The Only Ones

by Aaron Starmer

  “Marjorie,” she said again. “Marjorie Rice. There. I’ve answered your questions. Where is Kitten?”

  “Who is Kitten?” Martin asked.

  “Kitten is my son.”

  —— 35 ——

  The Soap

  There had been one morning on the skiff when Martin was watching the men in the lobster trawlers and he asked his father, “What do they think when they see us?”

  His father considered the question as he reeled in his line. “They envy us,” he said.

  “Why?” Martin asked.

  “Because we’re together,” his father said. “They’re out working. Their kids are at school. While you and I get to be together.”

  “Did you get to be together with your father when you were a kid?”

  “Not much,” he said. “My father ran a circus, which is like a story, but it’s real, and it has animals and rides, and it travels. So we were always on the road and that made me angry. One day, I decided to leave my father, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “I didn’t really know her.”

  “Kinda like I don’t know mine?”

  “Yes. Kinda like you don’t know yours.”

  “Did that make you sad?”

  “It did,” his father said with uncharacteristic tenderness. “I’m sure you can relate to that. But I found ways to deal with it.”

  “You have to.”

  “True,” his father said with a nod. “But my ways were … Well, you might think this is a bit strange, but my dad had this metal cigar tin that he carried with him wherever we went. It had a bar of soap in it. He never took it out of the tin. He never used it. Which didn’t make sense to me for a long time.”

  “Maybe it was special to him,” Martin offered.

  “You’re exactly right,” his father said. “Because one night I decided to spy on him, and I figured out why. I watched him open that tin and talk to that soap. He was talking to it like it was my mother. I realized that the soap used to be hers.”

  Martin did indeed find this strange, but he didn’t tell his father that. Instead, he asked, “Did he miss her?”

  “Most definitely,” his father said. “I think the soap was all he had to remember her by. He was obsessed with it. I became obsessed with it too. And whenever my father was working, I would search through his things until I found that tin and that soap. But talking to it wasn’t enough for me. I would take an eyedropper and I’d put a few drops of water on it until bubbles formed. I would blow those bubbles off the soap. I’d watch them float and catch the light and become streaked with a rainbow of color. Then they’d pop and melt into the air.”

  “You told me once that my mother was like a bubble,” Martin said.

  “Did I?”

  Of course he did, Martin thought. It was the only thing he’d ever been willing to say about her. Martin mimicked his father’s gesture, spreading his fingers out to show a bubble bursting in the sky.

  This made his father wag a finger in recognition. “Well, things have a way of coming full circle, don’t they?”

  “Why would you blow the bubbles away?” Martin asked.

  “I felt like my mother was trapped in the soap, and I was letting her out into the world. It helped me deal with things somehow.”

  “Did your father ever know?” Martin asked.

  “He must have, because the soap kept getting smaller, day by day. Yet he didn’t say anything. When the soap got to be nothing but a sliver, I was so ashamed of what I’d taken from him that I decided it was time for me to leave. I found a job fixing tractors for farmers and I lived in a room above a barn until I had enough money to buy a farmhouse nearby. I lived there until after you were born. It burned. So we came to the island.”

  It was the autumn after Martin had met George. Guilt about the secret friendship still plagued Martin, and he wondered if, by telling him this story, his father was trying to hint at something.

  “Are you angry with me?” Martin asked. “Have I done something wrong?”

  “Quite the opposite,” his father said. “You’ve shown me patience and you’ve shown me trust. In ways I never did with my father. So I hope you can understand that sometimes something as small as a sliver of soap can mean the entire world.”

  None of the other kids wanted to join him, so Martin went alone. Stepping into the machine, he was flooded with the same feelings he had felt when he’d last left it. Empty. Useless. Still, once inside, he pressed on. He pushed open the door to the machine’s heart. Almost nothing had changed in there either. The only difference was the marble was no longer in the basin. It was now in his hand.

  He set his lantern down next to the basin and examined the marble in the firelight. It didn’t appear different or special. In its simple way, it was pretty, but it was nothing more than that. He examined the basin. Empty. Useless.

  His father’s story about the soap returned to his head. As if piecing together one of the countless mysteries Martin had read, he went through all the clues. Timelines and quotes. Objects and objectives.

  The thought came to him in a rush. It was clear. It was right. He was sure.

  —— 36 ——

  The Scope

  “Does anyone here have an object? Something your parents might have given you?” Martin asked the kids as he approached them.

  Heads shook in response.

  “It all burned,” Cameron said. “My guitar strap, my songbook, all of it.”

  “Or we left it back where we came from,” Trent added. “You couldn’t carry much to Xibalba.”

  Martin thought of his own situation. His father had given him two things—his book and his alarm clock. Both were gone.

  “I have something,” Henry said. “But whatcha need it for?”

  “To test a hypothesis,” Martin explained.

  “That like a science experiment?” Henry asked. “No thank you. Don’t want it melted and covered in chemicals.”

  “It won’t melt,” Martin assured him.

  “You’re gonna need to show me what you’re gonna do first.”

  “That’s fair,” Martin said. “Come inside with me.” He turned to head back to the machine.

  “What are we supposed to do with …?” Darla motioned to Marjorie, who was still sitting in her chair but not paying attention to the conversation. Through the torchlight, Marjorie was surveying the burnt remains of Xibalba, as if examining a person’s face she only barely recognized.

  “Tiberia could bring her to the hospital,” Martin suggested. “Room 512. There’s a journal there. Show it to her. Tell her it’s Kitten’s.”

  “And why should I listen to you?” Tiberia asked.

  “You don’t have to,” Martin said. “Henry and I are going in the machine. We’re going to turn it on again. The rest of you can do what you want.”

  He could have told them his plan, but showing was so much better than telling. He didn’t even wait to see their response. He trekked back to the machine and went inside.

  Henry joined him a few minutes later.

  “Anyone else coming?” Martin asked.

  “Naw.” Henry walked over to the controls and reached his hands out like he was going to adjust a dial.

  “Don’t touch. It’s already set,” Martin scolded.

  Henry shrugged and pulled his hands back. “Whatever. If you turn it on, is it gonna make us feel all gooey again?”

  “Did Darla tell you that?” Martin checked the controls to make sure Henry hadn’t changed anything. He hadn’t.

  “No,” Henry said. “I felt it myself.”

  “Wait … what?”

  “Man, you’re dumb. I was in Darla’s luggage on the day of the launch, you stain. I’m supposta think you got a good hypothe-whatever, and you can’t even sniff out a stowaway?”

  There was no denying one advantage Henry’s short stature afforded him. He could fit in things. It was funny, really, and Martin might even have
laughed at the thought of Henry stuffed in a piece of luggage. But he had an important question to ask.

  “So you felt it then? And you were okay with it?”

  “I ain’t afraid of nothin’,” Henry said. “If Darla was okay with it, then so am I. It felt kinda good, right?”

  “It’s because it did something good,” Martin said. “It brought Marjorie to us.”

  Of this, he was sure. The last time he’d turned on the machine, he had been operating on faith. Now he was operating on logic. Logic told him that the machine was never designed to take them anywhere.

  “Rice,” Henry remarked. “Marjorie has the same last name as Kelvin, you know?”

  “I know,” Martin said. “It’s because she’s his mother.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Martin didn’t bother explaining the obvious. Rather, he put out his hand. “What do you have for me? Your object?” he asked.

  “Oh. Right.” Henry reached down beneath the collar of his shirt. A leather cord was strung around his neck, and he pulled at it until a black metallic cylinder emerged.

  “Your scope?”

  “From my rifle,” Henry said. “Dad gave it to me for my first huntin’ season. Never needed it for huntin’, though. I’m better than that. So I never screwed it on. Only used it for watching.”

  “Can I take it?” Martin asked.

  “Depends what you do with it.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  He led Henry through the interior door to the second chamber and to the wall next to the basin. “Your father taught you how to hunt,” Martin said. “Mine taught me how to build. He told me this part of the machine was its heart. I didn’t fully understand why until now.”

  “Sounds like you’re writing a friggin’ valentine,” Henry said with a snort.

  “Not exactly,” Martin replied. “Put the scope in the basin.”

  “Why?”

  “You haven’t figured it out?”

  “Figured what out?”

  “It’s probably better if you see it.”

  Martin had the pendulum in his hand and was about to let it go when he realized that he should give Henry the honor. There had never been an apology, from either of them. Sure, Henry had broken into his personal page, but Henry hadn’t started the fire. Martin’s book probably would have burned anyway. What Martin had done to Henry was much worse. It was deceitful and vindictive, and it had put Henry’s life in danger.

  Letting Henry drop the pendulum was a small gesture that would echo through the rest of their lives. That was Martin’s hope, at least.

  “Let it go,” Martin said, handing Henry the pendulum. “That’s all you have to do.”

  Henry didn’t hesitate. He dropped the pendulum, and the sequence was complete once again. It swung back and forth and ticked out its steady rhythm. Martin pointed to the crack beneath the door to the heart. Light, strong and warm and pure, came rushing at them.

  “It’s happening,” he said.

  They couldn’t resist. Energy enveloped them, and they began to laugh, and they laughed for as long as the machine held them under its spell, and for the first time since meeting him, Martin saw joy in Henry’s face. He liked that side of him. Henry looked like a kid, a true kid.

  Then it all went away—the sounds, the light, the feeling in their guts.

  Henry spoke first. “So what’d it do?”

  “Go back to the basin and you’ll see,” Martin said.

  “It melted my scope, didn’t it?”

  “Just go back to the basin.”

  Henry couldn’t have known what lay beyond the door to the machine’s heart, because he threw it open as he would any door. To him, it was just an obstacle in his way from one place to another. It wasn’t a gateway; it wasn’t a turning point—at least, not until he stepped through it.

  His scope rested in the basin, and in front of the basin, on the floor, sat a man. His legs were splayed out to the sides, and he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. Henry stopped, and Martin watched as he fixed his stare on the man’s muddy boots.

  The man grumbled and moaned, as if woken from a deep sleep. His eyes remained closed as he pulled his hands away and placed them on his paint-splattered jeans. A wispy goatee of red and gray hairs sprouted from his chin, and when he opened his mouth, he yawned and he ran his tongue along his bottom lip, moistening it with spit.

  Henry dropped to his knees.

  “Who’s that?” the man asked.

  When it looked like Henry might topple over, Martin placed his hands on his shoulders. Quick breaths sent tremors through Henry’s body, and Martin instinctively tried to calm him by patting his back. It seemed to work. At the very least, Henry didn’t slap his hand away.

  “Is someone there?” the man asked. He began rubbing his brow in an attempt to break the seal that was holding his eyelids shut.

  “It’s me,” the boy whispered. “Henry.”

  “Henry?” the man said. “What’s going on?”

  “We found you, Daddy.”

  His eyelids peeled back, and Martin saw the amber irises of Henry’s father. They were identical to those of his son. Henry crawled toward him.

  “Henry?” his father said, recoiling.

  “It’s okay,” Henry said.

  “What happened to you? Your face looks different.”

  “It’s been so long since I seen you,” Henry said. “Daddy, I’m so glad you’re back.”

  “Where are we, boy?” his father asked. “Who done that to your face, Henry? Where’s Mom at?”

  This wasn’t the time for explanations. When Henry’s crawl brought him to his father’s side, he collapsed on the man. He wrapped his arms around his chest and nuzzled his face into his armpit. He began to cry.

  “I missed you so much, Daddy. So much.”

  Henry’s father didn’t look up to see Martin standing in the doorway. He closed his eyes and bowed his head and petted his son on the back. “Whatever it is, it’s gonna be fine,” he whispered. “Come on now, Hanky. Tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  Martin backed away and let them have their moment alone. When he exited the machine, he discovered that Tiberia was gone, and Marjorie with her, but the rest of the kids were still there. Darla approached him first.

  “What’s the matter?” Darla asked.

  “What do you mean?” Martin said.

  “You’re crying.”

  “I am?” He brought his hand up to his cheek.

  “What happened to Henry?”

  Martin smiled. “Leave him alone for a while. He’ll be out eventually.”

  —— 37 ——

  The Wristband

  They came out at dawn. Henry led his father past the kids and away from town. His father eyed them suspiciously, and they were all poised to ask him questions, but Henry delivered a stern shake of his head. “Not yet,” he told Martin.

  Henry’s father’s name was Keith. At least, that was what Darla seemed to think. She remembered Henry bragging that he was an expert in martial arts. “Keith Dodd,” he had told her. “More belts than a … a belt store.”

  Other than his tent, Henry didn’t have a place to live, so he took his father to the river, and they sat on an old barge that was docked in a marina. Martin retrieved Henry’s scope from the basin, and Darla used it to watch them from the bough of a nearby tree. She reported her findings to the group.

  “He brought his dad a beer. And a pear. Can’t hear a word, though.”

  Late in the afternoon, Henry came back to town alone and was confronted with a stampede of queries.

  “Where was he?”

  “How did he get there?”

  “Did he see my parents?”

  Henry could offer only one response. “He don’t remember a thing about the last two and a half years.”

  This was hard for the kids to accept, but for Keith, it was nearly impossible. He could see that his son had aged, but for him those two and a half years had gone
by in a blip. And to find out that the entire world was gone, that the boys and girls of Xibalba were all that was left? It was almost too much for him to bear.

  Martin tried to attribute it to the theory of relativity. If he understood it correctly, the theory stated that people could travel at or near the speed of light away from the Earth, and when those people returned, they might have been traveling for only a few hours or minutes, while years would have passed on solid ground.

  It was difficult for everyone to grasp, and there were, of course, problems with the concept.

  “But he don’t remember traveling into space,” Henry said.

  “Neither does Marjorie,” Tiberia added. Tiberia had brought Marjorie back to the hospital and had sat with her and spoken with her and tried to understand her story. She had also shown her Kelvin’s diary. When she had closed and locked Marjorie in her room, the woman had been poring over the pages, whispering, “When could this have happened?”

  Martin couldn’t explain the inconsistencies. Sure, some alien force might have stolen their memories, or they might have been lying to cover up some vast conspiracy, but there was no evidence to support any of that. Xibalba was now in possession of two confused adults and plenty of confused kids and one big machine.

  “How’d you do it? How’d you bring ’em back?” was the one question Martin could answer.

  “The machine did it,” he told them. “I had something wrong the first time around. It doesn’t bring us to them. It brings them to us. We need something they’re connected to, though. Maybe a gift they’ve given us. Like the marble. Marjorie gave that to Kelvin. And the scope. Keith gave that to Henry.”

  “Does it only work with parents?” Sigrid asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Martin admitted.

  “Because Christianna, my sister, she gave this to me.” Sigrid held her arm up and showed them an orange rubber wristband.

  That night, Henry and Keith went back to the barge to be alone. Tiberia agreed to bring Marjorie food and sit with her and try to explain what was happening. Trent went to the school to track down Lane and tell her the news. No one had seen Lane in weeks.

  The rest of them met in the machine.