Time for the Lost

by Chess Desalls

  None of the Lost were from Chascadia. I suspected that was because Chascadia produced a long line of Remnant Transporters, one of the rarest of the travel talents. This, of course, meant that Calla had been the first Remnant Transporter to become Lost. Her Uproar hadn’t led her to Susana. Her actions did, instigated by mine.

  I was still unsure of Plaka’s theory that the TSTA controlled the Uproars and had sent one after him—the one that subsequently went after Calla. Whether or not the TSTA was involved, I felt culpable for my part in it. My contribution fueled my desire to make sure that a Remnant Transporter never became Lost again.

  Susana continued to darken and dry up until a single body of silver water remained, one possessed by a man whose throne I’d almost usurped.

  At first, I didn’t recognize him. His once brown hair was lighter and overgrown. He wore a knee-length coat with button clasps made of bone. He rubbed a nose that could have doubled as a beak. This avian figure of a man pecked at a birdbath, a bowl of porcelain balanced on a pedestal carved to resemble a totem pole of elves and nymphs. Like all the other waters of Susana, the birdbath was filled with liquid silver.

  Sweat beads bubbled across my forehead and neck. The Lost man looked very much like the inhabitants of Abatross, the world that held the palace where I’d introduced Calla as my betrothed. The birdbath was identical to that which decorated one of its gardens.

  I hadn’t told Calla the name of the world. It hadn’t been necessary. Local custom required that a successor not related by blood to the prior ruler be married. The Lost man had been adopted, which placed him in the position of needing to marry.

  That was when I’d happened to come along. I’d found Abatross while searching for Plaka. There was no order to it. The palace was in shambles. I wanted to fix it as much as I wanted it for myself. The Lost man before us had failed to find a bride.

  I often wondered whether it had anything to do with his unfortunate birdlike appearance. His movements were twitchy, his arms flapped and flailed. He looked no saner in Susana. Even though I’d failed in usurping the throne—as a result of Calla’s escape from me and her theft of the travel glasses—the man had been exiled as a failure. Had she waited just a little longer, I could have helped Abatross. I could have found a comfortable position for the man, one that would have let him continue to enjoy the birdbath he so favored. He wouldn’t have needed to leave his homeland. Perhaps he also wouldn’t have ended up in Susana. I hadn’t known he was a traveler.

  Plaka held his hands over Calla’s as she placed them on the man. She was, by that time, a pro at transporting silhouettes. But the task of healing had not come naturally. She was still learning how to calm the Lost.

  “Healing is not so much a power as it is an active form of comfort,” explained Plaka. “It comes from a place inside him. Everyone has it. Healing lives within all of us, no matter our place or time.” He lowered his voice and looked directly at me. “It is why I believe in the existence of After Life, though I have not yet visited it to find the origin of healing.”

  Funny, all that time I thought something special was coming from within Plaka. When, in reality, he was pulling strength from deep within me or whomever else he healed. That knowledge changed me. I wanted to know more, such as what happened to that Healing—what was it, and where did it go when the Freed disappeared?

  I watched the Lost man closely as he calmed and came back to life. I wanted to give him anything, everything to pay for the life he’d lost.

  Hope bloomed within me as the man’s arms stilled and his beaked nose lifted from the birdbath.

  “Ava? Are you there? Ava?” His voice rang higher than most men’s, the pitch more feminine. “Is that you, my pet?”

  A lump formed in my throat. Ava was the name of a bird. Many birds, actually. One of the palace maids told me he’d given every bird in Abatross the same name. Had the man truly been insane? After his exile, had he been searching all this time, not for another person but for an animal? Not just one animal, but a nonspecific bird? I worried what would become of him once Plaka Freed him. Where he would go. I considered asking Nick if he could come back with us to the Clock Tower until we could sort it out, until I could figure out how to repay him.

  “The man’s an exile,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I recognize him from Abatross. He won’t be accepted. His own people will turn him away.”

  The man’s eyes met mine. There was a flicker of recognition there. I couldn’t tell if it was because of my voice or the reference to his homeland. Perhaps he wasn’t insane after all. Or, maybe he thought I was one of his pets, his Ava. As long as time existed in the worlds, I could help him. I could return him to his homeland, where he could be happy in the garden.

  As if he’d heard my plans and considered them the best idea in the world, the man smiled at me. He reached out his hand, ready to shake on it and seal the deal. The gesture was just as eerie as it was encouraging.

  Calla furrowed her brow at me as I reached out to the man, ready to accept his hand. I would agree. I would help him.

  But then the edges of his profile began to glitter, outlining him with a halo.

  The diamond light spread across his body.

  “No,” I whispered. He would disappear without giving me a chance to repay him for what I’d done. The man had been in Susana long enough to exceed the amount of time that had been dealt to him, his life expectancy.

  “No,” I said again as the man disappeared. And the last droplet from the birdbath glinted and vanished.

  All went black.

  SECONDS TICKED by, marked by echoes of breath.

  A popping sound defeated the silence.

  An orange glow followed—one of Plaka’s light sticks. He held it in front of his face, which deepened the circles under his eyes.

  He struck a match. Its flame touched a torch, set it on fire. He continued lighting torches until five of us held one—Ray, Nick, Calla, Plaka and me. Lily, who’d been given the light stick, wrapped in a cloth, kept close to Calla.

  I blinked, willing the man from Abatross to be there. But he was gone.

  The haze above us reflected the glow of the torches. What was left of Susana looked like the inside of a jack-‘o-lantern.

  “Now!” bellowed Plaka. “We set fire to Susana!”

  We scraped our torches along the gray underbrush of a place that could no longer be quenched. The flame caught. It spread hungrily, devouring the land.

  With all of its waters dried up, Susana burned.

  “Over here,” yelled Plaka. “This is the area where Nick said the portal back to the Clock Tower would be.”

  I squinted. I couldn’t see the portal, but I recognized the marking Nick had etched in the ground. He’d drawn an X, with lines that connected the strokes at the top and bottom, forming an hourglass.

  I joined Plaka and the others who’d regrouped near the portal. It was essential to our safe return to the Clock Tower. With the rest of Susana in flame, there wasn’t enough room to generate momentum for travel via the travel glasses or Plaka’s baglamas. Without the portal, we’d be trapped in Susana forever, where we would burn along with it.

  But Nick was nowhere to be found.

  Panicked voices called out his name, Plaka’s being the loudest of all.

  Nothing could be heard over the crackling of flame. Until a scream clotted my blood.

  “Nick? Where are you?” I yelled.

  Calla tugged at my jacket. “He’s caught in the fire.”

  “My best guess is that it came from that direction,” said Ray. One arm draped around Lily, who’d buried her head in his chest. His opposite hand pointed across a blazing sea of flame.

  My heart dropped. Susana’s transition from water to fire was depressingly ironic.

  Plaka headed toward the flames.

  “Wait,” I said, holding him back. I’d dragged Nick into this mess; I would get him out, or die trying. I smirked. Dying while trying meant failing.
I refused to fail after all we’d been through. After all the Lost we’d saved. After all the Freed I’d seen disappear. I wasn’t ready to go wherever they were going, yet.

  I leaped over as much of the fire as I could. I spread my arms, careful to land on my feet. I continued jumping forward, hoping to land on an area that was untouched by flame. Our torches had been effective. Susana was a blanket of fire.

  Another scream pulled me forward. A head rose from the inferno. Nick’s willowy body followed. He raised his arms. His form stuck up out of the flames like a combustible scarecrow.

  “Nick,” I yelled out, coughing from the smoke and toasted air. After another leap, I managed to grab hold of his arm. His long jacket had caught fire and was traveling up his body. I dragged him, half running, half leaping as he was able, catching him when he threatened to fall or collapse. A couple of times I almost collapsed myself.

  Pain ripped through my feet and bit at my legs as the flesh seared. The experience was less excruciating than the Fire Falls, but there was no promise of relief—no balm layer to heal the blisters and charring.

  But I kept going. I wasn’t ready to disappear, not from Susana, not from anywhere. I had to make it back to the portal, while our key was still conscious.

  When we reached the others, I fell to the ground, pulling Nick down with me. We rolled, snuffing out the flames covering our clothing and Nick’s hair, making sure every last ember died before linking our arms with the rest of the travel party.

  “Throw your torches into the fire,” roared Plaka. “We leave them behind.”

  I knelt over Nick and grabbed the lapels of his jacket, dragging him to his feet and shaking him awake. “Are you all right? Can you take us through?”

  He nodded, his eyes glazed with pain.

  “We’ll treat you and Valcas,” said Plaka. “You will heal; but there can be no healing if we don’t leave. Now!”

  Plaka and I linked arms with Nick, raising him the rest of the way to his charred feet. Everyone else clasped on, forming a chain.

  Nick located the portal and groaned.

  The electric purples and blues were the most beautiful sight, after the grays—and more recent oranges—of Susana. But the static generated from travel through the portal tingled across my burns, igniting them all over again. I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out.

  By the time we reached the Clock Tower, my strength gave out. Plaka lost his grip on Nick. My arm slipped through Calla’s.

  Nick and I, the weakest links in the chain, fell. Air left my lungs as my head bounced off a timepiece that protruded from the tower. Stars danced in my field of vision. Next to me, I heard a smack, then a grunt. I didn’t need to see him to know that Nick wasn’t having a much better time of it.

  Then, like two sacks of grain, we hit the ground.

  We lay panting at the base of the Clock Tower. I stared at the tower and a purple sky that could have been a mirror that reflected our burns and bruises.

  “Look!” Calla sounded frantic, almost scared.

  I wanted to tell her not to worry about me or Nick, that we weren’t going anywhere. Plaka and Ray had almost reached the ground. I could still see, but I couldn’t move anything other than my eyes. Our necks could be broken for all I knew. Wasn’t being conscious enough for now?

  “Look!” she said again. “The glass ball is melting.”

  Someone screamed. Lily?

  I couldn’t see the portal to Susana from under the base of the tower. With my head pinned to the ground, I watched as Calla scrambled to the bottom.

  Lily followed with the dexterity of a squirrel, as a cascade of wax—liquid glass?—chased them down the outside of the tower, covering timepieces in its path.

  I assumed Nick was unconscious at this point, unable to see what was happening to his tower. The thought momentarily numbed my pain. How could the mess ever be cleaned up? Would the substance harden and block access to the portals it covered? Nick would not be pleased.

  As if in answer, the substance began to sparkle. At first, I thought I was seeing stars again. But then the glittering spread, up along the tower to where the portal had been. Then, like the Freed who had died, what was left of the melted substance glittered and disappeared.

  Calla gasped. As if reading my mind, she climbed back up the tower. “It’s gone!” she said. “The portal to Susana is gone.”

  More than a few thoughts warred in my mind before I lost the battle with consciousness. Would Susana disappear as well? Would I get a chance to refill it? And what, if anything, would happen to the three Chars who were after me? Wasn’t I charred enough without them?

  I lay there, tired and on the edge of delirium, wondering why I no longer felt pain. Something had numbed the backs of my eyes. The sensation was startling. Comforting.

  Unable to keep them open any longer, I allowed my eyelids to drape shut.

  I never saw The Chars again.

  WE NEEDED to contact Ivory right away.

  Nick was a mess. She’d miss him by now and would freak once she learned what had happened. But she had to know.

  With Nick bedbound, we couldn’t contact Ivory by visiting her through the portal to TSTA Headquarters. She also didn’t have a pair of travel glasses that we could use to keep in touch. So, my father agreed to travel to her with his baglamas. I couldn’t believe he was willing. He was about to travel straight to the heart of the travel agency he despised.

  I hoped he’d get back soon, even if accompanied by a freaking-out Ivory. I was the worst healer-in-training ever. Lily had a knack for it, though. She would have made a great nurse, but she was also trying to heal—to recover from having been Lost in Susana. That process I knew well. I guessed that was why Lily stayed close to me at the Clock Tower. That and maybe because she recognized me from Susana. She was more my shadow than Ray’s.

  After Valcas and my father found me there, they brought me back to life. It was like being pulled out of a bad dream, a nightmare that went on forever, no matter how hard I tried to wake up. I thought I’d break from the pain, but I was trapped. I couldn’t help myself while Lost, and I couldn’t help anyone else. It was as if something tethered me and wouldn’t let go.

  When I first saw Edgar’s silhouette, I thought he’d entered my nightmare, as a new resident of Susana. It was bad enough being surrounded by strangers that I couldn’t help. I didn’t want Edgar to suffer too. Even though, logically, I knew he was dead.

  “Calla?”

  Valcas, also a mess, groaned my name from across the room. It happened every hour, like my own personal alarm clock. He and Nick were positioned side by side in twin beds that my father had brought in from another world. They even had matching blankets and head bandages. It would have been cute it if wasn’t so tragic.

  Ray snoozed on one of the floor cushions, similar to where my father slept when he wasn’t out gathering food and other necessities. The guys had insisted that Lily and I share what had been Nick’s bed in the loft. In the end, I convinced Lily to take Nick’s bed. She was still healing. A floor cushion was better than my leaf-bed back at the Fire Falls. And the roughest night behind the falls was a fluffy cloud of restfulness compared to the nightmares of Susana.

  Valcas smiled when I approached. He held out a hand. I took an inventory of his bruises as I accepted. His face and the back of his head were banged up pretty badly from having fallen off the Clock Tower. Puckers of red and purple skin peeked out from underneath bandages. His other hand was burned where it had landed during a tumble in the fire. The blanket concealed burns that covered his feet and legs, up to his knees. There would be scars, but he would heal.

  Nick, however, was much worse. His scalp was a jumble of bandages and blisters. Much of his beautiful white hair had burned off. So much of his clothing, including his long coat, had caught fire that his burn injuries were far more extensive than Valcas’. When he’d tumbled from the Clock Tower, his twiggy body snapped, resulting in a broken arm, a couple of shattered ribs
and a fractured collarbone. Yep, Ivory was going to freak.

  “Are you hungry?” I said to Valcas.

  He squeezed my hand. “Yes, thank you.”

  I grabbed a mug of my father’s healing broth and held it out for him to sip. Nick could have used some too—buckets of the stuff, as much as he could hold. The salves my father used on his and Valcas’ burns helped. Unfortunately, my father didn’t have any of the healing balm left that he’d collected before we’d escaped the Fire Falls. Nothing else we had dulled pain more than being passed out. So I let Nick sleep.

  I’d wished so many times in Susana that I would have been able to sleep. It was a never-ending wakefulness. I wasn’t sure what kept us suspended, how our bodies stayed alive. There was nothing to eat. Everyone sipped from their silver waters—I still didn’t know whether that was good or bad. Maybe that was what bound us there. But it quenched thirst. The whole time, I wasn’t sure where I was. I didn’t even know the place had a name until Ray told me more about his tattoo—that Susana referred to a destination, rather than a person.

  “Calla?”

  I turned to find my new shadow looking at me, expectantly. Her eyes were baby blue and her hair a shade lighter than Ray’s, but their chins and noses were alike. She stared at me in that same searching way her brother did. “Hi, Lily. Are you hungry too?”

  She shook her head. “I think they’re here. I hear noises outside.”

  “Woo boy.” I raised my brows at Valcas. There were a few drops left in his mug. “Can you manage? This will not be pretty.”

  He responded with a low chuckle. “It’s about time this place livens up. Ivory’s good for that.”

  I rolled my eyes as Lily and I descended the stairs. Voices pierced through the front door. As far as I could tell, my father’s calming effect wasn’t working on Ivory.

  Rather than waiting for a knock, I opened the door wide and tried to smile. “Hey!” I said, a little too energetically. “Welcome back.”