The Forgotten World

by R Gene Curtis

  “Huh?” Karl leans back in his chair. He finally meets my gaze.

  “I’m not a student here. I go to the University of Washington. We met at Arches last month. In Utah.” I’m feeling a more than a little desperate, and it comes out in my voice.

  “Right. You were on crutches.”

  “Yes!” I lift up one of my crutches triumphantly. I’m such a dork. “I want to talk to you about the light at the arch. And the meadow. I want to go back there with you. There’s something important there, I know it. I think I may have even come from there originally. Maybe you do, too. Were you adopted?”

  The words bubble out of me, and I’m not sure they’re sensible at all. Karl stares at me blankly.

  Yeah, should have written down my lines and memorized them.

  “You saw the same thing I did. The blue light, the mountain...”

  “How did you find me?” he asks suddenly.

  “Online. I found you online.”

  Karl’s eyebrows raise.

  “You’re the only one who can take me back. The portal only takes those to the forgotten world who come from there.” Assuming Lovina’s journal entry can be trusted, but what else do I have?

  “You’re saying I come from another world?” Karl rolls his eyes. His bright blue eyes—just like I remember, and just like Lovina’s book. “Actually, I was born on Earth.”

  My heart drops.

  “Unless you call Arizona another world,” he says with a small laugh. “Which you might, coming from Seattle.”

  “But your blue eyes?” I ask.

  “Are my mother’s.”

  “Oh.”

  “You really came all this way to see me?”

  “Yes. Um, no. My friend had a brother die in a car accident, and so I was out here already.”

  “I’m under a lot of pressure right now, and so I’m really busy,” Karl says. “We got some light in our eyes at the arch, and that was pretty weird, but I can’t take a break. Not right now. I really have to get some of my research done.”

  “Don’t you think...Could you spare just a few minutes?”

  He holds up his hand to stop me. “Really, I’m not interested.”

  He thinks I’m stupid. Can I start over?

  He stands to close the office door, but I have one last hope left. I grab a pen from his desk and write my name and number on the top of Lovina’s history.

  “Will you at least read this? And call me?”

  “Sure.” Karl takes the paper without looking at it. He puts it on a big stack of other papers and stands up to close the door. I maneuver my crutches backward as he closes it in my face.

  “It was nice to see you again.”

  Click.

  That was it. I feel even worse than I did after meeting the angry girl. I’m not sure if I want to cry or yell. The chances that I will ever hear back from Karl are zero.

  But what did I expect? I showed up as a complete stranger. Should he have taken me into his arms and kissed me? Promised to run away with me?

  I walk out of the building and down the steps to the car. I came so far; I found Karl. I accomplished nothing.

  Karl is from Arizona. He has a mom and a dad, and he’s proven it. He isn’t my traveling companion. He doesn’t feel connected to the forgotten world like I do. He’s happy and busy and not alone.

  But I’m alone, and I don’t have family and I don’t have soccer.

  And I don’t have a clue what to do next.

  20 Ruined

  Karl

  It isn’t until the second or third knock that I finally accept the fact that the knock on my office door isn’t going away. I write three more sentences to finish my thought, stretch, and get out of my chair to open the door.

  “Hi Candice.”

  She walks into the room without being invited and pushes the door closed behind her. Today she wears a ridiculous purple shirt draped over her body. Her glasses are just as purple as the shirt and her hair is tied back.

  I’m not sure what to make of the ridiculous grin she gives me as she sits in the empty chair at the desk across the room. The desk that used to be Tara’s.

  “Hello young man.” She can’t be that much older than me, but I smile back anyway.

  “Hi Candice,” I say again.

  “What you workin’ on?”

  “A paper. I’m pretty under the gun to get something out soon.”

  “Sit down.” I’m still standing by the closed door. I walk back to my desk and sit down. It’s weird, sitting here with Candice, talking across the room like I used to do with Tara. For a moment, I miss it. I miss her and her outfits and the ridiculous way she coaxed me into helping her with everything.

  Candice laughs. “Not sure what you’re thinking about, but I got some things I want to say to you that I don’t want nobody else to hear. Just wanted to congratulate ya, ‘bout getting your head on straight.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why, with kickin’ Tara out of your office like you done.”

  It was Tara who left of her own accord, and I miss having her in here.

  Candice laughs and shakes her head. I smile awkwardly, but I’m not sure I get the joke.

  “Now don’t you repeat these words to nobody,” she whispers, “but I don’t like that girl. I hate to see her takin’ advantage of nice guys like you. She’s got a flair for attractin’, as far as I can see, and she certainly got a lot out of you.

  “Now, I need some info. She told me that it all fell apart because of some girl you met in Utah,” she pauses, and then she laughs. “Well, those aren’t exactly the words that she used.”

  “Utah?” I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “You going to tell me that there wasn’t no Utah girl? After all that?”

  “Utah girl?”

  There was a girl who stopped by my office a few weeks ago, but I thought that was after Tara moved out.

  “Come on, Karl. Think for a minute. Why would Tara tell me about some fling you had in Utah if there wasn’t no girl?”

  “I guess I did meet one girl while I was visiting my sister.”

  “Guess! My lands boy, are you telling me that you got this girl pregnant and you don’t even know her name?”

  Something in my expression strikes Candice as funny because she really laughs this time. “I’m just repeatin’ what I heard,” she says, struggling to regain control. “Your expression says it all. The rumor mill is churning, and this is all about Tara saving face for why a bright young man like you would turn down the ‘gorgeous’ Miss Howell.”

  My face starts to go red. I’m struggling to find the same humor in the situation. “I can’t believe she’s saying that about me.” And I was distracted thinking she might try and poison me.

  “All right. I need more facts. She’s got to have this based on something. You found a girl? Is she good for ya?”

  The papers the girl gave me are still uncovered, sitting on the corner of my desk.

  “She stopped by a week or two ago.” I pick the papers up. “I didn’t have time to talk to her, but she gave me this packet to read. Yeah—it says her name is Lydia, right here at the top.”

  Candice stares at me with her mouth hanging open.

  “I’m gonna take everything I said right back. About you havin’ got your head on straight. A nice girl shows up serendipitously at your door, from God knows where, and you turn her away? My lands boy! You a helpless cause. I’d tell you to call that girl, but I reckon I’d be wastin’ my breath.”

  She shakes her head stands up to leave. I stare blankly at Lydia’s name and phone number. Candice is right. A nice girl serendipitously showed up, and I sent her away. I think back to my conversation with Pearl, and I realize what a fool I am.

  “At least you got rid of the viper.” With her hand on the knob, Candice smiles and looks at me through her big purple frames.

  “Somewheres you got yourself a mama, and I know she’s mighty glad you ain’t with Tara no mor
e. A fine boy like you, I’d bet she’s mighty proud about ya.”

  My eyes drop. “She passed away a few years ago.”

  “Well, that don’t mean that she’s not proud. Mamas care too much about their little boys to stop a carin’ when they’re back with God. Now, before you get back to work, you read that document that girl’s left you and you give her a call. But, if she turns out bad, you remember what you learned from ol’ Candice.”

  She laughs at her own joke and leaves me staring at the closed door.

  I must be the stupidest man who ever lived. That Lydia girl, she was even pretty. Exotic, really. Why didn’t I talk to her?

  Maybe my problem isn’t my job or the people I meet. Maybe it’s me.

  I look at the document in my hands. The Journal of Lovina Hurt.

  Hurt. Mom’s maiden name. The document isn’t very long.

  ✽✽✽

  For months, I’ve been telling myself it was just a strange glare of the light, that there was no meadow or strange place.

  Maybe I’m tired of lying to myself, or maybe I’m still reeling from Candice chewing me out, but I’ve read the story five times now. It doesn’t make any sense, but there are so many similarities to my family history. The bright blue eyes, Mom’s maiden name, Lydia thinking I came from the other side of the portal.

  That guy Bob saying he was looking for a way to get to another world.

  When I wake up my computer, it isn’t my dissertation that I go to. I find an old email with some family history files from Mom. It doesn’t take long before I find her: Lovina Hurt is my 4th great grandmother.

  There isn’t a father listed for Lovina’s son, and he took his mother’s surname. I stare blankly at the screen.

  Where did Lydia get this document? I know my bright blue eyes come down the Hurt line. I have them, Mom had them, my grandpa had them.

  My thoughts are interrupted by another knock on the door.

  It’s Candice again. “Dr. High-and-Mighty Program director needs to see you.” She smiles when she sees the document rolled up in my hands. “Why he can’t walk twenty feet and tell you himself is beyond me.”

  “Thanks Candice.” I walk down the hall to Khanh’s office, still holding the papers from Lydia.

  I knock on the door to Khanh’s office and go in.

  A large, ostentatious desk stands prominently in the middle of the room, and Khanh sits directly behind it, scowling at me as I enter. I approach the desk and stand next to a six-foot-tall DNA double-helix model that is awkwardly placed right where a chair should be.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  Khanh nods and his eyes narrow. “I have interviewed Miss Howell,” he says, “and I’ve talked with Heinrich. It’s obvious that the decision to use fabricated data was yours, and that you successfully hid your plan from your colleagues, who thought that they could trust you.”

  I stare blankly at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Miss Howell’s paper. Her discovery. It was all based on fabricated data. Fabricated data she received from you. On your phony website. And then you tried to publish it in Nature. I got a call from the journal this morning, and from the school. There will be a complete investigation on this. You will likely be expelled.”

  Fabricated data? The data was all from Tara.

  “Sir,” I say, “Tara provided the data.”

  “That’s not what she says,” Khanh spits back at me. “And we’ve already confirmed that the website she pulled it from was set up under your name. How do you explain that?”

  Impossible. I stare back at Khanh in shock. First poison, then rumor, and now this.

  “I just don’t understand it,” Khanh says. “A bright student like you didn’t need this. You never applied yourself. You could have excelled in this program. You would have had a distinguished career. Instead, you threw this all away so you could get a paper with Miss Howell. I’m already getting calls from reporters. The bad press from this is going to consume my time for weeks. Can you tell me why?”

  “Sir, I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m being set up. I’m innocent. The data was Tara’s.”

  Khanh shakes his head. “The longer you persist in your flagrant lies, the harsher the consequences will be. The university has started its investigation already. I’ve told you once already that they’ve already confirmed that Miss Howell’s data traces right back to you. That means you are guilty, Karl. We’ve found out. It’s time to accept the truth.”

  I turn to leave. I need to go somewhere; I need to think this through, figure out what is going on.

  “Don’t go anywhere. You’ll need to stay here. There are some university investigators that will want to talk with you. Let me just say that I’m very disappointed.”

  Khanh’s words barely register in my brain. I’m not going to talk to anyone else. I close the door to Khanh’s office as quietly as I can, and then I see him sitting in the foyer. Bob. The man with the ponytail. The man with the gun.

  Yeah. I’m leaving.

  I run down the hallway to the other exit door.

  Bob runs after me. He’s fit and I’m not. But I know the Mellon Institute better than anyone. I go through a couple doors and duck into a broom closet. He races by me, and I sneak out a back way. Once outside, I hurry to a bus stop and jump on the first bus that shows up.

  Now what?

  I try and think. Tara clearly set me up. That was her plan from the start. She needed me in case people realized the data she was using was false.

  She used me.

  This is bad.

  The bus I hopped on is heading downtown. Where do I go from there?

  I take the bus all the way to Point State Park. I wander through the park, and finally stop at the point, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers intersect to create the Ohio. Pittsburgh ends here in a great arrow pointing west. The rivers push downstream relentlessly—nothing in the world can stop the flow of that water.

  I’m the water. The current pushes me, but I don’t know my destination or why I’m being pushed. All I know is that it’s taking me somewhere, and it may not be where I want to be.

  I need to escape, I need somewhere to hide. Somewhere to think. Somewhere to figure out how I can prove myself innocent.

  I look down at the ground. In my left hand, I’m still holding the paper from Lydia. On the top of the first page is her phone number.

  Is the meadow real?

  She picks up on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “This is Karl.”

  “Uh...hi, what’s up?”

  “I need to go through that portal with you. As soon as possible.”

  21 Restless

  Cadah

  “You’re fools. All of you,” Arujan says. His beady eyes smolder with rage.

  But the rage isn’t new. Since he’s shown up, I’m not sure anyone in a position of authority hasn’t smoldered under his glare. Except for Ore, of course.

  Ziru’s response is not calm. “It is you who are the fool!” His deep voice echoes through the small house. I push myself against the wall and wish I had picked a different time to come and visit this evening. Ler hasn’t returned from the day’s work gathering food, and Arujan showed up just minutes after I did. To talk to Ziru, of course.

  Ziru towers over the smaller man. Arujan doesn’t flinch. His beady eyes glare up at Ziru.

  He could kill him, I realize. Break his neck and we’d be done with him.

  But Ziru isn’t a murderer. After 40 years of handling petty disputes as the village shepherd, he can control his anger. Better than I could if I were standing there.

  Arujan looks at me, and I wonder if he sees how much I despise him.

  “You say you have come to lure us out of the mountains,” Ziru says in a voice that is now surprisingly calm. “You know full well that if we leave, we will all be slaughtered by Wynn. Don’t pretend you don’t know it to be true!”

  “No one knows that to
be true.” Arujan’s lips curl into a cruel smile. How can he be so calm? “No one knows what the Great Wynn will do to your people. But, I’m not depending on his grace. He will never know they left the mountain.”

  Great Wynn? In all my life I have never heard anyone call Wynn anything but a monster. One more reason not to trust this man.

  Like we needed any more reasons.

  I finally speak up, unable to hold back my own anger any longer. “Now you’re talking complete foolishness. We have waited on this mountain for over 200 years. All who have left, have been killed.”

  “Not true. I left the mountain, and I returned.”

  “Liar!” Ziru shouts before I can say anything more. “And even if it were true, you are one man. How can you expect to deracinate thousands of people without someone noticing? People will die because of the false hope you’re giving them.”

  “False hope? You’re the one who believes in the false traditions. A princess? We all know no princess is going to save these people. It’s been 220 years. She’s dead. She didn’t come.”

  Ziru is quiet. So am I. Our greatest fear isn’t one we say aloud.

  Arujan laughs. “You know it’s true. These mountains are not a place for people. There isn’t enough food, not to mention a great deal of unrest.”

  “The unrest is your doing.”

  But Arujan ignores Ziru. “These people will not be contained for much longer. I’m going to lead them to safety—off this mountain. Are you with me?”

  “No.” Ziru’s voice is flat. “I’m not afraid to fight you.”

  “Oh, I don’t fight.” Arujan’s expression changes from hatred to mocking. “But I don’t lose either.”

  “I don’t want you in my village.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  Ziru? Not have a choice? The man has been loved in the village from the time I was a little girl. The statement is preposterous. But somehow, as I think about it, I realize it’s true. Arujan has the upper hand. He’s cunning, and yet everyone likes him. Everyone, that is, but the village leadership. The people don’t see him for what he is, and not one of them will turn him away.