Zoe Thanatos

by Cierlak, Crystal

  “Hector, Alcander,” Evan called to the soldiers. They looked to the King and moved only after he nodded in approval. Evan turned his attention to the Elder. “Where is the book?” he asked.

  A male resident stepped forward, the book clutched tightly in his arms. He held the book out to Evan with great care, his eyes never leaving the elaborate royal seal stamped in the center of the hard cover. Evan took it and was surprised by its heavy weight. One by one the residents turned and left, vacating the platform.

  “What’s your name?” he asked the Elder woman.

  “Thea,” she answered, never once taking her eyes off of him.

  “What’s your real name?” he clarified. She didn’t answer. “Whether or not you lie makes no difference to me. Nothing you say is likely to influence whatever punishment the Queen has planned for you,” he remarked.

  The Elder woman’s expression seemed to soften as she examined the features of his face. “Owyn called you Evander. Are you a Nero?” she asked.

  An indignant flame burst beneath his skin, first at her informal use of the King’s name and more so at the recognition of his.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you?” she asked, her head crooked to the side. “Evander Nero,” she whispered as if she couldn’t believe her own words.

  His heart rate increased and he had to fight to retain his composure. “Come with me,” he commanded.

  He moved a few paces behind her and urged her towards the transport door. As they boarded he directed her to a private room opposite the Crown Soldiers and their prisoners. Once settled, the transport began the return trip to the Royal City, picking up tremendous speed with each passing moment.

  The Elder sat down gracefully as Evan took the seat opposite her with the book secure at his side. They sat in silence as the transport moved, Last City fading into the distance. He glanced at the book and tried to recall the woman’s words. ‘Forgotten truths’ came to mind immediately. His eyes traced along the raised impression of the royal seal, wondering what words were contained within the pages that she risked her life for.

  “I’m guessing you’ve never read it,” she interrupted.

  Evan moved the book to his side and out of her view. “It’s not mine to read,” he answered. The longer he looked at her the more he realized she looked too young to be an Elder and too refined for a resident of Last City. Untamed curls of golden brown hair spilled out from her head, with dark close set eyes perched on top of a narrow nose and full mouth, and skin that radiated golden warmth. She was an exotic contrast to the other residents. She stood out amongst those who stood at her side on the platform, and he knew she was not truly one of them. She did, however, look like someone who had lived luxuriously, who spent their life surrounded by the comforts of the Royal City.

  “It is a chapter of Terra’s history; of course it is yours to read. It would change your perception of the Stratons if you knew how different the story in the book is from the story you remember. From what you were told.” There was a strange kindness in her voice, a matronly gentleness that reminded him of his own mother.

  “You have no idea what my perception of the Queen and King is,” he disputed.

  “I know a lot more than you think I do, Evander. About you, your Queen, and the King.”

  He bristled at the familiar way she spoke his name, but couldn’t place the direct source of his discomfort. “If that were true then you would have had no reason to take the book.”

  “I didn’t take it for knowledge,” she replied.

  “For what then?” he asked.

  “To get Kyra Straton’s attention,” she confessed.

  “Well, you got it. You’ll be lucky if all she does is lock you away for the rest of your life,” he warned. “I hope you had enough sense not to share your conspiracy with the other residents.”

  “It isn’t a conspiracy,” she replied sternly. “The book is evidence.”

  “Evidence of what? If that were true then why would it be on display in the Media Center for all to see instead of hidden or even destroyed?” he asked incredulously. “Do you really think they would hide it in plain sight?”

  “You mean in a container programmed with technology so advanced only one or two people in the world could open it? Yes, I do think that.”

  “Then how did you manage to steal it?” he countered.

  To his surprise she smiled. “My family created that technology.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “Right. Not only are you claiming the Stratons are frauds, but also that you are the last surviving member of the original family.”

  “I never said I was the last.”

  A cold chill struck a nerve in his spine. Nothing she was claiming was possible. “The original family is dead. They have been for nearly a generation.”

  She stiffened in her seat as a pained expression breached her face, and for a moment Evan regretted his words. Her reaction surprised him. No one could fake the emotional toll a loss like that would take on a person. She was genuine.

  “Yes, most of them are dead,” she said after a long moment. “My sisters and brothers, my husband, maybe even my children. They nearly killed me, too.” She seemed to struggle with the words. Evan watched as she fought to keep her emotions from spilling out of her control. “What purpose were our deaths meant to serve?” Her voice wavered as she spoke.

  His memory of the past had faded considerably, though some memories of his parents had remained. His mother and father had close ties to the original family, and he would have recognized her if she were who she claimed to be.

  “How did you know my name?” he asked.

  “The same way I know that your sister is Evadine and that you’ve been held prisoner by the Stratons since your parents died. I know that your mother was Calla, and your father was Damon. I know because you used to play with my children.” Her eyes filled with tears that never spilled. He could see she was powering through her resolve, keeping her head up in spite of her circumstances.

  “I know the Stratons prohibited anyone from speaking our name, effectively forcing us to be forgotten.”

  He recognized shades of a memory and could see the blurry faces of young children playing with a youthful woman wearing a crown on her head. It was the Elder’s face, younger and fresher but still filled with beauty. He did recognize her. Time had eroded her physical identity some but the more he looked, the more she seemed familiar to him.

  “You were the Queen the Stratons killed,” he whispered as the memory came to light.

  “The Queen they thought they killed,” she corrected. “And then they went after the rest of my family.”

  “Thea,” he whispered. It was becoming clearer to him now, why he had recognized it when he first heard it. He saw her younger self again, and the man who was her husband, the King. He saw his own parents with them, laughing and talking with glee only a short time before their demise.

  He opened the thick cover of the book and scanned the pages, searching for a clue to prove she was telling the truth. He stopped on a page that contained a hierarchical graph and a list of names categorized by generation.

  His heart stopped on the title. ‘Historical Records and Lineage of the Original Families of Terra: Thanatos, Nero, and Straton.’

  Chapter 12: A Revelation

  “Miss Thanatos?”

  A man in a collared work shirt and slacks stood a few feet away with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, both of which were moving towards her.

  “Your signature please?” he asked.

  Oh, right. Her thoughts had wandered off again and she was left standing with a far off look on her face. She glanced around the man’s work and nodded appreciatively. The spare bedroom was transformed into an office, complete with new furniture and littered with several shopping bags filled with all manner of accessory. The man had assembled the furniture and set it into place while she was off in the land of mental distraction. On another such trip, she’d nearly ha
mmered her fingers into a wall.

  She signed and tipped generously before showing him to the front door and wishing him a good day. Any and all conceivable projects she thought to take on, she did. The hardwood floors were refinished, walls painted, crown molding installed, the kitchen cabinets were outfitted with new hardware, and light switch faceplates replaced in every room along with each light fixture and ceiling fan. When one project finished she started another, every day for three days straight. Before she knew it was Saturday.

  The morning after Evadine and Evan left, Zoe found herself in an unfamiliar mental space. For the entire morning and part of the afternoon she kept expecting Evan to show up at any moment. After all, he had been with her nearly nonstop since they met. Their shared experiences felt like a relationship that was longer than just two days, and his absence had a more profound effect on her than she would have liked.

  The strangest part was knowing she had no way to contact him, that she couldn’t just pick up a phone or drive to his hotel, and the more she thought about it the more dissonant she felt. He was nowhere to be found in the world, which was the thought that perplexed her the most. Without his presence to serve as proof of the existence of another world, her belief began to wane. The idea of Terra made sense when she could see evidence of it in him, but without him there to ground her newfound reality, it became nothing more than a supernatural memory.

  To occupy her mind she planted the flowers and shrubs she bought the previous day, and then set to work on the rest of the house, moving room to room until she had enough projects to last a lifetime. Her mind wandered off for stretches of time, but less and less she thought of Evan, and of Terra.

  By Friday afternoon as she painted her living room lily pad green, she decided that the best thing to do was to not expect Evan at all. It was impossible to know if he would ever return and she felt that waiting for him would just be pathetic. She had a life before he ever entered into it and it would continue on after he left.

  Zoe returned to the office and set to work on the shopping bags, placing the new items throughout the room until it no longer looked empty. Among the new purchases was a framed print of a Parisian cityscape, the lights reflected on the wet pavement as patrons moved along with umbrellas covering their heads. It was a clichéd piece of commercial art but she loved it, and wanted a reminder of the most beautiful city she had ever visited.

  With a wall selected to hang the piece on, she picked up a nail and hammer and swung. The hammer penetrated and created a softball-sized hole in the wall. Fantastic. She yanked the hammer from the wall and stared resentfully at the tool and the damaged drywall. She considered her choices, wondering if she could patch the drywall herself with some help off the Internet, or if it would be easier just to hire someone.

  Something caught her eye; a refracted ray of light beaming out from the newly created hole. The hammer still in her hand, she pounded the soft area around the hole, stuck her hand in, and came into contact with a clean, glassy surface. The item was long and rectangular, all sides surfaced in the same smooth material.

  She maneuvered her fingers until the item was secure in her hand and pulled it out from its hiding place in the wall. She dropped the hammer to the ground and used her free hand to balance the weight of the box before bringing it to the desk and setting it down. She could just make out the faintest sliver of a seam around the perimeter of the box constituting a lid. With both hands she used her fingers to lift the top and expelled a curious breath when it opened, the sensation like two magnets moving apart from each other.

  Inside were several rolls of parchment paper, each tied with a blue leather band and stacked one on top of the other like logs. She picked up the edge of one scroll and felt the delicacy of the paper instantly. She slid the binding down the length of the scroll carefully, not willing to test the efficacy of the paper’s strength. Once relieved, the scroll unraveled marginally in her hands. With one corner held in her left hand, she used her right to gently unravel the paper.

  An uneven stroke of ink appeared and grew in size as she unrolled the scroll. It was a map, hand drawn in precise detail and with obvious care. Several areas were labeled with hand drawn script, but the letters too small to make out what they said. She unraveled a second scroll and found what appeared to be a schematic, drawn and labeled in the same ink and script as the map.

  The third scroll was larger, and once open revealed a tree filled with names and smaller lines of script beneath each one in the same delicate writing. She held the scroll closer, willing her eyes to adjust to the delicate typography. The tree itself was relatively small, going back only a few generations. She scanned over the names and marveled at the fine cursive they were scrawled in. Adara, Evangeline and Thea. The hierarchy continued through Thea and stopped at Zara and… Zoe.

  She nearly jumped in her seat at the sight of her name. Of course she knew there were others who shared her name and spelling, but something about seeing it on the scroll felt a little too familiar, almost as if it were her. Hers was the only name she recognized.

  Several more scrolls sat inside the glass box waiting to be opened. Just as she reached for a fourth to open the doorbell rang. She made her way to the front door and mentally calculated the chances that it was Evan standing on the other side. Could he have come back already? A brief glance through the peephole dashed her fleeting hope away. She took deep breath and opened the door.

  “Evadine!” she exclaimed, trying not to sound as if she were disappointed.

  “You remembered,” Eva greeted with a smile.

  Zoe looked around Eva on the off chance that she wasn’t alone. “What brings you by?”

  “I need to speak with you. Can I come in?”

  “Of course” She tried not to dwell on Eva’s physical resemblance to Evan, or to the wave of disappointment that it wasn’t him on the other side of the door.

  For the first time Zoe noticed how out of the ordinary Eva looked up close. Perhaps it was the way she was dressed that hinted at her otherworldly provenance. She looked like she had just stepped foot off the set of a science fiction movie. She didn’t recall Evan looking so utilitarian, and wondered if Eva had come from Terra directly to her house.

  Zoe sat down on the new couch and nestled into the cushions. Eva followed suit, sitting a seat cushion away. It hadn’t been too long since she and Evan sat in a similar way, but for decidedly different reasons.

  “What brings you by?” Zoe asked. She fought back the desire to immediately ask about Evan.

  Eva sighed. “Let me preface this by acknowledging that what I’m about to say is not only going to be forward, but also very confusing. That being said, I owe it to my brother to do this.”

  Zoe’s brows furrowed over her eyes. “To Evan? Why? What are you talking about?”

  “I want to take you to Terra.”

  Zoe’s stomach dropped. “I beg your pardon?”

  “There are some things happening back home. A book went missing, the King was kidnapped and the Queen is... Well she’s the Queen.” Maybe to Eva the implication of her words was clear, but to Zoe they offered no explanation.

  “I’m not following. What book? What does any of this have to do with Evan? Or with me for that matter?”

  “Sorry, let me try to explain it better.” Eva took a deep breath but looked anything but relaxed. “The book that was stolen belongs to the Queen and is special. It is a historical record of great importance that is usually locked up where no one can get it. Except, someone did get it. That crime alone would have guaranteed a life of lockup, but to make matters worse, the same people responsible for stealing the book are holding the King hostage.”

  Stolen books? A kidnapped King? None of it made sense to Zoe. The goings-on of another world’s monarchy didn’t interest her.

  Eva continued. “I can’t say for sure but I’m willing to bet that they’re up to more than just stealing from the monarchy. They’ve managed to get their hands on some techno
logy owned exclusively by the Crown, and who knows what kind of trouble that could cause.”

  “What kind of technology?” Zoe grabbed a lace covered pillow from beside her and hugged it to her chest. Eva had a come a long way to tell her the story, and she owed it to her to listen.

  “It’s complicated,” Eva sighed. “There really isn’t enough time to get into specifics. To make a long story short the Queen is having all the gates deprogrammed for Gaia.”

  “What is Gaia?”

  “Gaia is here, Earth. It’s what we call your universe. The gates help us travel safely between universes, but once they’re deprogrammed we have no way of coming and going. Anyone stuck here won’t be able to go home, and likewise no one from Terra can go to Gaia.”

  Things were getting a big clearer. “So that means Evan wouldn’t be able to come back here?”

  “Exactly. I know he wouldn’t want that. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know. He was sent with a team of Crown Soldiers to bring back the King, the book, and those responsible for taking them. By the time he returns the gates could already be shut down, and then there would be nothing he could do.”

  Zoe shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “So he doesn’t even know you’re here?” she asked.

  Eva shook her head. “I’m certain he would be here himself if he knew. If he could.”

  “Did he say anything about coming back?” Zoe could barely bring her eyes up to look at Eva as she asked. Her fingers played absentmindedly with the corners of the pillow, wrapping the soft fabric around her fingers.

  “He doesn’t need to. I know my brother well enough to know he wouldn’t want the gates to close on his chance to see you again. His life is very complicated at home and I know that he was waiting to find a way to come back.”

  “Once the gates are deprogrammed there’s no way to know when they’ll be reprogrammed?”

  “No.”