by Sarah Dreher
Jump, he ordered.
Startled by the unexpected command, she jumped. Her feet hit the hard-packed ground with a jolt.
Higher.
She jumped a little higher.
Old Man waved his arm. See that bird up there?
It was one of his crows, of course. It circled about fifty feet above their heads.
Get me that crow.
Stoner said, “Huh?”
Jump up there and get me that crow.
He waited.
Stoner stood there like the idiot she felt like.
Put your thought on the crow, then follow your thought. Don’t forget to come back down.
She looked up at the crow and willed herself to it.
The crow was in her hands. It hopped onto her shoulder. It must have decided to come to her.
She could feel Old Man laughing.
Something made her look down. She was floating, five stories above the ground. Old Man was no bigger than a cat.
Hey, she thought, call me Peter Pan, I’m flying. It felt good, not frightening or dizzying. She would have expected a touch of vertigo—back home she could get dizzy pruning a tree. But she only felt clear-headed and confident.
Let’s try a barrel roll. She concentrated.
There was sky above her, then earth above her. The mountains, hugging the horizon, appeared as she turned.
Mountaintops. Snowcaps.
Treading air, she contemplated them. For some reason, she wanted to go closer.
She turned a few mid-air somersaults and called down to Old Man, “Okay if I check out the mountains?”
With a laugh, he waved her forward.
She willed herself to go, and she was there.
Bare sharp rock, deep crevasses filled with captured snow. Wind and cold. Bitter cold. She felt it, but it didn’t wound her. It was like a sensation from a distance. And she felt the timelessness of the place, a place that never changed, where the wind and snow blew forever.
This is what it’s like to be a rock up here, she thought. Patiently waiting, waiting for something to happen billions of years from now.
It felt so calm, so peaceful to wait like this. She was lulled by it, let herself sink into it.
Old Man’s thoughts reached her. You can come back to this place another time, he said. But now you have a job to do.
Oh, God, Aunt Hermione! Guilt flooded through her. She raced back to her Guide.
“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly.
That’s okay. He seemed amused by her, as if she were a child seeing the world for the first time.
“But Aunt Hermione. She’s dying.”
She’s okay for now. We have her.
“What do you mean?”
We slowed time for her. Since you got here, maybe—he looked at the sky— maybe one minute has passed. We can slow it, but we can’t stop it. Ready to go now?
“Ready.”
He stepped out ahead of her. She hesitated, then threw her thoughts forward toward him.
She came even with him. Hah! She tossed her attention to a large rock about twenty-five feet away.
Laughing, she turned back to see him walking toward her. “Beat you,” she called.
Old Man caught up with her instantly. Okay, let’s have a race. To that town over there.
“Good,” she said, full of herself. “I’ll give you a quarter-mile lead.”
Fair enough, considering my age. She knew he was mocking her, but she didn’t care. Last one there’s a rotten egg.
Naturally, they landed at the same moment. The crow was still on her shoulder. Can I go now, boss? it asked Old Man.
Old Man nodded and the crow flew off. They don’t like cities, he explained. Too many people want to eat them.
“I understand that,” Stoner said. “I’ve had to eat a little crow myself in my time.”
He laughed. ‘Eat a little crow.’ I forgot about that one. Have to tell my friends about it.
“You speak our language so well,” Stoner said. “And yet you seem to be… well, not of our time. When did you live, and where?”
Everywhere, every time, he replied. He gestured toward the town. Enough questions.
It was an ancient-looking place. A high adobe wall with raised platform towers at the corners. The platforms were deserted. A huge wooden door was set in the wall.
“Should we knock?” Stoner asked.
They know we’re here.
Then they were standing inside the walls, in the courtyard of a palace. The palace was built of heavy rock, with a domed roof, ornate in its simplicity. A pathway of mosaics led to the palace door, the tiles forming pictures of palm trees and oases and leopards and deer-like animals. A man driving a chariot fought with a lion in one scene. In another, men on horseback charged futilely at the walls while others atop the platforms hurled spears down on them.
Market stalls, little more than lean-tos with roofs of cloth, lay scattered about. It seemed deserted.
“Where are the people?” Stoner asked.
The sun’s very hot now, Old Man explained. Noon your time. They’ll be back when the air cools.
Now that he mentioned it, she was aware of the heat, sharp and blistering. As hot as it had been cold in the mountains, and with the same distant feeling.
“You said they know we’re here. Can they see us?”
Some can. Some can’t. It depends on their degree of evolution. Those who can see us know why we’re here. We won’t disturb them and they won’t disturb us.
“It looks sort of familiar. Like a picture from my college Ancient History class. Like Babylon, maybe, only different.”
This isn’t Babylon. Babylon’s a much, much bigger city. This is a minor principality. Not exactly small potatoes, but not big time. Your pictures are based on what someone thought about the ruins they found. Suggestive but not accurate. This is the real thing.
“Real.”
He smiled at her indulgently and shrugged. That time business again. So hard for white people to understand. There is no time. Everything is happening all at once and all the time. He looked at her, and could tell she didn’t get it. He smiled again. Go ahead and explore.
The palace stood in the center of the walled compound. Around the edges were small adobe homes, some standing alone, some in clusters. A few had gardens, tiny but lush. What looked like a community field lay between the houses and the palace. It took up several acres, and was filled with blossoming and blooming and fruiting plants. She didn’t recognize most of them.
About an acre was devoted to wheat. Another to fruit trees. She could smell the tart odor of lemons, the sweetness of orange blossoms. Avocados hung from branches like orioles’ nests. Toward the periphery, date palms squatted on sandy ground. Bees hummed, the sound of a jet engine coming to life.
“Guess we’d better not disturb those bees,” she said.
Speak to them respectfully. Tell them you don’t mean them any harm, and ask them to let you pass. But talk with your thoughts. Speech only confuses them and makes them protective.
She tried it, and the mass of bees parted to give her a path through the orchard.
It was cool among the trees, among their dark, glossy leaves. The odor of citrus blossoms made her dizzy. She listed a little to one side.
Old Man caught her arm. Take it easy.
“It’s the smell. It’s wonderful. But overpowering.”
He was apologetic. I forgot. You haven’t learned how to deal with this intensity.
“But I didn’t feel the cold, not really. Or this heat.”
You can feel what you want to feel, and smell and taste, all the senses. Pretty good plan, huh?
“But how? I mean, that’s not possible, is it?”
So many questions. So impatient. Slow down. You’re still an apprentice.
An apprentice? She wasn’t aware of signing on for any apprenticing. She was just looking for Aunt Hermione’s soul.
My mistake. He sounded amused.
“I think,” she said, “we should get the show on the road.”
They arrived at the foot of the stairs leading to the front door of the palace.
“Now what?”
Go in. Ask to speak to the Princess. Tell her your problem and let her take it from there.
“Aren’t you coming...?” She turned to look but he had gone.
“That figures,” she muttered, and began to climb the steps.
Inside, the palace was dark and cool and smelled of sandy earth. The walls were covered with a plaster of adobe dust. The anteroom floor was tiled in more mosaics: the moon, stars and constellations against a cobalt blue background.
She was looking for the Big Dipper when a young man approached.
May I help you? he asked with a barely perceptible bow.
“I’d like to see the Princess,” she said, “if it’s not too much trouble.”
Indicating that she should follow, he led the way into a brightly lighted room. Long, un-glassed windows looked out on the town. There was no furniture, but benches of stone against the walls. At the front of the room there was a sunken floor, setting that part of the room off from the rest.
Some kind of auditorium, she thought. A place where the Princess holds audience with her subjects? A stone bench with arms sat slightly raised, under a huge mosaic of a flying crow.
Crows. Everywhere I go, crows.
What do you wish from me?
A pleasant, soft female voice entered her mind. She turned to see a woman— a beautiful woman with dark hair and skin. Her eyes were the color of night, with flecks of gold. Stoner didn’t want to stare, but she was certain those golden flecks formed the outline of the constellation Cassiopeia.
“You must be the Princess,” she said.
Yes, I am. And you must be one of my subjects, though your hair and skin are an unusual color, and your clothes... The Princess smiled. Are you a traveler? Your clothes have such a foreign look.
Right. This Princess of Ancient Something-or-Other had probably never seen denim. “I guess I am,” she said.
The Princess lowered herself to a step around the sunken floor and patted the space beside her. Stoner sat.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Stoner said, “where are we?”
The other woman frowned perplexedly. You don’t know? This is Shirpurla. She indicated the mosaic crow. Named for our Goddess Shirpur, the Raven.
Stoner said, “Oh.”
Tell me your story.
She did.
The Princess of Shirpurla listened carefully. At the end she nodded, then clapped her hands three times. A young woman appeared.
Our guest, here, The Princess said, has need of your talents and the talents of your friends. Do you understand?
The other woman nodded solemnly and left the room.
That is my personal maid. She has certain… skills that will be of help to you. But I have to ask that you not tell anyone about this. If word got back to the King, he’d have them killed.
“Absolutely,” Stoner said. “You have my solemn word.”
The Princess rolled her eyes. You know how men are. They hate a woman with powers.
Boy, Stoner thought, some things never change.
How true. The Princess laughed. Women’s oppression is a universal language. Of course, according to my dear husband… she mimicked a long face…it’s women’s complaints that are universal.
Stoner blushed. She’d forgotten they could read her thoughts.
The Princess rose to leave. You’ll grow accustomed to it. It’s very efficient, you know. Not only quick, but when you can’t find the right word, you can send a picture, or a feeling, anything you like. Be sure to try our dates before you go. They’re famous throughout the civilized world.
As she exited the room, she was nearly trampled by five young woman, barely in their teens, who poured through the doorway jostling and giggling. Seeing the Princess, they fell to their knees.
The Princess gave them a glowering look, which wasn’t quite sincere and said, Behave yourselves.
The girls—they really were more girls than women—arranged themselves in a circle on the sunken floor. One by one they made eye contact with Stoner, nodded subtly, and dropped their eyes. One of them pulled a soft leather bag from beneath her robes and emptied its contents onto the floor.
Stoner leaned closer. Bones. Tiny bones, as tiny as the bones of a wren.
One by one, each girl picked up the pile of bones, shook it between her hands, and tossed it out in the center of the circle. Each time, money and giggles changed hands. It was a game, apparently a game of chance.
She tried to make out the patterns of wins and losses. It made no sense.
They started around the circle again. The first girl tossed the bones, then the second, the third...
They drew back, gasping. Not with fear, it seemed, but with delight.
“What?” Stoner asked.
The bones just told us who you are. It was the Princess’ servant girl who spoke. And what you need us to do. I’m to take you to the edge of the Great Sea, where the river waters run together.
“I see. And did they tell you what I was supposed to do then?”
The girl shook her head. They say you know.
Sure, I do.
The girl stood up. We have to go. We haven’t much time.
The others scurried to conceal the bones.
So, these weren’t any ordinary servant girls playing a game. These were young witches, and their hummingbird bones told them what needed to be done. Aunt Hermione was going to love this.
Stoner followed the servant through a hidden back door. The girl led her among the palms, examining the plums, sweet dates, choosing the best for Stoner. Are you ready to go?
“Ready.” The sugary taste still alive on her tongue, she threw herself on the wind.
She came to earth where the rivers dumped their brown silt into the sea. The servant girl was gone. There was no one there. She called, but there was no answer. Nothing around her for miles but sand and rock. The sun beat down white-hot. The sky was pale and empty. Nothing lived here.
Stoner was alone. The aloneness was so strong it was nearly tangible. And she had no idea where she was or what to do now.
“Aunt Hermione,” she called, aloud and in her mind.
Not even the air moved.
Despair reached up from the dead, packed, lye-encrusted sand and grabbed her by the ankles. She sank to the ground.
This whole thing was a disaster. She couldn’t find her aunt’s soul piece. She didn’t even believe in soul pieces. Souls weren’t like jigsaw puzzles, put everything in its proper place and—behold!—a living, breathing soul. It was all ridiculous, and even if it wasn’t, she was.
Stupid, she berated herself. Stupid and awkward and inadequate and unbelieving and unimaginative and ugly. A freak. Lesbian freak. Freak-freak. Aunt Hermione was going to die, and all because she’d entrusted her soul to her dear niece.
“Dear niece,” she said aloud, sarcastically. The words and the tone echoed off of nothing.
Appropriate. Nothing echoing off of nothing.
“Hey, there, whatever world you are,” she shouted. “This is Nothing talking to Nothing. How’s tricks?”
And now, to make matters worse, she seemed to have sat down on a boulder. Well, maybe just a rock. It bit into her, all the way through her skin to her nerves and up her spinal column. It hurt, damn it.
She pulled it out from beneath her and stood up, furious, to throw it into the sea.
The rock seemed to move a little in her hand.
Startled, she dropped it.
That was truly disgusting, she thought, and shook her hand rapidly as if she could shake off the experience.
Curious, she bent down to look at it.
It was just an ordinary, sedimentary, striated sandstone rock. The kind of rock you’d expect to find in a place like this, where life was just one ocean after another, rolling
in and dumping all kinds of debris and rolling out again, leaving behind dry, hot, uninhabitable land.
She poked it with one finger, half expecting it to scurry away from her.
It didn’t budge.
This whole situation gets weirder by the minute, she thought.
Then she remembered what Siyamtiwa had said, about even the rocks having messages. Maybe that was why it had—
No. That kind of thinking was nuts.
Given that you’re on some kind of Shamanic type Journey to an imaginary place called the Upper World, where people read your mind... Given that you’ve been asking advice from an old Hopi woman who’s been dead for at least for three years, one way or another... Given that you’ve been letting yourself be led around by a donkey... Do you really think you’re in a position to make judgments about weird?
She held her breath and gingerly picked up the rock, ready to toss it at the first sign of independent life.
The rock lay on her hand utterly motionless, just the way good rocks were supposed to behave.
Fine. She studied it more closely. It was kind of pretty, really, with its shades of sandstone red and sepia. An interesting texture, gritty and solid. And warm, the way rocks grow warm in the sun.
Well, she thought to the rock, if Siyamtiwa’s right and you do have a message for me, now’s the time to come out with it.
The rock was motionless.
Guess it’s not me you have the message for, huh?
Rock didn’t reply. But maybe it was conserving its energy, given that it took a couple of millennia to recharge.
Listen, it’s been swell chatting with you, but I really do have to get going. She hesitated. Trouble is, she thought, I don’t know which direction to go.
She felt… not movement, exactly, but a gentle tug. Pulling her hand to the left.
Aha.
She looked. There was something in the distance. She couldn’t quite make it out. Not much more than a mild swelling in the desert. But it was something to aim for. She took a breath and hurled herself into the air.
This out-of-body flying was really quite interesting. Too bad it didn’t work that way in Ordinary Reality. But there’d be the usual drunks on the highway, and old men in golf caps who couldn’t see any more but still had their licenses God only knew how. And lost tourists. People carrying young children who bounced and screamed and pounded on each other. Road rage. All the usual traffic hazards.