Passage (Akasha Book 1)

by Indie Gantz

  Do you see-

  Yes. His eyes narrow in the direction of the train. Interesting.

  As the train leaves the station and turns east, I see the train cars are oval and long, made of mostly wood, but with large glass windows in the middle. I’m not close enough to see inside, but it’s obvious why Calla called them pods.

  “How?” I manage to say as we start moving towards the station again. “It would have to take a lot of Aérasians to get an entire train to move like that.”

  Tirigan nods beside me, but says nothing.

  As we get closer and the last of the pods turns down the tracks and heads away from us, I see a glimmer of something shining beneath the train. It’s large and circular shaped, but I can’t make out what it is.

  You should practice what you’re going to say.

  “Hmm?” I pull my eyes from the retreating train and bring them to my brother’s face. “Oh, yeah. You’re probably right.” I roll our cover story through my mind before taking a deep breath and letting it out. “How about, ‘Two tickets to San Antonio please?’” I say it lightly, teasing Tirigan a little and also weighing the simple phrase on my tongue.

  Your tendency towards humor in hazardous conditions is not your most endearing quality.

  What is my most endearing quality?

  Tirigan ignores my joke. Have you considered what you will do if the teller simply holds out their hand, expecting you to know how many stones to pay with?

  “We’ll just look around first, see if there’s a sign that says how much it’ll cost,” I reply back, happy with my response. “It’ll be all right. We aren’t going to have to engage in serious conversation yet, just a simple transaction.”

  It won’t hurt to be prepared.

  “Well, we can’t exactly predict the future, Tirigan.” I lower my voice as we round the corner of the station and see our first Téssera up close. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  A woman stands on the platform, holding the hand of a small girl. Both of them are in slacks and loose fitting shirts. The woman wears bracelets around both of her wrists with what looks like elemental stones woven into them. The roots of the little girl’s hair are bright orange, and the rest is a midnight blue that sparkles in the sun.

  When the little girl looks our way, I have to remind myself not to hide. I’m afraid she’ll instantly start picking apart the things that make us different from her, but she only smiles softly and pulls at her mother’s sleeve.

  “Look mommy, travelers.” The woman looks over to us and smiles kindly.

  “Yes, dear.” She gives us an apologetic smile, and I try to keep as much fear as I can out of my face. “Sorry, ‘bout that. She gets excited whenever festival time rolls around and we get y’all comin’ into our station.”

  Her accent is very similar to the one I’ve heard in human western films. She takes time elongating her vowels, but keeps the consonants short. I find my own voice changing slightly as I talk back to her, mimicking her somewhat, without even realizing it.

  “S’all right,” I reply, smiling confidently down at the little girl. “Hello there.”

  “Where do you come from?” The girl asks brightly.

  “Oh, Perrie,” the mother scolds, pulling lightly at a strand of the girl’s hair. “Don’t be rude.”

  Tirigan’s tense beside me, but he comes up with an answer before I can. “West of here.” It’s still a surprise when he doesn’t use me to speak for him. I do a double take in his direction before looking back at the woman and her daughter.

  “That right?” the woman asks. “Pasto?”

  “Yes,” I reply quickly. “Pasto.”

  “It’s a shame you had to travel this far to catch a pod.” She shrugs and points out an incoming train. “Not many stations this far south, but they come pretty regularly when the festivals come around.”

  I see another train coming in from the northwest, and take a step towards the doors of the station. “Right, well, uh, we better get our tickets then.”

  “See you at the festival!” the little girl says cheerily.

  As we start to turn and head inside the building, the girl reaches into her pocket and the action stops me. Her eyes are still on me and Tirigan when she pulls out something small and displays it in the palm of her hand. It looks like a simple seed. She smiles at me expectantly. Just as I’m about to panic, wondering what custom we’ve unintentionally stumbled upon, the girl leans down and blows on the seed. As it floats off her hand and tumbles into the air, the seed bursts to life, taking on a larger shape and a new color. Tirigan’s hand darts out and catches it. He holds up the transfigured item and smiles. A strawberry.

  The girl giggles, and her mother smiles down at her proudly.

  “Thank you, Perrie,” I say with a smile of my own, and Tirigan nods in agreement. I severely hope it isn’t expected for us to reciprocate, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The girl smiles up at us again, her hair changing suddenly to soft yellow, and then she looks back at the incoming train.

  Well, that went rather well, I’d say.

  Yes, and now we have a town to claim as home when we have to have more in-depth conversations.

  Right, Pasto. We should try to learn some information about it, just in case. Tirigan nods and opens the door for me to pass through.

  Inside, there are only a few rows of chairs and a counter with two tellers behind it. There are a few dozen people waiting in the seats. Some are reading books, others are with children who are invoking their elements in the center of the room playfully. All the adults seem to be wearing jewelry. Bracelets, anklets, necklaces, each of them woven with elemental stones nestled against their bare skin. The color of everyone’s skin varies, ranging from fair to as dark as night. No shades of blue, which is a shame. I’ve always been envious of the blue Anunnaki.

  A little boy, in the center of the room, grows a small circle of wildflowers around his mother. She’s obviously delighted. She picks him up and spins him around gleefully. An older man twirls a small girl with a flick of his wrist, and her dress billows around her legs as she laughs. There are a few teenagers huddled in a circle in the corner, talking quietly and watching the young children with a wistful look in their eyes.

  We walk with our heads somewhere between high and low, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves either way. The ticket counter is on the right side of the building, with what looks like bathrooms on either side of it.

  An austere looking woman sits behind the counter. Defined lines run along her face; her lips form a permanent scowl. Her hair is long and blonde, with jet black tips matching her skin. She wears a necklace tight around her neck with glowing blue and green stones. The other teller, a much younger man, is reading something in his hands and smiling widely. His own hair is buzzed short to his head, his skin fair and freckled. He has bracelets on both of his wrists, one full of green stones, the other full of white. The boy is also incredibly thin. Too thin. It’s as if he’s never had a belly full of food.

  Tirigan starts to walk toward him when the boy speaks to the other teller.

  “Did you catch the bulletin? Mouth Breathers are gonna play at the festival this year.” The woman gives him a look of deep annoyance and says nothing in return. “Not much into music, are you?” He tries again, leaning forward on the counter and looking at the other teller with amusement in his eyes. “That’s okay, I guess. What do you do for fun?”

  Something about the earnest way the boy asks the woman the question makes me chuckle quietly as we take the final steps towards the counter. It’s obvious he’s trying to start up some sort of conversation, but the older woman is having none of it.

  “Work,” she replies sharply. “Just as you should be doing.” She gestures towards us and then goes back to staring straight ahead. Her accent is unlike anything I’ve heard before. When she speaks, it sounds more like a song.

  The boy’s eyes widen comically, but he laughs a second later. “One of these days, Silv
. One of these days, I’ll get you to crack a smile. Just you wait.” The boy’s voice isn’t as much of a drawl as the woman’s was outside, but there’s still a slight twang to it. He has a big smile on his face when he turns to face us, and it’s right then that I realize we forgot to look around for the price of the tickets.

  Ticket prices. We forgot to look.

  Tirigan shifts beside me, and then lowers his bags to the ground. It looks like he’s pulling something out of one of them. Hold on.

  “Hello, there,” the boy greets me kindly. “You two headed to the festival?”

  “Yes,” I reply, returning his smile.

  “All right.” He pulls out a clipboard with papers attached to it and his eyes skim over it. “We’ve actually got a few more seats on the one coming in now.”

  “Okay, great. Thanks.” Tirigan is still looking for prices somewhere, and I’m left with nothing to do but stall. “So, has it been a busy day?”

  A sign behind us says the payment is at the teller’s and buyer’s discretion, so long as at least ten stones are provided per ticket.

  The teller’s smile grows wider at the question. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t had anyone to talk to all day, considering his co-worker’s sour disposition.

  “Not so bad,” he says with a shrug. His shoulder bones jut out of his thin t-shirt. “Three trains have gone out so far, only two to San Antonio, though.” He puts down his clipboard and picks up the paper he was reading before. “Catchin’ up on a bit of news and what not.” He taps the paper and looks at me. “You like the Mouth Breathers? They’re playing at the festival this year.”

  “That’s great,” I say as enthusiastically as I can. “Yeah, I hear they’re really good.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you at their show then,” the boy says, smiling again. “I’m catching the last train out today after my shift.” He leans over the counter and talks down to Tirigan. “You all right down there?”

  “Oh, yes,” Tirigan replies, flustered. He brings up with him the two bags of already casted stones.

  “So, um,” I start, completely unsure as to how to ask this question. My eyes go to the bag and the man stares at me blankly for a second before shaking his head and laughing.

  “Right! The tickets, sure.” He looks back down at his clipboard. “We’re up on Fotiá, but everything else is fine. Aéras is preferred, of course.”

  “Okay,” I reply, and start pulling stones out of the bag, trying to keep my hands from shaking. I pull out five Aéras for each of us, six Gi, and four Néro stones. “How’s this?”

  The boy looks down at the stones and nods. He picks them up one color at a time and deposits them in bins behind him. Then, he picks his clipboard back up and looks at us expectantly.

  “Names for the ledger?”

  I freeze. I didn’t think about names.

  “Tirigan and Charlie Lark,” Tirigan says before I have a chance to fret about it.

  There’s a pause where the boy’s hand freezes above his clipboard, and his breath escapes him. It’s quick. Nearly imperceptible.

  “Lark, huh?” The boy says after a beat, looking down at the paper as he writes our names down. His voice is deeper than it was a moment ago. “Seems like I’ve heard that one before...” He trails off and looks up like he’s expecting to find the answer on the ceiling. “Nah, can’t think of it.”

  When he looks back to us, his original jovial expression has returned. I try to hide my sigh of relief behind a cough.

  “I haven’t been in the area long, though,” the boy continues. “I came down here from the north last year to help my uncle on his farm. Maybe I’m just confusing your name with someone else’s. All right, well,” he tears two strips off of his paper and holds them out to me, “here are your tickets. Have fun, and maybe we’ll see each other there.”

  “Yeah, that sounds good...” I wait for him to fill in his name as I take the tickets.

  “Finn.” He holds out his hand and I shake it, grateful that I’m aware of the human custom. His wrist bones are so pronounced, I worry about accidentally snapping them.

  “Nice to meet you, Finn.”

  “Yes, it’s a pleasure,” my brother adds carefully, slightly less strained than the other times he has spoken so far, but still not quite fluid.

  “See ya!” The boy says, giving me another genuine smile. He turns to the other teller, and we turn around to walk back outside. I hear him talking behind us before we make it to the door. “You see, Silv? It was a pleasure meeting me!”

  I laugh quietly as I push open the doors to the train platform and step outside. That went surprisingly well.

  Yes, I’d have to agree.

  Other people have made their way to the platform as we bought our tickets, and some are even boarding the train. I listen to the chatter around us as we join the forming line.

  “No, you absolutely cannot practice your melting cast on the trip, Eli!” The woman ahead of us is talking to a boy probably no more than ten or eleven years old. “You want to actually make it to the festival this year?”

  “Yes, I just thought I’d bring a few rubies just in case, you know? I could work on it at the festival. Brit says he will be there by tomorrow too, so we were gonna-”

  “I know perfectly well what you two will get yourself into, don’t think I don’t,” the woman replies harshly. “After what happened last year, you’re lucky I still let you communicate with that boy.”

  “Mom!” the boy cries, shuffling forward as the line moves. “It wasn’t my fault the tent blew up. The cast in the stone was faulty!”

  “That’s enough, Eli,” the woman scolds with a finger in the boy’s face. “I don’t want to hear any more about this. You can practice the basics and invoke what you’ve learned so far, but no Eidikos casting. Got it?” The boy grumbles and crosses his arms across his chest, but he nods in agreement. “Good,” the woman says, looking back to the front of the line. “Now, let’s have a nice trip.”

  She doesn’t say any more and the boy doesn’t either. A man stands on the boy’s other side, but he’s absorbed in whatever he’s reading.

  That sounded just like when you tried to convince John and Calla you were ready to drive the truck again. Tirigan barely contains a wicked smile. I restrain my urge to shove him.

  That isn’t fair. That hole in the ground came out of nowhere! There was no need to ban me from driving for so long.

  Like I said, a familiar argument.

  I roll my eyes and mimic the young boy’s grumble as we move forward in the queue. There’s a man standing at the doorway to the train’s entrance, taking everyone’s tickets. When it’s our turn, I hand the man our tickets, and he lets us pass through without a moment’s pause.

  Stepping onto the train is both relaxing and terrifying. We made it on the train, but there’s still so much we have to get through until we’re in a position to look for our mother. Getting on this train is just the first of many trials ahead of us.

  I walk forward and through the narrow aisle of the first car where there are just two rows of seats. They are covered in what looks like incredibly soft cloth with a distinct pattern of lines on them. They resemble the lines on the roof shingles of the train station, but I still can’t place their significance. I see a sign above the rows of seats that claim them for staff, but they’re all currently empty.

  Following the people ahead of us into the next car, I step inside it and am immediately reminded of why the cars are called pods. The walls curve upwards and the windows bend with them. The pod is set up with six separated areas. Each area has a bunk bed built into the wall, along with two seats and a desk between them. There is also a curtain around each area for privacy. Two of the curtains are already closed, and the other four areas are full of people settling into their seats.

  We keep moving through the pods, including one about four pods back that serves as a dining space, until we reach one that has an unclaimed area. It’s in the far-right corner of the thir
d pod back from the dining pod, and it already has three other groups settling in with their curtains open.

  I place my bags on the bottom bunk of the farthest area on the right side of the pod and try to subtly check out the other people we’ll be spending the next three days with.

  The area directly next to ours is still empty, but the one closest to the other door has a young couple in it. They’re already sitting in the chairs and reading books, their hands outstretched over the table and touching casually. The area across from ours has an older man and a younger woman. She helps him settle onto the bottom bunk, then goes about cleaning a stain on her shirt with a bottle of water and a napkin from her pocket. The area next to them is vacant, but the one across from the young couple has another woman and two small children. The youngest is asleep in her arms, while the older one wiggles around on the top bunk. The woman is round and small in stature, her hair a bright yellow color with orange and red highlights. I can tell she’s struggling to open what looks like a crib for the baby in her arms, but she only has one hand to do so.

  I nudge Tirigan, who follows my eyes until he realizes what I want to do.

  It’s not a good idea to engage when we do not have to.

  I know, but I feel bad for her.

  I look around and see that no one else is paying attention to the single mother. She must not be an Aérasian, otherwise opening the crib probably wouldn’t be a problem for her. The crib, being made of wood, could also probably be set up invoking Gi. I’m not exactly sure how Gyan Téssera manipulate their element, though.

  I watch as the young mother continues to struggle, obviously weighing the cost and benefits of putting the baby down and waking it up in order to set the crib up, or abandon the idea all together until the child wakes. The crib seems to open with a simple folding mechanism on a hinge. It would only need to be pulled apart at the right angle to be set up properly.