Orrin sunk on the train, lulled into mindless chaos. Opposite him, dark hoods and shared earphones cocooned a pair of young lovers from the outside world. An eclectic mix of orchestral strings and heavy drums echoed from their direction as they stole hidden kisses. Orrin felt a sudden pang of envy. He'd thought he might have that again. He'd thought wrong. His whole mind was wrong. Perhaps it had never been right.
The weary train rattled on taking its oddment of passengers with it. Orrin was brought out of his reverie by soft singing. A young man sat opposite with a violin case strapped to his back and folders in his arms. He looked like a typical conservatorium student. His scuffed shoes tapped as he serenaded the nearly empty train car. Orrin tuned in, surprised by his lack of inhibition. 'God' he heard over and again. God. As Orrin listened, he was comforted by the deeply religious overtones emanating from the boy. Just like aul gaff, he sighed. It’s been too long. The student smiled encouragingly at Orrin. He began a new song and when he disembarked a few stations later he left a stack of folded pamphlets in his place. Orrin reached over and took one.
Genesis 26: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
When God created Adam and Eve, they were fully developed human beings, capable of communication, society and development (Genesis 2:19-25;3:1-20;4:1-12). The Book of Genesis is clear that Adam and Eve did not evolve from lower life forms. They were perfect humans from the time of their creation, fully formed, intelligent and upright. As humans, God has given us the right and responsibility to rule over animals - “all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Some will claim that they are our brothers. Some will claim that they are our equals in the eyes of God.
As Children of God, do not be taken into the arms of Satan's temptation. Repel the forces of evil! Embrace your sovereignty as the true Children of God, who stand alone in His image.
Stand tall in God’s light and reject the abominations - they are creatures spawned by the devil in trickery to imitate and mock a righteous God. They embody the work of darkness and evil. They are a test of your faith. They are no brother of Man; they are no part of Almighty God's design.
Bear witness that the Children of Satan shall be punished for their sins against humanity.
Below was a macabre graphic of the same creature that seemed to haunt Orrin everywhere he turned, but this time with wild, barbaric eyes and an aura of evil that sent a shiver down his spine.
A bowl of food sat uneaten in front of Ivy as she twisted her fingers absently in the short hide skirt she wore. It had been a gift from Shahn. Considering that the only animal on Flores large enough to provide a hide so big was a stegodon, it was an expensive gift. Ivy had no doubt that Shahn had traded some of her own belongings for its use. Ivy was grateful and glad to be rid of her filthy jeans. Her journal sat beside her, also untouched.
“Do not think on Krue, Hiranah, his bitterness is not your fault,” Shahn said, benevolent as always. “There is no beauty in his world anymore. I pity him, he wasn’t always that way.”
“He has every right to be bitter,” Ivy said. “Krue clearly hates the karathah and I’m guessing with good reason. He sees me as one of them, which is fair enough. I am one.”
“You're different.”
“No, I’m not.” As much as Ivy hated to acknowledge it, the moral flaws of her own species had tarnished every move she had made so far. She took a deep breath. “What did they do to him?”
Shahn looked away for a long moment.
“It wasn’t Krue,” Shahn said. “It was his mate’s daughter, Tikan.” A memory came into Ivy’s mind from Shahn, to compliment her words. She saw a girl not much older than Leihna, with dark, bushy hair and a wide smile. “Krue was proud of Tikan. He taught her to hunt himself. Three seasons ago there was - an accident,” Shahn said quietly. “Tikan was out hunting alone and didn't return. She was strong and independent so at first, no one worried.” A tear slipped down Shahn’s face and Ivy quite literally felt her grief through their connection. “Her mother Lahstri was worried that Tikan may have hunted too far into karathah territory. Perhaps she was right. After searching for two days, Krue found Tikan’s body by the Northern River. She’d been killed, and…” Shahn took a deep breath, “brutalised. By a karathah man.”
Ivy shook her head, trying to push away her disgust. No matter where she hid from it, the dark side of humanity kept taunting her.
“Krue lost his mind in grief,” Shahn said, shivering at the memory. “He ran to the cave of the karathah and tried to attack them. They laughed at him. One man knocked him down. He left Krue unconscious in the forest and took his fingers as punishment. Krue has carried his hatred for them ever since.”
“I don't blame him,” said Ivy.
“Tikan was killed by one bad man,” Shahn replied gently. “I can’t believe they are all bad because of that one. There is light and shadow in all people, even Krue himself.” Shahn looked to the back of the cave, where Ivy knew the dying hunters were being tended to by their loved ones. “His real torment is that the karathah thrive while we are dying. There are so many of them Hiranah, many more than us. Each day more of the forest becomes theirs. Their hunting tracks are growing closer to our cave and the animals are disappearing.” Shahn’s fingertips traced her belly and her brow furrowed. “I don’t know why our hunters are dying, or why our babies don’t survive, but I do know that every part of our family is precious.”
Shahn was right of course. This wasn’t about Tikan. There was always a bigger picture. Gnawing anger flared in Ivy’s chest. If history had taught her anything, it was that Homo sapiens could justify genocide for personal gain. But what motivation could they possibly have here? This is prehistory. These hobbits have nothing of value. Ivy flattened her palms onto the dirt behind her. Or do they?
“A nice morning for you, Hiranah.” Xiou’s hand encircled the amulet on her wrist and Ivy looked up from the rippling water that had her mesmerized. “I think I found your favourite place.”
Ivy just smiled. Xiou sat down beside her, his oversized feet falling far short of the river in which Ivy swirled her toes.
Ivy looked at the trees beyond the river. Before, she’d never dreamed such a place of such intense beauty could exist. Tiny wings, thick scales and furry hides spilled from the treetops and rustled among the leaves and volcanic soil. The breeze danced across the river catching rays of sun and throwing them into her eyes. Tiny silver flashes darted below, hitting her toes. Turtles, eels and water snakes hid in the shadows. The very essence of tranquillity was here.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” He bowed his head briefly to the river. “The water soothes away pain in a way that bare earth can never do.”
Ivy looked at him. “I’m not in pain,” she said.
“Don't be ashamed, Hiranah,” Xiou said kindly. “Your own pain allows you to feel others’. It's your strength.” He paused, and then added, “You’re lonely.”
Her eyes burned as they had threatened to all morning. She had dreamt about him again last night.
Orrin.
Every nerve felt scalded by the memory of his face and it only seemed to grow stronger day by day. This morning, even the river couldn’t soothe the ache it left in her heart. There was such clarity in those dreams. Where other fragments of her old life were drifting away, Orrin kept Ivy chained to her loss. She smoothed her hands through her fringe restlessly.
I've made my decision. I chose this. Let him go.
“It helps to talk sometimes,” Xiou said. “At least that’s what Shahn keeps telling me. Just don’t tell her I pay attention.” He chuckled.
Ivy smiled reluctantly. She’d forgotten her thoughts weren’t private.
“Tell me about him,” Xiou offered gently.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anyth
ing.”
So Ivy told him. Over an hour passed as Xiou listened to Ivy relive the exhilaration and fear that she had tried to hide from and the loss and regret that now plagued every night of sleep.
“I pushed him away,” she admitted bluntly. “I’ve lost people I love before and I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to survive it again.” Ivy laughed bitterly through tears she hadn’t felt fall. “Now he’s lost to me anyway.”
“So we stole love from you too,” said Xiou. “And yet, here you are. Surviving. Perhaps you are stronger than you thought.” He sat for a moment and let the sound of water fill the silence before speaking again. “Don’t live in fear, Hiranah. What we fear most will always find us. We can only be prepared to meet it. You must trust yourself to be ready for it.”
There it was again. Trust.
Xiou gestured to a spill of grass not too far upstream.
“She has a gentle heart, your Kyah.” The bonobo sat with Trahg in her lap, grooming his hair with a doting eye. Trahg giggled as her fingers tickled his scalp. He pulled Kyah’s hand away restlessly and ran to the base of a nearby tree instead.
“Up. Fruit.” signed Trahg. Ivy shifted a little uncomfortably at the ease with which he’d picked up Kyah’s symbols.
Kyah scooted to Trahg’s side and ushered him up. A moment later, a shower of leaves and fruit hit the ground. The two friends dropped to their feet and began in earnest to knock them apart and scoop out the middle.
“I worry about her,” Ivy said. “Kyah should be with her own kind. Even in her cage in my world she had other bonobo’s to live with, although here she has more freedom,” Ivy admitted. “But she’s still isolated, she’s…”
“…one of a kind?” Xiou ventured.
“Yes.” A soft breeze blew warm across the grass. Ivy plucked a tiny flower from beneath her hand and threw it into the wind.
“I wouldn’t worry, if I were you,” Xiou said. “Kyah is loved. She is teaching us her pictures in the dirt, so we can understand her too.”
“Mmmm,” Ivy murmured. It was never Ivy’s intention to teach the lexigrams she and Kyah used together to the hobbits. The blame fell squarely on Kyah. Once Trahg began emulating Kyah’s drawings like any child would, the bonobo had taken it upon herself to keep teaching him new ones. The ripple effect was inevitable. Already, many of the adults had shown interest in learning too. Ivy tried to justify it by telling herself that her other interferences would impact their lives much more than knowing a few symbols.
A dangerous path ahead had already begun to form in Ivy’s mind. Although she should have felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of her decision to interfere with evolution, she was resolved and calm.
It was only what Ivy had lost to be here that haunted her now.
Orrin.
Small boats bobbed in the inky black water. The glass felt cool under Orrin's palm and forehead and he stared unseeing at the stunning expanse of bay stretched before him.
The crystal in his hand tremored. Orrin downed his fourth scotch, hoping again, but comfort was elusive. He felt no warm dissolution in his veins, no vague satisfaction or happy numbness of memory and circumstance.
He was still angry. Still confused. Still helpless with the sickening frustration of not being able to understand what he was missing. It plagued him every waking moment and broke him from his sleep in terrors. It taunted him and Orrin just knew that a fingertip away was the missing piece of the puzzle that he was obviously too blind or stupid to see. Where is she? And what is this god-damned hobbit that’s everywhere I turn? Orrin slammed the empty shot glass onto the marble coffee table.
Collapsing back into the leather lounge, he closed his eyes and picked the insanity apart piece by piece. Again. He was a logical man. There would be a logical answer.
Ivy was gone, that much he knew. It was like she'd never existed. She left no note, no phone, she was simply… gone. There was no record of her at the archaeology lab or in her own department. No office. He'd combed the postgraduate library for her work records, journal submissions, anything. He found nothing, no references to her classes, no thesis. Jayne denied even knowing her. No one seemed to know her. Phil never met her. Dale never met her. Liam, who had studied and rallied alongside Ivy for eight years, didn't remember her - or Orrin himself - and had nearly broken his nose to prove it.
No one saw a chimp. There was no chimp. The chimp lab now housed some pitiful manifestation of man-ape that seemed to be the source of a cultural upheaval the likes of which he'd never seen before. I'm missing something. The world around him screamed different, like it had been tilted on its axis and everywhere he turned there was wrong that left him stumbling.
Orrin refilled his glass, slopping amber liquid on the table. His eyes squeezed shut as the bitterness ran down his throat. Nothing. He slumped against the stiff leather couch.
There wasn't a single damned thing that tied Ivy to this earth. If she had existed, there would be something- however small or remote. But there was nothing in her place but a black void. And only he seemed to notice. Mute devastation clawed at him, tempting insanity. Orrin had never questioned himself before, never needed to. Even in his darkest moments, in the broken realisation of divorce, he still knew his own mind. He'd trusted himself. But this, this was different. This obsession for a woman that had never existed, a woman who couldn't exist, was all consuming.
I need her.
He hadn't recognised the loneliness within him until it had almost been filled. Now, acknowledged for what it truly was, the black void Ivy left threatened to drown him. He searched desperately for something to fill the loss. The nothingness that took her space.
Black.
Orrin's vision blurred, eyelids drooping. Black.
Black!
He jolted upright. The colour drained from his face. A memory pierced his brain with singular clarity.
Scattered stone tools in small plastic bags.
Jayne backed to a bench, with accusing, frightened eyes.
He'd slammed her desk.
A single stone tool under his hand.
The faint temptation of recognition.
Orrin knew now why it was familiar.
Black, smooth beneath its crust of dirt. Evenly shaped. Unique.
He knew it. He'd seen it before.
It was Ivy's amulet.
The soles of Ivy's feet beat hard against the jungle floor as she ran through the bright tangle of roots, branches and ferns. Kyah shadowed her in the branches above. She was eternally grateful for her jogging routine in the last few years. Without it, Ivy doubted she’d have lasted half of the distance they’d just covered.
Leihna, Shahn’s younger sister, and her cousins Rinap and Filhia were like ghosts between the trees leaving only tinkling laughs filtering back to direct Ivy's course. Ivy guessed the two eldest to be about twelve with Filhia a couple of years behind. Their slender figures had not long come into womanhood but their faces still had the endearing glow of childhood.
They were like faeries in a children’s story, wisps that exist more in the moment before sleep is stolen, than in any kind of hopeful reality. Lurking megafauna could easily have made a meal of them, but the girls weren't defenceless. Their arms were muscular and strong and they could retreat to the safety of the branches in a split-second. In addition, each girl carried a stone blade in her belt and Rinap and Leihna carried spears.
Filhia crossed her path with a bright smile then melted back into the undergrowth. Ivy sprinted after her. The warm air filled her with intoxicating freedom. This place was special. Glossy, heart-shaped leaves touched her face. Twigged fingers swept through her hair and her toes thrilled in the feel of peat underfoot. Ivy danced through vines and pulled their limbs along her trail.
Ivy suddenly realised the irony of her fear on that first night in the forest. Claws nor tusks nor venom held the greatest threat here. Of all the predators in this forest, Homo sapiens were the most deadly. And not all death came from the end of
a spear. She stopped abruptly. A spear was just the most obvious way to kill someone. But there were other ways as well.
“Aaargh!” Ivy shrieked as Rinap landed in front of her with a thump. The other girls pounced onto her from the undergrowth laughing. An instant later, Kyah had dropped from above too, hooting and swatting Ivy's hand playfully. Ivy held out her arms but Kyah signed “catch” and jumped back into the branches. Filhia, who had paid the most attention to Kyah's lessons, returned the sign with a giggle and obliged by chasing her upward.
“Where are we Leihna?” Ivy asked. She stepped over the buttressed feet of a tualang, stripping a handful of red seeds from a vine. Each seed had a glossy black spot on one end and they rattled together in her palm. They'd make a nice necklace. Ivy recognized the seed from her ill-fated expedition to the hot spring.
“This is the oleos grove,” Leihna said. The thick patch of trees they had stopped within was umbrella’d beneath higher branches creating a second canopy. Mint green leaves grew out of watermelon-coloured buds en masse, with the tips of fully grown leaves boasting a pink crown.
Ivy ran her fingers along a fallen mottled trunk. Insects had garnished the wood with a rusty coating of clay and misty patches of grey silk hid tiny spiders in its grooves. Of course. Oleos. The tree had made it onto her phytolith reference chart.
“You use them for washing?” Ivy asked. “The fruit pulp makes a good soap.” Leihna looked surprised.
“That's right,” the girl said. “Also torches. We crush the nuts for oil and soak kapok fibres in it to wrap around a palm frond. They burn well.”
“Is that what we’re collecting for?” Ivy said.
Leihna grinned. “Not today. We have a surprise for you. You’re coming with us to the trade offering. But Phren wants us to gather oleos and durian first.”
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