Zoe Thanatos

by Cierlak, Crystal

  His confusion must have been evident; the Queen stood from her seat, the thick robe she wore draping down so that it grazed the floor. Her hand extended towards the empty seat and her reserved smile invited him to the join at her side to preside over the court.

  Despite his confusion he knew better than to blatantly ignore the commands of the sovereign, and so stepped onto the raised platform and sat down stiffly into the King’s seat. The Queen regained her own seat and looked toward her mother, nodding her permission to continue. The Queen Mother sat up straighter, her posture ever more prominent.

  “Unmask the prisoners,” she commanded. Evan watched as Hector and Alcander, who he hadn’t noticed was in the room, walked up to each of the two prisoners and simultaneously unhooded them. Thea Thanatos’ eyes were unmoved and trained on the Queen Mother, her face set in stone as she gazed up at the familiar woman.

  It was the second prisoner’s face that caught him by surprise, a face so familiar and unexpected that Evan had to fight the sudden urge to audibly gasp. It was the King, hands bound behind him and surrounded by Crown Soldiers.

  Chapter 21: The Crown and the Laurel

  Zoe and Eva walked the distance in silence, each of them taking in the view like thirst to water. The thicket of trees had thinned significantly as they walked - at least two miles in Zoe’s estimation. The rich forest was intensely colored around them, every shade of green imaginable blooming from every trunk, leaf and stem. The trees, once so tightly packed together that their tops formed a thick canopy, had grown thinner and farther apart, allowing light to stream down in sharp rays. A small meadow of grass started beneath their feet, stretching out towards the horizon of light until the ground was a blanket of emerald-colored blades.

  Silence lingered between them. Zoe often looked to Eva for any hint of conversation but often found her staring, absorbing the greenery around them. Her hand was still softly coiled with Eva’s, though she imagined it was more for Eva’s benefit than her own. Irrespective of who had been on Terra longer it was obvious that Eva never once stepped foot in any part of Terra that wasn’t a fabrication or a desolate wasteland. For her the forest must have been like exploring another world rather than her own home.

  The light they’d followed formed into an oddly-shaped ball, a sun of fire bringing the land to life. She remembered the absence of any sun on the transport ride to Last City, wondering what was so different about the two sides of what seemed to be a small planet. It was the proverbial greener grass on the other side and Zoe wondered why anyone would willingly live in the grey drabness when the other side was so rich with color and life.

  “Why do you think you all don’t live here?” Zoe asked, breaking the silence. “I mean, if I had my choice between the two Terras I know which one I’d pick,” she claimed.

  “Honestly, I’m asking myself that very question right now,” Eva answered.

  “If this is where the souls of dead people go to live then sign me up.”

  Eva looked at her strangely. “To what, die?”

  Zoe let out a laugh so quiet she was sure only she could hear. “Yes, well it wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She sighed a little and thought of Evan. “Your brother didn’t tell you?”

  “No? He never really told me much about you to begin with. He’s like that.”

  “He probably didn’t know how to start a conversation about preventing a stranger’s suicide.” The audible gasp from Eva did not surprise her one bit. “I took a running leap off a cliff towards the Pacific Ocean and Evan caught me.”

  “He caught you?” she asked.

  “Jumped right after me and brought me to the beach shore three miles away.” She felt Eva’s hand tighten in her own, their interlocking fingers like a vice.

  “Why’d you do it?”

  “I was empty inside, Eva. My life felt like, well like the other side of Terra: devoid of anything meaningful, drab and ugly. I had a completely different life before Evan caught me and I wanted it to end.”

  “I don’t understand,” Eva shrugged. “You must have been in Gaia for hundreds of years. How do you not remember any of that? You must have known somehow that there something different about your life?”

  “As far as I know I’m 25 years old and have lived my entire life in Santa Barbara, but obviously there is a lot more to it than that. As far as I’m concerned, I may as well have died the day I met Evan and every day since has been some version of an afterlife.”

  Eva clicked her tongue and took a sweeping look around at their surroundings. “If there is such a thing I hope it’s as beautiful as this.”

  Zoe was taken aback. “You don’t believe there is an afterlife?”

  Eva paused, seemingly to choose her words carefully. “I think that’s an attitude shared by people who don’t know much about the universe.”

  “Ah.” As far as everyone back home on Earth was concerned the existence of other universes, let alone an alternate one, was based strictly in theory and suggestion. Compared to everything she witnessed so far in Terra, her own people were eons behind when it came to space exploration.

  Oh, right. Those weren’t really her people.

  “What is that?” Eva asked, her arm extended out to point at what appeared to be a very wide staircase built into and from the ground, leading like a spindly, moss-covered pathway up and out further than either of them could see. Crops of bushes thick with small green leaves and little white flowers lined the stair pathway on both sides.

  Zoe unrolled the map concealed in her hand and watched as the ink changed before her eyes. The crown and laurel stood at the edge of a double helix drawn in bright green ink, the forest dissipating around them into blank paper. She understood they were meant to climb the stairs and follow them wherever they may lead, but what was beyond them? How much farther did they need to walk before finally arriving at their destination?

  Without preamble they began the ascent up the stairway, their boots sinking into the land as they climbed. The light dimmed into an ambient glow that lilted above the greenery so that everything was drenched in twilight, the leaves just touched with light. The moments passed as they climbed higher, the light never changing as they moved.

  “I wasn’t exactly prepared for all this exercise,” Zoe chuckled. Despite the levity her calves had begun to cramp, the hamstrings in her legs over-stretching enough to make the movements uncomfortable.

  “I think it’s almost done. Look,” Eva pointed to the map. Indeed, the crown and laurel moved along the length of the double helix, the end of which was met with what appeared to be a coil curled around into a large empty space.

  Zoe released a breath of air as she saw the last few steps and climbed them eagerly. The earthy land ended with a cobblestone path that spread out before them. Light ascended into brightness again, lifting the dark of their surroundings to reveal an aisle with two-story white walls on either side of them with half archways arcading around on both levels. Tall trees with the thinnest of trunks grew like solid wood vines up the sides of the walls until their branches and leaves fell like a canopy at the top, forming a green ceiling. Within the canopy a smattering of lights came to life, illuminating beneath the foliage like stars in a sky.

  There were no doors in the walls that Zoe could see, and the archways merely engaged into the building itself to create a facade of ledges.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Eva whispered. She looked to Zoe with wide and astonished eyes. “It’s almost primitive looking.”

  “I was about to say it looks more like Earth,” Zoe interjected. She felt there was something oddly familiar about the place. If she didn’t know any better she might think she was walking down an old alleyway somewhere in Europe, lost in the charm and history of a city built long ago.

  She consulted the map again. The double helix representing the staircase was replaced with the coiling aisle they stood in, a series of geometri
c shapes sitting in the center.

  They continued through the aisle, the echo of their footsteps bouncing gently off the walls and back at their ears. There was no other sign of life around them but Zoe had the sense that it was the place itself that was alive and responding to their presence. She had the distinct feeling that their destination was close by, and that they were expected.

  Eva must have had the same feeling. She adjusted the strap of the bag on her shoulder and fidgeted with her clothing, pulling her top down farther, her pants up higher, and smoothing the tendrils of hair around her face that had fallen loose along the way. Both slowed their pace as they walked the wounding pathway, each concentric arc identical to the one that preceded it. Whether it was abandoned or merely forgotten in time, the architecture of the building was unspoiled by the elements. Any blemishes, cracks or scrapes, appeared largely purposeful, like a pair of brand new jeans that already had holes and fade marks. It was an eerie silence away from being a total ghost town.

  As they rounded yet another corner the walls tapered off into a vast rotunda the size of a football field. Smaller buildings scattered about in the middle, each of them crawling with vines and plumes of large lavender flowers that climbed to the terra cotta hipped roofs. Each building was a different height and width, most of them resembling small versions of homes.

  High above the rotunda a convex glass ceiling was a window to the universe above, the deep amethyst and blue colored sky dappled with tiny pinpoints of bright light. Beneath them the cobblestone ground receded and returned to a meadow, soft blades of grass spread out over the field that fed green into the crawling vines. Nothing apart from the walls lacked the deep hue of a fantastic jewel-tone color, everything deeply saturated like a fantasy landscape.

  Neither of them moved from where they entered. Zoe dared not move and risk spoiling the perfectly kept and untouched environment. She looked to the map again and noticed the crown burned its shape into the paper; the lightly singed edges a golden hue while the laurel continued to pulsate like a heartbeat.

  “I think this is it,” she announced, handing the map to Eva for confirmation.

  Eva took only a moment to look at the map before rolling it back up and unzipping the bag to place it back inside. “Now what?”

  Before Zoe could answer a door from one of the center buildings opened and a figure emerged. It was a man, roughly the same age as Zoe and who seemed to share her brown eyes and dark hair. He was tall and fit with a distinct posture as he walked. Though he seemed relatively harmless, Zoe still found herself reaching for Eva’s now familiar hand and squeezing it tightly.

  The closer he approached the more Zoe realized there was something off about his appearance, like a photograph that was taken slightly out of focus. He seemed to almost be fading out as though he weren’t a real person at all, but a hologram. The closer he approached the more in focus his image became.

  “Hello?” Zoe called out. She did not want wait for him to close the distance between them before finding out whom or what he was. The stranger stopped before them and moved his gaze from Eva to Zoe, smiling as though he recognized them both.

  “I have been waiting to look upon your face again, Zoe Thanatos. You have been absent from Terra for a long time, but you still have grown into the woman your mother and I always imagined you would,” he pronounced. His voice was thick and mellow, the sound as comforting as rain. His face settled into a proud smile, his eyes crinkled just so at the corners.

  Her hand relaxed in Eva’s. “Who are you?” she asked quietly.

  “My name is Zopyros. I am the former King of Terra, husband of Thea Thanatos, and most importantly, your father.”

  Eva squeezed her fingers, not from fear but as a gesture of support. Zoe knew in her heart he was telling her the truth, but she need only look at his face to know he was indeed her own flesh and blood. The more she tried to recall any memories of a family on Earth, the more she realized they did not exist, and that she’d never really questioned it before. Yet looking at him, she felt a loss she had not known before. She missed him, and there in the Forgotten Gardens she began to realize the vast part of her life that was truly forgotten.

  “This place is my real home, isn’t it?” she asked.

  Zopyros nodded. “You were born and meant to live your life as our Queen here. Unfortunately, the course of our lives veered off irrevocably.” He turned then to Eva and smiled at her. “I assume either you or your brother is responsible for finding my daughter?” he asked.

  “My brother. Though until recently I thought that was nothing more than a coincidence,” Eva admitted.

  “Hardly,” he chuckled. “The Nero’s have been friends of the Thanatos family long before I met and fell in love with Thea. We hoped that you both would one day join our family and bring about a new era of the Crown. Again, our plans were not as we made them.”

  Zoe and Eva exchanged looks. A Thanatos-Nero family to rule Terra? They knew their families were connected but not quite to that extent. Were they not far away from arranged marriages? Would Zoe and Eva have eventually been sisters?

  Sisters. Family. The thoughts brought Zoe’s attention back to her father. “Are you the only one here? If you’re married to Thea then why are you here when she is in Royal City?” she asked.

  “Because this is where their souls come to rest,” Eva gasped as though the thought had just occurred to her. She must not have realized the full extent of just what that entailed until seeing Zopyros with her own eyes.

  “She’s right. I was the one to send you through the gate to another universe and I have been here ever since, waiting for you to return.”

  A shiver resonated down Zoe’s spine. She remembered how he appeared to her at first, like an out-of-focus photograph, rough around the edges. Zopyros must have sensed her sudden uneasiness because he reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. The sensation was strange, like a spark of electricity rather than a corporeal form. Her skin vibrated beneath his touch, warming from the contact of energy.

  “It may help to think of me as a program rather than as a ghost, Zoe. That is what you refer to those who are no longer living but stay around, right?”

  The word ‘ghost’ sent another tingling shiver down her spine. Though, she much preferred ‘ghost’ to ‘zombie’ or ‘undead.’ She took a deep breath of air and expelled, shaking the thoughts away. “Okay, so you’ve been waiting for me and I’ve been sent here. What now?”

  “Now you have a choice to make. Had you grown up in the life intended for you, you would have been a different person. Alas, you’ve grown up outside of Terra and you are understandably unfamiliar with our customs, our way of life, and your role as part of the royal Thanatos family. There is much to teach you if you are willing to learn.”

  “Learn what I was meant to grow up with, you mean?”

  “Yes. Your mother has been preparing for your return since the moment you left her arms, and has gone to great lengths to assure that your identity can be restored to what it once was. Doing so would mean sacrificing the life you have lived so far outside this world and restoring your birth right as Queen.”

  Zoe looked from her father to Eva and then to the ground, her eyes fixating absentmindedly on a blade of grass. They too remained quiet as she contemplated his words, trying to weigh the pros and cons as best as she could manage. She started the journey to the Forgotten Gardens to help Eva, Evan, and everyone else whose lives had been forever changed because of the Stratons. What Zopyros was offering was unexpected, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared to stay in Terra indefinitely, let alone take on the responsibility of Queen.

  “You said I had a choice to make. I can stay here and you do your magic and make me into the version of myself I was apparently born to live. What is the other option?”

  Zopyros’ smile faded a touch as his dropped to the ground momentarily. “I can send you back to where you came from, back to the life you have been living. If you wish, I ca
n even make it so that you retain no memory of your time here or of the people you’ve met.”

  Just like that? She could go home to Earth, back home to Santa Barbara where everything was familiar? Back to a life she had come so close to ending? Was there no middle-ground?

  “Couldn’t I just help bring down the Stratons and then decide what I want to do with my life? I’m not sure I could really make the right choice if forced to decide right now.”

  The corners of his mouth turned into a contemplative purse. “I understand this will be difficult for you, Zoe. What you must appreciate is that we have long been planning for this and have had the time to consider all possible avenues. This may be a quick decision for you, but for us this has been half a generation of waiting, planning, and anticipating. The Thanatos family created everything you see here in Terra and it is paramount that the Thanatos family alone be the one to wear the crown.”

  “What about the others? Zara and Zarek?” she asked.

  Eva’s face screwed into a puzzling stare. “Who is Zarek?” she asked.

  “My brother,” Zoe explained. “You said they were never found alive or dead, so chances are they could still be alive, right?”

  Eva looked at her, utterly confused. “How did you find out his name was Zarek?”

  “I don’t know,” Zoe shrugged. The name had come to her so naturally she just assumed someone had told her. “Didn’t you know?”

  “No,” Eva replied. She looked to Zopyros for confirmation. “Is Zarek his name?”

  “Yes, it is,” he answered, his eyes on Zoe. “Zarek has not been seen or heard from since the overtaking. Your sister, on the other hand, is a different story.”

  “Zara?” Zoe asked. She felt a sudden pull from her chest, a familial tug of her heart that she had not felt before. Could it be? Her sister was alive and accounted for?

  Zopyros frowned, looking apologetically at her. “Telling you requires a decision to reclaim your birthright, Zoe. There are things you can only know if it is your desire to return to your rightful place. Otherwise the knowledge may linger like regret should you decide to return to your home. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that.”