Silverworld

by Diana Abu-Jaber

  “Natala is a rebalancer, like myself—a science and ritual specialist,” Dorsom said, gesturing toward the young woman.

  Sami touched her own chin. “You look—you look like—the caravan women—the Bedouin traders—from my teta’s stories!”

  “I’m not surprised,” Natala said gently, then smiled. “You must be so confused right now.”

  “Try totally freaking out,” Sami muttered. “I have no idea how I got here. Or even what here is.”

  Natala nodded. “Something…or someone…in Silverworld opened the portal and allowed you to enter. For now, we must avoid attracting attention, Sami,” she said. “Try to keep your voice and thoughts lowered as best you can. Any crowd or great excitement will alert Nixie’s soldiers.”

  “Nixie?” Sami frowned. “I feel like…I’ve heard that name…somewhere before.”

  Dorsom shook his head slightly as the waitress came out with a tray filled with small glasses. She placed sparkling lumps of something into the glasses, then lifted a Bedouin-style teapot with a curving spout high in the air, filling each glass with jets of tea. The air smelled like mint. “It’s so good,” the waitress confided, “to have rebalancers nearby. One feels much more secure.”

  The Flickers murmured and nodded politely and the woman bowed several times before she ducked back into the kitchen.

  Natala shook her head. “Foolishness. Some Flickers believe locks can keep out the soldiers.”

  “We mustn’t linger.” Dorsom swirled a steaming glass. “Best for us to get back to headquarters.”

  “Please, though,” Sami begged, turning to each of them. “Just—why do things look like home but not-home? How do I get back to my regular home? Where am I?”

  Natala shook out a light veil and settled it over her head; tendrils of dark purple hair curled from the edges. “Sami, right now you’re in a parallel World. You’re an Actual being in a reflection-bound World—the other side of the mirror, you might say. Silverworld is shaped and changed by your thoughts, memories, imagination. And not just thoughts of your own life, but of the lives of your parents and grandparents, affect what you now see.”

  “And how do you even know so much—I mean, about me? My name and my grandmother and everything? I don’t know anything about you guys!”

  Dorsom laughed, resting one forearm on the table. His sleeve fell back so she could see a row of golden arrows tattooed above his wrist. “There is much to discover. But this is not the time.”

  The beautiful serving woman emerged again through a rustling curtain of beads, and placed large bowls of soup before Sami and Dorsom. Its smell was so rich and delicious, she felt almost light-headed. It was like inhaling soup from her earliest childhood—a scent of cumin and onion and lentils. She recalled her mother’s contented hum as she bustled in front of a stove, Sami watching from the kitchen floor. Now she glanced back up at the waitress and Sami wondered if she’d been given soup that was on a menu or if she’d just tasted her own memory.

  The server looked at her, startled. “Excuse me?”

  Dorsom coughed loudly and asked, “Could you bring us more bread, please?” She nodded, but peeped at Sami twice over her shoulder.

  As soon as she was gone, Dorsom whispered, “You must keep your thoughts lowered! In Silverworld, speaking through thoughts is as common as speaking out loud.”

  Natala shook her head. “She doesn’t know how yet to control her abilities. And, Actual or Flicker, she’s just a young girl—it’s truly extraordinary that she’s come this far without being detected!” She placed a hand on Sami’s arm so her gray and black bangles jingled.

  Sami bit her lip, surprised by her own emotions. This place seemed to magnify her feelings. Looking for a distraction, she picked up her soupspoon, enticed by the curling, warm aroma. The soup was a thick reddish brown and looked remarkably like her grandmother’s shorbet addis—lentil soup. She blew on it and sipped from the spoon; it was hot and creamy. In fact, she realized, it was the most delightful thing she’d ever tasted. And then it was gone. Entirely. As if it evaporated the moment she swallowed. She blinked in surprise, then quickly took another sip. Again, there was the taste of cumin and onion and lentils, and then there was absolutely nothing in her mouth. “My soup! Where does it go?”

  Surprised, Dorsom tasted a spoonful of his own soup. “What’s wrong? It doesn’t taste right to you?”

  “It tastes wonderful. But there’s nothing, like, after the taste! There’s nothing to chew or swallow—just—air.”

  Natala’s brows lifted. “Oh yes—you’re missing the feeling of it.”

  “Ah, that’s true,” Dorsom said. “You Actuals are much more physical than Flickers. You rely on the sense of touch. Flickers—we are air and light beings. We don’t actually eat or excrete in the ways that you do.”

  Sami stared at him. “You don’t need to eat food? Why have cafés and, like, order stuff if you don’t eat?”

  The two Flickers laughed. “We do ‘eat’—just not in the way you’re used to,” Dorsom said. “Our nutrients come through light itself. Photons instead of vitamins. For someone who was used to physical sensations, it wouldn’t seem like much was happening when you ate in Silverworld. In this World, we’re more concerned with what is seen than what is felt.”

  Sami finished the delicious and strange soup in about ten seconds. For a moment she was full, but then just as quickly the feeling dissolved. Before she had a chance to ask more questions, though, she sensed something like a current of cold pulse through the room. She looked around but all she saw was their waitress, smiling and asking if they’d like anything else. Sami was startled to feel the woman’s pale eyes now pierce her like slivers of ice. Then, glancing over the woman’s left shoulder, Sami noticed the very same waitress coming from the other side of the room. There were two of them. “Wait. What on earth?” Sami blurted.

  The Flickers snapped to attention. Dorsom stood up. “Sami, get back,” he ordered.

  Sami felt another big throb pulse through the air.

  This time it was deeper, a shock wave; it knocked the breath from her lungs. She seemed to be frozen in place as the waitress tossed her order pad, then began to grow, until the top of her head nearly touched the ceiling. Her features vanished and her entire body flattened into a shining white form. It was a deep swirling gray—just as if someone had cut out the shape of a person from the universe. The depth of the form was vast, and as Sami looked into it, it released a terrible, frozen shriek. With a gasp, Sami felt the thing reaching for her. Plates and cups were swept from the table as it wrapped her in its long talons. Shouting, kicking, arms flailing, she tried desperately to wrench herself free. The thing tightened its grip and seemed to press through her very body: Sami was falling into the emptiness and the emptiness was falling into her—a flattening void of sadness and surrender and loneliness.

  She heard distant voices crying out, but the gray emptiness only intensified. Without thinking, she steeled herself, then shoved, hard, against the thing. She struck with her mind, her will, her breath, her insides, tightening herself mentally, saying a great NO in her mind. There was a tremendous, swaying, tipping moment in which it seemed almost as if the thing would swallow her whole. Then she felt herself tearing free, icy strands ripping and shriveling and snapping.

  Strong hands grabbed her arms, pulling her away. Stumbling backward, she saw the thing crumple and shrink. Then it oozed into a puddle on the floor and vanished.

  Sami was weak and dizzy. Her legs felt squishy and her knees soft. She was having trouble catching her breath. “That thing—it grabbed me,” she panted. “What was that?”

  Dorsom slung an arm around her shoulders, steadying Sami. You fought off a Shadow soldier! Never have I seen anyone do that before.

  Sami and Dorsom hurried out of the café, and Natala raced ahead, untied a couple of horses from a post i
n front, and beckoned. Sami shrank back warily. The horses were a deep goldenrod color that shone in the sun and their heads and necks were draped with engraved metal plates and rows of silver coins. They stamped their feet and snorted, their manes glittering. “Here—everyone, mount!”

  “But—I can’t get up there. I don’t know anything about horses!” Sami cried. “I think I’m scared of horses.”

  Dorsom didn’t appear to hear her, though, as he leapt onto a horse, then reached down, seized Sami’s hands, and swung her up behind his saddle. Gasping, she clamped her arms around his waist and pressed her forehead to his back. Natala jumped onto the steed beside them. Dorsom snapped the reins and they took off.

  At first she hung on with all her might. But bit by bit, her strength started to return and, instead of clutching Dorsom in terror, she began to relax. In time, Sami started to feel almost comfortable—as if she’d ridden on stallions before, even several times. Once she eased up, it seemed as if her body knew how to move with the animal, how to anticipate its bends and ripples. “Wow,” she murmured as they flew along a wide lane of grass and sand. The wind rose, whirling in her hair. “Is this real?”

  “What did you say?” Dorsom called.

  Sami shook her head. “You still haven’t explained what that thing was. Back in the coffeehouse? That came after me.”

  “Shadow soldier,” Dorsom said grimly. “Straight from the Castle Shadow itself, judging by its power.”

  “They’re shape-shifters. It did a perfect imitation of the server. And the way it absorbed you so completely—it was a creature of some rank.” Natala looked over at Sami. And it was stunning too that you fought it off. Her thought emerged slowly and softly.

  Gradually, the Flickers let the horses ease into a gentle canter. Sami turned to glance back at Dorsom. “That wasn’t like any kind of shadow in my world.”

  He nodded. “I should think not. In Silverworld, the Shadows are just as alive as the rest of us. For generations we coexisted in peace. These days…are different. Between us there’s growing mistrust—it worsens all the time. There are normal Shadows—kind and generous. But then there are the soldiers and patrols of the Nixie’s army. Which we must evade.” He tapped the horse and they turned off the lane. They began cutting across a field scattered with bits of white stone and pieces of broken marble, like remnants of ancient statues. “Flickers are born of the color spectrum energy. Shadows are born of its absence. Between the two we cocreate our World. We need each other; we are virtually the same, only as seen from different directions.”

  “But then came the rise of the Shadow Nixie,” Natala said. “Over the past several years, the rebalancers have measured a decreasing amount of color…and increasing Shadows.” She gestured broadly. “There is terrible imbalance in Silverworld. Our crops are failing, the seas are deeper, more turbulent. Even the weather grows colder, the colors dimmer.”

  “Worst of all…” Dorsom’s grip on the reins tightened as a soft breeze fluttered the horses’ manes. “Flickers have started to disappear. Along with peaceable Shadows. More and more, across Silverworld. Our office is filled with missing Flicker reports.”

  “Nixie wishes to take over the Worlds. I believe she won’t stop until Silverworld is plunged into eternal emptiness,” Natala murmured.

  Nixie. Sami turned the word over in her mind. Gradually, it came to her, the place where she’d heard that name before.

  Nixie was a Shadow queen, Teta had told Sami, years ago. Some say she was once a good and kind ruler. A being of the sparkling night reflection. And she fell in love with a magical creature, an Ifrit.

  Sami was four or six or eight, and her grandmother often told her stories about the reflecting world, the place where all the people in the mirror lived. Every actual person had their own private reflecting being. Like a double, she told her. Teta’s was named Ashrafieh.

  The Nixie was in love with her fairy Ifrit, Teta had said. But eventually all the fairy species were starved or hunted to extinction. The Nixie went mad with grief. They say her grief changed her into a creature of rage. And she has remained this way ever since.

  Why is the Nixie angry? Sami had curled up on the carpet at her grandmother’s feet.

  A shadow had crossed Teta’s face. Sometimes, my child, grief does strange things. It can change the one who feels it. Sometimes it’s easier to feel anger than sadness. The Nixie decided that if she couldn’t have any joy, no one else would either. And from that day, she’s made trouble, seizing joy and color and love wherever they exist—imprisoning any creature of happiness, both in the silver world—and in ours.

  Sami shivered at the old memory. She was about to ask Dorsom if her grandmother’s stories were true, but they were distracted by a group of Flickers approaching from the opposite direction. The men, wearing long, shirtlike robes, were on foot, while women and children sat on rose-colored camels, one leg hooked before the hump, leather bags and goatskins dangling from the sides. Each of the women was of the same green color as Dorsom, their eyes and lips heavily tattooed, and strings of coins jingled in their black hair. As they approached, the green children gazed at Sami through their eyes bright with curiosity.

  Road wanderers. Shield your mind, Sami, Dorsom thought.

  He means, keep your eyes down, hide your thoughts, Natala instructed.

  Sami tried to close herself off again, but she felt something like soft feathers tracing over her mind. As soon as the wanderers passed, she relaxed. That’s hard!

  You’re doing beautifully, Natala assured her.

  In this World, shielding the mind is a necessary skill, Dorsom added, for self-protection and defense.

  Self-protection? Sami flashed on what had happened in the café and a shudder went through her. “What does the Nixie want with me?” she asked.

  Dorsom and Natala exchanged a glance. “She’s been watching you,” Dorsom said. “She must believe you’re useful to her in some way. When I realized you were about to Cross through the Silverskinned—the mirror—I suspected Nixie would send her patrol after you.”

  Yes, we know she has been studying you, Natala put in. And so have we. We’ve been watching you for some time.

  Sami felt her neck prickle. “Me? Why?”

  Dorsom patted his horse’s neck gently, as if he needed more time for his answer. “We think you have a—a dual nature—part Flicker and part Actual. Your grandmother’s family is well known in Silverworld—we’ve known about them for generations.”

  When you were born, the Silverworld sun brightened for some minutes, Natala thought.

  Though that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Dorsom countered.

  How could it not? Natala asked.

  The two Flickers got wrapped up in a heated discussion that Sami couldn’t quite follow and she turned away. Listening hazily to the beat of the horses’ hooves in the fields, she wondered when the Flickers would tell her how to get home.

  The soft light seemed to make her drowsy and stir up old memories. Hadn’t her grandmother also mentioned the shadowy figures who came to steal babies? They say the Nixie imprisons them, stealing their new energies in order to keep growing, Teta had said. Nixie was imprisoned in her castle and may only emerge once a generation, but her soldiers go out and snatch light creatures to serve in her army. And somewhere, deep in her castle, there exists a dreadful falling place, the rift between the Worlds….Sami recalled again the horrid, sucking creature who tried to seize her in the restaurant. She rubbed her arms, trying to press away her shivers. Then she remembered Teta always ended her stories by saying, Someday, a brave warrior will come to them, someone with grit, and the courage of the Ifrit.

  Maybe all this time her grandmother had been trying to tell her something.

  The horses moved more slowly, stepping over broken plaster and stones. They were turning to the north. Ahead, Sami thought she
could see a sliver of water and a strip of sand.

  A smaller band of forest-green road wanderers appeared on the roadway. They’d almost gone by when a child stopped, staring, her eyes wide and brilliant. Welcome, Silverwalker! Sami felt the little girl’s words ring through her.

  The child’s parents quickly reclaimed their daughter and hustled her back to the group, but her words remained in Sami’s mind, puzzling her long after their group had gone.

  The footpaths snaked through the fields, between mauve grasses and plum-tinted palmetto trees, and then, as the horses clomped up a low embankment, Sami was startled by the ocean waves coming into view. These weren’t the usual Caribbean-blue currents of home. These ocean swells rose in the air in curtains of sea spume. They splashed and twisted slowly, more like veils than water. And the water was yellow. Sea yellow. Canary, daffodil, starlight yellow. The clearest color of sunshine. “Oh, just wow,” she breathed.

  “Beautiful, isn’t she?” Natala said, then smiled. “She used to be even brighter—the Silverworld sea—not so long ago. Before Nixie.”

  Gazing out at the waves, Sami realized she really, really missed home.

  Florida.

  She’d never really considered its beauty before now. She hadn’t appreciated it…until it was gone. Suddenly she felt she’d give anything for a glimpse of her mother or the sound of Teta’s voice, and these things were wrapped up in the vanilla smell of the ylang-ylang tree and the bobbing ibis birds that grazed the neighborhood lawns.

  “I want to go home,” she mumbled, then looked hopefully at the Flickers. “Can I pretty soon?”

  “You will,” Dorsom promised. “I think.”

  “Soon, soon,” Natala added. “Probably.”

  “Probably?” Sami cried. “You’re not sure?”