by Indie Gantz
“I don’t want to lose you,” I say it quietly. Tirigan agrees with me in his mind. “Neither of us do.”
“You aren’t losing me. You’re gaining more of your mother.” He begins walking again. “And we can visit from time to time. If we need to.”
We follow behind him. Tirigan pulls a leaf from a tree and inspects it closely in his hands. The purple in his eyes seems dimmer from the side, but when he catches me staring he turns his head so I can see his eyes more clearly, and they are just as brilliant as they were before. It’s unsettling, knowing I look the same way.
“What do you mean her people?” I ask quickly, turning my attention to John to distract myself.
“The people she grew up with.” John steps over a fallen tree and extends a hand out absently to us, but we don’t take up his offer. We step up and over the tree with ease, Tirigan looking like a gazelle, keeping his upper body stiff as his lower body moves gracefully.
“Calla’s parents died when she was very young,” John continues. “This is why she was able to get away with going missing for hours to explore this jungle. She was always free, your mother.” Even walking behind him, I can tell how proud John looks when he speaks of Calla. “That information will be in there,” He gestures towards the bag. “The people you should go to and where you will find them.” John continues, “Téssera draw their power from the four elements of Earth. Your mother was the Earth type of elemental, which is to say she could invoke the Earth element.” He glances back at me, “I do not know what that means for you two, not only because you are half Anunnaki, but also because Téssera children don’t necessarily have the same element as one of their parents.”
“You said there are four?” I ask, even though I feel like I already know the answer.
“Elements?” John repeats. “Yes, there are four. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.” He recites it like a song. “The Téssera have different names for them, but I can’t remember what they are.”
“And Calla is Earth.” I say it carefully, rolling the idea around my mouth to see how it feels. “And we could be Earth too, or we could be one of the other ones.”
My father just nods, but Tirigan’s shoulders rise in a small shrug. Or not.
What?
You forget, we are not normal Téssera, Charlie. We are half Anunnaki.
So... “What if we aren’t one of the elements?” I ask the question to John’s back. His head tilts slightly, the way Tirigan’s does when he’s thinking. “What if we’re different because of our Anunnaki blood?”
“Moving the branches back there prove you are an elemental, Charlie,” John concludes quickly. “And by what you did, I’d say you are either Air or Earth.”
Or water.
“Water?” I ask Tirigan. “Why Water?”
“I didn’t say-” John starts to correct, but then cuts himself off with a quick nod of his head, realizing his mistake. He waits while Tirigan explains himself to me.
Assuming my very limited and extremely presumptuous knowledge of how elemental power works, there are three ways you could have moved those branches. You could have manipulated the tree itself, invoking Earth. You could have used Air, or, more specifically, air pressure, to push the tree branches aside and keep them there. Or, you could have manipulated the water molecules in the branches and moved them, moving the branch of the tree as well.
I stare blankly at Tirigan, not because I don’t understand him, but because it is rare he strings that many words together all at once.
What? He gives me an annoyed and slightly offended look, and I shake myself out of my stare.
“Nothing,” I reply, schooling my features appropriately. I turn my attention to John. “Um, Tirigan was just saying I could be Water too, because I could have been moving the water molecules in the tree branches.”
John nods slowly, pondering Tirigan’s idea.
“Interesting... yes, of course. That could be possible as well.” He gestures into the jungle and I follow his hand. “There is a small clearing another bêru ahead. It’ll take us about twenty minutes. We can stop there, and you can look through the things Calla left for you. You should learn everything you need to know before you cross the barrier.”
“How often did you come here, before Calla could pass through the Téssera barrier?”
“After we met, pretty often.” I can hear the pain in his voice, despite the smile that tugs at his cheeks. “The first time, I found her in a tree, singing a song to a nest of baby birds.” He looks up into the canopy of trees above us, and sighs. “I had a different mate at the time, but-”
“A different mate?” I ask incredulously.
“I’m over three hundred years old, Lee Lee. I had a long life before I met your mother.” He gives me a look out of the corner of his eyes, gauging my reaction.
Of course I knew this. Usually, the Anunnaki have quite a few different mates throughout their long lives. They’ll grow out of a relationship and move on after a while, usually amicably. Love and relationships are a perk in the life of an Anunnaki, not a goal to be obtained. There are some that pair off for life, but it’s an unusual choice.
“So, what did you do? Ditch your mate, shack up with Calla, then live in the jungle together until she got pregnant and could pass through the barrier?” I ask, suddenly dubious of his morals.
“Something like that, yes.”
“And you just made up Calla’s entire history? Meeting at a wildlife seminar? Her being drafted to take pictures just like you?”
“We couldn’t tell you the truth, Charlie. You were children, and we didn’t want to burden you. I was on sabbatical and already had a lot of the photography equipment, so we used that as the excuse for our travels. Although, I truly did get drafted ten years ago and now I really am taking pictures for society once more.”
My chest aches. There’s so much we don’t know and an entire life we didn’t know we were leading, and the more I learn, the more unsettled I feel. I can’t help but keep grilling our father.
“How did you feel when you found out what she was? What did she say when she found out what you were? Were you ever caught? Do Téssera come between the barriers often? How did you-”
John stops and turns around, releasing the wagon handle and placing both of his hands on my arms, giving me a measured, but comforting glance.
“I know you have just been thrust into an entirely different world, and you have more questions than you can count, but you should wait until Calla explains it all to you herself.”
Even as he’s speaking, my mind is working in overdrive, thinking about all the things I want answers to. It isn’t until his last few words, that I snap out of it, and let their weight dawn on me.
“Herself?” I whisper, as if lowering my voice hides my hope. “How? She’s...” I don’t know how to finish that sentence and that terrifies me.
“In the bag.” John gestures towards the duffle he pointed out before. “I told you she left you some things. Things to help you.”
“Yes, I know, but how will anything in that bag bring back Calla?”
He must see the child-like hope in my eyes, because John shakes his head softly and gently squeezes my shoulder.
“Nothing can bring her back, Charlie. I want you to understand that. Your mother is gone.” He pauses, and the pain in my chest amplifies, takes on even more weight. “But she did leave you and Tirigan something to help you. Like I said before, we were prepared for this outcome and Calla… she wrote you a letter.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Blood, Sweat, & Tourmaline
The day has cooled off a great deal, but I still feel salt sticking to my body. I doubt I smell pleasant. Just as I’m about to ask about the possibility of washing up somewhere when we stop, I hear the sound of water crashing in the distance.
“Is that...?” I trail off, coming to a stop so I can hear the sound more clearly. My father keeps walking straight ahead, the wagon wheels straining under the weight of our ba
gs as it rolls behind him.
“Yes. A waterfall is up ahead. We can clean up there and then camp at a clearing a fair bit west of it. We will have to scale the cliff to get to the border up top, but that shouldn’t be a problem for either of you.”
I sneak a peek at Tirigan, who’s lagged behind us somewhat. His eyes widen slightly at John’s words and a nearly imperceptible grin tugs at his lips.
Tirigan loves to climb. It’s kept his upper body in impeccable shape over the years, and now that he’s nearly a grown man, he’d probably seem intimidating to someone who didn’t know any better. My mind wanders to what Tirigan would be like in a physical altercation, but then there’s a loud crack in the air, and Tirigan’s voice in my head, shouting my name.
My body is thrown forward so quickly, my head snaps back violently. The wind’s knocked out of me with a harsh blow. There’s a loud crashing sound behind me, but I don’t have time to turn my head to find the source. I land hard on my hands and knees, crying out as I feel the bones in my wrist snap and my knees scream in agony.
“What-? Charlie!” John drops the handle of the wagon and rushes to crouch down beside me. “Are you okay? What happened?” His voice is frantic. I’m not exactly in a position to soothe him.
A tree. Tirigan’s voice floats inside my mind, an uneasy tremor to his thoughts.
I barely register his comment; I’m too distracted by the pain. My father sits down behind me, and I turn around and rest my weight on him, inspecting my damaged wrists. A quick look shows me a compound fracture in my left wrist, the bone poking out through the skin and blood trailing down my arm. The right wrist fared slightly better. It’s obviously broken, but the bones, thankfully, are still inside my body.
My father curses under his breath as he examines me, holding my forearms up gingerly. It feels like everything below my elbow is on fire, the pain so intense I can’t help but cry out.
John rotates my arm slightly to get a better look. Biting down on my lip to suppress a scream, my eyes fly around the jungle to look for something to distract me.
There’s a tree lying down in the path in front of me, exactly where I was walking moments before. One end of it is rotted through and jagged where it had snapped away from its trunk. The other is covered in large leaves with wilted white blossoms.
I seek out Tirigan. He is staring at me with an immense amount of concern.
“A tree,” I repeat Tirigan’s earlier thought and wait for him to elaborate.
He licks his lips and swallows back whatever has his eyebrows creased so tightly, smoothing out his features before he continues. The tree must have been very old to have broken in such a way.
His eyes dance around the fallen limbs, inspecting it as if he expects it to answer his questions. It reminds me of all the times I’ve found Tirigan sitting outside, staring at the ground like he’s anticipating it to do more than just exist in front of him. It happens often enough, so I’ve learned to wait patiently until he comes back from whatever world he’s escaped to.
“It fell? The tree... fell.” My words come out more confused than I actually feel, a fact I blame on my currently shattered wrists and throbbing neck and knees. “Did it hit me?”
I don’t feel like I was hit by a tree. The trajectory of my fall is more consistent with being pushed from behind, not from above.
I- Tirigan stops mid-thought and looks to our father. John’s still holding onto my arms, preparing to reset my bones. I’m grateful in this moment for the required medical training all Anunnaki receive upon entry into the draft. Learning to reset a bone properly is pretty vital to a species that heal as quickly as the Anunnaki do.
My brother and father share a silent exchange. Tirigan’s eyebrows crease together again and his head tilts slightly, a question being asked. I look up to my father and watch as his eyes widen slightly then close in a quiet sigh.
“You did it,” John says quietly, a small smile now appearing on his lips. “You pushed her out of the way.”
I turn back to Tirigan, who blinks rapidly.
“You were too far though, how could you…” I trail off. The answer is obvious. Tirigan saved me the same way I pushed the tree branches away.
“Are you ready?” John asks, his apprehension obvious.
I nod shakily, and then bite down on my lip some more to keep myself from crying out when the time comes. I take a few deep breaths, focusing all of my energy on healing myself instead of the very painful moment to come.
I’m sorry that I hurt you. It wasn’t my intention. It was the opposite, in fact. Tirigan tries to smile.
It’s all right. I reply. Points for effort.
Tirigan’s regret transitions into a bemused grin. Points? Where are you getting them? And why would you give them to me for causing you injury? If anything points should be retracted…
Tirigan’s rambling distracts me as my father snaps my wrists back into place. I cry out when the pain registers, completely missing the rest of my brother’s questions. My vision hazes with the pain, and the world around me gets darker for a second. I don’t know if it’d be better to stay conscious or pass out, but the sound of my father ripping fabric behind me keeps me awake.
Tirigan crouches next to me, a worried expression replacing the bewildered one from seconds before. Are you all right?
“I’m okay,” I say, knowing my father would like to hear it too.
I give my wrists a once over, watching as my skin begins the process of sealing around the wound. It’ll probably take a few days to heal completely. Scaling the cliff John spoke about is going to be a lot more difficult now. If my father had been injured, he’d probably be healed in under ten minutes, a fact that doesn’t seem fair at the moment.
John wraps my wrists with pieces of clothing he pulled out of one of the duffle bags, and then helps me to my feet.
“You’ve uh-” I struggle for a moment, my head dizzy as I stand. John steadies me with two hands on my shoulders. I take a breath before continuing. “You’ve got to be pretty strong to have pushed me that hard.” I say it kindly, hoping not to make Tirigan feel any worse about the situation.
Perhaps. We have no basis for comparison.
“Nothing to compare it to, sure. But you nearly knocked my head off my shoulders back there and, well...” With a tight grimace, I hold up my hands to show off my new fashion accessories. “I’d say you’re packing quite the punch.”
John stoops down and picks up the backpack that had fallen off my shoulders when I fell.
“I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” He steps over to the wagon and places the backpack on top of the other two bags. “It does comfort me to know that you two will be able to protect yourselves, even if you don’t know how you’re doing it yet.”
The thought of needing to protect ourselves from some unknown danger sends a chill down my spine, but the idea of having the power to do something about it helps calm a small portion of my fear. “A plus side to my pain? I approve.”
Tirigan rolls his eyes as he settles back into a far more relaxed expression. He looks to John and nods his head off into the distance, tilting his head to the side and pulling his brows together in another silent question.
“Soon,” John answers back easily. “We’ll get to the water soon.”
That’s literally music to my ears. The sound of the water in the distance is melodic as it falls.
“Good. I look like I just went three rounds with an ax-murderer,” I quip. Blood is drying all over my arms and shirt and John’s hands are covered in it. He doesn’t seem bothered. He takes the front of our little caravan once more and sets out again.
Soon, the whisper of falling water becomes a roar. My wrists throb as we make our way through the last of the trees. They get sparser and farther spread apart as the waterfall gets louder and more urgent in front of us. It’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen one; I’ve seen many pictures over the years, but never experienced one in person.
My
first glimpse is through the heavily greened branches of the jungle, the white of the water rushing off the cliff a stark difference from the deep brown of the cliff itself, or the vibrant greens that still surround me. The sound is deafening at first, but my senses even out quickly. The cascade’s shouts turn into a steady hum that lulls me into a renewed feeling of calm.
My injuries are reduced to a nagging ache as I step out onto the river bank.
It isn’t very wide; the bank curves inward and dips into the water only a few šēpusi or so after the trees clear. The river itself is much wider, spanning at least twenty šēpusi across, where it flows against the cliff and the waterfall crashes into it. The current is slow, the river moving, but just barely so. The small ripples of water light up under the orange sky of the setting sun. Pinks, yellows, and purples, painting the scene fantastically as we move closer towards the water’s edge.
The cliff is wide, expanding farther than my eyes can see. It seems to decline and recede back on the east side, but it’s too far away to be sure.
We stand there for a moment at the edge of the river bank, watching the water fall over the cliff and plummet into the calm waters of the river.
“This is unreal,” I whisper, feeling more connected to my surroundings than I ever have before.
Where Tirigan can easily lose himself in a flower petal or piece of tree bark, I’ve always found it more difficult to connect with anything outside my own mind. Practicing yoga has helped me learn to connect with myself, but finding harmony with the little pieces of nature that surround me every day has never been something I concerned myself with. I do feel something potent whenever I take the time to notice, but I’m always too deep in my own head to take the time to really enjoy the aspects of nature that are now practically ambushing me. It’s like the world is suddenly so much fuller than it ever was before.
