by Jason Letts
The night had brought a cool breeze that penetrated through the dense forest. Though they could see little of the sky through the trees above, the air felt increasingly damp. Looking around at the small area, it would be a tight fit for all of them to sleep there, and it would be downright torturous if they had to suffer through a downpour as well.
“Why don’t the three of you try and hunt down something to put over our heads?” Cybil suggested.
“But it’s dark. How are we going to see anything?” Will replied.
Mira crawled out under a branch to where she and Widget had left their supplies. Reaching in, she removed a flashlight, bringing it back along with the farm tools. Handing them to the boys, Mira led the march out into the darkness.
“These trees don’t know what they’re in for!” Will cheered, his skepticism vanishing as he gripped the pliers.
They slipped into the forest, guided only by the flashlight’s narrow stream of light. Twigs snapped and leaves crunched beneath their feet. An owl hooted in the distance.
“I wonder what critters we might run into out here.” Vern said, sticking close behind Mira.
“Oh, that reminds me! You’ll never believe what happened. Remember when we were wondering whether animals had powers? Well I was in this cave with a bear. I had a torch—”
“Wait, you were near a bear? What were you doing?” Will asked.
“Widget told me I needed to get him out. It was my challenge,” Mira responded. Will and Vern sounded their skepticism of what she had been asked to do in apprehensive grunts.
“What? You don’t have to do stuff like that too?” Mira asked.
“Like I said, I haven’t done anything more dangerous than play splash in the river. If Cybil told me to fight a bear, I’d probably laugh in her face.”
Mira hadn’t had any idea until now what she’d been asked to do was unusual. Thinking for a moment, she tried to figure out if she should be happy because she had made it through tougher challenges or upset because Widget had needlessly exposed her to risk.
“The thing I wanted to tell you is that when the bear roared, the fire on my torch blew out completely. It must have used a power through its breath. There’s no other explanation!” Mira explained.
“That’s interesting,” Vern said. “I wonder if all animals of the same species have the same kind of power or if they’re all different. They must be subtler than people’s powers or else we would know a lot more about them. Can’t say most people have been in a situation where a bear could put out their torch, and most of those who have probably aren’t around to talk about it.”
“This all sounds unnecessarily dangerous,” Will noted. “We can’t have anything bad happen to our leader. Otherwise they might put me in charge, and what do you think would happen to us then?”
“You’d probably break out your dice and start playing Makara,” Mira joked to paper over his self-directed jab. “Thank you though. I promise to take care of myself.”
Once nothing could be seen or heard from the teens, Westley packed away some of the cooking supplies and then rested himself on the log along with Cybil and Widget, their furtive and shy looks seemingly checking to see who would give in and speak first.
“Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be their age again,” Cybil sighed in reverie. “To just have a world of opportunities before you and all the time to play them out.”
“Would you give up your little one so quickly to have it all back,” responded Westley, stifling a dry laugh. “Speaking of which, where did you stash him while you’re out here?”
“He’s got his father, since you pry. And it’s more of a complicated question than you might think. Yes, I love him to pieces and my life would be incomplete without him. It’s so much fun to play and join in his laughter, to teach him and watch him learn. But sometimes my stormy mind looks at him like a consolation prize for missing out on being all those things I wanted to be. He shut the door on my chance to be remembered for changing the course of history. My chance or my delusion, maybe he saved me from it.
“But you bachelors can’t tell me you don’t sometimes think about what it’d be like if things turned out differently! For all your freedom, isn’t there a part of you that wonders how a family and a child would fit into your life? Sure, you can scheme and strategize ways to maximize every day, but what if true fulfillment never comes?”
She delivered her questions behind a wry, confident smile, leaning back to await their predictable answers. Westley scratched at his chin conjuring a relaxed, amused air. Widget didn’t make eye contact with either of them and seemed deep in thought, though what preoccupied him was anyone’s guess.
“I’ll admit it,” Westley said. “There’s a lot to be had from family. But I don’t think we’re made for families. People are too strong and too vulnerable, and that makes doing anything beyond keeping everyone at arm’s length risky, for your heart if not for your life. Still, there’s hope in me settling down might find a way to happen. If only things could calm down and we could look at each other without wondering what we have to fear.”
Widget fidgeted while Westley spoke. He picked at his fingernails and scratched his arm. Westley had just finished speaking when Widget broke into a curmudgeonly rant to make sure Cybil’s assumptions didn’t stand.
“No, I can say my life is one hundred percent better than if I’d formed an intimate relationship with a woman and procreated. I’ll never need more convincing, and I’ll never need more research than what I’ve seen through my own two eyes and stored up here in my gray matter.
“Back when I was young, I didn’t work as a carpenter. I started out as a blacksmith, a metalworker developing pipes for use in irrigation. I lived in a small city out west, calm and peaceful, much like the one you’re dreaming of. I fell in love with a girl named Rebecca, and I made it my work to see that she would fall in love with me. We had grown up together, going through the little schooling available before she went to work on her family’s dairy farm.
“I worked so hard to impress her, constructing all kinds of sculptures and inventions, savoring every moment of attention she gave me. It became her regular habit to stop by my shop, and the other smiths would tease me saying too much love in the air would spoil the metal. Looking for a new place to spend time alone together, I remember we toured her family’s barn where they kept the cows. How she laughed when I joked about their rustic operation! It tugged at my heartstrings to hear her lament the time these cows stole from her every day for their constant milking. This menial task was below her, and I focused my efforts on saving her from it so we would have even more time together.
“Working day and night, experimenting and tinkering, I created a device that would do the milking for her. Metal cups would attach to the cows’ teats and convey the milk through tubes into a central reservoir. It would be a mechanical wonder beyond anything she’d ever seen, and I planned to ask for her hand in marriage on the very day of installation. Once everything was in place and in perfect working order, I proposed in front of a gallery of bovine witnesses, and she accepted, radiating overwhelming joy.
“And it’s a good thing she did, because if I’d been in that barn when I learned it was all a hoax there’s no telling what I would have done to the machine, the barn, even to her. As it was, we met next at a festival. I tried simply to hold her hand, and she recoiled gruesomely. I tried to calm her, but she called for help. Men came to her aid, and I tried to explain our engagement, but she denied it wholly. They drove me off. Not one word of apology passed through her lips.
“She had used me entirely, and continued to benefit from my toil and labors. Only at the end could I see it had been there all along, her hesitation and manipulation. That’s when I learned how beautiful a monster can be. I fled my lifelong home, and I made two vows. I vowed never to return to that town, the place where I left my shredded heart, and I vowed to never fall victim to another woman’s snares again.
“Now that I’
ve explained why the alternative is ruinous, let me ask you if I should willingly forsake all I have. I’ve spent decades uncovering the secrets of physics, biology, and chemistry. In this noblest pursuit of knowledge, I’ve constructed a life a world ahead of yours. Any mystery I’ve set my mind to has simply unraveled. It would take an eternity for civilization to reconstruct what I’ve done and almost as long to simply understand it. And Mira! She might be the only one out there who can grasp these ideas. Not a day goes by that I don’t ponder the miracle of her existence.
“Still, there’s one final, ultimate mystery I’ve never been able to solve. What is the relationship of the soul to the body? What glue holds them together, and can they be separated without the destruction of both? This puzzle gets at the core of this condition we know as life. I strive for this knowledge, I yearn for it, and I await the answer, my very mortality invested upon it.”
Cybil and Westley, speechless, could only stare dumbly at their guest. Widget had spoken as if to himself, as if only his own ears could catch the meaning that escaped from the depths of his soul. Finishing, he gazed at his companions through an apathetic scowl. It didn’t matter anymore who knew these once painful secrets. Looking away again, he made it clear he didn’t expect any kind of a response, and he didn’t get one. On their part, Cybil and Westley could only share communing glances of their own kinder experiences.
Soon Mira, Will, and Vern returned carrying large branches. They went through some trouble arranging them amongst the nearby trees to form a canopy before stacking a few logs off to the side. Settling down to sleep and staring up at the makeshift roof, the effort seemed a waste now because not a drop of rain fell from the sky.
Waking up with the sunrise, Mira and Widget readied themselves to depart within minutes. Mira hated to have to disturb her friends, but she couldn’t bear to leave them without saying goodbye. Submitting to the undeniable urge, she rustled Vern and Will for one last conversation before slipping into the forest. The three of them tried to sound encouraging, enthusiastic, and hopeful despite their sleepiness and the emotion of parting. Mira found it excruciating to leave, and she couldn’t turn around to walk away until Will and Vern told her to go. They tried to tell each other it would only be a month, but their halted voices agreed it would be a month too long.
Chapter 9: Homecoming
Picking one foot up off the straw and carrying it forward onto the sandy earth, Aoi stepped away from the weak bridge stretching across the dry riverbed. Placing both feet on solid ground beyond the intact bridge behind her, a relaxed smile warmed her face. She breathed easily and enjoyed the peaceful state within her.
She walked back to the ranch house around scattered stones and thickets. The rancher sat in his rocking chair, admiring the view from his porch, which included a few wispy clouds and plenty of swaying grass along the plain. He looked down at Aoi, who stood patiently at the bottom of the steps.
“I did it,” she said.
“Well done,” the rancher cheered.
She climbed a few steps, intending to take a seat on the porch, but the rancher held up his hand to stop her.
“Whoa there, we’re not finished yet. You may have gotten this trick down, but you don’t know what to use it for. Let me introduce you to someone.”
At that, a stringy, squirrelly man who appeared to be a farmhand emerged from the ranch’s front door. His hair badly needed to be cleaned and cut, and he carried a pungent smell. The man seemed friendly enough though, despite his personal hygiene faults.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Aoi greeted him.
The man nodded his head in reply, which made Aoi wonder if he could talk. Maybe he just didn’t have anything to say.
“My friend here is going to test your ability to sustain the clear mental state and the calm physical state you’ve been practicing. Go out onto the middle of the bridge. Try not to get hit or fall through.”
“OK,” Aoi consented. She left the porch and led the rancher’s friend to the straw bridge and the riverbed. Taking a deep breath and holding her mind very still, she walked to the center of the bridge and turned around. She let her thoughts drift through her mind like the clouds in the sky, patiently watching the approaching man with simple curiosity.
The farmhand picked up a small rock and held it lightly in his fingers. He nabbed another one and held it in the opposite hand. Bringing his hands together in a thunderous clap, he opened them to reveal a single glowing stone. A strange greenish light emanated from his creation, which looked like a ball of energy.
Pulling back his arm, he tossed the green orb at Aoi, who turned and ducked so that it sailed over her. Aoi felt her feet strain the straw, but she calmed herself before any thatches snapped. The stone landed on the ground and rolled up against a tuft of grass. The grass caught fire and burned away as the stone lost its green glow.
Straightening up and facing forward, Aoi noticed how severely exhausted the man looked for his efforts. She didn’t know what he did, but it seemed the energy he used to force the stones together came from his very own body. He repeated the procedure, a loud crack echoing in her ears. Soon another glowing orb shone through his hands. He stooped to the side from the effort, making Aoi wonder if he would be able to throw it, but he flung it at her with the same underhanded motion.
It aimed for her hips, and Aoi shifted to the side and bent over to avoid it. Its lower flight path meant it fell through the bridge near the back, singeing the straw before falling harmlessly to the ground. The farmhand appeared ready to collapse, and yet he scooped up two more stones.
“Are you sure he should keep doing this?” Aoi called to the rancher, who hadn’t moved from the porch. The soft breeze carried back his answer.
“This time, let it hit you.”
Aoi squinted her eyes and almost fell through the straw bridge, though she hadn’t moved at all. She had seen what the orbs had done, and the concern over what they did assaulted the calm tranquility in her mind. She thought the farmhand would be in such a dire state after his third fusion that she would be unable to help him. Still, as he pressed the stones together, Aoi resolved to stand still and let the orb hit her.
Taking a deep breath, she watched the man hurl the stone and collapse on the ground. The small green orb sailed at her. It struck her in the stomach, but she didn’t feel it push against her. It burned a hole in her shirt, but then she felt an odd sensation as the green glow dissipated into her skin. The stone, back in its normal state, dropped through the straw bridge to the ground. That spot on her skin felt warm and tingly for a moment before returning to normal.
Turning to the fallen man, she saw he desperately needed attention. Aoi walked back to the riverside and bent down next to him. He had passed out and every part of him lay limp. She looked over at the rancher in his rocking chair.
“Bring him on back,” he said, waving his hand.
Putting her arms around him, she tried to move him, but he wouldn’t budge. She tried just to lift his arm from his side, but she couldn’t raise it an inch. Straining and jerking, she couldn’t get him off the ground. He was nothing compared to the things she’d lifted in her life. Because his life might be at stake, she felt her frustration and aggravation chip away at her calm. Gritting her teeth, she began to pull the farmhand up, dragging him along and then after a time lifting him onto her back as she grew stronger.
She trotted, carrying him all the way to the ranch house, setting him on the rancher’s lap. The rancher had a jar of marmalade next to him that Aoi was sure hadn’t been there before, and he began to spoon feed it to the farmhand, working his jaw and head so it went down.
“He’ll be all right soon. Bring him inside and set him on the couch.”
Aoi returned, taking a seat against the post by the steps and facing the rancher in his chair. The exercises had given her a lot to consider, about herself and her gift, and it didn’t surprise her when the rancher called on her to put it into words.
“So what d
id you learn?”
“It hit me, but it didn’t hurt me. I’ve always been able to get hurt before, but this time my skin absorbed it because I was calm. It meant I’d lost my strength though. When I was excited, I couldn’t stand on the bridge, yet when I was calm I could. I don’t understand it. They seem opposite, but they’re both me. How do they fit together?”
“Where is the energy going?” the rancher asked.
“I’m used to putting energy out, but this was energy coming in. Can I really do that? What are its limits? What kind of energy? There are so many questions,” she gawked.
“And now you’re on the path to answering them. It’s your metabolism, how the body receives and uses energy. Getting angry and striking out has always come naturally to you, but your power has nothing to do with anger. It’s just your mind that controls whether you can absorb or release energy, and you can gauge that with the beating of your heart. It’ll take some practice to figure it out, and your performance will only be limited by the degree to which you can control your mind.”
“Oh.” Aoi settled back down on the porch to watch the wispy clouds.
Leaving behind Cybil and her family, Will took to the streets of Darmen in the middle of the night. The need for sleep pounded inside of his head, and he wandered with difficulty through the sand to the outskirts of town. The plummeting river nearby, Will took the ladder down to Darmen Underside. He followed the wooden planks around the circumference of the cavern and descended a few levels. Coming to one door, he could see a candle lit through the window. Feeling with his hand, he traced the etching in the wood of the earth and the moon. Satisfied he had arrived at the right place, he tapped lightly on the door.
“Unnnnng,” Will groaned as the door opened. Vern slipped through and pulled it closed behind him.
“OK, come on. This is right when I went out last time. Let’s go.” Vern set off to lead Will along the ropeway.
