Insight Kindling

by Chess Desalls

  He’d mentioned that before, but it still didn’t make sense. “How is that physically possible?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the travel talent be genetic, passed down from parent to child through DNA?”

  My father shook his head. “The travel talent is similar to the impurity that grew on your eyes, the impurity that makes up the Uproar.”

  “Are you saying I’m possessed by some kind of impure travel spirit, and the Uproar wants to suck that spirit out of my blood to nourish itself?”

  “So it would seem to the TSTA,” my father said, closing his eyes.

  I didn’t know whether he was genuinely smug or trying to be. Whatever he was, I was confused out of my mind.

  “Would that mean the Fire Falls also burned off our travel talents?” I panicked. We needed our travel talents to get out of the Fire Falls. They were necessary to our plan. Without them, we’d be trapped forever.

  My father tilted his head and shrugged. “I hope not. I suspect the exterior healing of your eyes occurred because they were easily reached by the fire. I don’t know if or how the Fire Falls affected our insides.”

  I felt Ivory twitch next to me. I couldn’t imagine that she was thrilled by the concept of time travel impurities either, with her Chauffeur talent and all. I looked in her direction.

  Her hematite eyes narrowed, as tart and unwelcoming as the pucker of her lips. “How did you learn this?” she asked. “There is no mention of impurities in any of the studies. Or, is this another of your theories?”

  My father opened his eyes and grinned. “Case studies,” he said. “I’ve gathered information through years of examining patients in different places and times, as well as their silhouettes. Some scientists would consider centuries’ worth of work over multiple populations to be empirical evidence.” He threw up his arms. “I’ve never looked at all of the data.”

  Ivory balked. She turned to look at me, seemingly fighting hard not to roll her eyes. She twitched her lips as if she were about to say something.

  But I never got to hear what she was going to say.

  Ray ran out of the Falls, coughing and sputtering.

  My father ran to him. “Breathe, Ray,” he said. “Breathe deeply and with purpose. You are safe.”

  Ray looked up. He was soaking wet and wild-eyed. I expected him to crawl to his corner and curl up. Thankfully he didn’t. Instead, with my father’s hands on his chest and back, he breathed, harshly at first, in quick gulps; but then more slowly, until he was calm.

  Valcas emerged from the water, like a dolphin popping out to say hi before retreating to his natural habitat.

  Ivory smirked. “You’re just in time for dinner.” She gestured toward Ray. “Should I ask how it went?”

  Valcas smiled. The sight of it warmed my heart. “It went well,” he said. “We were able to breathe inside the air space, and Ray collected the calculations we needed.” His grin widened. “From within the air space, I was able to use the travel glasses to communicate with others, outside the Fire Falls.”

  “That’s wonderful!” I said, giving Valcas a huge hug, ignoring the fact that he was as drenched as Ray. It didn’t bother me. “If the glasses work to communicate inside the air space, then that gives us hope. There’s a chance we can use that space to time travel.”

  I looked over at my father. “We can get out of here.”

  He looked back at me with an expression that was difficult to read.

  “Aren’t you happy about that?”

  “Of course I am,” he said softly. His eyes rested where my arms enclosed around Valcas, as if to say: Be careful how you use your power over his heart.

  Immediately, I dropped my hands. A smooth sheen of pink ran from the top of Valcas’ forehead and down the sides of his cheeks.

  Valcas cleared his throat and stepped aside. “Ray’s prior estimate was nearly accurate. The air space is six feet deep and ten and a half feet wide; but, instead of four hundred feet high, it’s just shy of seven hundred feet.

  “Of course, we managed to burn ourselves more than a few times by making contact with the fire layer, but the balm layer took care of that.”

  Ivory looked up from her dinner preparations to smile at Ray. “Great job, Technician!” She plopped an extra helping onto Ray’s leaf plate. “Fish is brain food, you know. Now that you’re feeling better, we expect you to use it more often.”

  Ray rolled his eyes and shook his head. In that moment he looked like he was, or at least could be, his old self again. Maybe a few extra passes through the balm layer had been good for him.

  As we settled into our dinner, Valcas and Ray gave us more details on how they made their calculations. During most of the discussion, Valcas watched Ray with a new appreciation. True, Ray had impressed him earlier by figuring out that my father could be trapped behind the Fire Falls, but this was something bigger. Huge. Now Valcas looked at Ray with the same respect he had for my father.

  “So, how do we get out of here?” Ivory asked. “Did you do anything in there besides measure the space?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “If we can’t run through and avoid going out the other side, how do we get enough momentum to travel?”

  Ray finished chewing and smiled. “We won’t be running through the Falls. We’re going to dive.”

  DIVING WAS the last way I’d expected to escape the Fire Falls. Just the thought of it nearly made me break into a cold sweat. I loved the water, but I liked being close to the surface, near the air that I needed to breathe to, you know, stay alive.

  I set down my leaf plate. “We’re going underneath the Falls? Is the extra three hundred feet in height underwater?” The thought of traveling while underwater made my stomach lurch.

  Immediately, my father placed his hand on my forehead. I don’t know if it was a reaction to the sound of my voice or if my face had physically greened. I breathed deeply, until I felt my clamminess subside.

  Ray looked at me, concerned. “We’re not diving into water. We’re going to dive from up above, as high up into the air layer as we can get. Since only you and Valcas have the travel glasses, we’ll all need to join hands so we can travel together.”

  I nodded, then frowned. Ray’s plan was an improvement over my initial thought—that we were going to swim underwater to try to gain enough momentum to travel. But two things bothered me.

  First, how were we going to climb seven hundred feet without a ladder?

  Second, if Valcas and I were expected to use the travel glasses again, wouldn’t the impurity ruin our eyes? Now that we’d both fully recovered, I didn’t want either one of us to be affected by the glasses. I wanted both of us to stay the way we were now, free from the slightest hint of cataracts that would cloud the color of our eyes.

  I bit my lower lip so the team wouldn’t see it trembling. Part of me felt shallow feeling this way about something so superficial; but if the impurity was really an effect of travel…

  I glanced over at my father. “What about the baglamas? Could we use it inside the air space instead of the travel glasses?” That, I hoped, would take care of both items that worried me—getting to the right height and not having to use the travel glasses.

  My father looked at me. His blue-green eyes blazed with understanding, with insight. I finally understood what the word meant, particularly in terms of travelers, healers like my father. Insight—the ability to understand, accurately and deeply; an acute awareness that all of us knew my father had. I wondered whether his insight was part of his travel talent; whether it was something contained within the impurity of the talent; or, whether it was a personal ability, something inside him, independent of his travel talent.

  “Of course,” he said. “Now that your eyes and Valcas’ eyes have been restored, I can understand your reluctance to use the travel glasses.” He brought his fingers to his lips as he continued to study me. “Although, we would still need to be in motion for the baglamas to work.”

  Valcas sat there, stunned. I didn’t know if it
was because he hadn’t given much thought about whether or not he was willing to give up using the travel glasses. If so, his days traveling with an unofficial object were over, effectively forcing him to play by the TSTA’s rules. Maybe he didn’t want to fill out the paperwork to travel by world building. Or, maybe it had something to do with the baglamas.

  “How does the baglamas work?” I asked. “Do you need to play it to travel?”

  My father smiled. His lips stretched wider than I’d ever seen, showing his teeth, one of which was made of gold. “Yes,” he said. “I will need to play it.” Suddenly, he stood up. “It has been a long time since I’ve played that song. I must practice.” Then, without another word, he turned and hurried back through the tunnel, leaving his light sticks behind.

  “That was strange… even for him,” Ivory said. “He just got up, all dreamy eyed, and ran away.”

  Valcas shrugged. “Plaka can be unpredictable, and once his mind is set—I hope he doesn’t get too excited. We still have to figure out the logistics. There’s not enough horizontal space to run to gain enough momentum to travel.” He turned to Ray. “How long do you think it will take us to build a ladder to reach a place high enough to jump?”

  Ray frowned. “Seeing as we would need to dig into one of the rocky ends of the Falls to make a rough ladder or gather enough stone to build a stable base…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Both options sound like they would take forever.”

  Ivory unsheathed her knife, twirled it a couple of times and flipped it from one hand to another. “Who else has a cutting tool?”

  The boys and I looked at her in silence.

  “Yep,” she said, jamming the blade into the ground. “Forever. Just when I thought we were close to having a plan too.” She narrowed her eyes. “Assuming we do figure that out, we should think about where we’re going. Where would be the best place to find ourselves once we ditch this place?”

  “Before meeting Plaka,” Ray said, “I would have said right outside of TSTA Headquarters to announce that we’ve completed our mission. I don’t think Plaka would be on board with that idea.”

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing the watch the TSTA had given me. “But how do we let the TSTA know that we rescued him?”

  “What is that, Calla?” Valcas said. “I noticed that you’ve been wearing it ever since we left TSTA Headquarters.”

  “It’s a watch,” I said, swiping the watch face through the different time zones. “The TSTA gave it to me with my assignment.”

  Everyone’s eyes were on me.

  “What?” I asked. “Didn’t everybody get one?”

  “Let me take a look at that,” said Valcas.

  I handed Valcas the watch. He looked it over and frowned. “It doesn’t appear to be useful,” he said. He swiped the watch face and tapped it a few times. “Not that I expect it would be able to do much in here, where we can’t use the travel glasses to travel or communicate.”

  “But it is useful,” I said, defending the watch. “It tells time—it’s the only way I know how long we’ve been here behind the Falls.”

  Valcas looked at me skeptically. “Twenty-two days is not a particularly large amount of time to keep track of,” he said. He was right, about the time. With the help of the watch, I’d counted twenty-two days too. Could the watch have other uses?

  “Do you want to find out if it does anything else inside the air layer?” I said.

  Valcas nodded. “I might as well try to do something productive.” He grinned. “Maybe it will tell me how to get us out of here.”

  WITHOUT THE watch, I wasn’t able to time how long Valcas experimented with the watch inside the Fire Falls.

  As for the twenty-two days we’d stayed behind the Falls, it was pretty evident from our camp that we’d been here for a while. We’d dried out enough leaves to weave together mattresses, which we’d stuffed with crunchy seaweed. Ivory, the biggest neat freak among us, had twisted leaves into a rough broom so she could transfer dust from one place to another. Our clothes were showing signs of wear, although they were nowhere near as thin as my father’s. We really needed to get out of the Falls, and the sooner the better.

  After rinsing out our dinner leaves, I pulled on my sweatshirt and sat down in front of the light stick pile, next to Ray. “Hey,” I said. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I missed you.”

  Ray smiled at me. All traces of pain seemed to have vanished from his dark blue eyes.

  “Thanks, Calla. I missed you too.” He popped one of the fading light sticks so it glowed brighter and warmer. “How are things with you… and Valcas?”

  Ivory sniffed. “I’d say they’re off to a rocky start.” She opened her arms, embracing our cave and all its glory. “You know, here in the Stone Age.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re fine,” I said. “I’m new to this sort of thing. Maybe you could give me some advice, Ivory. Since you’re into protecting loved ones and all—enough to get charged with a TSTA infraction. Why don’t you tell us about the person you’re protecting, hmm?”

  Ivory looked back and forth between me and Ray. “It’s not like that,” she said.

  “Come on, tell us.” I grinned. “What’s the big secret?”

  “Not while he’s still out there… alive.”

  “So it is a he? Tell us about him.” I rested my face on my palms. “You said you were protecting someone you love. Were you in love?”

  The corners of Ivory’s lips pulled down into a slight frown. “Once upon a time,” she said. She cleared her throat and socked Ray in the arm. “What I’ve been waiting to hear is your story. Now that you’re feeling better, tell us what your infraction was about.”

  I could tell Ivory was trying to lighten things up again, but judging from the tightness in her voice, I knew I’d gone too far. Desperate to direct the conversation away from my budding relationship with Valcas, I hadn’t picked up on Ivory’s reluctance to talk about her infraction. I reminded myself to apologize to her later.

  “To tell the truth,” Ray said, “I was surprised to find out I’d done anything wrong. One minute I was hanging out at home, and the next I was being carried off to TSTA Headquarters by a group of TSTA officers.”

  “Did you know that the TSTA existed?” I asked.

  “Yes. My parents had told me stories about the agency and signed me up for training to sharpen my Detail Technician talents. But I didn’t know all of the TSTA’s rules, not that it would have mattered. I never left a daily reminder in anyone’s past. My infraction was contributory.”

  Contributory. I’d heard that word before. Commissioner Reese had said the person Ivory protected could still be found contributorily liable. “What does that mean?” I asked. “Did someone overwrite a daily reminder to protect you?”

  Ray shook his head. “It’s weirder than that.” He pulled at the hem of his T-shirt.

  Ivory narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing?”

  Ignoring her, Ray pulled his T-shirt over his head. The tattoo I’d caught a glimpse of earlier stood out, lit by the glow of the light stick pile. Never Forget Susana.

  Ray pointed to the words, inked in delicate italics, just below his left rib. “I have no idea who did this.”

  I lifted a brow. “How did you get a tattoo without feeling it?”

  “I think someone drugged me, and then did it while I was asleep.”

  “What does it mean?” asked Ivory. “Who’s Susana?”

  Ray furrowed his brows. “I have no idea.”

  Ivory and I looked at each other. I could see the wheels spinning in her head, but there was no flicker of comprehension in her eyes.

  “Never forget Susana,” I whispered. “Do you think someone named Susana did this?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Ray said. “It means nothing to me. I’ve tried having my photo taken so I could look at it without the words being reversed, the way they are when I look into the mirror. I burned the image into my mind—recorded it, analyzed it over a
nd over, but I can’t figure it out.”

  “When we get out of here, we’ll have to find out who Susana is,” said Ivory. “It’s clearly a daily reminder. Even if you had nothing to do with creating it, I now see why you’ve been charged under contributory liability.”

  My mouth dropped open. “But he wasn’t conscious when it happened.”

  The flicker of understanding I’d been searching for finally crackled behind Ivory’s eyes. “Ray isn’t contributorily liable for actively creating a daily reminder.” She wrinkled her nose. “He is one.”

  While I let that sink in, Ivory rubbed her eyes and yawned. “We could sit here and speculate all we want about what it means, but I’m ready to hit the hay… well, I would, if we had hay.” She shrugged. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Maybe even a good one.”

  “How can you fall asleep after hearing this, Ivory? Ray, our Ray, is a writing on a physical object. Someone inked a reminder on him! He had nothing to do with it.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Ivory.

  “Huh?”

  “Remember when Valcas destroyed the daily reminder—the photograph—at your TSTA Hearing?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “It’s possible there used to be another daily reminder out there—one that explains Ray’s tattoo. Maybe Ray knew about it at one time. Maybe that memory was deleted.”

  “But he still has the tattoo,” I said. “Someone out there still needs to be reminded of something.”

  Ivory shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. It’s also possible that whoever did it has already been charged and convicted of the infraction. Had the TSTA wanted to, they could have also destroyed the reminder about Susana, but they didn’t.”

  I swallowed. Destroying the reminder would mean destroying Ray. But, thankfully, Ray was still alive.

  Ivory patted down her leaf mattress, which I’d learned was her signal that she’d had enough talking and wanted to go to sleep. “I refuse to credit the TSTA with kindness for not killing Ray,” she said. “I’m sure Plaka would agree with me—that Ray is alive so he could be punished for his part in the infraction. He’s also a public warning to others not to use people as canvasses for daily reminders.”