The Forgotten World

by R Gene Curtis

  Ore laughs. “That’s smart,” she says.

  “Quiet, daughter!” Ore’s father waves his hand at her. Everyone who has ever been sent down to Wynn’s world has never returned. Apparently until this fellow, if he’s telling the truth.

  “Wynn’s power has weakened,” Arujan says. “It’s time for us to leave these mountains.”

  “Impossible!” Ore’s father says. “We cannot leave until the Blue Princess arrives. She, and only she, is the one to lead us.”

  “A traditionalist, then.” Arujan laughs. “Things are changing on the mountains now. You will see. We no longer need to wait for a princess who is not coming. It’s been too long. She’s forgotten about us. It’s time to help ourselves.”

  “You’re a traitor.”

  “Look at my eyes—are they shining? No. I’m a dreamer. A man not afraid to think of what is possible instead of what holds me captive.”

  Ore’s father pulls a knife from his coat, but Ore puts her arm around him. “Father, don’t hurt him. Where are you going now, Arujan?”

  “The Northern Alliance.”

  “Can’t he come with us as far as the turnoff to Keeper, father?”

  Ore’s father looks at his daughter and his expression softens. Finally, he shrugs and puts his knife away. “As long as there is no more traitorous talk.”

  Arujan smiles and Ore winks at him. I send a questioning glance over her way, but she just shrugs.

  We head off. Ore walks in the lead with her father. Arujan stays in the middle. Ler hangs in the back, with me, his hand inside his tunic. Around his knife, I’m sure.

  I glance at him curiously; did he choose to walk in the back so that he could watch Ore? Her slender hips sway gently as she carries her pack up a hill in front of us. But, no. His eyes are not on Ore. His eyes are on the stranger, Arujan. And they’re on me. I feel my face warm and I look down at the snow. Ler clears his throat awkwardly, but then doesn’t say anything and turns his eyes back to Arujan.

  Ler always has something to say.

  I look back at him, confused. We came on this trip so that Ler would notice Ore. How could everything have gone so wrong? He’s not noticing Ore. He’s noticing me.

  His gaze turns, and his eyes meet mine again. Guilt and pleasure wash over me. I’m Ore’s friend, and so I shouldn’t love that look. But, I do. I swallow and decide to break the silence and escape my thoughts.

  “Do you think the Blue Princess will come?”

  Ler smiles pleasantly. “Yes.”

  “Will she really set us free? Is there really a better life for us somewhere?”

  Ler nods. “The Blue Princess will come, Cadah. I believe it. Our ancestors knew King Togan, and they knew his plan. The Blue Princess will come and defeat Wynn. She’s the only one with the power to do so. She will.”

  “But where is she now?” I ask.

  Ler shrugs. “All I know is that she will come.”

  Up ahead Arujan is talking to Ore’s father. “I have something I need to show you,” he says. “A way for you to see for yourself that the valley is indeed uninhabited.”

  “I said none of this talk,” Ore’s father says sternly.

  “Just hear me out, you foolish man,” Arujan says.

  Ore’s father bristles at the insult but doesn’t comment on it. “Where?” he finally says.

  “Just up here. Let the others stay behind and I will show you.” Arujan indicates a clump of trees just up ahead. Ore’s father sighs and agrees to follow him. The men leave Ore and I with Ler.

  Wanting to conceal Ler’s attention from Ore, I sit next to her, and engage her in conversation about the organization of the harvest, which will hopefully start within a week or two. The sun rises in the sky as we sit and wait. Eventually, I run out of things to talk about, and we sit in silence. Ler has fallen asleep.

  Ore looks at him, then at me, and her eyes grow thoughtful. I panic, not wanting her to bring up the subject of how I spent my morning.

  “I’m going to go after them,” I say, meaning the men.

  “I’m not,” Ore says, looking surprised.

  I feel bad that Ler is asleep. If he were awake, it would give Ore a chance to talk to him. But, after this morning, another side of me is happy that Ler is asleep. The giddy, happy part of me. The part of me that woke up this morning when he smiled at me.

  I haven’t traveled too far up the trail when I see them. They stand on a ledge, several hundred feet above me. Arujan is pointing toward the valley, and Ore’s father stands next to him. I can hear them speaking, but I can’t make out any of the words from so far away.

  Ore’s father shakes his head and turns to leave, but before he makes it off the ledge, Arujan takes the stick he was using for balance and swings it at Ore’s father. The stick hits the older man’s legs, and Ore’s father stumbles. Arujan pushes the stick hard at the path, and it starts to crumble. Ore’s father stumbles as the mountain beneath him falls away. Arujan swings the stick again, higher this time, hitting Ore’s father across the temple.

  I watch in horror as the father of my best friend falls, his body tumbling down hundreds of feet of rock. Arujan screams and starts running down the trail. I don’t turn back to find Ore and Ler. I run to the cliff. I run to find my friend’s father, even though I know already he’s dead.

  It doesn’t take long before Ler and Ore catch up to me.

  We find him just as Arujan finds him.

  “He slipped,” Arujan says, nearly out of breath. Ore runs to her father and falls over his dead body.

  “You pushed him,” I say.

  “No,” Arujan pants. “I showed him what he wanted to see, and he was so excited he moved too quickly. Then, the mountain just fell from beneath him, and he slipped down. I couldn’t stop him in time.” He points up to where the path crumbled, the missing trail evident from even this far down.

  I open my mouth to protest again, but I remember him swinging his stick and realize he could do the same to me.

  “We must call off our mission,” Ler says. “And take the body back to Watch.”

  I nod and bite my lip. Ore, sobbing over her father, turns and looks at me with large, puffy eyes. “Where is the Blue Princess?” she asks. “Why isn’t she here now? Why didn’t she stop this?”

  I look back at her, but I have no answer.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save him.” Arujan puts his hand on Ore’s shoulder. She looks at me for another moment, and then she stands and lets Arujan put his arms around her as she cries.

  9 Running

  Lydia

  Sweat runs down my face and the hot sun beats on my skin. Every muscle in my body aches. The whistle blows, and my legs burn as I push myself into a sprint.

  “Let’s move!” Coach Fant yells. “How come you’re slowing down?” The girls around me pick up speed, and I follow suit, staying right in the middle of the pack.

  It’s the first day of university soccer camp, and we are up near Mount Rainier at a ski resort. When I stepped off the bus into the shadow Mt. Rainier, I thought this would be the perfect week—an escape from all the turmoil in my life. Now, sprinting in the thin air and the heat of the evening sun, it’s hard to recall those feelings.

  I push myself as we approach the finish line and pass a few girls, letting the thrill momentarily overtake my exhaustion. I bend over and put my hands on my knees and breathe air in huge gulps. Is practice over? I’d like to shower and eat and maybe feel human again.

  Joana and another girl stop in front of me. “Hey Thala. I don’t know why you thought you could play college ball.”

  The girl next to her laughs. “We always lose at least one the first day. They get so tired, they just disappear.”

  Joana laughs and walks away, her pony flipping back and forth. “Guess we know who that girl is this year. Though this time she’s going back 30 thousand years to fossilize. Did you hear that her dad was locked up?”

  Joana has talked to me several times today, and each t
ime her words are darts, aimed right at my insecurities. Joana’s tanned skin says she spent the summer vacationing and getting ready for camp. I spent the summer at work and in courtrooms. I don’t even know how she heard about Dad.

  I rub my pounding temples and wish that it wasn’t so important to me to make this team. A smashed dandelion lies in front of my toe, its head bent over. I poke at it with my foot, but the stem is broken. It will never stand again. Is there any point in continuing to try?

  I reach down and pull the flower out of the ground. When I was little, I would pick dandelions like this one for Mom. She put them on the kitchen table. She always believed in me.

  Mom. That’s why I can’t give up. How much of her life did she give so that I could be right here, right now? If I had hung up the phone that night, how much more life would she have had? And wouldn’t she have spent all of it on me?

  I’ll catch up. I’ll get back in shape. It’s what Mom would want, it’s what she gave her life for.

  “OK, ladies, bring it in!” Coach Fant is yelling again. All. Day. Long.

  Girls crowd in close to hear her.

  “You have almost finished your first day of college soccer camp.”

  Almost? My heart sinks, and I drop the dandelion.

  “Just a three-mile run, and we’ll be done for the day.”

  I can’t remember a time that a run sounded less attractive. I take a deep breath and think of Mom. She may not be my biological mom, but she raised me to be her daughter. She survived camp; I will too. Three miles. I can do it.

  Coach Fant jogs toward a hill at the other end of the field. I hear groans as we follow her—even from the juniors and seniors.

  We cross the field and head up a steep incline onto a crooked, rough mountain trail. My quads burn; I focus on the rocks and dirt in front of me and push through the pain. I breathe in as much air as I can with each step. I’m strong. I’m a college athlete.

  After a half-mile, we crest the hill, greeted by a gentle slope covered by pines and cedars, out of direct sunlight. The burn in my legs decreases; the pine needles on the trail are soft beneath my feet. A slight breeze rustles through the trees, cooling my sweat and soothing my aching body. The last two and a half miles are almost pleasant. My body moves, in sync with the trail and the trees. “I will do this,” I repeat to myself softly with each step. It isn’t long before the lodge comes back into view. I almost feel human again, despite what Joana thinks.

  “Dinner in 45 minutes at the main building.” Coach calls as we get back to the lodge. My first day of practice is over.

  I walk slowly to my room. There are an odd number of people on the team this year, and I was the one left without a roommate. Naturally, it was me who was left alone. After all, Coach thinks I had a run-in with the law this summer.

  It’s fine, though. I’m used to being alone. Still, after living with Maria for the last few months, I realize now that I’ve grown used to the company. I find myself missing someone to chat with, Mari would commiserate this long day with me.

  Back in my room, I take a long, cold shower. The water pounds my back in a solid, hard stream. My body aches, but I’m going to work it just as hard, if not harder, tomorrow. I’m a college soccer player—like my mom. I wonder if she felt as alone.

  Probably not. Mom was too cool to ever be alone. She was never the mom who excluded me—when she had a party there were always couples invited with other kids, she made sure of that. And, she loved putting together big parties. Of course, we never had much money, so they were simple things like playing card games with other couples or picnics at the park. Mom would always get Dad to come when she could.

  My guess is that Mom was the same way all through college.

  And she was on the team. I still have to make the team. And I have my work cut out for me because I’m learning a whole new position. Coach Fant has her own defensive scheme, which relies on a stopper, the “second-to-last” resort position that spends most of her time navigating the field near the goalkeeper and yelling at the defenders. The way Coach has set up the system is unique, which means there is a lot for me to learn. This year three girls are competing for two stopper spots. Haley, who is a junior, me, and another freshman named Brit.

  By the time I get out of the shower, I only have two minutes until dinner. I throw something on and jog over to the main building. I’m late and all the tables are full. I sneak in the back and sit down at an empty table. There is an amazing panorama of Mount Rainier out the window. I try to feel happy. I should feel happy right now. I’m one day closer to fulfilling Mom’s dream for me.

  Someone clears her throat next to me. A short girl with straight black hair. Brit. My competition. She puts a hand on one of the many empty chairs and looks down shyly.

  “Can I sit with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “I know this is awkward,” Brit says, and she blushes. Her black hair is accented by her skin, which is so white that it looks almost pale. She has soft features, and she’s smaller than I am. I especially envy her straight hair; my curly hair is poking out in all directions from my hurried rush to dinner.

  “Where are you from?” I ask when she doesn’t say anything more.

  “Wisconsin,” she keeps her eyes averted from mine.

  “Really? I didn’t know we had anyone on the team from Wisconsin. What part?”

  “Near Madison, in a small town in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Sounds exotic,” I say, evoking a little bit of a smile out of her. “I’m surprised that you chose to come out west to U dub.” Maybe she’ll decide to go home and let me take the other open spot behind Haley.

  Not that I’ll be that lucky. Besides, Brit seems like a nice girl. She might need the spot just as much as I do.

  She shrugs. “It was my best option. I didn’t get a scholarship anywhere else that wasn’t a really small school.”

  “Coach Fant always knows talent when she sees it.”

  Brit blushes again, but she shakes her head. “I’m actually not that good. I’m just hoping to get a scholarship so I can go to a few semesters of school.” She looks down again. Her skin is so pale. She must have gone through a gallon of sunscreen to be so white after a full day outside. When I looked in the mirror after getting out of the shower, my entire body was beet red from sunburn. I should ask to borrow sunscreen for tomorrow.

  I wish the food would get here, but I realize that I really do want to talk to someone. At this point, Brit is my only option, seeing as how we are alone in the back of the room. “How did you meet Coach?” I ask.

  “I went to a soccer camp last summer when I came out here to help my sister with her new baby.” Brit answers politely enough, but I’m still not sure if she wants to talk to me.

  “You have a sister in Seattle?”

  “Not anymore, she and her husband divorced in the spring and she moved to Texas.”

  Brit is as alone as I am. And she looks really young. I wonder if she graduated a year early or something. If I lose my spot to Brit, maybe that would be okay. At least I could take solace in the fact that someone who really needs the position got it.

  Coach interrupts our conversation to make some announcements. Brit gives me a small smile, and we turn our attention to the front of the room.

  “By next week, you are going to be fit to be PAC12 champs!” Coach says. Girls around the room yell, but not me—I’ll celebrate once I’ve made it through the next seven days.

  They bring the food after Coach finishes speaking.

  “I’m so hungry!” I say when my food is finally put in front of me.

  Brit laughs, her mouth already stuffed full. “Me too! It was a long, day.”

  “Why did you come sit by me?”

  Brit blushes, swallows, and then whispers so that I can barely hear, “There wasn’t enough room at the table, so Joana kicked me off.”

  “Quite the girl, Joana.”

  “Quite the soccer player, anyway,” Brit agr
ees, smiling back at me. “I’m guessing you know her?” She blushes. “I guess you do because she told all the forwards to stay away from you because of your dad. That he would abuse any girl who gets too close to you. She also told everyone to call you Thala.”

  I straighten my back and look away. My chances to have any friends on this team just dropped all the way to zero. “I played soccer against her in high school.”

  “Anyway, that’s why I came to sit by you.”

  She came to sit by me because of what Joana said? This girl isn’t my competition, she’s my friend.

  “Did you play stopper in high school?” I ask after regaining my composure.

  “No, I was always forward. My high school coach needed someone who could control the ball and try to score goals. I scored a ton, but it didn’t work—we still lost every game.”

  I try to imagine what that would be like. I’ve been on some losing teams, but every team I’ve been on has been competitive.

  ✽✽✽

  After dinner, and a very long team meeting, Brit and I walk outside to the practice field. It’s silly to play more soccer, and it’s almost dark. But we go anyway.

  Brit has great ball handling skills and plenty of soccer savvy. What she doesn’t have is confidence.

  That’s probably understandable, given that she lost every game she played in high school.

  It’s going to be hard to beat her for the spot on the team. Her fundamentals are solid, and even though she doesn’t have a lot of practice on defense, she will be great. Defense requires aggression but also raw determination.

  Brit has determination.

  I’m not a soccer coach, but I’ve been around the game my whole life. Brit is a great player. My spot on the team is in serious jeopardy. Do I care? Even if Brit is nice?

  “You’re going to make a great stopper,” I say.

  Brit laughs. “I was thinking the same thing about you. I don’t want to be heading home after this week, but after watching you play, I’m not so sure.”

  “Well, if you’re up for it, why don’t we do this again tomorrow?”