Across the Largo

by Mitchell Atkinson

  ***

  Esmeralda wanted to talk to Yaris before they left. She wanted to understand something about the girl, because it seemed that, whatever strange differences they had in where they grew up and how they were raised, they were connected in some deep sense. Esmeralda never had a sister.

  “Are you going to go with us?” Esmeralda asked.

  Yaris stared out the window, looking down on the courtyard far below. “No.” She turned to look at Esmeralda. “Speaker Han tells me I can live here if I want. She said I can learn about Shrine, maybe be a Counselor one day. She’s a really strange lady. This room is about as high as my bedroom in the Palace.”

  “Well,” Esmeralda spoke carefully, “it seems like this is a much nicer place than the Palace. At least it seems to me.”

  “I hated that place. I used to try to burn it down. The walls are made of thick, black metal, cursed by some strange magic. The corners are so sharp you can cut your fingers on them. They won’t ever come down.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go with us? We might see the birth of one of the Great Turtles. A boy, I guess. Do you want to come? I already talked to Raahi about it, and he said that there shouldn’t be any real danger on this trip. And even if there was, Ngare and a whole bunch of the Elite Guard are coming with us. Robert is coming, so you know it can’t be that dangerous.”

  “Maybe not now,” Yaris said. “Maybe the danger isn’t here yet, but the danger is coming. I suppose my father probably thinks the Phoon still have me. He’ll find out the truth soon enough. And then, when he does, I don’t know what will happen.”

  “But you’re in the safest place in the whole world.” Esmeralda walked forward, considered putting her hand on Yaris’s shoulder, but decided against it. “There is nothing that can happen to you here.”

  Yaris smiled thinly. “How did your mother die?”

  “What?” Esmeralda asked.

  “Your mother. Speaker Han told me she died.”

  “My mother got very sick,” Esmeralda said. “She was sick for a long time, and the doctors did everything they could, I guess, and then she died.”

  Yaris looked out the window again. “My mother was killed. My father has had many, many wives. I guess he just gets rid of them when he is tired of them.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry for you,” Yaris said. “When my mother left, I had, I guess, something to hold onto: the fact that my father had done it. I could hate him instead of loving her. Now that you’ve lost your mother, who have you got to hate?”

  11. Wane and the Ivory Turtle

  Dorthea, regretfully, had to decline going onward to the sea. Pa would be at home, probably sick with worry, and she had to attend to her life at the farm. She told Esmeralda and Robert to be careful, to be smart and to come say a few words to her when they got the chance. Boots gave both of them a huge, sloppy kiss, and he and Dorthea were off on the road into the countryside.

  The rest—Esmeralda, Robert, Raahi, Ngare, and several of the Elite Guard—struck out in a caravan for the coast. Riding over hills and through gentle fields, they traveled straight west, staying always within the beautiful lands of Song. The world seemed pleased that they were on this mission and afforded them good weather.

  They reached the sea in but a few hours, the air becoming thick and full of new smells. The people of Song controlled a port town there called Bartrem; it nestled into a deep bay that provided shelter from the periodic violence of the moody seas. Few citizens lived there; it was a fishing village and a port of call for those bringing in goods from the south or stopping for supplies on their way to the frigid north. But they had many fine ships docked at their harbor; the vessels bobbed gently in the throbbing sea, waiting for their next adventure, and sat proud in the orange approach of evening.

  The caravan stopped first at the little shopping district in the center of town to get a few supplies from the general store. In truth, they had all that they needed, but Raahi insisted that Bartrem Brewing made the most delectable ginger beer in any country of any world in any part of the Largo. He demanded that Esmeralda and Robert give it a taste-test.

  That accomplished, they rode down into the dock to meet the harbormaster and pick out a ship. He was a short, pudgy man, bald on top, with a big, speckled beard. He was given to squinting his eyes when he was thinking of what words to pair with his currently-forming thoughts, and this attitude gave him an air of wisdom, perhaps undeserved.

  “Can I help you citizens?” the harbormaster said as they approached.

  Raahi jumped down from the lead carriage. “We come from Shrine. We need a vessel.”

  “I know who you are.” The harbormaster squinted his eyes into slits. “I got word by bird that you’d be coming this way.”

  “Good,” Raahi said. “What is available with space for our entire group?”

  “The Damsel Four is a good ship. It’s that gold one there at the end of the third pier. She’s fast as anything on the water. What do you have with you, fifteen, twenty? Space might be a bit cramped. How long you going out for?”

  “We seek Wane,” Raahi said. “I am told the trip should not take a considerable amount of time.”

  “Yes, sir,” the harbormaster said. “That is, of course, assuming she feels like showing up for you. Wane’s a tricky little thing. Look, there’s the Naothool. She’s not as fast as the Damsel, but she’s got a lot of room for cargo and sleeping quarters below deck, if you happen to be out through the night.”

  “That sounds fine,” Raahi said. “Speed should not be an issue.”

  They set to transferring their supplies to the Naothool. The Elite Guard moved crates of food and duffle bags full of things unknown to either Esmeralda or Robert, who both stood around feeling unnecessary and drinking ginger beer. Having made their preparations, everyone boarded the fine, sturdy ship, and they set sail for Wane and whatever mysteries it held.

  “I can’t believe this,” Robert said as they left.

  “What do you mean?” Esmeralda asked, staring at the red sun lowering in the sky.

  Robert leaned over the rail of the ship, looked into the calm water. “It’s just, here we are, like, crossing the ocean to find a secret island, and all I can think about is what I am going to tell my parents when we get back.”

  Esmeralda laughed out loud. “Oh, Robert, I hadn’t even thought about it! What are we going to say to my father?”

  “Not a clue. Maybe we can pretend we were kidnapped by ninjas or terrorists or something.”

  The ship sailed on. They cut their way through extraordinarily calm water, horizon after horizon, until, far in the distance, Esmeralda saw a dark, brown smudge. The sun had nearly set by this point, and they were approaching shore by the time the thick greenery of the island came into focus. A small place, perhaps two hundred yards across, it contained a single, uninterrupted jungle of unrecognizable tropical plants and trees.

  They anchored the ship and descended in lifeboats. As night fell, the rowers approached, heading into bubbling sounds of insect and animal life: high chirps and distant, mournful howls. Ngare and the other Elite Guard pulled the boats onto the deserted beach while Esmeralda, Robert and Raahi looked across the sand to the wild darkness beyond.

  “Where do we start?” Esmeralda said.

  Raahi put his hand on her shoulder. “There is no way to know how close to the Turtle you have to be for Ko to start singing. Luckily, Wane is not a large island. The only reason we even have her charted is this used to be an outpost for our sea traders.”

  “You mean, pirates,” Ngare cut in.

  Raahi smiled. “There are no pirates in Song. They never stole from anyone but the Alavarisians. My grandfather was a sea trader.”

  “So what do we do?” Robert asked.

  “We go,” Ngare said. He made a few gestures to his fellow soldiers and they headed into the wilderness. Esmeralda, Raahi and Robert walked in the middle of the group, with several soldier
s in front and several behind. Esmeralda noticed Sala, the Elite Guard in the rear, her wounds perhaps completely healed or at least manageable enough to bring her on this journey.

  They traveled straight into the forest, and, the brush being wild and untamed, the lead Guards had to literally cut a path through the undergrowth.

  “Is it absolutely necessary that I be here?” Robert asked after tripping on an upturned root and getting his knees terribly muddy. “I mean, I just got these pants at the Shrine and they’re really nice and look…”

  “You could turn back if you want,” said Esmeralda.

  Robert seemed offended. “I’m just saying this is really not my style.”

  “Got ya,” Esmeralda said. “What is your style, exactly?”

  They traveled on, cutting through the brush as the night grew increasingly dark. A full moon was rising, but its light was swallowed in the tangled canopy above them. They came to a clearing about a half hour into the trip, and everyone, weary from the difficulty of the journey, stopped to take a breath.

  “The terrible thing is,” Ngare said, “we haven’t gone but thirty or forty yards. This forest is so thick.”

  “That’s thirty yards in only one direction,” Raahi noted. “We may have to crisscross this island numerous times before we find the Turtle. Grandfather gave us no other instructions than to look around and wait for the flute to sing.”

  Robert sat on the ground, careless of his once-clean pants. He felt a strange depression in the earth and turned over, running his fingers over a long, narrow trench in the hard clay beneath him. He got an idea and crawled over a few feet to the left.

  “What are you doing?” Esmeralda asked.

  “It’s a road!” Robert called out.

  “What?” Esmeralda said.

  Raahi came over to see about the commotion.

  “It’s a road, this clearing.” Robert grabbed Esmeralda’s hand and ran it across the ground. “You feel that? It’s from a carriage wheel.”

  Raahi stooped down to feel the tracks. “Ngare, what do you say we build a fire right here?”

  “On it.”

  The work building the fire was initially difficult. The Elite Guard had with them a kind of kit, one they brought to all of their expeditions, that contained special kinds of matches and other substances that expedited the process, but the only kindling and fuel available was what came from the surrounding forest. This was all of a similar waxy constitution and was affected by the balmy ocean air and rainy climate.

  Finally, after the fire was lit, they were able to see around the clearing, which was in no way natural but like a hallway cut into the surrounding foliage. In the fire’s glow, the tracks became black lines following the road into the darkness.

  “Well,” Ngare said, “it is a road.”

  “Of course it is,” Robert said.

  “Why is it that the pirates stopped using the island?” Esmeralda asked.

  “No one really knows for sure,” Raahi replied.

  “You people really need to keep better records,” Robert said to himself.

  Raahi smiled, his eyes bright in the light of the fire. “Well, the sea traders, as I prefer to call them, were always a part of the tradition of the people of Song. Not a part of the society exactly—they had their own customs and their own law—but a powerful part of our resistance to Alavariss and everything that it represents. Now, the story goes that this island was one of their prized hiding places, perhaps because it is so small. It has a reputation of getting lost in the mists of the sea.”

  “So what happened to the pirates…I mean, sea traders?”

  Raahi spread his fingers wide, shrugged his shoulders. “Well, there were many different groups of sea traders; some still operate today. Legend has it that the ship Titania One was ported here when the island was lost to the mist, and when it came back, the sea traders stayed in the mist. Ever since, the island has been considered cursed.”

  “You mean this is a cursed island haunted by ghost pirates?” Robert asked in disbelief.

  “No.” Raahi chuckled. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with the island. Something about it reminds me of the Tower Shrine. And I certainly don’t believe in…”

  “Ghost pirates,” Robert cut him off.

  “Robert,” Esmeralda broke in, “geez, don’t get all scared on us.”

  She wasn’t getting through to him.

  “Who here thinks that running around on islands occupied by ghost pirates is a good idea? If you do, raise your hand. Hmm? Any takers?” Robert looked at Esmeralda.

  “Robert, there are no ghost pirates. Got it?”

  Robert sighed. “Okay, I’m just saying.”

  Ngare and the soldiers broke out some rations, and they all ate. The decision to sit in one spot pleased Robert, as he liked the idea of staying near a fire, but the idea of idly waiting for the ghost pirates filled him with dread.

  “So,” Ngare said as they finished up, “the question is, do we follow the road or not?”

  “I am not sure what would be the most effective,” Raahi said. “In fact, there is no way to know. It will be easier going anyway.”

  “What do you think, Esmeralda?” Ngare said.

  “Well…” She thought for a moment. “We might as well try the road.”

  And so they did, traveling through the forest on the well-worn path, a thing crafted in some distant period of the world for purposes that none in the group could know. The soldiers were silent and grim, all tensely checking the perimeter for dangers. After some time, they saw in the distance to the side of the road a little ramshackle building with empty windows and rotting walls. Ngare called for them all to hold still and sent two Elite Guard in to investigate.

  “Could there be anyone in there?” Esmeralda asked.

  “Probably not,” Raahi said. “But there is really no precaution that we will not take with you and Robert here. Your safety is paramount.”

  The two Guards came out and gave the all-clear signal.

  Within the little building sat an old iron stove, a table and desk, and, stretching across the far wall, a hammock, the ropes of which had been chewed through in many places by some unknown animal.

  “It looks like someone once lived here,” Raahi said.

  “Ghost pirates,” Robert whispered.

  Esmeralda elbowed him.

  “Probably was a sort of community home. A place where a traveler could take some rest, or hide from the…”

  “Raahi!” Ngare’s voice called from outside the shack. “Come on out. We’ve got a problem.”

  Raahi, Robert and Esmeralda ran quickly out only to find all of the soldiers bunched together in formation, blades and bows at the ready, eyes all focused down the path. Esmeralda followed their gaze and saw in the darkness two round, yellow lights floating low above the ground: an animal’s eyes.

  She caught her breath, steadied herself and spoke. “What is it?”

  The eyes inched slowly forward until they were near enough that the thing’s general shape could be discerned. It was a huge, brown bullfrog, about the size of a German shepherd but much fatter. It looked upon them with bulging eyes that gleamed the moon and stars, opened its big mouth, its great red tongue shaking, and let out a tremendous “ribbit.”

  “It’s a frog,” Robert said.

  Esmeralda stared, shocked. “Raahi, do frogs normally grow that large in Song?”

  “No.” Raahi scratched his forehead. “No, they don’t.”

  “Should we put it down?” Ngare asked, unsure.

  “You can’t hurt it!” Esmeralda was desperate. “It isn’t even dangerous.”

  “Yeah…” Robert said, “…let’s not go and say that giant frogs aren’t dangerous. For all we know giant frogs are all like man-eating sharks. For all we know they’re like rabid wolverines.”

  “Shut up, Robert,” Esmeralda said. “We can’t hurt it.”

  Raahi smiled. “She’s right of course. Unless it proves
in some way hostile, we can’t harm it.”

  They all stood around for a while, not knowing what to do. The frog seemed very happy to just sit there, periodically letting out a contented croak to rebound off the trees and into the night. After about three minutes of pointless staring, they simply turned as a group and continued down the road. The frog, as if mildly interested in these newcomers to the island, hopped along after them, not really aggressive, just sort of bopping around on his wide, sticky feet.

  “Listen, Esmeralda,” Robert said, “of all the things I would not want to be eaten by, the first is ghost pirates, the second is a giant frog.”

  “He’s not going to eat you,” Esmeralda reassured him. “Frogs eat flies.”

  “How many flies would he have to eat to fill that stomach?” Robert asked. “There aren’t enough flies in the world.”

  As Esmeralda and Robert talked, they began to lag behind the lead group of adults and come closer to the soldiers in the rear. As Esmeralda found herself further behind, she felt her pocket throbbing. She reached down and removed the flute; thin lines of light were growing within the crystal, and barely audible sound was drifting like smoke into the air.

  “The flute,” she said to herself. “Ko is singing.”

  Everyone stopped and stared. The lines of light danced across the flute’s surface, cutting through the surrounding dark and bringing the shocked eyes of the adventurers to liquid life. As they stared, the song of the flute grew louder, becoming not a single voice but many, all singing in harmony and signaling the approach of the new Turtle.

  “Where is it?” Robert asked. “Where’s the egg?”

  “That’s assuming it hasn’t hatched yet,” Raahi said. “It might be already out of its shell and moving around the area.”

  Ngare and the other guards began cutting into the surrounding forest, searching the ground. A few ran ahead, searching the road for the egg or signs of a nest, above or below ground. Esmeralda watched all of the activity, afraid that if she moved the music might stop. Behind them, the frog stared with unknowing eyes.

  “Anything?” Ngare called out.

  Everyone answered in the negative.

  Raahi stood next to Esmeralda, staring at the frog. “You know, there is something about this place that reminds me of the tower Shrine.”

  “Yeah?” Esmeralda said.

  “Yeah.” Raahi walked up to the frog; it sat still. He placed his flute to his lips and played a few notes. There was no visual effect, but as he finished his eyes held a knowing depth. “Esmeralda, come here.”

  Esmeralda walked toward Raahi and the patiently waiting frog, and as she did so the flute began to crescendo and blast with even more voices engaged in more elaborate harmonies. The light dancing across the crystal shone with ever-greater power until Raahi, the frog and the forest began to be scrubbed out, and the world walked into a field lucent and sublime.

  “What is it?” Esmeralda asked.

  Raahi looked down at the frog. “Turtle,” he said.

  There was no response. Raahi smiled.

  “Egg,” he said.

  The frog blinked its huge, quiet eyes and shook all over its round body. Its mouth opened and a trickle of pale, blue light fell out, merging with the now-aggressive shine of Ko. The frog shook ever more quickly until, all throughout its form, fine cracks began to appear, growing like tiny snakes, and all at once the façade came down in a thousand pieces that blew away into the air like ash. What remained was a large egg, about three feet tall, glowing bright blue.

  “The egg!” Esmeralda shouted.

  Robert came forward to look, eyes wide.

  “Yes,” Raahi said. “This island is a strange place. A fluid reality like the Shrine. The Mother Turtle must have hidden her child here in the guise of the frog.”

  Ngare and the other elite Guard gave up their search and crowded around, their faces all luminous with the power of the two beacons. Ko and the egg sent their other-worldly light around the onlookers, through the leaves of the surrounding trees and into the sky beyond.

  “What should we do?” Robert asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Raahi said. “I don’t know if it can or should be moved. I suppose we could try.”

  “No,” Esmeralda said, a strange certainty growing within. “Just wait.”

  They stood in the light watching, all with the sense that Esmeralda’s imperative was one to follow. The flute sang ever wider and more complex music until, just as everything came to a powerful climax that sent the pulses of all attending to new speed, a long hairline crack split the egg from top to bottom. This was joined by similar fractures out of which spilled a pure, white light, which, unfiltered by the shell of the egg, completely overcame the light of the flute and caused all of the onlookers to shield their eyes. A multitude of splintering sounds went into the air, then a high-pitched squeal like an excited animal. And both lights, the flute and the egg, calmed and slowly went out.

  Esmeralda opened her eyes. Before her, standing on four squarish legs and blinking perfectly round eyes too big for its face, was a Turtle. White from its feet to the tip of its shell, it stood shakily, like a baby foal. It opened its beak and squeaked, padded slowly over to Esmeralda and began rubbing its head on her calf, almost like an affectionate cat.

  Hello, Esmeralda heard a voice say.

  She looked around. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?” Raahi said.

  Down here.

  Esmeralda looked down; the Ivory Turtle was snuffling around her shoes.

  “Are you talking to me?” Esmeralda said.

  No. I don’t know how to talk.

  Esmeralda looked at the others surrounding her. No one seemed to notice or hear what was going on. And when she thought about it, it wasn’t as if someone was speaking to her; she wasn’t hearing anything; it was more like thinking someone else’s thoughts.

  I think I am feeling to you.

  “I think you’re right,” Esmeralda said.

  “Who are you talking to?” Robert asked.

  Esmeralda looked around at everyone as if they had just popped up from nowhere. “I can hear him.”

  “The Turtle?” Raahi looked in her eyes.

  I think I like you.

  Esmeralda looked down at the little creature now lying at her feet, contentedly staring up. “Oh, well, I think I like you too.” She looked at Raahi. “I mean, yes, the Turtle. It’s like he’s talking in my head.”

  “Will he follow us?” Raahi asked.

  Esmeralda looked at the Turtle. “Will you follow?”

  Yes.

  Having decided, they left on the dark road back to the ship. Esmeralda and the Turtle walked side by side with Robert staring at them both, wearing a look of creeping disbelief. The Ivory Turtle kept very good pace with the group, excepting that every once in a while he would stop and investigate some plant on the side of the path or smell one of the larger trees. He seemed, in keeping with the Turtle’s age, to be intensely curious with everything in his surroundings.

  Where are we?

  “I don’t know,” Esmeralda said, walking behind Ngare. “This is an island called Wane. We came here in a boat. We’re going to take that boat back to Song, and then we’re going to visit your grandfather.”

  Can you show me Song?

  “Well, it is a big place but you’ll see it soon enough.”

  Just bring it out. Just feel it. I will see it if you feel it at me.

  Esmeralda tried to picture the Free City rising with the sun. She imagined the streets and the happy people within, the colors, the many flags and towers. She looked over the open parks and the trees heavy with fruit. She remembered what it was to ride up to the Tower, jutting to the sky, and what it was to move through that gate and feel the air get nutritious and sacred once within.

  She looked down at the Turtle, momentarily stopped in apparent concentration. “Did you see it?”

  I want to go there with you.

 
“Good,” Esmeralda said.

  They traveled up the old road and to the opening in the undergrowth that they effected earlier with their blades. Once in the thick of the forest, Esmeralda began to notice something that may have been going on for some time: all of the foliage surrounding them was moving. The vines and ferns, even the individual leaves on the trees, were stretching out as they walked by, as if trying to, just for a moment, come in contact with these visitors to the jungle.

  “Raahi…” Esmeralda began.

  “I know. I think it is the Turtle. This is a very strange place. It’s reacting…”

  Raahi was cut off by a vision descending upon them of many swirling lights coming down, as if one entity, to dance around the newborn Turtle.

  They’re pretty.

  “Yes, they are,” Esmeralda said, smiling. One of the lights landed on her shoulder. Its long wings dazzled with intricate brilliance. A firefly, but unlike any she had seen at home. These were large, almost twice the size of a bumble bee and glowing all sorts of different colors, some blue, some orange or red, some bright, sparkling white.

  They made their way through the forest and onto the beach. The fireflies surrounded them in a wide, circular formation and headed out toward the rowboats. The travelers made their way to the boats and out to sea, floating through a thousand reflections of light to the vessel sleeping in deeper waters.

  12. The Songs of Ko

  Robert stared at the Turtle, who was slowly shuffling around the deck of the ship. “What kind is it?”

  “What do you mean?” Esmeralda asked.

  “What kind of Turtle.”

  “I don’t know,” Esmeralda said. “Raahi called them Great Turtles.”

  “The Grandfather Turtle was more like a sea turtle. You know? With like fins and stuff. This one looks more like a box turtle or a painted turtle.”

  As Esmeralda looked closely in the light of the ship’s decklamps, she could see fine lines of very light blue decorating the Turtle’s otherwise perfectly white skin and shell. His eyes were bright green and looked here and there throughout the environment with obvious intelligence and illimitable curiosity.

  The Turtle came over to rest at Esmeralda’s feet.

  What is this?

  “What is what?” Esmeralda asked in return.

  This floating thing. The thing we are on.

  “It’s a boat,” Esmeralda said.

  What is a boat?

  Esmeralda smiled. “Uh, a floating thing.”

  The Turtle smiled back.

  Where did you get the flute?

  “You mean Ko? I got it from a place called Alavariss. I used it to find your grandfather and then to find you.”

  “It creeps me out when you talk to it,” Robert butted in.

  “Shut up, Robert,” Esmeralda said and turned back to the Turtle. “Why do you want to know?”

  I like the flute. It’s like I remember it. I know it. Could you ask it to play me a song?

  Raahi came up from below deck to see how the kids and the Turtle were doing. The other soldiers were strangely uncomfortable around the Ivory Turtle and were nearly all congregated below deck. Perhaps for them the creature was something out of old stories, and, consequently, seeing it was like facing a dream in the midst of their waking hours.

  “How is it going, children?” Raahi saluted.

  “Good,” Esmeralda said. “The Turtle wants me to play a song.”

  “Well,” Raahi said with a smile, “you had better do as he asks. He is a guest here with us.”

  “But,” Esmeralda said, thinking, “he wants to hear Ko.” She held the flute out to Raahi. “Maybe you could play him a song?”

  “Oh, no.” Raahi shook his head. “I don’t have a perfect knowledge of Ko—there is limited information available to us—but I am certain that Ko will play for no one but you.”

  Esmeralda was dismayed. “Really?”

  “Oh, certainly. I can try if you like.” Raahi took the flute and pushed air into it, trying different positions and varying the amount of pressure. Finally he blew one great blast that left him red in the face. Nothing worked. He handed the crystal flute back to her.

  “But I don’t know how to play anything,” Esmeralda said. “It’s not right that the only person that can possibly play the flute should know nothing about playing it.”

  Don’t be upset. The Turtle closed his eyes and rubbed his head across Esmeralda’s calf.

  Esmeralda knelt down to pet his smooth scalp. His skin was surprisingly warm for what she thought was a cold-blooded creature. “It’s okay,” Esmeralda said.

  “I know only one way to play if you don’t know how,” Raahi intoned slowly, “that is to learn.”

  “Ugh,” Esmeralda nearly spat. “Learn what? How to play? The first time I tried to play Ko, I made one note and passed out. I think learning a whole song would make my head explode.”

  Oh. You don’t know how to make it play a song?

  “No, I don’t,” Esmeralda answered the Turtle, “I’m sorry.”

  It’s okay. But I think if you want to make it play a song, you can. I think I know how. I think I can show you.

  “What do you mean? What do I have to do?”

  Sit down.

  Esmeralda did.

  Now cup your hands below my head.

  She did and the Turtle squeezed his eyes together until a shimmering drop of water came from each. Two Turtle Tears made their way down the smooth sides of the Turtle’s face and landed sweetly into the palm of Esmeralda’s hand.

  Drink.

  It felt at first like a carbonated beverage, like soda, tingling and spreading, growing in volume as the two tiny drops explored the interior of her mouth. Then she felt her stomach go warm and comfortable, and a profound weight enter every corner of her body. Suddenly sleepy, she blinked her eyes slowly a few times.

  “Esmeralda?” Robert said, worry in his voice.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Just fine.”

  Close your eyes.

  Her eyes shut, but she did not come to darkness. She found herself in a very bright room, seated in a chair with a little desk attached. In front of her was an oversized blackboard. To her left, a large, open window looked out onto sunrise over clear sea. On her right, a door opened, and through it walked a man dressed in a white suit; he had a thick, black beard and dark, piercing eyes. It was Mr. Eldredge, her history teacher.

  “Oh, God,” Esmeralda said.

  “It’s me,” Mr. Eldredge said.

  “What are you doing here?” Esmeralda asked. “Where is the Turtle? Where…?”

  “No,” Mr. Eldrege cut in, “I am the Turtle. I needed a pair of hands. I just found a person in your head that was a teacher.”

  “In my head?” Esmeralda didn’t understand.

  “Well, yes. That is where we are, of course. There isn’t enough stuff yet in my head for us to hang around there. I just hatched an hour ago.”

  “Can you be someone else?” Esmeralda asked.

  “Why? Do you have a problem with this form?”

  “I really think I do,” Esmeralda said. “Could you change?”

  “I guess,” Mr. Eldredge said.

  He left the room for a moment. Esmeralda waited patiently, listening to a rustling commotion outside the door, a sound similar to someone quickly changing clothes in the next room. The Turtle returned, this time wearing a long, white dress with a high collar, and the appearance of Esmeralda’s mother.

  Strange feelings gathered in Esmeralda’s heart. Esmeralda remembered the way that her mother looked; she thought about her all of the time. But seeing her this way, standing right there, was very different and somehow disconcerting. Her mother was so beautiful, always the most beautiful woman Esmeralda had ever seen. But, in the haze of her memory, even after only three years, she had become less a real thing and more like a dream, a dream of everything good and comfortable in the world. And there was another feeling, below everything
else, something deeper and darker that she didn’t understand and couldn’t even see clearly.

  “Is this alright?” her mother asked.

  “Yes, I, uh...sure.”

  “Good.” Her mother went to the blackboard. “Now, I don’t really know, exactly, about Ko and how it works. It’s more like I remember something about it that I have never known. Somehow Ko is written on the underside of my skin. So, I am going to try to take that feeling and what I can see from inside your head and figure out what it is that Ko is all about.”

  Her mother drew a representation of Ko on the blackboard. “Now if you can take your practice flute please?”

  Esmeralda looked at her desk, and a little, wooden flute sat there, not Ko, but a kind of mock-up of Ko, having the same number of buttons and the same location for the air hole.

  “Where is Ko?” Esmeralda asked.

  “On the boat,” her mother said. “I tried to feel Ko into this room but couldn’t do it. I don’t really know why. I think maybe Ko is sort of one thing. It can’t be out there and here in your head at the same time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Now, Ko has eight buttons, arranged in two sets of four. And this is hard because I’m trying to make these things that I am feeling into words that are already in your head. But, the first four buttons are all Creation. The second four buttons are all Destruction.”

  “What does that mean?” Esmeralda asked.

  “I’m not sure,” her mother answered. “Or, at least, I’m not really sure how to feel it to you. It just is that way, Creation and Destruction.”

  Her mother continued: “When you press all of the buttons you get a certain kind of, like, Everything, or All, or Love maybe; it’s hard to say. But when you press none of the buttons you get the exact opposite of that thing. It’s like nothing or, uh—there aren’t the right words available—the opposite of All.”

  “Okay,” Esmeralda said.

  “The four Creation buttons are Love, Knowledge, Compassion, and the fourth is strange, Art, I guess, but that isn’t quite right. The four Destruction buttons are Greed, Hate, Fear, and Dominance.”

  Esmeralda placed her fingers over each button as they were named. She felt, somehow, that these names made sense when thinking about the flute Ko. “So, is each button like a note?”

  “No.” her mother scratched her head beneath her wonderful, shining hair. “At least I don’t think so. The notes are made by pressing different combinations of buttons, and songs are made by putting together different combinations of notes. But with Ko, each song should begin by pressing all of the buttons and playing that note, the All. Each song should end by playing through none of the buttons, the Nothing, or not really, the opposite of All. You can also reverse the order, beginning with the opposite of All and ending with the All.”

  Esmeralda looked at her practice flute for a moment, the four buttons for Creation and the four for Destruction. “Why do the Creation and Destruction live right next to each other?”

  “What do you mean?” her mother said.

  “You died.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, my mom died. Right? You were destroyed.”

  “Esmeralda, I’m not…”

  “Can’t there be a Ko without the second set of buttons? And if there isn’t one, why isn’t there?”

  Her mother looked distracted for a small moment. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said after the pause. “I didn’t look into your head for everything about your mother. I didn’t know that she… I’m sorry; I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset,” Esmeralda said. “I just don’t see why it should be this way. You can see into my head, right? Why should my mother have died and my father have lived? Creation and Destruction. Why can’t they both be alive? Raahi said you are like the center of all the Worlds, you Turtles. Is there a World where my mother and father still live together?”

  “I don’t know,” her mother said. “I have felt the Worlds. Even before I was hatched, my first memories are of the feeling of the Web of Time. But I don’t know the Worlds or what they contain. I’m very sorry about your mother.”

  Esmeralda put the flute down and looked into the eyes that from the beginning of her memory had been a part of her thought. “What is going to happen to you? More than half the world, Alavariss and the Phoon, want to kill or capture you. What happens if they find you? You know? What about when Creation gets to Destruction for you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Esmeralda felt herself crying. “It’s just that I love you so much.” She spoke perhaps to the Turtle, perhaps to the memory of her mother. “I don’t want you to go away.”

  “Esmeralda.” Her mother’s voice seemed now truly authentic, not like someone speaking through her mother’s body, but just as Esmeralda remembered it. “I love you. I am not really gone from you. Not really. Everything that you got from me, all of that love, is still right there, and it will be there wherever you go. It is something that cannot be destroyed.”

  Her mother came over to her desk and took Esmeralda into her arms, and Esmeralda felt warm again and safe, the way she felt years ago. They both wept, and the tears that fell on Esmeralda’s head were like warm light sending her not from sadness to sadness but from peace to peace to peace.