She started a new drawing of him. It was much easier to capture his partly focused, partly oblivious air now they’d talked together.
Chapter 11
Eole stood beside Tintin’s hut and looked at Rainbow’s drawing. He had no idea whether it was good or not. She’d made Darwie look snide, so maybe that meant it was bad. He folded it and tucked it into his pocket. He would ask Hestia. Then, next time he saw Rainbow drawing, he’d be able to say “That’s good” or “That’s bad” and she’d continue to find him normal and want to stay with him.
He had quite a lot of things to ask Hestia, and was looking forward to telling her how well he’d managed his conversations with Rainbow, who had just left to return to her campsite.
Rainbow. Her name reflected what she was: a colourful arc that brightened the sky. He knew that rainbows were actually illusions caused by the refraction and dispersion of the sun’s rays by water droplets in the atmosphere. That’s what his brain told him. His mind told him she was no illusion. It wanted to forget the facts and simply relax in the arc of her familiar woody-mossy fragrance.
A movement on the path below caught his eye. He breathed in odours of lilac and goat, which brought the word ‘adopted’ to the front of his mind. It was Alexandra.
It wasn’t right to sit on the stone bench where they’d sat together as mother and son. He went to the lake and waited for her on his flat rock, where he counted the tadpoles wriggling along the muddy bottom of the lake.
“Eole.”
It was the voice she used when he’d done something wrong but she wasn’t going to tell him off because it wasn’t really his fault. She sat down beside him.
“That’s not my real name,” he said.
“Of course it is, darling. Have you had a think about our conversation at lunchtime?” She passed him a ham sandwich. “You missed the chilli. You must be starving, poor thing. And you’re still pale. Are you ready to come home?”
He shrugged and pushed the sandwich back into her hands.
“The adoption issue doesn’t change anything,” she said. “And the field needs fencing. You were looking forward to that.”
The fencing. He couldn’t start it tomorrow because he’d eclipsed the valley from his mind while he’d been with Rainbow, and had promised to meet her here in the morning. But he’d promised Maman too – except she was Alexandra now. His promise didn’t count.
“Darling? Come home with me. Nothing needs to change. It’s just a piece of paper.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before? I have to recalculate everything now.”
“I thought you might. That’s why I left you alone all afternoon.”
He watched the families of tadpoles swimming happily around in their simple world. It was easy for Alexandra: she’d always known he was adopted.
“I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t think it was necessary,” she continued. “We’re still your family. I’m your mother, Papa’s your father, Hestia’s your sister.”
“Is she adopted too?”
“No, once we stopped trying–”
“And my real name?”
“Darling, Eole is your real name. You didn’t have a name before. We’re your family.”
Itch. He put his hands over his ears.
She carried on talking. Shuffle.
“You’re not my real family,” he interrupted. “Stop saying you are.”
But she continued, repeating words that sliced between his fingers and pierced his head: words about love and truth, about tracing biological parents, dossiers, his eighteenth birthday, a village in Brittany.
“I don’t want to hear!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!”
The next thing he knew, the stars were out and he was lying on wet grass at the top of the ridge with Darwie beside him. He looked at his watch: it was two o’clock in the morning. Alexandra would have gone. He stroked Darwie and then stretched out his stiff legs and walked down towards the hut in the moonlight. He could smell spicy meat, ham, ewe cheese and crackers. There must be campers in the area.
When he reached the hut he saw his sleeping bag and rucksack outside the door. The rucksack was topped with a note signed ‘Maman’. He screwed it up, unrolled his sleeping bag and mat, and checked the contents of his rucksack. Alexandra had packed his birthday books as well as plenty of food. He wolfed down half the tub of chilli and rice and then stretched out on his top bunk. Tintin’s snores would normally be coming from below. He concentrated on the memory of them, and drifted into sleep.
Rainbow saved herself hours of walking this morning by parking in the car park she’d passed yesterday. It was just as well because her rucksack was heavy on her back.
Eole had agreed to let her pitch her tent beside his hut. By camping at the summer pastures, she’d have more chance of seeing the shepherds, who brought up food and water for Eole in exchange for news of their flocks. Also, Christophe had called the campsite while she’d been out yesterday. If she stayed here, she wouldn’t be tempted to call him back.
She erected her tent close to the hut and then followed Eole and Darwie up the grassy slopes to look for shepherds.
Eole stopped to wait for her at the mountain pass and when she arrived, puffing, she saw three grazing flocks on the slopes above, each with different colour paint on their fleeces. There were no shepherds.
They started walking along a narrow ridge. It was windy and desolate up here, despite the sun, and she felt exposed. All it would take was one gust of wind and she’d be blown into oblivion. It was the perfect place for the Tree Slayer to attack, and she didn’t intend to fall foul of it before she met her soulmate. She told Eole she’d wait lower down while he checked for shepherds, and retraced her steps to the safety of the pass.
She was photographing some tiny flowers and thinking about her mission when Eole returned. He told her there were no shepherds on the ridge, and then gave her the names of the flowers, like he’d done with the birds they’d seen yesterday and the beetles earlier that morning. He was a living encyclopedia!
She asked how he knew so much, and he started to tell her about his best friend Tintin. It was like a dam bursting. All thoughts of her mission slid away as she pictured his life with the retired physicist, learning about science and tending the sheep. The poor old man had died when a chestnut tree fell on him last Saturday, on the day of the gale. No wonder Eole was sad – she felt sad too, not only for Eole’s loss, but also because Tintin sounded like the shepherd soulmate she’d imagined. He’d obviously meant a lot to Eole. She reached out to touch him, but he edged away.
“I lost someone I loved,” she said instead. “He was killed by a tree, too.”
“Assassins,” he muttered, and kicked a rock.
“Actually, it wasn’t the tree’s fault. It was mine.”
Eole looked at her directly, though his expression was as unreadable as ever. She wondered how he would react to hearing about her gift. When she found her soulmate, she’d have to mention it. She should practise making it sound as ordinary as possible.
“You see, I’ve got an unusual relationship with trees,” she continued. “They let me heal them and shape their branches.”
“You’ve got a special skill,” he said, nodding.
The concept of what was normal didn’t seem to affect him: things just were or weren’t. He was a treasure. She wished everyone could be so accepting.
“Domi calls it a spiritual gift,” she said. She lay back in the heather and told him about Michael’s accident and then – because he still seemed interested – all about the spiritual commune.
“There’s a scientific explanation for spiritual phenomena,” he said. “It’s just that no one’s found it yet. That’s what Tintin used to say. It’s like thunder and lightning, which people used to think came from Zeus and Athena, and like my anomaly, which science can’t explain yet, either.”
She sat up. “What anomaly?”
He shook his head violently, as if denying his wo
rds. What did he mean by his anomaly? She could feel Mary’s disdain, her conviction that by ‘anomaly’ he meant his obvious difficulty with human interaction. But Mary wasn’t necessarily right. He could have an anomaly that made him akin to trees in some way. He might have a gift that was equal to hers, but different. Was he her soulmate, after all? Amrita had told her to be patient, and Eole definitely demanded patience.
“Do you mean you’ve got a gift?” she asked, slowly. “You told me you didn’t have one.”
Eole stared at the sky as if he hadn’t heard her question.
“Eole? Have you got a gift too?”
“No,” he said. He stared at her, and then looked down at his feet and mumbled, “I’ve got a special skill.”
Mary was sending out waves of scorn, suggesting he was probably good at shearing sheep or something irrelevant like that. Rainbow ignored her.
“Cool! So what can you do with your special skill?” she asked.
“Tintin told me not to tell anyone about it. Your face looks completely different. It’s all bright and sparkly.”
“It’s because I’m excited,” she said. “You see I’m looking for my soulmate. I’m told he’s a shepherd up here in the pastures and he has a gift. I think it might be you. Tell me about your gift – I mean, your special skill. Is it something to do with the voices you mentioned yesterday? We may have a mission together. Can you shape and heal trees too?”
Eole opened and shut his mouth and shook his head, but no words came out. She reformulated her questions.
“I promised Tintin I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with the voices: they’re just annoying. Alexandra says it’s God speaking to me. She says I’ll understand when the time is right, which will be never because God doesn’t exist.”
Rainbow thought about Amrita’s godlike manipulation of her and Mary’s parallel worlds, but she didn’t want to start a theological discussion – and Eole’s voices didn’t matter. It was more important to find out if his special skill made him her soulmate.
She didn’t want to force him to break his promise to Tintin, but on the other hand she needed to know if his gift was “equal to her own” as Amrita had put it. She’d never seen auras before, so the gift was the only way to be sure of her other half. Wasn’t her need more important than him keeping his promise to Tintin, however dear he’d been to Eole? Mary certainly thought so.
“If you tell me, I won’t say anything to anyone,” said Rainbow. “Tintin will never know. It’ll hardly be breaking your promise.”
But he stood up and started walking up the flank on the other side of the pass.
This pasture didn’t look as dangerous as the ridge, so Rainbow followed. She had to find a way to persuade him to confide in her.
Chapter 12
Eole sat down at the fork in the path and ate yesterday’s ham sandwich while he waited for Rainbow. Soulmate, she’d said. He turned the word around in his head. He didn’t like the word ‘soul’ because he hadn’t found a satisfactory explanation for the concept: though, as Tintin used to say, the unknown is just the queue to the known. A mission, she’d said. He liked that word a little more. It was a bridge. It spanned the black hole of adoption and led somewhere.
She’d also said together, and this was the word that frightened and excited him most. Together had been him and Tintin, him and Hestia, him and the people he’d thought were his family. Together was all the bests but also all the worsts. Together was having to explain things and disrupt his routines. But as long as she didn’t harass him to find out about his special skill, together with Rainbow might feel good.
He took his new Multiverse Theories book out of his rucksack. If this summer had been like previous summers, he and Tintin would now be discussing each section as he read it. Instead, he had to learn about Hubble volumes, gravitational clustering and multiverse levels on his own. Tintin had wanted them to share the book. Reading it alone felt like betrayal. It felt as wrong as it would be to tell Rainbow about his special skill. If he couldn’t share science with Tintin, he wasn’t sure he wanted to read about it. He didn’t open the book, but simply examined the cosmic pictures on the cover.
Rainbow flung down her bag and collapsed onto the grass beside him.
“This is going to kill me,” she said.
“I doubt it. The majority of deaths in the mountains are caused by lightning strikes.”
She smiled, though it was no smiling matter, and asked what he was reading. He showed her the title and she asked if she could have a look.
He passed her his book and watched her flick through it while she ate her sandwich. He liked seeing her face change as she read. He copied her expressions, wondering if Hestia would class her as a total babe. He didn’t think she was an ugly bitch, which was the other term Hestia used for girls.
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “They say here that scientists aren’t asking the question of whether there are parallel universes, but of how many levels of universe exist. I wish I could show Domi this. How much do you know about parallel worlds?”
He calculated where to begin and then recited everything he’d learnt, starting from Tintin’s initial explanation four years ago. He hadn’t even completed this when Rainbow put her hands into a T-shape. Hestia had taught him the ‘time out’ sign. He stopped talking.
“There’s no need to give me all the details,” said Rainbow. “I’ve had a bit of experience with parallel worlds myself, and I think my theory might be relevant to you.” She talked about someone called Mary, and then an Amrita, and added that her whole mission was due to an unexpected split into two parallels. He quickly realised her experience was only spiritual, and was about to use the T-sign on her when she reached her conclusion:
“The point is that I can almost hear Mary’s voice in my head. Maybe the voices you hear come from an alter ego in a different parallel,” she said.
It was all very well having theories based on fanciful ideas, but unless it could be backed up by science it was no more credible than Zeus and Athena’s thunder and lightning. He shook his head and took back his book. The pages were heavy with new ideas, and gave him a pain in his chest. He couldn’t do more than skim a couple of pages. Under the heading ‘Level III Multiverses’, however, he spotted a paragraph about merging and splitting branches, and folded down the corner of the page. He would read it when the pain had lessened. He closed the book and thought about Rainbow’s suggestion. Had she found a theory to explain the source of the voices? Tintin would have wanted him to explore this path.
“Domi interprets voices,” said Rainbow when she’d finished her sandwich. “You should come to our commune and consult him.”
A commune meant a group of people and it meant travelling to get there, which Alexandra wouldn’t want him to do. Just the thought of leaving the mountains made him feel shaky, though that could be because he was still famished. He stood up, told her he couldn’t leave the pastures, and then took the right fork in the path.
There was only one flock left to check. It was unlikely that Jacques would be there, but Rainbow had said she wanted to check them all and, despite her terrible physical condition, she hadn’t changed her mind.
He soon left her far behind. He crossed the scree slope and arrived at the dell where Tintin had explained the grand unification theory. Jacques’ flock was there, shepherdless. Eole checked the sheep and then lay down with his eyes closed and added the grand unification theory to his mapopedia. This was the only way he could be with Tintin now.
Before long he heard puffing and smelt Rainbow’s woody-mossy odour. He opened his eyes as she appeared, red-faced, between the boulders – which was when he noticed the imminent danger.
“Don’t tell me there’s no shepherd, after all that walking,” she said.
So he didn’t. “We have a problem,” he said instead.
She edged closer to him and looked around. “What is it?”
Cumulus congestus clouds towered behind
the peak in the next valley. He took a deep breath and inhaled the frosty electric smell of them. They were buzzing with ice pellets and ice crystals, all colliding and picking up positive and negative charges. The mountain air had been heating up all day, and now there was going to be a storm. He’d seen the signs from the wisps of cirrus cloud on the ridge, but had been so focused on Rainbow that he’d forgotten about them.
He pointed to the clouds and told her they had to get the flocks to the hut before the storm broke. He whistled to Darwie, who raced around the sheep and sent them down towards the pass.
“Please don’t leave me behind again,” said Rainbow, trotting after him like a sheep. He slowed down and tried his best to stay within a couple of steps of her. She would probably be frightened in the coming storm, and they’d need to shelter in the hut. It would be a good opportunity to test the tourist role play he’d practised with Alexandra.
Thunder cracked as Rainbow hurried downhill behind Eole. Its echoes sounded like underground trolls grumbling inside the mountain. She loved the excitement of storms at home but there was a raw violence in the rising wind. What if it was the Tree Slayer coming to kill her before she could vanquish it? She needed to get Eole to tell her about his gift. If only she could find out without him telling her, he wouldn’t break his promise to Tintin.
She stopped. That was it! She had the perfect solution.
“Eole!” she called. He was watching Darwie drive the sheep across the scree slope. She joined him as fat raindrops began to fall.
“You don’t have to tell me about your special skill. You can just show me,” she said.
He shook his head and moved on, whistling to Darwie.
She sighed. Amrita had told her to be patient, but she’d also said to make haste. If he wouldn’t tell her freely, she’d have to be smart like Mary and trick him into showing her. For that she’d need a tree, and there weren’t any nearby.
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