Above the Star

by Alexis Marie Chute

  “Are you injured?” Ardenal asks.

  “Fine, fine,” Archie murmurs. “Thank you for saving me—” is all he can make out. The throbbing at the back of Archie’s head surges toward the front of his skull. He sits back on his heels and jams his fists into his eye sockets to counteract the pain, but it is no use. It blackens his vision and he feels himself falling.

  The second before Archie collapses, he winces as Ardenal cauterize the flesh wound and he hears the Olearon say, “You need rest. The others are not far, and they will move slowly.” The burning pain subsides and Archie feels Ardenal’s warm hands lay his limp head on his coat in the crook of a tree root. Ardenal continues, “Rest now, Dad . . .”

  ARCHIE startles awake and sits up. “Dad?” he says aloud, confused, but he is alone. “Dad . . . I must’ve misheard.” Archie shivers, and realizes that the sun is gradually setting and the land cooling. The trees paint crooked shadows across the forest. A creature watches Archie from a high branch. Archie compares the size of it to a small terroir. It has the body of a lizard, though the head and hard wing-covers of a flying beetle. The creature clicks and shrieks through a black pincher. Archie blinks hard at the sight of it. The bizarre lizard-beetle stares back at Archie with the compound eyes of a fly, divided into hundreds of diamond-shape receptors, each receiving its own set of visual stimuli. The creature’s color shifts like the rainbows of a gasoline slick. It clicks again defiantly and slithers around a broad tree trunk of bluish, reflective bark, slipping out of sight.

  “What have you gotten yourself into now, Archibald?” he asks himself. “This place will be the death of you.”

  Archie rolls to his knees, looking around. He is alone and there is no path, not even a clear direction he can recall of the journey from the beach. The thought of the golden shore makes Archie shudder and he pulls his coat on and zips it to his chin.

  “You have been tricked again!” Archie stands and looks around. “Why am I so stupid? Of course, he ran off! Of course, he is not my son.” Archie stumbles on a rock, which he picks up and hurls into the misty dusk. “Arden is dead, you old fool,” he rebukes himself angrily.

  A haunting caw echoes overhead. The white hairs on Archie’s arms bristle. Critters in the trees scurry into hiding with the swoosh of shifting leaves and scratching feet against the bark of the looming trees. Archie peers upward but sees only the forest canopy and rays of dull light. Suddenly, he hears the patter of tiny beating wings and notices a group of delicate emerald-colored birds twisting and spinning through the slow musky breeze. The caw so obviously did not originate from these merry creatures. The birds play together happily and fly to Archie, pausing, their wings still clapping the air, while they peer at him through thick eyelashes.

  “Hello, little ones,” Archie laughs. The birds look at him as if understanding. Their flapping wings spin fading threads of lemony-colored wind that curls around them. Their eyes are human-like, Archie reflects as he beholds the creatures closer than any other wild animal he has seen outside of captivity.

  The birds chirp in answer to his greeting, serenading him, the melody like a lullaby. Very slowly, Archie extends his arm, then his fingers toward the whirl of green. In a chaotic flutter of wings and chirps and bumping bodies, the whole bevy charge him, and soon find a spot to perch on Archie’s fingers, outstretched arm, and shoulders. Of the twenty or more birds, Archie guestimates, five balance on the top of his head. He can sense their smooth feet shuffle about, though their toes do not scratch his skin with any kind of nail. Instead, their touch is gentle and silky.

  Afraid to make a sudden movement, Archie stands motionless, and says, “Well, what are we going to do now?” His amusement is soon silenced, however, when a second piercing caw rains out above him. The emerald birds flutter wildly once more and rush away, flying in every direction. The light is darkened for a moment as a huge black bird descends. It’s broad wings swiftly stir the air as it hunts. With a slapping gesture of both feathered arms, it pierces ten green bodies through their hearts with claws that retract from their wingtips like curled daggers.

  Archie back-steps quickly till his shoulders collide with a tree. He holds his breath. The black form flaps once, with powerful ease, and is gone. Gone for now, Archie worries, though it may return. The hunt leaves behind tiny drops of the green birds’ blood on the forest floor.

  A yellow light in the distance catches Archie’s eyes, drawing his gaze away from the leafy branches above him. “Zeno?” Hope surges and Archie sprints away from his safe tree toward the glow, hopping over roots and ducking under branches. The light radiates from yellow to red and dances from tree to tree, darting this way and that, disappearing and then reappearing around the waists of the peculiar trees. As Archie draws closer he whispers again into the night, “Zeno?”

  The response is the hoot of a child’s laughter. Archie pauses. “Duggie-Sky?”

  “It’s me!” The boy’s voice bounces back into Archie’s ears like his own echo.

  Out from behind a thicket bounds Ardenal with Duggie-Sky in his arms. “The boy was hungry and you were sleeping so deeply.”

  “Wake me next time, all right? This place is unnerving.”

  “We need to go, Dad. The others may be half a day ahead now. I need to see my girls. There is so much I want to tell them. Eat as we travel.” Ardenal tosses Archie a green fruit that, when he bites into it, is smooth like a banana but with crunchy seeds.

  “Why do you call me Dad?” Archie asks cautiously, his mouth full of fruit. His skin tingles with hyper-awareness. He does not dare disagree outright with the red being, not wishing to offend the Olearon and cause trouble for himself and Duggie-Sky. “You must be mistaken, my son died two years ago.”

  “That’s not the truth.”

  “Who are you, really?”

  “It’s me, Arden, Dad, but on Jarr-Wya they call me Ardenal. They’re funny like that. They like to bestow complicated names—I’m constantly corrected.”

  “And if I was to believe you, how did you become like this? Do all people eventually turn red in this world?”

  “No, not everyone. Jarr-Wya is magical, Dad. There is so much I need to tell you, but right now we must save our breath till we make up ground.”

  “Won’t you burn him?” Archie asks as Ardenal changes the position with which he carries Duggie-Sky.

  “I’m thinking coolness into my hands and arms and core, drawing my heat up into my neck at the base of my skull. I must control my emotions, not grow angry or suspicious. When the effort of this focus becomes too great, I’ll give you the boy, Dad. To be safe, let’s wrap your jacket around him for an extra layer.”

  Archie reluctantly agrees to jog, struggling to maintain Ardenal’s pace, as they find the trail of the Olearons and Odyssey passengers. They share the work of carrying Duggie-Sky, passing the four-year-old back and forth, giving the other’s arms a chance to rest as they travel the jagged path. The moonlight reflecting on the bark twirls like pond ripples, an inch here and an inch there. The whole forest hums a melancholy vibration, like the sound of fingers and a thumb slowly rubbing together beside the ear.

  “How is Ella, Dad? Tell me about her,” Ardenal asks, but stops when Archie bristles at the question. “You don’t believe it’s me, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Archie replies. “Can you blame me?”

  Ardenal nods. “I understand. Let’s lay it all out there. My name is Arden Eugene Wellsley. I guess I have you to thank for that horrible middle name.” Ardenal chuckles. “I love history. I’m a professor, or, I was a professor. Egypt was my fascination. I grew up in Seattle. Played basketball as a kid. I am a diehard Sonics fan. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. I married my college sweetheart, Tessa. We have a beautiful daughter together . . .” Ardenal’s voice trails off. They walk for a few moments in silence.

  “I don’t understand it, but I feel it,” Archie whispers to himself. It is Ardenal’s voice and the way he speaks, more than anythin
g he had said, that makes Archie’s arms goose-bump. “I know you,” Archie says firmly, finally, breaking the quiet lull that had both man and Olearon lost in thought. “You are my Arden.”

  “Dad—” Ardenal begins.

  “This is strange for me, all right?” interrupts Archie. “You looking like this. I didn’t expect it, although I haven’t the foggiest of what I did in fact expect to find here. My gut tells me that it’s you, Arden. Maybe it’s dementia, like Tessa says, or the strange air in this world, but I do believe . . .” Archie stops trekking and hugs Ardenal, Duggie-Sky cradled between them.

  The human and Olearon embrace until Archie’s skin tingles with heat and he must pull away. Duggie-Sky, who had fallen asleep, wakes and stretches. Archie welcomes the boy’s arms around his neck as he snuggles onto the dirty shoulder of Archie’s shirt. The clicking of the lizard-beetle begins again, echoing off in the distance. It screeches violently. Then clicks. The pattern repeats. Ardenal scowls in the direction of the creature, which he informs Archie are called carakwa. The clicking of the carakwa unnerves Archie and he shakes his head as if the sound originated between his ears. He refocuses on what the Olearon—Arden—had said.

  Archie brushes dampness away from the wrinkles around his eyes. “Arden, I thought I’d lost you forever—” Archie begins, “but here you are. When the Bangol told me you were dead, I believed him. Still, I couldn’t let you go.”

  “Zeno . . .” Ardenal pauses. “I should start at the beginning—although, since you are here, I presume you already know about my research.”

  “What bit of it I understand,” Archie admits.

  “I came upon a piece of information in my historical studies that spoke of another world, a place that sailors had heard rumors of for decades, a place they’d written stories about, stories that were dismissed as myths. Legends of a place among the seven Canary Islands. It all started there.

  “I continued to uncover more accounts of this other world—this island—Jarr-Wya. Not all the sources were reputable, mind you. I visited every post-secondary library in the city, not to mention hole-in-the-wall antiquity collectors, new age shops, and even spiritual mediums, but every little detail I learned became a puzzle piece in my understanding of what I needed to do.”

  Archie stubs his foot against a mangled blue root but Ardenal catches him, and Duggie-Sky, as he stumbles. The boy climbs across into Ardenal arms, slipping Archie’s jacket between them, and his eyelids flutter before closing once more. “I have no idea what day it is; the poor kid’s exhausted!” By habit, Archie slides up his unfitted wristwatch to check the time. “Strange,” he says. “It appears to have stopped.”

  “Time moves differently here, Dad. Even I have not found logic in its rhythm.”

  “Hmm, well!” Archie shrugs and replaces his sleeve. “Go on, Arden,” Archie continues, panting. “Tell me more about your research.”

  “I guess it all began when I was studying the Fifth Egyptian Dynasty and came across a terrifying, though beautiful goddess named Isis—in no way connected with the terrorist group. The name of the goddess first appeared in the temple of King Niuserre and was also connected to the high priest—Pepi-Ankh—at the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty. The goddess wears a collar-piece decorated with jewels and a fitted sheath gown. Isis is often pictured with broad, fanning wings growing out from beneath her arms and spreading wide beyond her fingertips. The historical records show Isis with a variety of headdresses; one popular depiction portrays her crown rising upward with cow horns that support a blood red solar disc.

  “The goddess’s name means ‘throne.’ Some artistic depictions show her headdress marked with the hieroglyphic sign for throne, with her body literally bent at the hips and knees, as if she was the seat of royalty herself. In this way, she was intimately connected to the pharaoh, who was painted or sculpted as a child who sits on her lap. In these representations, Isis nurses the tiny pharaoh.

  “Isis was worshiped as a mother-fertility figure, and as a goddess of magic and medicine. Her deity spread beyond Ancient Egypt and she is still worshiped by modern pagans. As the stories go, her father, Geb, was the god of earth, and her mother, Nut, the god of sky. The Isis mythology tells of the murder of her brother, Osiris, by another ancient figure named Set, who washed Osiris’ body down the river Nile in a coffin.”

  Archie shudders. “That’s morbid,” he says.

  “It gets better, Dad: During the Greco-Roman period, people attributed the flooding of the Nile to the tears Isis shed for Osiris. Isis collected Osiris’s body parts from the river and brought him back to life. Then she married him. The story goes that, together, they had four sons.”

  Archie interrupts Ardenal. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “That’s just it, Dad. In the suspicious records I uncovered, who I thought was Isis was depicted very differently.”

  “How so?”

  “In those documents—almost as if they had been hidden in university libraries—I saw images of a beautiful Amazon woman, like Isis, but she wore no crown or jeweled collar. She had on a piece of gold armor that looped from her neck to one shoulder. In the back of it she stored for easy access two long blades with curled gold handles decorated with metal leaves. Her wings grew out of her back instead of beneath her arms, like Isis. Her gown flowed softly, and was braided in parts, not fitted or stiff. This mystical figure also had antlers growing from her forehead—elongated with golden thread—and a serpentine tail. In all my investigations, the Egyptian goddess never had a tail of any kind, despite the ancient artists occasionally portraying the character of Isis with the attributes of their sacred animals, like cows, scorpions and snakes.

  “Plus, this mysterious winged woman, and her race, do not give birth to children. And especially not to boys. They were all women and their little ones grew from the earth, plant-like, from within a flower, not from the womb.”

  “So . . .” Archie begins. “What does this all mean?”

  “As I began to dig deeper and deeper, I realized that I was not looking at images or reading passages about Isis at all, as I had first suspected. The woman-creature is called a Steffanus. They transport to our world from Jarr using a magical portal jumper—”

  “The Tillastrion.”

  “Yes. Apparently, from what I read, the Steffanus have been sneaking between worlds for hundreds if not thousands of years. I never discovered why. What I did learn, however, is that the Steffanus’ magic—Naiu—has many peculiar qualities, one of which is the ability to heal. I read about a glowing orb that must be cracked open. The records were vague, but the writing spoke cryptically of a child and a ‘life-wilting illness;’ those exact words.”

  “Ella . . .”

  Ardenal nods. “That was my first thought too, Dad. I felt Jarr calling to me through the aged, brittle pages I studied. Isn’t that weird? I felt that I was meant to read them. To see what I saw in the illustrations. I’m just so terribly forgetful that I had to take notes. At the same time, I didn’t want Tessa to find my notebooks; I didn’t want her to think I was crazy.

  “The home of the Steffanus—Jarr—is this place. The island of Jarr-Wya. Learning about Jarr-Wya became an obsession for me. Before work, after work. The weekends. You know, Dad. I wasn’t around much. I met many bizarre individuals in my research, people gone mad in search of the next Steffanus to appear on earth. All this mystery proved a great distraction from what was going on with Ella. I could never do enough for her, I could never take her pain away, and Tessa—” Ardenal sighs deeply. “She probably hates me.” He looks over at Archie, who grimaces and shrugs.

  “I’m not going to lie,” Archie says. “You disappeared. You walked out on her, on all of us.”

  Ardenal continues down the trail for a moment without responding. “I did think about it—but that’s not what this was about.”

  “Tessa is a different woman now. Harder, judgmental.”

  Ardenal runs his free hand through his flaming hair. He c
radles the sleeping boy in the other, the heat of his body keeping the child warm as the deep night settles a damp cold over them. “Every day since I arrived in Jarr-Wya, I have worried about Tessa and Ella—”

  “Ella hasn’t been able to speak in months . . .” Archie’s voice trails off. “I know I’m a fool most days, but—but—there always seems to be the tiniest molecule of hope left in me. And I believe it. Being here—the existence of this place—it’s proof, to me at least, that you didn’t walk out because life got too hard.”

  “Right, there’s a reason. Why I left in the first place . . .”

  “Ella’s cure,” Archie finishes Ardenal’s thought.

  “Now I see that she needs it more than ever. But I couldn’t return without it—especially looking like this.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “It’s a long story, Dad. A frightening story. Let’s save it for another day.”

  Archie tries not to study the Olearon’s features but he fails, and Ardenal clears his throat. Archie looks away. “So, no luck on Ella’s cure I suppose?” the old man asks.

  Ardenal’s flame blazes, though he says nothing at first. “My last night at home, when I rushed to pack for this trip—to find that yellow-eyed creature, Zeno—I must have misplaced the one notebook I intended to bring, the one with the map and instructions. When I got here I tore my gear apart, but the book wasn’t in it. I’ve searched every day since then for the object I must break open, but I can’t remember the details—they’ve grown murky in my mind—and I’ve forgotten the way . . .”

  “Look here, son,” orders Archie. “I don’t know why you look the way you do—there is a lot I don’t know—but I do believe you—I believe it all.” Archie yanks his bag from Ardenal’s shoulder, careful not to wake Duggie-Sky. “These belong to you.”