by C. W. Trisef
Ret quickly learned the light had a mind of its own. It wasn’t quite bright enough to cast shadows on the ground, but it was alive and moving. It would grow wider, then get thinner, and sometimes fade away in parts, only to come back again. The light flowed through the sky like a slow-moving stream, from right to left, as if it was a cloud of stellar dust being blown by an interplanetary wind. Yet it wasn’t far off in the upper reaches of outer space; no, it was much closer than that. The green gas seemed to be passing through the very atmosphere of the earth. Its proximity was a matter of miles, not light-years.
To be honest, it was quite an unusual sight. It was not a meteor shower. There was no comet or asteroid—nothing apparently physical or tangible about it. It contained neither the sun nor the moon. It was not a barrage of shooting stars or a grand coalition of planets swirling together in the heavens. It was just light—a moving stream of greenish light passing through the sky, seemingly without a beginning or an end or even a source. Ret couldn’t help but wonder if it was authentic or instead something as simple as a reflection or as mundane as jet exhaust.
Apparently, the light was a night owl. The later it got, the more the phenomenon came to life. Over time, it fanned out into four or five individual bands across the night sky, like massive streamers hung for a party or the strings of some intergalactic guitar. The pale green ribbons were more fuzzy than beam-like, their long edges diminishing gradually rather than ending abruptly. They reached out with a definite curve, convex to the north, and Ret thought it very possible that he was seeing just a small portion of the circumference of a large ring that circled the top of the earth like a giant halo.
But the best was yet to come. As if putting on a show, Ret suddenly saw the steady stream of light flare up on the right. With the shape of a skinny tornado, a bright funnel came into view, far away where the sky met the ground. Like a genie spewing out of its lamp, the light unhurriedly made its way higher into the air, growing bigger and wider the closer it came towards Ret. Without haste, it slithered as a snake and spread out over Ret’s head. Like ink dripped in a pool of water, the emerald light moved along its undefined path around the globe. Then, as if there were prisms dangling from the stars, the green glow dashed into dozens of pieces and splashed onto their midnight canvas. It seemed to be the work of a sort of cosmic disco ball, with the fragments dancing in the sky. They lined up like the keys of a piano, no doubt being played by the constellation Centaurus as he was horsing around. When the flare up finally passed on its way to finish its worldwide tour, Ret thought he had been looking at the firmament above through a kaleidoscope. The spectacle truly had been heaven-sent.
Ret spent the rest of the night watching the mysterious light in the sky. Lying on his back, he warmed the frigid ground beneath him to keep away the chill in the air. Eventually, the light began to wane until it disappeared, all without ever making a sound. Not long thereafter, the real dawn began to break in the east, bringing to a close a very thrilling night. Ret retired to the bed Virginia had prepared for him on the couch, where he slept all day. Then, when night had fallen again, he returned to the lot behind the trailer to see if the light would make another appearance.
And, boy, did it. This time it was bigger, brighter, and more animated than the previous night. The radiant stream billowed and curled, swelled and wisped—filling the whole sky, it seemed. Its shades of green were like neon at times, and then it wowed Ret with new colors: reds and purples, blues and yellows. It was amazing. It was stunning. It was unreal. Nearly every moment was different. It was a living, moving thing. Ret longed to know what could possibly be going on to create such dazzling displays.
Again, he watched all night, slept all day, and then returned at dusk for another go. Some nights, the light was very strong and swayed like curtains with many colors. Other nights, it was quite weak and stayed more still in its usual fluorescent green. But it was always there, even if it was barely visible—except for the time when a patch of clouds passed through, temporarily blocking Ret’s view of the light above them.
For a week, Ret maintained his midnight vigils, waiting on the light with the kind of devotion that normal people have toward new episodes of their favorite sitcoms. Each night featured something new, ending before dawn in a sort of “to be continued” fashion. Ret loved it.
Of course, the Stones quickly took notice of their guest’s newfound astronomical passion. Each night before going to bed, they glanced out the back window to see if Ret was there, and he always was, lying on his back, staring up at the sky. It made them smile to see him take such an interest in a phenomenon they had grown accustomed to over the last few months. For all her worry, Virginia was finding Ret to be quite a pleasant guest. Since he didn’t eat much and had recently become nocturnal, it was like he wasn’t even there.
It was at the beginning of the second week of Ret’s nightly watches when Virginia, seeing him through the blinds again, went out to talk to him. She figured he probably had a question or two about what was occurring in the sky, as had been the case with her when she saw it for the first time. With a creak, she opened the flimsy backdoor, wrapping herself more tightly in her robe against the cool evening air. Her slippers tapped softly on the few steps of the wooden staircase as she made her way down to the pebbled ground.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked pleasantly, as if she didn’t already know.
“Oh, just looking up at the stars,” Ret told her. He figured the light was something that only he could see, similar to the wind or waves of communication, and he didn’t feel like going into a lengthy explanation of what she could not see.
“Must be hard with all that green light in the way,” Virginia poked.
“You can see that?” Ret wondered.
“Of course I can see it,” Virginia chuckled. “I’ve seen it many times, actually.”
“So you know what it is, then?” Ret said eagerly. “You know how it’s done?”
“Well, I know the basics,” she admitted modestly.
Thirsty for an explanation, Ret sat up and reached with his mind for a broken footstool he knew was over by the staircase. Made of metal, he pulled it near with hardly a flick of his wrist. On its way, he tightened the loose screws and regrew one of its missing legs. Then he positioned it next to him, conjured a small campfire for warmth, and bade Virginia to sit.
“Wow,” she said, awed by Ret’s powers, “you could come in real handy around here.”
“That’s nothing,” Ret grinned. “So, about the light…”
“Ah, yes,” she said, sitting down, “aurora borealis.”
“What?”
“That’s what it’s called: aurora borealis,” she explained, “named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas. But it’s more commonly known as the Northern Lights.”
“Oh,” Ret remembered, “I’ve heard of that. So these are the Northern Lights?”
“These are them.”
“Where do they come from?”
“The lights are a result of solar wind,” Virginia taught, “which is a stream of ions (or charged particles) continuously being given off by the sun. Because of the sun’s rotation, super-hot temperature, and frequent explosions, lots of electrons and protons are able to escape into space. This creates solar wind, a medium that moves throughout space. When these tiny bits of energized matter reach the earth, they are attracted by the earth’s magnetic fields and channeled toward the north and south poles, forming a ring around both the top and bottom of the earth. Some solar wind is able to enter the earth’s atmosphere, where it collides with gas particles like oxygen and nitrogen. Some of the gas particles become ionized and excited by the solar wind, but when they return to a normal state, they release their energy in the form of light. The different colors of the light depend on which type of gas was involved, its altitude, and how it interacted with the energy it received.”
“So that’s how it works,” Ret said with awe. The
n, digesting the science, “Hmm…sounds like kind of a raw deal for the gases, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the gases are just sitting in the atmosphere, minding their own business,” Ret elaborated, “when, all of a sudden, a ton of crazy ions come along and start crashing into them. What a bunch of bums!”
Virginia laughed, “Well, when you put it that way, I guess the ions do seem a little rude, don’t they? But look what the gases are able to do with the energy they receive.” She swept the sky with her hand. “They create this beautiful sight for us to enjoy.”
“But why don’t the ions do that on their own?” Ret put forth. “Why do they have to mess with the gases?” Virginia, who was new to Ret’s unique brand of deep thinking, could sense the conversation shifting away from the science of chemistry to the science of people.
“You know, Ret,” Virginia said with a voice of wisdom, “as we go through life, we are bombarded by all kinds of ions. I don’t mean subatomic particles; I mean the unseen forces—positive or negative—that try to influence us for good or for bad. Some ions we welcome; others we avoid; and a few, try as we might, we just can’t seem to evade. But even though we can’t always choose what happens to us, we can choose how we react to what happens to us. And that’s how we can put a stop to the cycle of negative energy that we see so much of in the world today. When some of it comes our way, we can either pass it on to someone else and keep the cycle going or we can turn it around into something positive and release it. And when we choose to let it go, a beautiful thing happens.” Again, she motioned up at the lights still streaming in the sky overhead.
“So, what you’re saying is,” Ret summarized, a hint of sarcasm in his voice, “we’re all just a bunch of gas?” The remark sent Virginia into a fit of laughter. “You know, my sister Ana says gas is disgusting.”
“Lester didn’t tell me you were such a comedian,” she sighed. “I’m glad you understand what I’m trying to say.” Then, putting her elbows on her knees and putting her chin in her cupped hands, she looked up and said, “I’ve spent a lot of time watching this light in the night.”
Light in the night? Where had Ret heard that before? A quick search in his mind turned up Leo. Of course! It was a phrase from Leo’s song. Ret could almost hear it again, as if the orphan was sitting on the fire escape now, singing away, his voice being carried thousands of miles by the wind:
I fear the darkness in the night.
I’m alone, there’s no one but me.
Clearly outnumbered and severely encumbered
By the darkness in all that I see.
But there’s a light—a light in the night!
A light I never saw was there:
The sunshine concealed it, now the darkness revealed it.
How could I miss a light so fair?
There are times when I see no hope
For this world of heartache and sin.
Too hard to correct it, so I’ll just neglect it,
Too much darkness for light to win.
But there’s a light—a light in the night!
I’m not alone; there’re legions like me.
And the darker the night grows, the starker each light glows.
Oh, these lights in the night—now I see!
It was in this moment when Ret realized Leo’s song wasn’t so much about light as it was about people. And not just any people—good people. Such was a conclusion brought on by the Northern Lights. Like the lights, there was a steady stream of goodness still alive in the world today, surviving the relentless darkness that threatened to snuff it out. Like the lights, this heavenly band was seemingly small, fragmented, and largely unknown, but it was always there, hanging on, and absolutely stunning. Like the lights, the goodness in people was easy to miss in the light of day, since it stood out best against the night of evil.
It was just like Virginia had said: the lights were about people—people making good choices when confronted with the energies and influences of negative ions.
It was just like the Oracle, how it wasn’t so much about collecting elements of the natural world as it was about collecting elements of the social world. The world didn’t need the element of earth; it needed the element of good government and honest leadership. The element of fire was worthless compared to the element of self-control and continence. The element of ore would do precious little to cure the world without the element of caring for the poor and keeping greed at bay.
And so it was there, on the far-flung plains of the northern wilderness and under the brilliance of one of the wonders of the natural world, where Ret experienced a turning point in his life. He was done running away. His escape from responsibility was over. The clarion call of duty was sounding in his ears—long, loud, and clear. He would fill the Oracle with Mother Nature’s original elements and, along the way, teach the world by example and by precept that it could be cured by fostering certain social elements. He would find strength in the lights—the pure-hearted peoples of the earth—but they needed a voice to sound the alarm and raise the standard. Ret would be that voice—the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
With eagerness, Ret looked down at his scar, something he had tried to ignore for many days. To his delight, it was fully illuminated. The barb with the pennant flag was still at the bottom of the circle, pointing down like always. The other barb, the one that moved in whatever direction Ret was facing, now had a pennant at its end also, which was something Ret had never seen it do before. In the past, this barb had always had one to four bars at its end, but not anymore. What’s more, this barb didn’t seem to move around anymore either. Ret turned to the right and to the left (to the east and to the west), but the once changeable barb didn’t budge. It remained pointed north.
Again, Ret looked to the lights for an explanation. It seemed the scar had an affinity for the aurora borealis. The barb on top was now fixated on the north, and its pennant was a measure of the extreme activity currently taking place in the airwaves above Ret’s head. All along, the scar had intended to send him to the Northern Lights and, in its infinite wisdom, had done so even when Ret was trying to get away from it.
But the barb on top of the circle was only half of the complete scar. Ret now focused on the barb at the bottom of the circle, the one that, thus far, had never moved and was always pointed south. The wheels in his head began to turn.
“Virginia!” Ret cried out with vigor.
Startled by the sudden shout after staring in silence at the lights for several minutes, Virginia fell back in her footstool with a scream of her own.
“Sorry,” Ret said more softly, reaching to help her. “Did you say solar wind is attracted to the earth’s South Pole as well?”
“I did,” she recalled. “It’s much the same down there as what we see up here, but it’s called the aurora australis, or Southern Lights.”
“Perfect,” Ret whispered, smiling down at his scar. He had a feeling the aurora australis wasn’t the only thing he’d find down in Antarctica. He was certain he’d find the Oracle’s fourth element there, too.
CHAPTER 10
GOING IN ARCTIC CIRCLES
In preparation for his trip to the North Pole, Mr. Coy was packing all the warm clothing he could find. Even though fall was still a few weeks away in the northern hemisphere, he knew one characteristic of polar climates was their lack of warm summers—at least, that’s what Mo the Eskimo told him.
“You’ll want to bring a pair of nice, thick gloves,” Mo, the wannabe fashionista, advised as he helped Mr. Coy sift through the Manor’s costume department. “Oh, and don’t forget these,” he added, finding some woolen mittens. “And these, too,” stumbling upon earmuffs. Next came a colorful assortment of socks, beanies, leg warmers, face masks, goggles, and (of course) scarves. “And all of these,” Mo said, dumping his load into Mr. Coy’s suitcase.
“Gee, thanks, Mo,” Mr. Coy tried to sound appreciative despite seeing many artic
les he would never wear (especially the leg warmers). “But what’s left for you to wear?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you’re coming with us,” Coy informed him. Mo’s face lit up, his smile stretching from one side of the fluff of his snowsuit’s hood to the other. In his elation, he gave Mr. Coy a big hug, after which Mr. Coy gave him a slip of paper.
“Now, here’s a list of things I need you to do before we leave,” Coy instructed, zipping his suitcase closed. “I’ll see you in a little bit down in the hangar.” After receiving a stout salute from Mo, Coy left the room.
Giddy, Mo ran down the list of commands, which didn’t take long since there were only two. The first was to pack three weeks’ worth of winter attire. He looked at himself in the mirror and thought for a moment. Then Mo, who was always dressed for a polar adventure, said, “Check,” and moved on to the next task.
The second assignment was to locate Thorne and accompany him to the hangar. Knowing Mo benefited from thoroughness, Mr. Coy included step-by-step directions of the turns to make and floors to climb in order to find the room where Thorne was living during his visit to the Manor. Coy’s instructions would have been fool-proof except Mo didn’t know the last letter of Thorne’s name was silent.
In time, Mo arrived at the place where Thorne and Dusty were staying, and he knocked on the door (as loudly as he could despite his bulky mittens).
Dusty answered and, giving the strange Eskimo man at his door a quizzical look, said, “Can I help you?”
“Hello,” said Mo, employing an official tone as if on important business. “I’m looking for a Mr. Thorny.”
“Um, yeah,” Dusty snickered, shrugging off the mispronunciation, “it’s pronounced ‘Thorne.’”
“Okay, but I am looking for Mr. Thorny,” Mo insisted.
“I know,” Dusty said with a bit more laughter, “but the e on the end is silent. It’s just pronounced Thorne, like a thorn on a rose.”
Mo considered this briefly, giving Dusty a suspicious look, and then resumed, “So you are Mr. Thorne. Is there a Mr. Thorny here?”
