by R F Hurteau
When the man didn’t argue, Felix decided to push his luck. He placed his hands on his hips and spoke in a loud, accusatory tone, casting a carefree glance around the empty street.
“Do you have any idea where I came from?”
“Uh, Imradia, my Lord?”
Okay, that’s a start. “And are you aware of where Imradia is?”
“Twenty kilometers south of here, my Lord?”
“It wasn’t a question!” Felix snapped, fighting back a victorious smile.
“Of course, my Lord. My apologies.”
Beautiful. That was enough for now.
“Twenty kilometers south of here,” Felix repeated slowly, for effect. “Twenty kilometers! Then you understand that I’ve travelled a long way, and I’m not in the mood for questions!”
“Of course, my Lord.” The man now seemed meeker than he’d been at the start of the conversation. “If I might ask, where is your escort? Did you encounter any trouble on your journey?”
This was treading too far into unknown territory that Felix was not willing to explore.
“That is none of your concern.”
“Certainly not. Forgive me.”
Felix followed close behind as the man turned back the way he had come, reminding himself to stand straight, strutting now with an air of superiority.
He glanced around, looking down his nose at the empty gardens and the curious eyes of onlookers in the windows. Don’t overplay it, he heard Willow warning him in his mind. He sighed, toning down his performance. Even if she was just in his head, his wife still managed to be as wise as ever.
They walked in silence until they came to a fork in the path, and the man led him up a small hill to a house that lay alone in a grove of oak trees.
This house was larger than the others, but no more grand. In fact, it had a distinct air of neglect to it. The door, a pale green, had faded to near white, peeling paint dotting the rough wooden surface. There was a garden out front, but the weeds appeared heartier than the vegetables. Felix could see a few pathetic tomatoes, their smooth red flesh peering out from beneath the shade of some tall, thick-bladed grass that commanded most of the fenced area.
The man stopped at the door and rapped with his knuckles.
“It’s me,” he called, his gruff voice almost gentle. “You have a visitor.”
“Go away.”
The man looked between the door and Felix, hesitating. Felix only looked around with feigned indifference.
Apparently, whatever threat he perceived from Felix was greater than the threat he felt awaited them inside.
“I’m sorry, my friend. We’re coming in.”
He pushed the door open and it gave a squeak of protest. He walked into the home and Felix followed.
A woman sat on a straight-backed wooden chair, hands folded serenely in her lap. Her hair was dark like his own, coming to a point just below her chin, the sleek curtain masking most of her face from view as she stared out the window at nothing in particular.
“I said, go away.”
Her voice was cool, and she didn’t bother looking at them.
Felix wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He hovered in the doorway behind his guide for several long moments, uncertain. He was debating whether or not to say something when she sighed and turned her face to fix them with an icy stare.
As their eyes met, Felix felt his heart stop. He couldn’t be sure if he was even still breathing.
“I told him you hadn’t caused any trouble, Onyx. But he insisted on seeing for himself,” the man apologized, looking between the two of them.
Felix forgot everything Willow had taught him and moved toward the woman, reaching out a hand toward her arm.
The face...the face was the same as he remembered. Almost twenty years had not added a single wrinkle to the smooth skin or dulled the piercing green eyes. It was the same face as he’d seen over and over again in his dreams, the same lips that had kissed him goodnight so long ago.
She pulled her arm back with a sharp intake of breath and her eyes narrowed, smoldering. He stopped moving.
“Leave us, Gavin,” she commanded, her tone cold. The man nodded and stepped out.
“Mother?” Felix breathed, the word feeling foreign on his tongue.
Her glowering eyes did not soften. “What are you doing here?”
Six
Past Tense
FELIX had to remind himself to keep breathing. There were too many emotions, all vying for his attention—shock and confusion jumbled up with joy and excitement. There was anger in there, somewhere, too.
He stared at the woman who sat so calmly before him, her eyes blazing, and wondered if he’d lost his mind.
“What are you doing here?” she asked again, waspishly.
Had she forgotten him? How could she sit there across the room from the son she had not seen in eighteen years and question him?
Felix’s shock shrank away, allowing the anger room to rise to the surface.
“What am I doing here?” Bewilderment overtook him. “What are you doing here?”
“How dare you!”
She rose swiftly to her feet and moved closer to the window, gripping the sill with both hands.
“How dare you come here, to my house, and play these games with me. I’m tired of it! Go back where you came from—leave me alone.”
The anger subsided, and confusion returned to fill the void where it had been.
“Mother,” he began again, his voice rife with pain so great it threatened to overwhelm him.
“I stopped being your mother a long time ago.”
She gripped the sill harder, her knuckles turning white, her whole body trembling with rage. “Get. Out.”
Felix made no effort to leave. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Couldn’t speak.
She whirled on him, her next words coming out in a scream.
“Get out!”
She looked around wildly, eyes coming to rest on the small table beside her chair. She grabbed the first thing she saw and hurled it at him.
Felix caught it without thinking, inches from his face. He opened his palm to see what it was and found himself looking at yet another missing piece of his past.
A tiny quartz figurine, so detailed that it seemed as though it might open its mouth and speak.
“Father made this for you,” he whispered. “I remember. He stopped carving them after you left. Said it hurt too much.”
His mother, chest heaving, looked up at him.
A change came over her face. The hatred was gone, replaced with bewilderment.
She walked toward him and he stepped backward, fearing another attack. She ignored the movement and reached up, pressing gentle hands to the sides of his face, studying him.
“Felix?”
He hesitated, then gave the tiniest of nods.
With a cry, she threw her arms around him and gripped him so tight that he struggled to breathe.
“Felix,” she sobbed. “Oh Felix, Felix. My son, my beautiful son!”
Felix’s hesitation melted away, and he returned the embrace, letting her weep against his chest. When at last she pulled back, she reached up, brushing wetness from his cheeks. It was only then that he realized he had been crying, too.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he said.
She gestured toward the kitchen, and he followed her in, her eyes never leaving him. They sat, and she rested a gentle hand on his knee, as if afraid that if she stopped touching him, he might disappear.
Felix looked down at his hands, one still clutching the tiny figurine. He closed his fingers over it. “No, maybe I do. Why’d you throw this at me? Shout at me? Why is everyone acting afraid of me?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “They—we—thought you were...someone else.”
He could feel his anger stirring again. “Honestly! I knew you the second I saw your face. How could you look me in the eye and not recognize your own son? I know I wa
s just...a boy, I know it’s been a long time, but still—”
Sudden understanding washed over him, and he leapt from his chair, sending it toppling to the floor. Of course, how had he not realized it sooner?
Tears fell from her eyes once more. “I did recognize my son.”
Her gaze was piercing now, her eyes roaming over his face as if trying to sear every detail into her memory. “Just...the wrong one. Oh Felix, he looks just like you. So much like you.”
She put her hand over her mouth, attempting to regain her composure. “They told me you were dead! Laevus said Sanctuary was destroyed. That he’d helped them do it. That was when I knew—really knew—that I’d lost him.”
“My brother?” he whispered, and she nodded.
It was too much. Felix began to pace back and forth across the room. “They tried to destroy it. We stopped them. Well, not we. Ripley did.”
“Ripley?”
“My best friend. He...died. Saving Sanctuary. Saving me.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was tinged with regret. “I wish I could have met him.”
“So do I.”
He couldn’t talk about this now. The situation felt bizarre, surreal. He held his head in his hands, trying to quell the thousand voices in his mind, screaming questions at him.
“You’ve been here? All this time?”
“Yes.”
“Father said they’d sent you to the Geothermal Plant. He said that’s where they sent all the criminals.”
“Your father...” she whispered. “How is Duncan? Is he well?”
Felix felt cold. “He died. A few years back.”
He didn’t want to talk about his father right now, either. Didn’t want to talk about the way he’d been heartbroken after she left. How he had struggled to raise Felix alone while mourning the loss of his wife.
She watched him, her body still as her eyes tracked his movements across the floor. “He was a good man, and he deserved better.”
Onyx looked down at her hands, clenching and unclenching her fists. “They sent Human criminals to Geo. Someone needed to operate those systems. Do the hot, dirty, dangerous work below ground.”
She sighed. “But the Therans do not feel the same about their own kind. Even a traitor’s life is precious to them. The First Order dictates that to take the life of a fellow Theran is the most heinous of crimes.”
She nodded toward the door. “We’re all traitors here, the whole village. The Council exiled us. Some are from Sanctuary, like me. Others, like Gavin, crossed the Elders one too many times.” Onyx leaned back, folding her hands in her lap.
“They think they’re punishing us,” she continued, “making us work the land and eke out a meager existence. That to offer us only a life based around just surviving, with no luxuries, no technology, might somehow break our rebellious spirits. But they’re wrong, just like they’ve been wrong about so many other things. There’s a certain satisfaction about life here. Things are simple. Things make sense.” She paused. “Most things.”
Felix looked at her warily, unconvinced. “Gavin, was it? He didn’t make it sound like you found satisfaction in living here. He said you’re wasting away up here, all alone, not eating.”
She tilted her head back to stare at the thick wooden beams supporting the roof, the shadow of a smile on her lips.
“I could have been all right here. I would never have stopped regretting losing you, losing your father. That much, the Council got right. Confining me to a place so close to the Evenmire, and yet so far out of your reach—that was a punishment that I have endured in quiet desperation.
“But I could have been all right, made peace with that sentence, if only I’d been allowed to raise your brother. To somehow make up for the absence of one child by pouring my love onto another.” Onyx scowled. “I begged the Council, pleaded. I would have given my life if it would have made a difference. I couldn’t lose another son, I told them. I couldn’t bear it.”
She stopped speaking for a long time, lost in thought, until Felix sat back down and she looked at him again.
“The Council in Sanctuary is a pale shadow of the one that rules here. Nero and the others, they weren’t leaders on Thera. They were scientists and soldiers. They viewed Humanity with contempt, yes, but those who rule in Imradia are much, much worse.”
Felix grimaced. “I’m not sure how that’s possible. I know Nero. He’s a monster.”
She nodded, considering.
“Yes, I suppose Nero would be an exception. He has always had a short temper. But his rage has only intensified since returning to Thera. He’s been given a Lordship now. He has taken his place among the others of his kind. Monsters, as you say. One and all.”
Onyx shook her head, gave a contemptuous sneer. “I’m sure he’s very proud.”
She paused for a few moments, then continued. “The Council here didn’t know what to do with me and my half-breed son. There was no precedent for such a situation. No Halfsie had ever come to Thera, let alone been born here. They debated whether they should send him back to be raised in Sanctuary. But that would have led to all sorts of questions the Council did not wish to answer. It was a scientist named Pike who proposed a solution. He came to me not long after Laevus was born. He offered me...an ultimatum.”
She bit her lower lip. “He said he would raise the child as his own. He had assured the other Elders that they could shape Laevus into an excellent tool, and that his Human half could be overlooked if they trained him up right. He said it would be an extraordinary opportunity to study the effects of the Human-Theran hybrid. In short, my son was to be an experiment.”
Felix’s eyes widened in surprise. “And you agreed to that?”
“Pike did not offer me a real choice in the matter. I either gave my child to the Council, or they’d kill him. They’d murder my infant son. The life of a Theran may be precious, but a Halfsie? The rules had no bearing on the fate of a Halfsie child. The rules did not prohibit his execution. I couldn’t allow that to happen, Felix. I’d given up everything, everyone I’d ever loved to give him a chance to live. I wasn’t about to let the Council take it away from him. Handing him over to the Council...that was one of the most painful things I’ve ever done. And one of my greatest regrets.”
Felix nodded. He understood all too well the fear of losing a child. He’d paid a high price himself to avoid that exact fate.
A very high price.
Onyx’s eyes filled with an intense rage as she went on.
“I will never forget that day. Pike’s greedy expression as he took my child from me. The way his eyes were full of hunger as he smiled down at his newest test subject, the aching of my empty arms, my broken heart. The way I was helpless to stop this...beast.”
Her face drooped. “Pike’s a sadist. He would bring Laevus to visit me just to show me how loyal he’d become to the Council. I had thought that, if I could just get Laevus alone, I’d be able to make him see what they were doing. Show him how much I loved him. I thought my love would be enough. But when he was older, he began to come by himself, and it became harder to perpetrate such a lie to myself any longer. To tell myself he could still change. That there was still hope.”
Onyx sat back, reaching over to trail her fingers along the delicate tendrils of a plant that adorned her kitchen table. It spilled over the sides of the pot, its vines covered in thick, waxy leaves and dotted with tiny, bright purple flowers. His mother continued.
“I tried to move on. I really did. I made friends in the village. Gavin, especially. He was always so kind, always there to comfort me, pick up the pieces each time Laevus would leave. I discovered I had a knack for plants, too. I grew beautiful things. I poured all my emotions into my flowers; they were watered with my tears. I could look out my window and see everything, right there in that garden. All the memories, good and bad, that make up a lifetime.” She gave a deep sigh. “I loved that garden. But that last visit, when Laevus said Sanctuary was gone—well, it a
ll became too much. I stopped caring about my plants, my friends. I didn’t seem to have anything left to give them. No more tears to cry.”
Felix pointed to the plant on the table.
“Well this little guy seems to have done all right.”
He reached toward it, wanting to get a better look at the intricate blooms.
“Don’t touch them,” she cautioned absently. “They’re beautiful, but they’re also toxic.”
He pulled his hand back, and she seemed to know what he was thinking.
“The life of a Theran is long,” she said with a small, dismissive shrug. “Too long, I think, if there’s nothing left to live for.”
Felix gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and Onyx smiled a watery smile.
“I’m sorry. I know you have more questions. But I have questions, too. I want to know what I’ve missed these last twenty years. I want to hear all about it.”
The muffled sound of static interrupted them, and after giving a startled jolt, Felix realized it was his radio. He had no idea how long he’d been gone.
“It’s my friends!” He struggled to pull the device from his pocket. “They’re probably worried about me.”
His mother looked shocked. “Friends? You mean you brought others through the Gate with you?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and they’re out there right now, looking for me. I can’t believe I forgot!”
He pressed a small button on the side of the radio. “Toby, can you hear me?”
More static. “I think I must be out of range.”
“Well, come on!”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door. “I haven’t been for a walk in a long time.”
Outside the door Onyx almost plowed into Gavin, who had been loitering in front of the house. He looked concerned, and that look only deepened as he saw her, holding Felix by the wrist, dragging him behind her.
“Gavin! What are you doing out here? I told you to go home.”
“I was worried about you,” he admitted, casting a sidelong glance at Felix, as if afraid to say too much.
Onyx looked back and forth between them. “Oh! Well, everything’s fine. Don’t worry. But we need to go.”
