by Daryl Banner
Athan slaps it into her good hand, his eyes wide, unthinking. When Erana’s heavy stare meet Athan’s, he realizes too late what she means to do.
“Survive,” she tells him, then slams her bandaged palm onto the interface.
Just as Athan jerks forward to stop her, the door shuts in an instant on his face. He stares at his reflection in the smooth metal as the lift quickly begins to descend with only him, Sedge, and Arcana. He hears the stabbing of the dagger into the metal and glass interface like a distant, muffled knock. Slowly, the sound drifts away from him until all he hears is his own breathing and the gentle hum of the lift carrying them to safety.
0218 Kid
It’s on a cloudy day with the threat of rain in the sky that Faery collapses onto the couch with a cry of pain.
“What’s wrong??” Link asks, clenching her hand and kneeling by her, worry in his eyes.
“The baby,” Fae moans, her breath quick and irregular. “Some … Something’s wrong …”
“Where does it hurt?”
Kid stands in the entryway to the den, her eyes wide with fear. Link and Fae go back and forth between grunts of pain and hisses of agony. Kid can’t make out the words between them anymore, drawn into a world of lonesomeness. It always ends in suffering and loss. Everyone leaves me. Everyone dies. It was only a matter of time …
And then: “Ms. Reeda.”
Link looks up from the couch. “What?”
Kid makes up her mind. “I’ll be right back!”
Before Link can stop her, Kid pulls open the front door and tears across the lawn, hurrying over to her neighbor’s house. The world is grey and the sky rumbles, threatening to release itself upon the city below. Kid slaps her hand several times against the front door.
A man answers the door. He looks down at Kid. “Hey there.”
“Ms. Reeda,” Kid says at once, her voice choked. “I need to see Ms. Reeda, please. Quickly.”
The woman is at his side in the next instant. “Sweetheart. I had thought you’d gone! What’s the matter??”
“My friend is in pain,” Kid says quickly. “She’s pregnant. She is in pain. Something’s wrong. Please help her!”
Ms. Reeda reacts swiftly and calmly. “Timm, get the caravan.” She swipes a set of keys and a purse of coin off a table by the door. “Sweetheart, take me to them. Now.”
“Caravan?” protests Timm softly. “Honey, a rain is on the way.”
“So let it rain. The hospital is just a twenty minute ride and her friend may not be able to walk the distance to the ten station.”
“N-No,” blurts Kid at once. “We can’t go to the hospital. We—”
“We may not have a choice, I’m afraid. Now take me to them,” she repeats, stepping out of her house and clasping Kid’s hand.
Kid leads Ms. Reeda across the lawn and into her house. Link looks up from his kneeling position, alarm surging into his eyes at the sight of the unfamiliar woman.
Ms. Reeda doesn’t pay him one mind as he moves aside to make room for her, still holding Fae’s hand. Ms. Reeda bends down. “Hey there, sweetheart. My name is Willa. What’s yours?”
“Faery,” she answers, her voice quivering.
“What a lovely name. How long have you been pregnant?”
Fae glances up at Link, unsure, then she turns her face to Kid, who hovers at the back of the couch. “Six months? Seven?”
“Eight,” answers Kid, “if you count the month before ya knew you didn’t bleed.”
“Eight,” echoes Fae in a drawn-out breath.
Ms. Reeda nods importantly. “Faery, sweetheart, I don’t think anything’s wrong. I think you’re in labor. Oh, and all over my new couch, too,” she says, peering down where the cushion is drenched.
“What do we do??” blurts Link.
“My husband’s pulling our caravan from the garage.” She moves her face close to Fae’s. “We’re taking you to the hospital, sweetheart. They will deliver your baby properly.”
“B-But we can’t—” protests Link.
“You must,” Ms. Reeda says, “and that’s the end of it. I don’t care to know your history or why you’re here. My concern is the baby and the health of your friend Faery. Are you the father?” she asks, lifting an eyebrow at Link, who nods nervously. “Very well. Come with. All of you. To the hospital we go.”
The ride in the caravan is unexpectedly smooth. Kid wonders why she never realized how well-off her neighbors were. Perhaps she was too young to notice. Maybe she never truly knew Landy all that well except for the silly games they’d play in the yard. How was she to know that the Reeda family had a caravan hidden away in their garage? The only families with personal caravans were either incredibly rich, sixth warders, or Lifted folk.
None of her curiosities go answered, and before Kid can take another breath, she’s in a waiting room chair sandwiched between Willa and Timm Reeda. For over two and a half hours, Ms. Reeda talks on and on about the miracle of life and how babies seem to pop out of thin air left and right, but yet she never has one of her own. “Being around other mothers and babies makes women more fertile,” she murmurs. “Perhaps your friends will give me the luck my body needs. Do your friends have a place to live? Oh, never mind it. I’m being foolish. Later, of course. We’ll discuss it all later, yes, yes …”
And Kid would alleviate the woman of her childbearing doubts by spilling out a truth that only she knows—a truth called Landy—but the turmoil in her own belly of not knowing what’s happening in that room where Link and Fae are is making her too insane to think of much else. “I need to use the bathroom,” she says at once, cutting off something Ms. Reeda was saying and departing her chair.
The moment she slips around the corner, she’s invisible. With a hurried, careless gait, Kid moves from room to room, determined to find the one in which her friends are. Stay together. That is Link’s only remaining rule that they haven’t completely torn apart. We all have to stay together.
The moment Kid sees the familiar faces through the window, she stops. Soundlessly, she opens the door and slips inside. All of the nurses and doctors must have left already, because the only ones in the room are Link and Fae. She lies in a bed cradling a bundle in her arms—a bundle that must be her newborn son or daughter. Link is by her side, leaning against the bed with a finger playfully dangled by the baby’s face, which Kid still cannot see. The soft sounds of Fae and Link murmuring to one another gently fill the room, punctuated now and then by a tiny squeak, gurgle, or sigh from the little one.
“She’s beautiful,” whispers Fae, holding the baby, sweat pasting tangles of her short hair against her forehead and cheek.
Link says nothing, staring at the baby with a look of starry-eyed wonder on his face. He can’t even seem to bring himself to smile, so dazzled by the child.
“We have to protect her,” says Fae quietly, her voice heavy with importance. “She must stay protected. If anyone finds out …”
“Fae …”
“It doesn’t matter what I think I am. I could be another girl from the slums. But your Sanctum, your King, your Baal or Baron … they think I am something else. They think I’m—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. And they will come after this girl if they think she’s half-Goddess and half-human. They will covet her. They will try to take her away from us, this precious girl.” Fae holds her tighter, her eyes pouring with adoration for the little human being in her arms. “I know what I will dream for her.”
Link lifts an eyebrow. “Dream?”
“Her Legacy. My sister dreams all her days and nights long, and she will dream of a Legacy for this daughter of ours. And I know what I will wish for our little girl.”
“What will you wish?”
Fae smiles thoughtfully. “I shall wish … for a Legacy … that will protect her from greedy eyes. A Legacy that will hide her from the world so that our little girl is always … always … safe.”
Kid stares at
the two of them. Her hands begin to tremble. Her mouth won’t close.
“A Legacy that will keep her from being seen,” whispers Fae. “A Legacy that will never let her be found.”
Protected from greedy eyes. Hide her from the world.
Keep her from being …
Seen.
“I hope your Sister hears your wishes,” murmurs Link, cuddling against Fae as he looks into his daughter’s face. “A name, Faery … Our little girl needs a name.”
Fae gives the baby a gentle kiss on the forehead, and after a moment of thought, she comes to a decision. “Akidra.”
Akidra.
Kid sucks in air, tears spilling from her eyes as she slaps a hand over her mouth, overcome.
Faery and Link look up from the bed, startled by the noise. Only after a moment does Link realize what the noise might have been. “Kid? … Kid, are you there?”
Kid steps back from the bed. Dad. Her hands won’t stop shaking as she clutches her mouth. Tears spill over her fingers as she turns her invisible face to Faery. Mom.
And then Link sees her. “Kid. What’s wrong?” His expression of joy dissolves as he stares at Kid’s running tears. Comprehension is slow to flare into his eyes as his body turns rigid. “A … kid … ra …” he whispers.
Fae reaches out a hand, oblivious to what’s going on. “Come here, sweetie. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Legacy,” says Link. “To keep her from being … seen.” He shakes his head, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. “No. It’s just … a coincidence. You …” He shakes his head again, more fervently. “N-No. Kid, come here. That’s not even—” He blinks, having lost sight of her. “Kid …?”
She’s invisible. The door slaps open when she races out of the room.
0219 Link
“It’s just not possible.”
Faery slowly paces the den with little Akidra in her arms, gently rocking her.
“It’s not,” repeats Link. “Kid’s been instrumental in our even being here in the past. How can Kid have helped us survive here, and then … indirectly or not … be responsible for her own birth? There’s no way. If Baal … wait a minute, let me think this through …”
“Link.”
“Baal brought us here to find you. We found you. But if … wait, I’m getting confused. If she wasn’t born …”
Faery speaks gently and patiently. They’ve been talking about this for hours now. “She’s the right age, Link.”
“No.” Link shakes his head adamantly, refusing to believe it. “If I had not come into the past, then Kid would never have been born. Is that what I’m to understand? But how does one explain the fact that Kid has been a part of my life since—well, since ever? She took a bag of gold from me, which led to my having to prove myself to the Wrath by … by … by being ditched at some rich dude’s estate, chased by hungry hounds into a shed—a shed where Kid turned me invisible and saved my life! That’s not possible! That’s like … That’s like taking time itself and twisting it into a knot or something. That’s—”
“If there was ever a timeline that existed without Kid being born,” reasons Fae, still gently rocking the baby, “then that bag of gold would’ve never been stolen in the Waterways that day, and you also would’ve never been in the shed with Kid turning you invisible. The events cancel one another out, don’t they?”
“And if she didn’t exist, then … I would’ve come here alone.”
“Not alone. You would’ve come here to the past with Ames,” Fae corrects him. “And isn’t that precisely what Baal expected? Just you and Ames? Wasn’t Kid’s presence a complete surprise to him?”
Link falls into a chair. “I suppose. But … it was on a run with Kid here in the past that Ames pulled away and got arrested. And it was Kid who threw a knife at Baal, killing him. If Baal taking me here to the past is the reason for Kid’s existence … how can Kid also be the one who kills Baal? It’s a … a … what’s that fucking word??”
“Paradox.”
“Paradox! And Kid led us to this very house! How would she have known that this is her house if it took us being here to even bring her into existence??” Link slaps hands to his head, exasperated.
“Please, Link, calm down. The baby’s sleeping.”
The baby. Baby Kid. Akidra. Link takes a deep breath, putting his head between his knees. “I’m so lost, Fae. I don’t understand this.”
“Maybe in some alternate timeline, it’s Ames who throws a dagger at Baal,” Fae suggests nonchalantly. “Or maybe Baal doesn’t die at all, but meets his end in some other way …?”
“How are you not freaking out right now?” asks Link, swinging his head back up to meet her eyes.
“Well, one of us has to keep our head,” teases Fae.
Link is in no mood for teasing or jokes. “When did you become such an expert in the intricacies of time-walking?”
Fae chuckles. “It’s just logic, my love. Think of your own colors. You paint a stroke of pink across the wall. Then you paint another pink stroke over that one. If someone were to observe the wall, they would see just one pink stroke, wouldn’t they?”
Link wrinkles his face. “Um, yes. But—”
“Think of your journey through time as a stroke of color. The very first time you laid a stroke, Kid wasn’t born yet and didn’t come with you into the past. Events may have unfolded differently that first time. Baal may have lived or not. Ames might be free or not. We may have come to this house on our own volition, or something else entirely might have led us here. We don’t know.” She comes to a stop in front of Link’s chair. “This is your second stroke of color. This time, your paintbrush still has pink on its bristles. This time, you had Kid at your side. Things are different, yet the result balances out. And if anyone were to question history’s events, all they’d see is—”
“Pink.”
“Right. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. What matters is what we do now. We are Akidra’s parents. We must protect her.”
“How can we protect her when she’s run away from us?” Link stares at the front door, which he has been staring at for hours and hours and hours, expecting Kid to just slip in. “I mean, there’s still a possibility that it’s … not the same Kid, right?” He sighs. “Who am I kidding? We can’t even protect ourselves. Anyone who finds us will see us now.”
“Ms. and Mr. Reeda from next-door know of us,” Fae goes on.
“They … will help hide us,” Link says, carrying her logic, “or … well, or they’ll start making us pay to live here. I don’t know how deeply their ‘well of compassion’ runs.”
Fae squeezes into the armchair next to Link, cradling the baby against her chest, and they peer down at their daughter, watching as she sleeps. The tiny whirring of breath from her little lips sends Link on a train of thought that begins and ends with his own brother Anwick. Will he always sleep? Or will he someday outgrow it? Link hopes to survive long enough to learn the answer to that. He has so many questions for his brother, he can’t keep track of them all.
Twice in the night, there is a soft knock at the door, and both times Link races to it expecting to see Kid on the other side, but it is Ms. Reeda instead, checking up on them and giving them things they’ll need for the baby. Diapers, baby clothes, and little toys fill the bags that she brings them. “I hope the other one comes home soon,” she says. “I swear, she only said she was going to the bathroom, then she never came back. Oh, poor girl. I will keep an eye open for her.” Of course, sweet and well-meaning Ms. Reeda doesn’t realize how very ineffective having either eye open will be in locating Kid.
For a solid week, rain pours outside, droplets slapping upon the windows in sheets as the wind thrashes against the house, causing the walls to groan. Despite the ongoing storm, Little Akidra sleeps so peacefully in her crib—another generous donation from Ms. Reeda. With Fae tending to the baby, Link is downstairs staring through the sliding glass door into the empty backyard, watching as the grass
is blown and pulled in every direction by the wind. He feels his insides crushed at the thought that Kid is out there somewhere in the storm. “Daughter,” he thinks, staring at the glass. “There’s no way,” he breathes, shaking his head. “No way.”
Days later when the storm has passed, Link stands on the wet lawn of the backyard, staring up into the sky which is bruised orange with the threat of sunset, as he breathes in the scent of earth and thick moisture in the air. Just as the stars begin to peek through the dimming sky, he feels a presence at his back. He turns around.
Kid stands there. “I’m sorry for running,” she says at once.
Link races up to her and embraces her tightly, hugging her to his chest. “Don’t do that again. We can’t separate again, Kid. We just can’t. Not ever.”
“I was scared.”
“We’re going to be okay as long as we’re together. You cannot run ever again.”
“Stay together. Always.”
“Always,” agrees Link with force in his voice, kissing Kid on the top of the head and not willing to let her go from the hug.
The two of them hold each other for a long time in the yard as the evening breeze tickles across their arms and tosses their hair. Link glances up at the window of the back bedroom—the colorful room—and finds Fae standing there with little Akidra in her arms. She smiles as she observes the pair of them reunited in the yard, as if she was somehow expecting Kid to return and the scene doesn’t surprise her.
With Kid’s head still pressed against Link’s chest in the tight embrace, he asks, “So why do you go by just ‘Kid’ …?”
Kid hesitates a moment before answering. “I couldn’t talk well when I was little. I had trouble learning words. ‘Kid’ was all I could say of my own name.”
Link smirks. “Maybe we should’ve just named you Kid after all.”
“I like Akidra,” she admits. “It’s my full name. I don’t even know if I ever truly remembered it, all this time. Hearing you say it in the hospital, though …”
