by Aaron D. Key
“I think so too,” I said. “How am I doing, by the way?”
“‘Little you’ has a bit more life in him now. Koa’s been called in to give him a check-up, but he is being well looked after by his mother. She woke me up just now to tell me that she was your mother in great excitement. Have you been meddling in time again?”
“I have …” I frowned. “Elena and I spoke after.”
“Anyway, you’d better come and say hello to your mother. Be kind to her, for goodness sake. What with the baby and everything, she is an emotional wreck.”
I felt tension settling in my jaw and I tried to relax it.
“Damon Ich,” Elena said as she saw me and stood up. She looked almost exactly like a healthy and well-fed version of the woman I had just left in a café. Elena, Rael’s wife, a woman whose life I had interfered with quite a few times recently, was beyond doubt my mother and I had to find something kind to say to her.
“Ann says that this baby you have been looking after is doing well,” I settled for saying with a sense that I’d failed my intention to be kind.
“You do know that he is you?” Elena questioned, as if confused.
“I do know that. It’s just … weird. Language and common sense do not seem to have invented ways to describe this situation.”
“You’ve been changing my history. I remember so much more now. Yesterday I had no children and now I have two. My youngest son died many years ago – I hope after a long and useful life – but I remember him clearly at least until he was three or so, and you until you were a little under two. I also remember waiting in a café for you to return, as you are now, and then realising that it was not going to be that night or any time soon. I was not scared for your wellbeing. I knew you were my son; that you had survived.”
“I’m glad you realised.” I was grateful. “I would have felt guilty otherwise and now I know I do not need to go back to you.”
“Is that where you have just come from?”
I nodded thoughtfully. She sat down again and picked up the baby possessively.
“I am a terrible mother,” she mourned. “But at least this child will not die.”
“I don’t think I turned out too bad. So you couldn’t have been that terrible.” I smiled. My awkward intention to give her a hug was foiled by the baby in her arms.
“Shall we meet sometime after breakfast to work out what needs to happen next?” I said instead, settling for practicality over emotion. “Somehow you and this baby need to be put back into the right spot in time. You can help me with that.”
I was sure I was the oldest son. Elena, the child’s mother, had been younger than the Elena we took to see Rael. But from what she said things hadn’t worked out that way.
“After breakfast.” She nodded in agreement.
I turned away. Was I still missing something? Koa smiled warmly at me as I left my room again with a change of clothes in my hand. I didn’t understand his intentions. Was he just amused to have seen my baby self?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Meeting Rael
It was with a heavy heart that I made my way down the stairs and into the Great Hall later in search of breakfast. Cailo and my sister were sitting together in a corner their food finished but still engrossed in conversation, which I found disconcerting. I sat alone and was nearly finished when Koa joined me.
We sat in awkward silence at first.
“I decided that I’m going to move into the workroom that Tan found for me permanently,” Koa said. “I intend to resume being a healer. Even if you have better resources, an extra pair of hands can’t hurt.
“If you are still struggling to find somewhere to sleep tonight,” he continued, “my old room in the tower will be free. I like the workroom. It reminds me of my old room in the city. Even better, my garden is just outside the door, or it will be when I’ve had time to recreate it. Have you got time to see it?”
There was no sign of Elena yet at breakfast and I could do nothing without talking to her first so I agreed. We made our way outside where the sun was warm and the garden flourishing under its coaxing light. Birds twittered and cooed, cawed and sang as insects danced in the warm air.
Koa directed me to the outer wall of Herron facing the river that eventually wound its way around the desert wall. In a sunny corner where there was a small pond, home to hundreds of frogs and a few spindly trees with silver-white bark, flower borders were already being cleared by Monta.
There was a small paved path that led through the planting to a low stone-framed door. Outside the door was a selection of motley abandoned items like an old wooden table, broken tools, and baskets that seemed to have been cleared from the room. Inside there was a bed and a large sturdy table.
“Do you think it will do?” I asked as we looked around the nearly empty room.
“It will be fine,” Koa answered.
I read more into these sentences than would have been apparent to the casual listener, probably more than I should have. My question really meant: do you think you could be happy here; could you contemplate living in Herron forever; perhaps even do you think that you could forgive me all my imperfections and do you think that we could become lovers? His response, I think, meant to me the answer to those questions might possibly be yes. This was more than I could hope for, so I was happy.
We were about to leave the room when Koa suddenly stopped. He had the expression of a man on the edge of a precipice. I could tell that my previous words were still hanging between us like a sword. Perhaps I had not been clear enough? Perhaps he had not been sure? I took pity on him and hugged him like a friend.
I was hoping against hope that Herai’s words were insightful as I said, “I meant it when I said I was only interested in you. I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same way but we can still be good friends.”
My hug was returned with a passion that was missing from my tepid offer of friendship. He loved me. I could feel it in the heartbeat echoing through his ribcage. As if there was a whole universe in there pulsing just for me. I did not deserve such love, but I would not turn it away because of that. I could only try to deserve it by being a better man, by loving him to the fullest extent of my ability until the end of this world, or if this was averted, until the end of time.
“I do feel the same way,” Koa said. “It’s just everything is happening so fast. A new life, a new home, a new love. I’m feeling unworthy. That’s why I’m trying to work again, so I can feel a bit like myself. I’m sorry if I appeared to turn you down. I just want to help you get back to normal so there’s nothing to interfere with our lives anymore.”
I was relieved and overjoyed. Koa was no more confident than I was, and he was right that it would be better to sort our lives out before adding to the complications.
“I’m sorry to distract you from what needs doing but I had to explain to you.”
“I’m so glad you did, Koa! I can concentrate now,” I said, overjoyed. We hugged again and kissed. It was indeed like diving into ice-cold water and finding it warm, not like blood, though, but the bubbling water of a sauna.
“I’d better go and see if Elena is ready to talk to me,” I said eventually and reluctantly. “This is the last stage. We are nearly there. Then life can return to normal.”
I left him, in the garden with Monta and Cailo, who had appeared ready with a spade, and made my way back to the Great Hall. Inside, Ann turned to me with a worried face.
“Elena has gone missing with the baby.”
“Do you know what made her decide to run?” I asked, unwilling to instantly panic.
“Apparently you started to sing to her,” Ann said with a look of complete mischief on her face.
“Enough to make anyone run,” I agreed with a solemn laugh. “But how do you mean?”
“She was talking wildly,” Ann explained. “About how she
knew that the baby didn’t belong here and she was preparing herself to let you take it where it belonged. Then the baby started to make a noise inside her head she said was like singing. Not real singing but a noise of contentment, of feeling at home. She said if she waited for the adult you to speak to her, you would appear to her in the role of Rael and she would learn to hate you, even though it was your presence in her life that she was fighting for. She was upset. I thought she was going to walk it off, but she vanished, in front of me. I feel sympathy for her but what are we going to do now, Damon Ich?”
“I thought we had a plan,” I muttered. “She said she was able to forgive Rael, that she still loved him. And the story doesn’t make sense. How could I have been a baby six or seven years after Elena arrived in Herron? If I was born on earth …”
“You’re right, it doesn’t make sense. Hopefully Rael can explain it. I assume that’s where you’ll be going next. It was a bit inevitable – after your appearance in your guardian’s diary.”
“I’d better go and find out.”
“Are you worried?” she asked, sensing my hesitation. “I know that Rael will be proud of you. You gave him his life back. What more could anyone ask of you?”
I wanted to talk to Rael and to receive from him a lifetime of fatherly advice. The last time I had met him, he had been my age. When I met him again in the impossible place, he would be perhaps ten years older, at least a bit closer an age where it would make sense for him to be my father, although to him, as to Elena, I would be a world away from the small child he had just sacrificed to the requirements of time. Perhaps the advice I craved would not be available, but just to talk to him would be enough for me.
* * *
Once on Rael’s Hill, I hesitated for a while, letting the boisterous wind gently rock me as I sat and prepared myself for the journey. Rael was a good man and I knew he wouldn’t judge me but I felt on trial. Was it wrong to get so much pleasure from Koa’s company? It seemed wrong, as if it meant I was not complete on my own. Was it that old conception I had, that pleasure was not meant for me? I was there to serve and to carry out my responsibilities; anything else was a radical thought akin to selfishness, or at least this is what I had always thought. Perhaps I had changed. I used to feel unassailable, irreproachable – now I felt insubstantial and disarmed by a desire so strong I felt its loss would destroy me. Did that mean it was wrong to have desires or to accept the gift of anything meaningful? Or was it just nature’s way of balancing life: to give with one hand and take with the other?
Perhaps it was feeling unassailable that was wrong, leaving a person out of touch with humanity? Perhaps it was humanity that I had gained and it only felt strange because I was not used to it?
This last thought made me feel better, more able to face Rael. I was not weak but more human. That was something of which I should not be ashamed.
At last I bowed my head and concentrated on the impossible place, at an impossible time, and I was there. Because I knew I had been there before, the journey was not as hard as it could have been. I could see my guardian, my predecessor, standing at the side of the lake with a small child – like a mother and child at a train station, waving goodbye to the one they loved. Closer to me but obscured by clothing and his downcast expression was Rael. He raised his head as he grew closer and stopped dead.
“Damon Ich, what are you doing here?” he asked me roughly, as if in shock that I would have considered meeting him here. I realised that he sounded harsh because he was crying and thinking he was all alone.
“I am sorry, Rael, I need your advice and this seemed the best time to try and meet you.”
“Do you know that I have just stolen you away from your mother and abandoned you here?” he said as if accusing me of some crime.
“Yes,” I said. “At least, I didn’t know that you had to steal me away from Elena but I understand the rest. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”
“I always knew you would turn out alright. That gave me comfort.”
“I wondered if you would remember meeting me,” I said. “I wasn’t sure if it would be like a real memory or a dream.”
In answer, Rael gave me a hug as if he were a bear and I a child. I hugged him back, feeling a whole childhood compressed into a few seconds.
“Come on, we had better leave before something else has to be written in the diary.”
I hung onto his metaphorical coat tails as he whisked us away and returned us to another place full of familiar light, familiar sounds.
“Do you remember this place, Damon Ich? We used to bring you here when you were young,” Rael said mournfully.
It was the same beach I had brought Koa to in my memory. I did not remember it from my childhood but part of me must have, since I had found the place again when I was older and needed somewhere to relax. Perhaps it explained why I had always felt so safe and happy there.
He said, “I suppose for you it is just the other day we met, but to me years have gone by so that I almost feel we are strangers again.”
“You’re right, to me it was just a few days ago, but a lot has happened in those few days. I am a changed man. It troubles me, though, that life has not been kind to you. I was expecting you to be happy, for your life to have improved beyond recognition.”
“Well it many ways it has, and I know I have not got much longer of this unbearable deception to go. In two weeks, Aeth will leave me to travel across the desert and at the same time Elena will abandon me in her sorrow. I am hoping that soon after that she will return a happier woman and she will forgive me. It is the guilt that has worn me down. How many times had I tried things her way? Refusing to bring Aeth to Herron, keeping you with us, and making sure Elena always loved me … Every time I tried letting the universe sort itself out, I felt myself fade and the world around us grow less real. Now it is almost over for me and all I can say is that I did my best to be fair and to act in everyone’s best interests, even when they could not see it.”
“It is a strange feeling when you should have the power to do anything you like, to feel helpless and shackled by time,” I acknowledged, thinking of my own recent experiences.
“Perhaps that is why these things happen. No one should have the power to do anything they like. Perhaps the power knows this and plays with us to distract us until it thinks we have learned enough? Anyway, where are you in this eternal dance?”
I told him everything that was relevant about the past few days, and I contemplated while I told the story how complicated it was to recount when different versions of the same person occupied the same tale.
“So,” I concluded, “I need to know how everything happened. Why was it that the baby that was me didn’t appear until years after I should have done? How can I put everything back to rights?”
“Let’s go and get a drink,” Rael suggested, and I must have made a face, as he added, “I meant a coffee. Have you tried it yet? I used to drink it at home a long time ago. You will be relieved to know that I do not drink alcohol anymore. I had to stop when I discovered it made me want to destroy things; really big things, sometimes. It was drinking that made Elena want to leave me so that you were born on this planet. It almost lead to your death, so I thought it was time to stop.”
I smiled at the thought of Rael discovering how easy it was to destroy his marriage and perhaps worlds too and deciding to drink coffee instead. We walked away from the beach, along the edge of the golden cliffs.
“That’s the good thing about time travel. It may confuse your life completely but at least you don’t have to rush anything,” Rael murmured as he walked along, looking sideways at me as if trying to work out what he thought of me. “I’m not in any rush to get back home to my wife, as much as I love her. Knowing that you deserve the scorn of your loved one does not make it any easier to bear.”
We walked by a stone harbour with a few small boats lyin
g like dead ducks on the exposed shoreline to a building with cheaply made wooden tables and chairs along the edge of the harbour walls.
“I’ll get the drinks,” Rael offered. I sat down and waited for him. I tried to judge the local time of day, perhaps just after lunch time, I thought. I couldn’t remember what time it had been when I left Herron. I remembered breakfast but I was still hungry.
Rael emerged out of the dark interior carrying two cups.
“I’ve ordered some food, as well,” he said, and I remembered his propensity to read minds without even realising. He put the cup down beside me. I expected it to smell like the drink Aeth was consuming before I killed him but it was so completely different, it even seemed attractive to me.
“I was going to suggest that you go back and collect the baby before you meet Elena,” Rael considered. “But I have thought about it some more and I think this would be dangerous. Apart from anything else, if you did this there would be no need to come and see me. Could the diary entry be wrong or would some other catastrophe occur just to make it right? I would be nervous about tempting fate to find out, and of course anything that had happened as a consequence of what you have already done might not then happen. You would never even know what you had lost.”
I grimaced as I thought of further chaos arising.
“Elena came and lived with me in Herron about seven months after we first met,” Rael said. “And then we argued, I was drunk, and she insisted on going back to earth. When we were reconciled, she told me our baby had died. We never talked about it. I could have changed time perhaps. I could have made it not happen but I truly believe that some things have to be. You can feel it as you gently tease time apart. I don’t know what makes it like that. Other people look upon you with scorn as you bear the burden of these tragedies.”
Rael looked away and was silent for a few minutes.
“One day about eight months ago, to me at least, Elena found you on that hill you call Rael’s Hill. You had called to her again, as if you had never been lost. So this, I presume, is where you need to put the baby if you manage to retrieve him.”