Time for the Lost

by Chess Desalls

  “Okay, and you helped to protect her. That’s a good thing, right?”

  Stars and the sensation of sharpened needles flashed behind my eyes. Pressing my fingertips to my eyelids, I said, “The Uproar never attacked her when she was alone. It appeared only when I was present.”

  Ivory’s face fell. She scowled. All right, maybe there would be some judgment.

  “I think it’s because of a bond between us. Something that attracts the Uproar to her when I am near. A similar situation happened with my father—it led to his death.”

  She wiped her hands on her pants and reached out to me. “That’s why you told her you couldn’t be together? Why she ran off?” Her face held an odd expression. Compassion?

  “I didn’t want to put her in further danger.”

  “Valcas—” Ivory reached out further.

  Then she smacked me on the back of the head, causing the stars burning my eyes to scatter in countless directions. “You idiot! That was the most ridiculous reason for a breakup in the worlds. Do you think anyone on our team is afraid to attract the Uproar? Really?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying—” I choked on my words, finding it difficult to explain myself through the pain.

  “Get over it, Casanova. She’s one of the last two living Remnant Transporters! And, more importantly, she’s our friend.”

  I rubbed the back of my head. So much for sympathy, understanding and my desire for proper words. She was right, though; my separation from Calla was my own fault. Instead of drawing love closer, I’d pushed it away.

  Fortunately for Ivory, she didn’t have to wait long for her love to return. Nick came from the stairs into the loft first, followed by Ray and Plaka. But I could hear additional footsteps behind them. And then an eerily recognizable voice.

  “Why, that was one of the most unusual methods of travel, Mr. Plaka. Absolutely breathtaking. You must tell me how it works—that is, if you get the chance.”

  Ivory cringed. “You brought a silhouette with you, Healer?”

  I stood up, horrified. The version of Edgar that Plaka had brought with him was the one I’d betrayed by stealing the travel glasses. His white hair and wrinkled skin looked the same as when I’d tried to recover Calla at Enta’s homestead. Had Plaka transported a version of Edgar—a silhouette of him—that had already been lost?

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to prevent the pain I knew was about to jab the backs of my eyes.

  “Not to worry, Valcas,” said Edgar. “Mr. Plaka has filled me in on details about the search for Calla. I’m able to put your faults aside, in the interest of greater good.”

  I opened my eyes, as if seeing would help me to believe or understand what was happening.

  “We didn’t find any answers on Earth,” said Ray. “So we took a side-side trip to the Workshop in the Woods to talk to Edgar. If anything, we know Calla trusts him enough that—well, assuming she is lost, maybe he’ll help bring her out of it once she sees him.”

  Plaka smiled proudly, his hands resting on his hips. “Edgar will assist us with her healing.”

  I responded through clenched teeth. “There will be no healing if we can’t find Calla and bring her back from the lost.”

  Of course he would think to use his Remnant Transport talent to try to cheer up Calla, to make her misery go away. That was part of his healing plan for others who’d become lost. But what good would it do for Calla if we couldn’t find her? Why hadn’t he waited until we located her, knew where she was for sure before dragging a silhouette along? What if Edgar’s silhouette faded before we got there?

  “Perhaps,” said Nick, “Susana is not a place within a world, but a world of its own. Let’s not forget that, as the Time Keeper, I have the ability to read the portals.”

  “So, you’d be looking for the timepiece that represents a place—a world—called Susana? A world of lost persons?” That, I hadn’t considered.

  “Exactly? Why? Does that sound strange, friend?”

  “It’s Absolutely. Freaking. Crazy. Madness—awesome amazing madness!” Ivory pulled him into a headlock, and squeezed him with her entire being. It looked scary. Nick grinned. Good for him.

  “Fine,” I said, nearly grinning myself. “Let’s find Calla and bring her back.”

  NICK CLIMBED the tower while reading with his hands and supporting himself with his legs. Timepieces glowed as he touched them. An image of a tree decorated with bulbs, ornaments and tinsel came to mind—one with chaser lights set at the slowest setting. Only, instead of the bulbs lighting up, the ornaments did. Calla would have liked it.

  One by one, clocks and watch faces, hourglasses and sundials lit up and faded as Nick read them, searching for the piece that represented Susana, if such a world existed.

  His hands landed on an object that didn’t look like a timepiece at all—not an hourglass, and not a calendar of days or minutes. It was a glass ball. When Nick touched it, it glowed differently than the others. First white, and then blue. A spray of light bent out of it like a prism, scattering fragments of light in each color of the rainbow.

  Ray shuddered and fell to the ground, clenching his head. I stood back, wondering what he saw that I couldn’t see aside from the glowing, the colors and the light. He who had the ability to see during travel. And who—in excruciating detail—recorded his experience maneuvering through the various layers of the Fire Falls.

  “That’s quite a reaction, friend. Could you come over here and help me?”

  Ray crawled toward Nick’s voice, clawing at the ground. Plaka rushed to his side, comforting him with healing. Both hoisted Ray to where he could better see the glass ball.

  He looked inside. “It’s filled with smoke…and words.”

  “What does it say, Technician?”

  Ray shook his head, and then frowned. “But I’m a Detail Technician! This is ridiculous. It can’t be… This makes me completely useless.”

  Not able to stand it any longer, I shot forward, climbed the tower and looked with my own eyes. I understood Ray’s pain immediately. Holding the cool crystal of the ball in my hands, I saw not a place, but words.

  I read aloud so everyone could hear, including Ivory and Edgar’s silhouette, who remained on the ground. “Time is relative, a measurement. Without it, one becomes Lost. But with time, one becomes fixed. The Lost are free. The claimed, the Found, remain tethered to the TSTA.”

  “Tethered to the TSTA?” Plaka hissed.

  Ray turned from the tower and jumped. “How is that possible? When convicted travelers are sentenced to find the lost, doesn’t everyone who was lost become found?”

  “Well, friend, you did say the file labeled The Found appeared to be a small one. Perhaps most of the missions failed.”

  “But how are they found tethered to the TSTA—and how can time be either fixed or relative?”

  Above the murmurs and other sounds of confusion, Edgar’s voice rang clear. “What, Mr. Raymond, is the present?”

  “Now,” he said, waving his arms. “This very moment.”

  “Oh? And what about—” Edgar exhaled sharply. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And… Now?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, then, if now is the present, then what were the first two nows we just discussed?”

  From where I clung to the Clock Tower, the glow of the glass ball highlighted portions of Ray’s face and hair. “The past,” he said.

  “So, again, I ask you: What is the present?”

  “It’s the future’s past and the past’s future, but nothing in and of itself.” Ray sighed.

  “Yes. Time is a measurement of life. History is a recording of the past, including those lives that have already ended and the past moments of currently existing lives.”

  “Which means the future is—”

  “Life that remains left to be lived.”

  “Before our time—”

  “Runs out.”

&
nbsp; Ivory groaned. “So then what is real and what isn’t?”

  Edgar smiled. “All points in time are real, but not necessarily all places.”

  I squeezed my forehead with my hand. “Uncle Edgar, since when do you believe in Eternalism?”

  Ivory groaned again. “Are you done philosophizing yet? We need to go—you know, to get to where we’re going.”

  “If the future already exists,” said Ray, completely oblivious to her outburst, “then how could it possibly be changed? Calla changed it. Daily Reminders record time-changing events—they reflect those changes. Daily Reminders cause the memories of events to be remembered.”

  “Ah,” sighed Edgar. “That is true indeed.”

  “Then how do you explain it—the paradox?”

  “Perhaps we will find the answer in Susana.”

  “Are we ready, friends? Shall we find out for ourselves?” Upon hearing no objection, Nick placed both hands on the ball. “Attach yourself by looping your arm through mine, Plaka. Valcas, link with Plaka. Ivory, Ray, Edgar—it would behoove you to join us, if you’d like to come along.”

  They scrambled up the tower and linked arms. Edgar’s eyes shone with excitement. A pang of regret spread through my chest. I suddenly wished I’d spent more time with my uncle when he was alive.

  “We’re ready, Nick,” said Ivory, when all were assembled. “Unlock the portal.”

  “Gladly, love.”

  The light and the prism of colors grew stronger, bolder—possibly even louder, tingling my ears with static electricity. My earlier trip with Nick to TSTA Headquarters was a walk in the park compared to this. I gritted my teeth against the intensity of the portal as we traveled through.

  Ray’s scream made me shudder. The poor Technician would have nightmares for the rest of his life after this. I owed him for everything, all that he’d done to help revive the search for Calla. All his talent, his strength. He was a better person than me. More deserving of love. More deserving of her. It finally occurred to me that such a choice was neither his nor mine; it was Calla’s, assuming we found her.

  We dropped as a single unit, in a new place. The jolt of our landing was jarring, but our arms remained linked. Feet first, indeed.

  The portal behind us closed with a crackling, sucking sound.

  I caught my breath, only to lose it again once I took a better look at our surroundings.

  WHEREVER WE were in the Everywhere and Everywhen, Susana—if that’s what it was—was a dark and gloomy place. The sky was thick with clouds. I was unable to tell whether this world had a sun, a moon or stars.

  The ground was colorless, separated by streams of water that bent and twisted like veins and arteries. The color of the water reflected silver sky. The waters of a Nowhere.

  Ivory unclasped her arm from mine and brought her hands to her face. “This is the most depressing place I’ve ever seen. Nick, where did you bring us?”

  “I can’t take issue with that, love. This world is absolutely dreadful.”

  Our arms stayed linked; none of us budged. There was no point in grounding.

  There were Chars everywhere, Uproars too. More than enough to absorb the impact of our arrival. I tensed, feeling the agonies of their presence, but they didn’t pounce. As time passed, I realized they weren’t after me or our motley group of travelers. Stranger yet, they seemed completely uninterested in us, ignoring us as if we weren’t there. Instead, they directed their attention toward ghosts of human forms that wandered aimlessly, listlessly along the ground, bodies stepping over streams as if they couldn’t remember who they were or why they were there.

  The Chars taunted the poor creatures, and the Uproars blasted them with flashes of light, with no effect that I could see. What was happening? Were we among the living or their ghosts?

  “This must be the place,” said Plaka. “I’ve never felt so much need for healing. I have no doubt that we’ve arrived correctly. Susana appears to be a limbo for beings who have become lost through their travels in time and space. How or whether they ever pass on from this state, I have no way of knowing. But this is certainly a place of despair. The place of the lost.”

  I licked my lips, genuinely feeling sorry for the beings. Glad that Edgar had died—that Calla had helped him realize what he was becoming—before he ended up in this awful place. The look on the face of Edgar’s silhouette confirmed his feelings on the matter; this was not where he’d wish to be.

  “Why do you suppose the Uproars continue attacking, over and over? The people aren’t defending themselves or bothering to move away,” said Ray.

  “Remember,” replied Plaka, “Uproars are beings that feed on the blood of travelers and the lost. That’s what I’ve observed from having seen the Uproars pummel their victims, knocking them to the ground.”

  Ivory snorted. “I agree with you that Susana is a feeding ground. But the blood part is bunk. The Uproars are sucking the life out of them.”

  “Life’s blood is still a form of blood.” Plaka glowered.

  The air chilled. I couldn’t tell whether it was because of the environment or our predicament. If Calla was here, then we could revive her and take her home. But that would also mean she’d suffered while I wasted time, agonizing over whether to search for her. I had to stop her suffering. And as soon as possible, before those of us who felt the presence of multiple Chars and Uproars passed out from the constant drain of pain.

  “Let’s split up,” I said. “The Chars and the Uproars haven’t noticed us. We’re not what they want. We’re not lost.” I pointed. “Ivory, Nick, please…follow that stream and search for her. Edgar and Ray, take the opposite direction. Plaka and I will continue forward.”

  Ivory’s eyelids pinched together, but her jaw was set—likely against the pain. The others frowned and looked around them as if expecting to be attacked at any moment, before forming their couples and beginning their searches.

  Plaka and I commenced our walk in silence, hastily, as if the glooms of Susana would absorb into our skin and turn us into ghosts if we stayed in one place for too long. There were no buildings, no trees, nothing that would suggest it was a habitable place. Yet, there was substance. Reaching out with my World Builder talent, I could feel it. How I wished it was a blank canvas. That I could color the world with vines and flowers, fill the water with blues and the sky with sunlight. But it wouldn’t work. Susana was already full of dreary coldness and endless gray.

  I tensed as we approached a man and a woman being tortured by The Chars, enduring punches and kicks. The ghostlike beings stared at the space in front of them, paying their attackers no mind, as if they couldn’t see or feel them.

  Plaka brought a clenched fist to his lips. “How do we help?”

  “We’ll need to find a way. But, first, Calla.”

  We walked farther, passing more bodies of silver water sprawled across the ground in varying shapes and sizes. Some were ponds, some streams. The far end of the horizon looked like it contained an ocean. All were still and lifeless.

  The lost—the beings who wandered the grounds between the bodies of water, and who were presumably still living—appeared to have less physical substance than fading silhouettes. One thing about Susana filled me with hope. I saw no children there.

  Still, my skin crawled as I saw shades of people I recognized from the past, travelers whom I suspected were now lost after having been convicted for infractions. The TSTA had sentenced them to find others who had become lost. If those beings I saw now were truly them, then they themselves had gotten lost during their missions.

  “Plaka?” I paused, stepping out of the way of a waif wearing a top hat who was staring at his hands. “Do you think the TSTA knows about this place?”

  “An excellent question. I doubt the TSTA knows about the Clock Tower, else Nick would be under its control. Are you starting to believe some of what I’ve been preaching all these years about the Travel Agency?”

  “Perhaps. Some of the people here look f
amiliar. Maybe it’s déjà vu, but I’m sure I’ve seen them at the Hearing Chamber, at TSTA Headquarters.”

  Plaka grunted. “I’m not surprised that the TSTA’s convicted have gotten lost and ended up in the same place as those they were sent to find. It supports my theories.”

  I was beginning to believe that the TSTA wanted talented travelers to get lost. But, given the lack of TSTA records—or access, even to Technicians like Ray—the TSTA could know that Susana existed even without knowing exactly where it was. “Is one of your theories that the TSTA is trying to weed out travel talents that are unmanageable—and therefore taboo—by corralling the talented toward impossible missions?”

  He stopped to stare at a woman with a humpback pawing at a pool of silver water. He paled. “Yes, Valcas. I do believe that.”

  “What’s wrong?” The edge to Plaka’s voice troubled me.

  “I can’t stand by and watch this—these people—any longer. I must try to help, to see if my healing is at all useful here.”

  He approached the humpback. She was shriveled and gaunt, and looked completely mad. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to ease her misery. She could have been somebody’s grandmother. Curious to see what would happen, I fought against fire pulsing through my veins and followed.

  Plaka bent near the woman and placed one hand on her forehead; he pressed his other hand to the dome of her back. He spoke under his breath, words I couldn’t hear, but assumed were words of comfort and healing.

  The woman’s pawing slowed until both hands hovered above the water. Silver beads dripped from her fingertips, forming circles on the pool’s surface. She sucked in a rattling breath and rolled her eyes backward to see who touched her.

  “Breathe, my dear woman. Embrace all that is life.”

  She brought her hands to her lips and trembled. “Charles, is that you?”

  “No,” said Plaka, helping her to stand. “But I am a friend.”