by Ariane Souza
“And so what? Even if I had told you to worry, what could you have done?”
A silence followed that question.
“Nothing,” Ed answered for him.
“The chant said to everyone in Nagranto to forget about Iliona, and everything related to it. From the moment you got involved, you BECAME someone related to it. Not only you, but anyone else who knew about Iliona, and had relatives or acquaintances in Nagranto is now a stranger to them.” Flen explained, remembering Alex, Ferdinand and him sitting at the breakfast table with Timothy’s parents. “I’m sorry.” He added.
“It’s your consequence,” Ed repeated Muriel’s words toward Timothy. “You could have stayed away, not entered into other’s houses, not searched for eerie stores. And yet you could have stayed with them, so all of you would have forgotten about Iliona, and still remember you were family.”
“Stop Ed. This will not make him feel any better.” Bob intervened.
“He’s right, Bob...” Timothy said snuffing, and cleaning his tears with the back of his hand. “I could have done all of this. But my greatest mistake was to trust you, Ed.”
“Tsk, if you say so,” Ed responded, unconcerned.
“What I don’t understand is that Silvia and Marcus also knew about Iliona. It was because of this that Marcus fainted, right? So how come they still remember each other? To know about Iliona didn’t make them related people to it, as well?” Muriel asked.
“If they forget together, there’s no problem. Then, everyone who heard the singing will still remember one another; they’ll just forget about Iliona.” Flen explained.
And the sound of footsteps in the glassy corridor outside reached the room.
“Lumma,” Flen said, looking at the closed door.
“You have to leave now.” Muriel reacted.
“Come with us El,” Bob suggested.
“And then we’ll be running away again. It’s enough Bob, I’m staying this time.” She gently declined.
“If she finds you here, there will be nothing I can do. Leave now while you have the chance.” Flen said at last.
“Toc Armfun,” Elin said, and a scraping sound followed it. “Let’s go.” She said, entering the nil first.
“Come then, Mothy,” Bob said, giving Muriel a weak smile of understanding and disappearing, with Timothy by the hand. Joanna followed them. The nil closed as soon as she passed, with no sound or trace.
“So you’re fond of infinzy too,” Ed remarked toward Flen, who was already standing by the door. But he said nothing to this. He just looked ahead and greeted Lumma when she entered the room and ordered them to follow her.
25
The Beginning
“Both of you will go to Timers School. Muriel Levan for learning, and you, Ed Indigo, for a refreshing.” Lumma said. They were in the octagonal room, where all the Internal Council was sitting at the table, along with them. “That was what the Council decided.” She added. The yellow lights from the glass table were on again.
“For how long? I was almost at the senior’s class at the Timers College.” Ed protested.
“Almost,” Tris remarked, attracting Ed’s frown to her. And he got even more upset for thinking she had a part in that decision.
“For two years,” Tris confirmed.
“Two years?” He protested.
“Your attitudes showed the timer’s principles are weakening inside of you. Two years will be a good length of time for you to relearn and solidify them. Then, you can go back to where you stopped in college. We know you were just indirectly involved. That’s why we’re giving you a second chance.” Lumma explained.
“I wasn’t involved at all.” Ed retorted.
“Then why were you gathering with them after running from us in your friend’s house?” She demanded.
“He’s not my friend. They are not my friends. And I already told you I wasn’t on either side.”
“So you deny you know Muriel?” Lumma asked.
“Yes.” He answered without hesitating. “We were not friends, just work partners. I had no idea what she was up to.”
“Is it true?” She looked at Muriel.
“Yes. We don’t know each other.” She said steadily. “And why are we here? If you don’t mind my asking, shouldn’t this be done in the glass dome?” She looked around.
The glass dome was on the ground floor, behind the building. It was where judgments, in general, took part, and other ilions could watch. As Muriel more than once did.
“That place hasn’t been used for a certain time now. And we’re proud of it. It means we don’t have court matters in Iliona City anymore.”
“Or it means, they are somehow solved elsewhere,” Ed suggested, sarcastically.
“So, there was no need to cause a commotion using it now.” Lumma continued, ignoring his comment. “The Internal Council is enough to handle internal matters, such as this. But the outcomes of it will be properly communicated to the city. They NEED to know, at least.” She emphasized.
“After I finish the timer’s training, I’ll be able to come back to my regular life if I want to, right?” Muriel looked at her.
“If you still want to. Yes.” Lumma remarked. “There are four years in school, and four years in the college. After this, if you want to, you can spend more ten years in the senior class.” She paused. “Now, Muriel, about that scene in the Valley…”
“It was deliberated.” Muriel interrupted her. “You already had settled everything to it. But it’s fine now. When they wake up, they might not remember me…”
“They won’t,” Flen assured more to Lumma than to her.
“Even so,” Muriel continued: “They’ll still have a lot of something that lacks the Administration so much. Tolerance. And this is enough comforting for me.”
Lumma faced her, showing a soft smile that was not in her eyes. “Very well then. We’re done here.” She announced, standing up.
“What about Flen?” Ed reminded them. “Is he all free of suspicions already?”
“Yes, he’ been showing he’s on our side,” Lumma answered, but admitting inside he was being tested yet.
“And there are no reasons to think otherwise.” Flen reinforced, standing up too.
Muriel glanced at him. She could use what she knew about him, against him, but that was not the right moment. Not yet.
Ed smiled sarcastically. “No reasons indeed.”
“You both can wait here. Someone will come to take you up to school.” Tris said, looking directly at Ed, knowing how much that annoyed him.
He didn’t answer her, though. He and Muriel just remained by the table, while the others left the room.
*
An empty house in an empty street, during Nagranto’s end of summer. It smelled like the sea breeze and neighbored another one through which open door and windows flew out several purple moths, now and then. A long fingered hand whose nails were painted in black, stroked the handrail of the spiral staircase while its owner headed up to the attic. Erry was at Timothy’s.
“You’re good at hiding.” Although recognizing that voice, Erry startled himself while finishing going up the stairs. Flen was waiting for him, sat on the windowsill, with the sunset light illuminating his face.
“It gets easier when your trackers are terrible at seeking.” He answered back. Despite having passed almost two months since they last saw each other, Erry was still the same. He was well dressed in a casual beige suit with a black shirt underneath it, whose collar covered his neck, and he still had his pale gray hair parted in several small braids, whose ends touched his shoulders. He looked at Flen with his purplish eyes in which sank pupils shaped like gears:
“Lumma came looking for me when the city was awakening yet. I saw her from afar, with a group of five. You weren’t with them, though, I thought you had run away because they didn’t believe in our acting. And I decided to step back for a while.”
“I still with them. We split into groups across
the town, just in case you decided to show up again. I kept watching this house, though, since I imagined the only reason you would have to back to Nagranto was to shut down this nil.” He pointed forward with his chin, although the nil in there was not visible. “It must be consuming a great deal of your energy, isn’t it? Since it’s been open for so long.”
“Nothing that would make me sick, though. But I don’t like to let pieces of my energy hanging around. Then I bought the house so I can destroy it. The closure of this nil will do no less.” He said, bringing Timothy’s face to Flen’s memory. “I waited for you, on the singing day. I thought someone like you would not change your mind at the last minute. Are you with them for good?” He added.
“Someone like me? Bold?” Flen suggested a pun.
Erry smiled to that, but said, “Committed.”
“I’m committed to them now.” Flen said serious, then smirked: “or at least ‘till things settle down.” He took something out of his pocket. “I still having mine, though. In case I decide to commit to you again.” He showed Erry his black card invitation.
“Playing on both sides.” Erry smiled. “It can be easy now we’re in the beginning, but there will be a moment you’ll have to choose.” He stopped talking and walked toward the nil. “I don’t have the entire evening, though. I’ll close it now. You must leave then.”
“I’ll go the same way I came in then,” Flen said putting both legs to outside the window. “Did the invitations work? Did the invited infinzys manage to leave Nagranto in time? I know that some of them did not, because we anticipated the singing.” He asked before leaving.
“Some did. That’s why I don’t have the entire evening. They’ll be waiting for me tonight.” Then he added. “Bye Flen.”
“Just one more thing Erry.” Flen made him stop with one of his legs already inside the nil. “About the house. I knew the human who used to live in here. Their family was one of those we visited. You are aware of their new address, don’t you? Since you were the one who sold them another house.” Flen noticed the surprise in his purplish eyes. Then he explained, “The parents were in Nagranto during the singing. However, their son didn’t.” Erry knew what that meant.
“Committed and regretful. It’s not usually a good combination. But I can help, anyway.” Flen left the house climbing down its roof after Erry told him the new address of Timothy’s parents. When Flen was already on the outside, Erry entered the nil pronouncing “Irc Rotundat,” and making all the house shake.
Flen watched it all from a safe distance. The house trembled, and then resumed itself in a single point, like a big piece of rubber being dragged into a clogged drain. Then it returned to its original size but transformed into dust, which collapsed in the wind. Where Timothy’s house once was, just a pile of ashes remained.
*
“Thanks, Joanna,” Timothy said when he finished reading Nense’s card aloud.
“You’re welcome. It was a pleasure, actually, to make Zian this favor of handing you the card. He said Nense was worried when he told her about your situation. She’s adorable. Zian and Tevis have a nice aunt.” Joanna said, sitting at the kitchen table with Winda and him. They were at Bob's, where Timothy was living.
“She didn’t tell me she was their aunt,” Timothy said, folding the red card Nense had sent to him through Zian.
“Well, she is,” Winda casually confirmed. Then, ending the subject of which they were speaking before Joanna hands the card to him, she added:
“I don’t think it was Ed who visited your parents, Timothy. I still don’t like him, but I can’t see a reason for it.”
“I don’t want to see him again,” Timothy said more to himself than to the others.
“I don’t think he’s returning to Nagranto. None of them will, I guess. Zian and Tevis will continue with their work as nil keepers, so they might stop by if they happen to check some other nil in the city. But Ed and Muriel are at Timers School now. That’s what is being said in Iliona City, anyway. It’s news in everywhere,” Joanna kept talking as if she were reading headlines: “Muriel was quickly convinced that becoming a timer was better than to keep fighting against the Administration. And Ed was temporarily dismissed from college, to attend the Timers School for two years of refreshment, for committing indirect treason.” She sighed, “Pathetic.”
“And is it ok for you to go on living in here?” He asked Winda.
“It was never ok. Our city doesn’t allow us to live outside of it. Then to me, there’s nothing new under the sun. I’ll still have to be careful. And I’ll remain here with my store.” She said with a smile.
“Who must be?” Bob said, finishing the dinner he was preparing for Timothy, and heading to the door. In which someone outside knocked three times.
When he opened it, though, there was nobody in sight. He moved a bit further from the threshold, but he just saw the giant willow tree, whose leaves were getting orange, along with the natural forest landscape, bathed in twilight.
However, when he looked down, he found a piece of paper on the floor, which he had stepped unwittingly. There was an address on it, written in capital letters, with a line that read “Timothy’s parents address” in the end.
*
The school open courtyard was empty because it was early in the morning yet, and the classes of the day hadn’t started. Only Muriel was in there, sitting on a bench. She was always the first to arrive since she never left, for she was one of those students who lived in the dorms offered by the school. She was wearing the dark blue suit of the school’s uniform but had no cloak yet.
And when the other students started to arrive, she stood up and followed them. Some looked at the sky, for a brief moment, Muriel included, noticing the sound of a small plane that was flying very low, as if afraid of hitting the fake stars. There are no planes in Iliona City, though. “It has begun,” Muriel thought with herself when she entered the classroom.
