than the smaller gardens I had been used to, as if my soul called out for a garden to match the one half imagined in my head. I worked all day pruning and staking, allowing my mind to drift where it would. A strange thing happened, which I probably imagined. It was nearing noon as I worked in a walled garden – in the shade of the wall – sheltered from the eyes of the sparse garden visitors by a pile of sweet-smelling compost. I looked up, uncomfortably aware that someone was staring in my direction, to find I was being watched intently by a young man with a puzzled expression. He did not seem to be the normal sort of visitor, at least not if he was truly alone and not simply waiting for companions to catch up. We were too far away for conversation, so I returned my best quizzical expression, as if to say “What?” with a bit of attitude, and carried on working. The next time I looked there was no one there so I assumed it was a case of mistaken identity.
I drove home at the end of the day. I ate alone, listening to the radio. Later I read the story again on the screen of my laptop and then pushed it away from me, dissatisfied. I said to myself that I could find no useful purpose in my obsession with this story. I could think of no way in which it could improve my life except as a minor diversion, but the risks of this obsession would soon come to outweigh the simple benefits.
As I started to prepare myself for bed, by tidying up and heating milk for my night-time drink, a sudden vision of the young man’s face popped into my head. Something about his expression bothered me. There was a hint of horror in it, a world of pity.
