by Indie Gantz
Fish swim near the banks, small silvery ones with blue along their eyes and yellow trailing their fins. Birds dip down into the water gracefully, sometimes pulling up a snack as they fly back off into the sky. I hear a frog or two as well, all sounds coming together and spreading apart just enough for me to hear them all equally and easily.
Beautiful. It’s simple, but even in my mind, I can hear the awe behind Tirigan’s thought.
It feels like I could stand here an infinite amount of time, just watching the water fall over the cliff’s edge and flow down the river. I could absorb the small splashes of water as they pop over the surface, and let them soak into my skin. I could let the water heal me.
On its own, the concept is absurd, but something inside of me is screaming for me to plunge my hands into the water. I know it will help me. I don’t know how I know that, but I do.
It only takes me a moment before I’m kneeling at the river’s edge and pushing my hands and wrists into the warm water below. My knees scream at me, both of them still sore from the fall earlier, but I ignore the pain. Sinking deeper inside the water, the wound on my wrist stings, and I let out a loud hiss. It startles me at first, having been so sure the water would heal and not hurt.
What are you doing?
Just... wait.
I pull the side of my bottom lip into my mouth and concentrate.
The blood from my hands and arms clings to my skin for a few seconds before it slips into the water and clouds it red. I close my eyes and focus on my wrists and the way the water moves around my skin. I picture myself healing. I see my bones fusing back together and my skin healing where it was broken. I imagine that I can feel my bones repairing.
It’s only another few seconds before I really do feel something.
The burning sensation is soon transformed into a cool, tingle that makes the hair on my arms stand up. Goosebumps shoot across my skin and all over my body. I can feel the water working its way into the wound, healing and soothing its way through me. My wrists begin to feel lighter, like the injury itself is floating away and into the current. The pain dissipates, little by little, until it’s completely gone.
The process probably only lasts a couple of seconds, but it feels like I’ve been kneeling by the river for much longer.
I take a deep breath and pull my hands out of the water, keeping my eyes on the worn fabric that was my father’s shirt and is still wrapped around my wrists.
“Did it help?” John’s voice comes from behind me. He stoops down next to me. Instead of answering him, I begin to unwrap the fabric on the wrist with the worst injury. I don’t expect pain, and pain doesn’t come. “Charlie, maybe you shouldn’t do that…” My father’s voice hitches at the sight of my bare wrist, finally free of fabric.
There’s no sign of injury, not even a mark where the bone had torn through my skin. I flip my hand around, checking the back and sides just to be sure. It only takes me another second to accept it as reality. I smile up at John as he inspects my other wrist. Just like the first, it’s golden brown and cast in the beautiful colors of the sunset. Completely healed.
◆◆◆
“Are you going to finish that?” I gesture over to the sleeve of beans my brother had just finished spooning into his mouth and had placed next to him in the grass. He cocks an eyebrow up at me, as if to say no, but shrugs a moment later and hands it to me anyway. “Thanks, I’m starving.”
Is that what kept you from helping us set up the tents?
Tirigan continues to glare in my direction as I inhale the rest of his dinner. I pretend like I didn’t hear him. Tent building was never a specialty of mine and pretending otherwise would be a punishment for everyone involved. The few times I’ve tried, I’ve ended up tearing things that shouldn’t be torn or tying things that shouldn’t have even been able to be tied.
After we washed up in the river and soaked in the water for a little awhile, John led us to the clearing where we would make camp.
About a bêru west of the waterfall, the bank next to the cliff jets out far enough to make a good place to settle for the night. The cliff hangs heavy above the clearing, and it’s large face blocks out light from the last rays of sun and the waning moon. The angle makes it so shadows are cast along our sleeping space, which does nothing for my rising anxiety.
One more night with our father, and then we say goodbye to him in the morning and enter an entirely different world. He says it’s not forever, that we’ll see each other again, but part of me knows he can’t be sure of that.
I can hear the sound of John rolling out his sleeping bag in his tent behind us. He said once we were settled for the night, he would give us the bag Calla packed for us, and I don’t think I can wait another second. I place the now empty sleeve of beans down beside me. My injuries, and then the river bath, helped distract me for a while, but now I am positively jumping out of my skin to open the green duffle bag and see what Calla left for us.
“Well,” I say simply, rising from my place on the ground in front of the tent I share with Tirigan. Shall we? I don’t need to explain myself further. Tirigan rises as well and nods.
“John,” I call to him, walking towards his tent. “We’re finished with dinner.”
John comes rustling out of his tent, the green duffle bag in his hand. My heart pounds in my chest. I should be afraid, now that we are in some sort of danger, but in this moment, with my father walking towards me with the only things we have left of our mother and my entire future wrapped up in an old duffel bag, I feel a kind of cautious excitement.
“I want you two to know that no matter how you feel about all of this, you will be all right. Just as you are Téssera, you are Anunnaki. What’s in this bag doesn’t define who you are or who you will be. It’s only a way for you to learn about your mother, about elemental people, and their powers. This doesn’t have to mean more than that. Okay?” He reaches out for us, but then seems to think better of it and steps back. “Do you want me to stay or would you rather look inside on your own?”
The question seems odd. Maybe I didn’t hear it right. I turn to Tirigan. He’s looking at our father strangely, which I take to mean he didn’t understand the question either.
Go? Why would he go?
“Please stay,” I say for both of us, and something seems to settle in our fathers shoulders. He smiles softly and nods.
“All right then, have at it you two.” The way it comes out is reminiscent of when my father hands out bowls of dessert or drops a new box of books in front of us. It’s casual and playful, and it helps ease a lot of the tension in my body. I bend down with Tirigan and open the bag, pulling the worn zipper slowly so I don’t snag the teeth on the frayed fabric.
The first thing I see is small stack of clothing. I can tell by the rough material and style that they are human clothes. Tirigan takes them out and puts them aside. Once the clothing’s out of the way, I see three small velvet bags. They are all pulled tight at the top and tied closed with thick cords. I hesitantly pull two bags out, handing one to Tirigan and the other to John. They’re heavy, and from the way their weight falls in the bag, it feels like they’re filled with rocks. The one I hand Tirigan glows a soft green color that lights up his hands as he holds it. I stare at it curiously before I pull the third out for myself. It also glows in the near darkness, but I can’t pick out one color in particular.
Tirigan and I both share a hopeful look with my father before we all pull the strings to open the bags. As the strings of my bag loosen, the light from inside gets brighter until the bag is open and its contents are no longer hidden. They are rocks. They’re just rocks that glow.
Tirigan pulls one out of his bag and examines the green rock more closely. The ones in my bag are blue, reddish-orange, and white. They’re all different sizes and shapes. I pull out a blue one.
“These don’t glow,” John contemplates, pouring a couple of his rocks out in his hand and holding them out to show us. He looks up to the sky for a m
oment, obviously trying to recall something, before he makes a noise of recognition and nods. “I think these are blanks.”
“Blanks?” I ask curiously, turning my attention back to my bag and pulling out a few more stones.
“Calla told me about these,” John starts, pulling a few rocks from each of our bags. He holds out the glowing stones, one of each color. “Each of these represents a power from the different covens. The blank ones are empty, and can be used to cast into.”
Cast into?
“What does that mean?” I ask, staring down at the stones my father called blanks. Without elemental power illuminating them, I can see that there are all different types of stones. I recognize jasper and halite immediately, but there are definitely more than two types of stones in the bag.
“I don’t know exactly how it works, but I know that these stones are used as currency somehow. You use the blank ones to cast some of your own power into and then trade stones with other Téssera in exchange for other things.”
I take this in, still examining the stones, and try to wipe my mind of the fear that begins creeping in. We’re going to be trading stones with other elemental people. We’re going to be interacting with them, living among them. Right. Okay. Next.
I place my stones back in the bag and re-tie it. Looking back into the green duffle bag, I see an envelope with Tirigan’s and my names on it. I hesitate before grabbing it, immediately recognizing my mother’s handwriting.
This may be the last thing I ever read from my mother, and I need a moment to process that. Tears sting and threaten to fall, but I hold them back and reach for the letter. I do it slowly, so Tirigan has a chance to prepare, just as I’ve had time to do.
“She said she wrote something just for you,” John says carefully. “She wanted to make this as easy as possible for you, if this were to ever happen.”
“Right,” I reply absently, barely aware of my own words. “And lying to us for seventeen years has made all of this so much easier. Thanks for that.”
I don’t register my comment until I hear a sharp inhalation from John. When I look up, his expression is troubled. I furrow my brow in confusion for second, before I realize what I’ve said. Instinct pushes me to apologize, but something stops it from coming out. I hold my father’s hurt gaze instead.
Charlie-
“No,” I interrupt Tirigan’s incoming admonishment and hold up my hand to stop him. I turn back to John, who seems to be about to defend himself. I don’t want to hear that either. “I only meant that it probably was really hard for you two to lie to us for all these years, and now Calla is doing what she can to make this easy for us? Why not just tell us from the beginning?” My voice wavers, but I push through it. “Why didn’t you trust us?”
John’s expression is unreadable at first, like he’s sifting through too many emotions and years of conversations. I give him time to answer. When John finally says something, my his voice is noticeably strained.
“It’s not that we didn’t trust you.” He shakes his head and reaches out for my cheek, stroking it gently with his thumb before looking at Tirigan.
“We wanted to protect you.” He pulls his hand back and clasps it with the other in his lap. “We couldn’t risk it when you were children. Putting that kind of pressure on you when you were so young would have been a mistake. We didn’t want you to feel burdened by it. We wanted to give you a normal life.”
I nod slowly. It makes sense, but it doesn’t really make me feel any better. “What about later? When we were older?”
John stays quiet for a while and looks down at his hands. “We’ve been talking about it for some time now... about telling you. We were going to do it soon, actually. We were going to tell you and give you a choice about what you wanted to do.” His shoulders shake softly as he begins to cry. My hand goes over his in comfort. “We were selfish. We knew you may have chosen to leave, and we just wanted a little more time with you.”
His words hit me hard, but the sentiment hits me harder, and my own tears start to flow freely. I know Tirigan isn’t crying beside me—he never does—but I know he understands why I am.
It’s not as though I haven’t seen my father cry before, because of course I have. He cries over anything from a sappy movie to a perfectly-developed photograph. The crying itself isn’t what affects me. It’s the pain behind it. Their decision to hold off on telling us the truth has put us in danger now. We have absolutely no knowledge of the world we’re being forced to enter, and that could end really badly for us. A small part of me wants to be angry with him, with them both, but I don’t have the strength.
“I’m so sorry,” John continues, nearly sobbing now and pulling his hands to his face as he hunches over his knees. “I… we should have told you. We should have... I-I’m so sorry.”
My arms are around him in an instant, wanting desperately to comfort him, but needing comfort in return as well. Tirigan shifts in the dirt behind me, and then his hand is on my back in a feather light touch. My head can’t even make room for the enormity of the gesture. Before I can begin processing it, I feel Tirigan’s other hand near my face. I pull back from John and watch in awe as Tirigan gently pulls our father’s face in his hands. John grows very still, except for his jaw, which drops open on contact.
On his knees, Tirigan shakes his head carefully at our father, his eyes full of concern. Then Tirigan just stares at John, his full lips slightly parted and trembling.
He doesn’t open his mind to me, so I have no message to relay to John. Tirigan doesn’t do anything but lock eyes with our father and do his best to comfort him with the softness of his expression. After what feels like a full minute passes, Tirigan releases John’s face and places his hand over his own heart. John exhales a shaky sigh and smiles through his silent tears as he mimics the gesture.
“Thank you, Tirigan,” John whispers softly, his eyes full of love and gratitude. Tirigan gives a small grin in return and nods.
It isn’t until John turns back to me and looks down at my hands that I realize I still have my mother’s letter clutched in my fingers. Tirigan’s show of compassion made me forget momentarily what we were about to do. I gulp audibly and look to Tirigan, who gives me an encouraging nod.
Open it.
I take a deep breath, looking back and forth between my father and brother for a moment, and then let it out forcefully as I pull open the envelope.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Artful Daughter
Dearest children,
Well, that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Certainly not something I’d ever say in life, but I couldn’t very well write your names either. What if you find offense in whose name was written first? I couldn’t have that, so dearest children it must remain. Laugh if you must. In fact, I insist on it.
I know this is all too much to take in and that you’re probably incredibly overwhelmed by everything that’s happening to you now, by everything you know, and everything you have yet to learn. I promise to explain as much as I can and hope that it’s enough to get you to where you need to be.
First, let me apologize that it’s come to this, that your father and I made the mistake of not telling you sooner. (If you’re reading this and we have told you the truth, but I’ve neglected to take this letter out of the bag, then please disregard that last statement. Parents of the year over here. We accept trophies and coupons for dish cleaning services.)
If this is, in fact, the first you are learning of who you are, and where you come from, please accept my heartfelt apologies for keeping it from you for so long. We only wanted to keep you safe, but I fear we have unintentionally done the opposite.
I wrote this letter in the event that I would not be there to teach you what you need to know to help you survive. Please know that I love you each dearly, and I feel absolutely horrible that I did not have this conversation with you face to face. You deserved that, and I was too much of a coward to give it to you. (Unless of course I did, in which case,
once again, yay me.)
I’m going to proceed with the rest of this letter as if this is the scenario, in which I am not with you and you are completely unaware of what is about to happen to you.
I hope your father was able to explain to you, I come from a land my people call Mitéra, north of the jungle. I know your textbooks say that when Earth was hit by the asteroid everyone perished, but, the Téssera, my people, we survived. I don’t know why it’s not in the Anunnaki history books, but it’s a fact. My existence is proof of it. Elemental power helped us survive the Apocalypse and helped us heal Earth to some degree afterward. The Aplos, or powerless humans, died out, leaving us alone. Or so I thought.
I overheard a discussion I shouldn’t have, where I learned of a barrier that wrapped around the entire world. I listened long enough to get an idea of where it was, and then I set out to find it. I didn’t find a barrier, though. Even after I climbed down the cliff and swam in the river below, I found nothing that resembled a barrier. Instead, I found your father.
Together, your father and I have theorized that the High Coven is aware of the Anunnaki’s existence and it’s very likely the Negral does as well, considering their commitment to photographing around the borders of Anunnaki land.
As for the elemental blood running in your veins, there are some things you should know.
There are four elements total. Gi is Earth; Aéras is Air; Néro is water; and Fotiá is fire. Téssera are born with the ability to invoke and manipulate one of the four elements. Children don’t necessarily have the same ability as one of their parents, although it is common, so I cannot guarantee which element either of you possess. I was born Gyan, so I have the ability to invoke the Earth element. My mother was Gyan as well, but my father was Aérasian.
