by C. C. York
"I'm so sorry. I never meant to bring this to you. I didn't know."
"Shhh. It's OK. I'll make it OK." Kara held Elaine, and Elaine felt worse that she was the one doing the comforting. Elaine never had a brother or sister, but she knew in her bones that there was no better big sister than Kara.
"I have to leave. There's this place called Baki-something that I can go to. Kanne Da'Neen told me."
Kara pushed Elaine out at an arm's length to look in her face but didn't release her. "You told Kanne Da'Neen? Don't you know she adopted Hvard?"
Elaine shook her head, "I didn't tell her anything!"
"But you think she knows?"
"No. I don't know...Maybe? I don't think she would tell anyone, though. She told me today that she knew a Rifter once, and she kept her secret."
"Back up. Tell me everything. First, who was this person you Rifted in front of?"
Elaine told her about how she accidentally Rifted when running away from Hvard, how she taught herself to Rift, about that morning in the upper Tiers when she ran into the guy outside the lavender house. She told her verbatim what Kanne Da'Neen said that afternoon. The smoke from the Cluster fires blocked out the stars above, and the wall loomed overhead behind them. She felt suffocated and fought off an increasing urge to run.
Kara stopped her. "She said that this woman had family in Bakilar? You know what this means, right?"
Elaine hadn't quite processed everything. She felt like this morning was years ago, and she just kept slipping into more trouble. She knew she had to leave, but she just found Efendi. I love this place, its people, and its magic. She felt safe for the first time, loved even for the first time, with the Hadishis. She thought back to Otum lying on the table and Farisha's bone-weary face. Her chest ached. I have to get as far away from them as possible before I bring more trouble to them.
Kara knelt; her long wiry body bent over to look Elaine directly in the face. "Elaine, this means you could have family in Bakilar."
It was the first glimmer of good Elaine had felt since this morning. She never intended to go back home to her parents when she first fell into this place, especially when she found a home with the Hadishis. She had no idea what Bakilar was or how to get there, but she found a pinprick of light at the end of a crooked, suffocating tunnel.
The two girls sat on an old stone bench against the wall, not speaking. Elaine should have been hatching a plan, but she couldn't help the overriding thought above all else.
They were not my parents. I have a mother somewhere.
She glanced over to see Kara staring off, worry etched over her face, chewing on her thumbnail. Elaine asked, "How do I get to Bakilar?"
Kara looked at the ground instead of her eyes, "I'll get you there. I think I know a way."
Reed
Monti asked rapid-fire questions about the Iktidars, the Tiers, and what he knew of Rifters as they trotted further along the icy blue river. A day ago, Reed would have thought this was torture, but he found that he liked Monti's quick, acerbic wit and her self-deprecating jokes. By the time their conversation evolved past an interrogation, their path had morphed into a dusty road. She told him some of her college stories and hilarious conquests between jokes about being raised by a prison warden and a Sunday School teacher.
She tilted her head back, and for a brief moment, rested it on Reed's peck as she sighed, "I don't know how it happened. I never thought I'd want to return to Texas after I graduated from A&M a couple of years ago, but New York feels like it's swallowing me whole. I love the people, the energy, everything. But to be honest, I don't love who I'm turning into, if that makes sense. I thought New York would feel like the beginning of my future, but now it just feels like a dead end."
Reed's mind flitted back to a tiny brunette named Maddy as it always did when someone talked about plans. He ignored the constriction in his chest and distracted himself by prompting Monti to talk more. "Is it someone or something that's making you think you have to leave New York altogether?"
"Bit of both, I suppose. I met someone I thought was a dream. Gorgeous, obviously--" Monti leaned back and dramatically winked at Reed before turning back to the road, "---charming, disgustingly wealthy, and fabulously interesting. He gave me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work for him. Something I couldn't pass up. But the more I worked with him, the more things felt off. I came back to Texas for one final project that involved my dad's prison. That's why I happened to be there when all hell broke loose."
"Marketing?" Reed asked, wondering what she was working on in New York that brought her to a Texan supermax.
She nodded emphatically. "Yep. Prison reform...marketing. Er, marketing for policies involving prison reform. You know, philanthropic stuff.”
Monti spoke before he could ask another question. “So how did you and your mother survive when you first got to our world?”
Reed flashed back to the smiling woman, white teeth and a beige hat covering her auburn hair. That was the first time he’d ever seen a cowboy hat, and he still felt welcomed whenever he saw one even years later.
“There’s a network around the world that helps immigrants from Sakalid. It’s not extensive, but they’re incredibly loyal to each other. Our Rifter took us to one of the colonias outside of McCallen initially, and her contact met us there.”
Monti’s face dropped, and he knew she saw one of the border towns where hundreds of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America set up simple wooden homes and haphazard shacks on the outskirts of Texas.
“We stayed with a family paid by that network for the first few nights. They gave us food and water, and their sons showed me my first soccer ball. A few days later, an Efendian that had crossed years before picked us up. We stayed with her for a few weeks while she forged social security cards for us. She helped my mom learn the basics of life as an illegal and got her a job cleaning houses with her. I enrolled in middle school after watching American TV for hours on end in her apartment.”
“Jesus, that must have been hard. Is that how you learned English?”
“Ha, not quite. Our Rifter explained that local linguistics instantly passes through to everyone Rifted based on the Ley Line they used. It’s why you’d be able to understand Efendian now. I learned Spanish before I ever knew English, so we blended in among the border towns. People assumed my mother was Afro-Mexicano because of her dark skin.”
“Where is your mother now?”
“Dead.”
Monti said the only thing anyone ever said when you talked about death, “I’m so sorry.”
Reed spoke to break the awkward silence that always followed conversations about the dead. “She was happy for a time there. It felt like hope. Like we could finally stop running and just make a home together.”
Monti chewed on her lip before gesturing to the rolling fields of grass around them. “Monsters aside, wouldn’t it be better for you to stay here? Going back means you’ll go to prison. Why not just hide from your dad here instead of going home?”
Reed huffed a laugh. “First, there is no home for me anywhere. I came to Texas as an illegal, undocumented immigrant who was too black to hang out with the white kids, too white to fit in with the black kids, and not Hispanic enough to fit in with any Mexican kids. I was a wide-eyed foster kid that never got any of the jokes and failed every test. Staci was the only home I ever had, and I---”
He stopped speaking to swallow the lump gagging his throat. Toxic as she was, Staci was the wild and beautiful America he glimpsed when he first arrived and his first friend. She flouted stereotypes, opting instead to hate everyone equally while she smoked stolen packs of cigarettes and dyed her hair pale pink. Staci sang lines from Langston Hughes while plucking a guitar and fucked like she was leaving town the next morning. Most importantly, she never pressed Reed on his past so long as he never pressed why she sometimes came to school with a busted lip or a black eye. They were either wrapped around
each other or at each other’s throats, and they clung to each other like the scrubby hackberry in the desert when their nightmares chased sleep away.
He cleared his throat, refusing to look at Monti’s searching eyes. “Anyway. I never knew my dad, but my mother gave her life to get me away from here. I don’t care where I go so long as it’s not in this world.”
They were quiet for a time. The Magarans grew more imposing the closer they got, but a sea of grass still surrounded Monti and Reed now. Reed cantered the Aygir and listened to the wind rustle the gold-green stalks. Now that he was not running, he acknowledged that the grassland surrounding him reminded him of his mother more than anywhere else. He could almost hear her deep laugh and hushed songs in the wind.
Monti’s voice broke him out of his memories. “What do you think this queen of yours will do to my dad?”
Reed shook his head. “It’s hard to hide a building that comes out of nowhere. She’ll assume they came with a Rifter and are hiding her somehow.”
He grimaced. His mother relented one night and told him how her Rifter friend escaped during a Rifter Hunt. Neighbors sold out neighbors they disliked, torches marched past windows, and frenzied crowds cheered as the Iktidar cronies executed women and girls. Another hunt would be underway if they thought a Rifter was among the Tiers again. As if Reed needed any further proof to get as far away from Efendians as possible.
He debated on how much truth to give Monti. He imagined the panic he would’ve had if it was his mother captured. “We’ll get to your dad. The Queen will want he and the others alive to get as much information as possible.”
Reed expected Monti to say aloud whatever thoughts she had when it came to her dad, particularly since he was locked up in prison in another world. But she never did. It’s not my place to press.
Instead, she gestured to the caravan heading their way and asked, “Who are all these people?”
The jewel-tone carriages cast diamond-shaped azure, emerald, and gold reflections on either side of the valley. Faint music ran over the patches of wildflowers and bounced back from green-gold grassy knolls loitering in between. Someone was singing, loudly, if they could pick it up at this distance, and Reed felt a familiar pang of loss.
"Performers, more than likely. It's got to be close to Hasateen, or the Efendian harvest, and there will be celebrations at the end of it requiring dancers, musicians, actors, and such."
"Will you recognize any of them?"
"Doubt it. We only spent a handful of years with our troupe before its leader threatened to sell our whereabouts to my father. Most of our troupe were thieves or sellswords, and almost all of them were pricks."
Reed thought back to the brutal-looking troupe leader, ignoring his desire to break something between his fingers. Pebbles scattered beneath the Aygir’s feet. I am no longer the boy hiding behind his mother. He forced himself to relax.
"The man that threatened to sell us out to my father was named Hvard Canavar. It wouldn't surprise me if he traded the life of a wandering actor for more lucrative thug work within the walls of Efendi."
Despite the bitter memories, he felt a nostalgic tinge watching the troupe come into view. He loved sitting on top of the lead wagon with his little legs swinging over the side. His mother would usually be alongside him, singing a new song she wanted to try for the next show. If he wasn't on top during the treks between shows, he was usually hovering around Tilli. Tilli was the halfbreed Itreni in the troupe, and Reed the youngest boy. Reed loved demonstrating the Aygir tricks Tilli taught him to wealthy Efendian boys, and Tilli loved the coin he brought in.
For a moment, Reed allowed himself to imagine the life he could have had if his father didn’t haunt them. I could have watched my mother grow old, perhaps find love and protection, and we could have roamed the kingdom under the hot sun as we pleased. I might have picked up the guitar even without Staci’s help, and—he stopped. Even in his daydreams, his worlds collided, and every could-have involved a sacrifice. He felt adrift, unable to anchor on the foundation of a home or memory without pain.
He shifted off the road to give the caravan more room. A handful of young men lounging on the rooftops and back porches of the wagons gleefully shouted praise at Monti. Her version of lying low was to wave back jovially while laughing and dramatically bowing over the Aygir. Reed spit out some of the hair getting in his mouth at another enthusiastic head toss and ground his teeth. Staci hadn't been beautiful in the way Monti was, but she had a dangerous charisma that caught most men's attention. And she always flaunted it even after they were married.
He pushed the Aygir harder at the memory of her smirk and held onto Monti a little tighter than necessary. The last of the troupe wagons passed them, and Reed shifted back onto the road. He was thinking of Staci dancing in their bar when Monti twisted back to Reed.
"Jealous, much there, Lewis? Lemme guess... Wife murdered in lover's quarrel. What, did she sleep with your neighbor?" She widened her eyes comically, "Don't tell me you caught her!"
Reed should have expected the barb with a tongue as sharp as Monti's, but it still caught him off guard. He let his hand drop down to their sides and glanced briefly at Monti before training his eyes on the mountain ahead. "Something like that." he said.
Her face dropped, and the ride the next hour was awkwardly quiet. Reed would have relished the long-denied silence, but he realized he enjoyed their traded insults and banter. It had been a long time since he just talked with a woman that made him laugh. Reed shifted the Aygir towards the narrow path again that led through trees and swatted at leaves and branches that swiped him back as they passed.
I should have just laughed it off, he thought. I could have made a joke about her talking too much and moved on. He huffed, and her hair shifted to reveal the slope of her neck. He bit back a groan. Since when am I turned on by a neck? Get it together, Reed. What would Staci say? This woman is only with you because you are literally the last man from Earth that can help her. It doesn't matter if it's awkward or if we say another word to each other the rest of the time we're in this hellish realm.
The Aygir shied and sidestepped further away from the stream that suddenly frothed to their right. The water swirled around itself in a small whirlpool and splashed up the bank. Reed slowed his breath again and pushed any thoughts of Staci or Monti out of his head. The water calmed as he did, but the beast nipped at the air in agitation.
The Magaran range was close enough now that the sun was barely visible over her jagged ridgeline even though true moonrise was still an hour away.
Reed cleared his throat as he weaved the Aygir through the thick trees. He hopped down and helped Monti climb off as well before letting the beast meander into the stream. Monti watched him while he shook off the pain in his legs from the ride. She knows you’re a murderer, Reed. What did you expect?
He tried to calm her nerves. "We'll be safe here tonight. These trees are a lot older than the Batiwood, and the worst monsters don't venture this close to the Magaran mountains. Anything else that would be a threat will stay away from the Aygir.”
She looked uneasy in a way Reed hadn't seen since the Itreni caught them in his loft. He walked a few steps closer, "Monti, I know you know about my past. But I promise, you have nothing to fear from me. I am not going to hurt you, and I won’t let anything else in this world hurt you either.”
He instantly felt stupid at the bemused purse of her lips, so he tried to fix it by completely ignoring the new level of awkwardness he brought into their night.
"I'm gonna get firewood. You can wash up in the stream, but the temperature drops quickly up here, so I wouldn't go for a swim. Just shout if you need me and keep close to the Aygir until I get back."
He made it a few steps when Monti called out, "We could name her 'I'm with dipshit'?"
He turned, "Eh?"
Monti walked closer and tilted her head towards the beast, aggressively bobbing for fish. "She needs a nam
e."
Reed rolled his eyes at her barb. "You can do better than that," and he turned to the task at hand. She followed him a step behind while he gathered sticks off the forest floor.
"No, I mean…Ah hell, Reed. I'm trying to say I'm the dipshit. I shouldn't have joked about your wife like that back there. I don't know you at all, and you helped me this entire time without really needing to since I don't add much value to our expedition...and I've been trying to put the two and two together of jailbird Reed and you and it just doesn't match up. What I'm trying to say is I don't know why you killed your wife--"
She waved him off when he tried to interrupt, "No. I don't need to know why. All I'm trying to say is that you seem like a good man. And apart from my dad, a few of the guards that are more like uncles, and that really good looking lawyer in the lobby," Reed laughed and she smiled as she pressed on. "I'm glad that, out of everyone in that prison, I got stuck with you."
Reed ran a hand over the scruff on his face and smiled despite himself. "Thank you."
He laughed at the physical strain on her face of trying not to ask something. He waved her on with a stick, "Go on. Ask."
"Why are you helping me get Dad anyway? I mean, I appreciate it, don't get me wrong. But you didn't have to haul me with you."
Reed chewed over how much he should tell her when her mouth ran off rambling again as she picked up sticks alongside him.
"I mean, if it's sex... ehhhh. You seem nice and all, but I really don't know you. Not that I'm saying it could never happen, just not like right now. You're probably good-looking under all that... Scruff. That's where I was going. Anyway, it's been a really long time since I slept with someone that wasn't my boyfriend, or ex, I suppose by now, but..."
She was snapping twigs into quarters and tossing them back on the ground without really looking at them or Reed as her monologue shot out of her mouth.
"Besides, even if you were to rescue my dad and me and bring us back to our world, I still think you need to put in some serious time and effort before… I'm not like a prude or anything, but I've got standards... and,"
