by T J Marquis
“Jon!” came the strident call, “Wake up! Are you always this lazy?”
He tried to blink his eyes open, but sleep-crust had locked them shut. Certainly, he hadn’t expected to sleep so deeply. Whose voice was that?
“Come on, come on. I pinched you some breakfast.”
A girl. Had he gone home with Ashlynne last night? Then it came to him - the shooting, the bear, the Light, the island.
“Bahabe?” he asked groggily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Smart man! Come on, long day ahead.” She pulled him out of Marnha’s bed, small grip surprisingly strong.
“Alright, alright,” he chuckled at her vivaciousness. “But I have to see the Elder first.”
Bahabe pouted at this but did not argue. She knew why he wanted to see Nak-sak. She served him breakfast in the humble little hut, and showed him where to wash up - a public station outside, fed by a rainwater collector. Jon rubbed the cool water into his eyes, scrubbed his face a bit. He cleaned his teeth as best he could and wet his hair to tame his bed-head. He missed his hairbrush dearly.
His shirt was wrinkled, and the bottoms of his pants had a faint white stain from dried sand and sea salt. This was far below his standard level of hygiene, and already he felt the grimy itch of a missed shower. There was no mirror, but he was sure he looked a mess.
Bahabe went in to check on her dad while Jon showed himself to the Elder’s hut. Upon knocking, he was asked to enter. Nak-sakaresh was already deep in his work, writing something in a thick ledger, but he looked up as Jon entered.
“Ah! Our esteemed guest,” he beamed. “Good morning, Jon.”
Jon said good morning.
“What can I help you with today, son?”
“Well I just wanted to straighten something out with you, so we’re on the level,” Jon began.
The Elder put down his pen and ledger and sat back, “By all means.” His face was amicable, attentive.
“Bahabe said I was shipwrecked - that’s not true.”
The Elder gave a tiny grin, as if to say, I thought not.
“She was concerned, I think, that my true story would be… overwhelming to you. But you’ve all made me so welcome already, I just have to let you know the truth.”
“Oh, the girl has always had her flights of fancy, never been as responsible as her sister Eleana. Rest assured, we’re all used to it,” the Elder said.
“Yeah, I know she means well. As for me, I’m not from anywhere you’d know.”
“Oh I’ve been to the mainland once or twice, on business of course. Don’t look surprised, Jon,” the man grinned. “Anek has come far as a nation, and the changes are sweeping upon us faster than people know. What town is it? Or do you come from further east, Enkann?”
Jon’s ignorance of these places must have been evident.
“Not from the west, surely? It’s all uncharted,” Nak-sakaresh seemed to have an idea. “But if you are…” Whatever thought he had, he set it aside. “Anyhow, where did you anchor your ship? My scouts and guards have seen nothing.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t come in a ship. I’m still figuring things out myself, but the easiest way to say it is, I came from… another world.”
“Another realm,” the Elder said. “People make up stories of such things but…”
“Sort of,” Jon cut in. He told the Elder about standing in the desert next to his car, which in itself proved deeply intriguing the man; he wanted to know all about this concept of ‘driving’. Jon described Mr. Bear as an angel (fair enough, he thought), and tried his best to describe the experience of stepping between the planes of their two worlds. Nak-sakaresh was enthralled.
“It’s like something from our greatest myths!” he said. “And you say nothing of the sort has ever happened to you before? What a peculiar thing. I wonder why the spirit sent you here. Well, it’s all the more interesting for us!” He tensed as if having a thought, produced a small timepiece from a pocket and pulled a face. “Ah Jon, you’ll have to come by and tell me more of your home later. Right now I’ve got some other guests to attend to, if you’ll excuse me.”
The Elder stood and brusquely ushered him out the door. Jon had been expecting a longer conversation but was secretly glad he didn’t have to tell the Elder about the Light just yet. Nak-sakaresh whisked off across the commons, bellowing at some men across the way. Jon walked back over toward Marnha’s office, awake enough now to notice the eyes of many villagers back on him. He’d have to start meeting people soon.
Bahabe was in the little clinic, helping her father get set up for the day. As small as the village was, there were apparently enough people to keep him busy.
“Jon!” Bahabe cried, still excited for the morning. “Ready to head out? I’ve been tasked with showing you around, ‘cause who better? Dad, you okay?” Marnha nodded and thanked his daughter, who promptly bounded out the door. “Come on!”
“Jon,” said the man. “Before you go, I…” he seemed to feel either awkward or pained. “She’s technically of age, but…”
A second later, Jon picked up his point. “Whoa, Doc, um, Marnha…” Jon raised his hands defensively. “Nothing to worry about.”
Marnha didn’t look particularly comforted. “It’s just, she’s special. A mystery, like you. She’s not mine by birth.” That explained the difference in their features, Jon thought. “Eleana is, but she’s different - she was a choice. Bahabe was a complete surprise, and she always felt like a treasure, a gift, to my wife and I.”
“What are you doing in there?” Bahab hollered at them from outside the door. “Come on!”
“Sorry,” Marnha breathed. “I’m not making sense.”
But Jon got it. He put a hand on the other man’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “I appreciate the shelter, the food. But more than those I appreciate the way she’s already adopted me. Makes me think of the little sister I never had. And that’s how I’ll treat her, Doc. I give you my word, she’s safe with me.”
Perhaps it was the sincerity in Jon’s gaze - this seemed to finally put the healer at ease. He released some tension, and nodded, “Thank you.”
“Da-ad, quit talking to him!”
“You’d better go,” Marnha warned. So, after a final look of solidarity, Jon turned and left the man, trying to imagine the stress of raising two beautiful daughters in any world.
Bahabe had them strike out west, describing the topography as they went. It seemed there wasn’t anywhere on the island she hadn’t been. Where there weren’t beaten paths forged by Sembado’s residents, there were deer trails or tracks forged by the girl herself.
“The western shore is mostly rocky,” she said, “and only a few miles out from the village. If we hike out there and head north, you’ll see the land rises into stony cliffs that overlook Im-gashbi, the Crystal Sea.”
“Do they call it that because it’s so clear?” Jon asked.
Bahabe chuckled, “We call it that because it’s full of giant crystal formations, though it’s also pretty clear. People say if you can brave the high seas and storms, some of those old crystals can give you magic powers. I used to laugh at their superstition,” she admitted, “but…” she gestured toward him.
“So did Dad tell you he took me in?” she asked.
“Yeah, he did,” Jon said. “He said you’re special,” he grinned. Bahabe may have blushed as she bounded over a fallen tree. “But he didn’t say who your parents were.”
“That’s ‘cause he doesn’t know. Neither do I.”
“Oh.”
They hiked on a little further in silence. Jon braved the next obvious question.
“How did Marnha and his wife find you?”
“It was actually Eleana. She was only about six years old. She found me floating in a basket down in my cove, the one you and I met in. Dad had her down there to fish. Mom was already sick by then, so she was back at home. They sent some men in canoes out to sea, to look for a wrecked ship, but there was not
hing.”
“No wonder you weren’t all that surprised when I showed up,” said Jon.
“A little surprised,” she looked back with a smile.
The jungle ended abruptly, the treeline ceasing only a few meters from a low, rocky cliff. All at once the sea was audible, that comforting endless swooshing of white noise. Jon strained his vision to find the giant crystal formations Bahabe had mentioned, and thought he caught a glimpse.
“I think I see some crystals out there,” he said to the girl.
“No you don’t,” she squinted at the ocean. “They’re not that close.” She turned her squint on Jon, “Unless you’ve got eagle eyes.”
“Actually I’m supposed to be wearing glasses,” he confessed, “But I’d swear I see something.” He shrugged. They continued north along the cliff’s edge.
“There’s actually an old volcano at the island’s north end, so you’ll notice the land keeps rising as we head that way,” Bahabe continued the day’s lesson.
“Why couldn’t we see it from the village clearing?” Jon asked.
“Because it’s really old. Dead, they say. So eroded you’d have to get above the canopy to see it from more than a few miles away.”
“We going all that way?”
“Yeah! And then there’s something else I want you to see at the northeast shore. We’ll cut back across the island to the village after that.”
The tour wound on, Bahabe making sure to point out all the important flora: poisons, edibles, medicinals. Gradually a thought solidified in Jon’s mind.
“That night I told you about, I left something out.” Jon prayed he wasn’t revealing this prematurely, but her ready acceptance of him was riding his conscience. “I killed a man.”
The girl betrayed no shock, just listened.
“He had attacked my friend, shot him for no reason. Do you know what a gun is?”
She nodded yes.
“A law-keeper shot my friend, killed him, so I shot the man back. That’s why I ran away from my city, why I followed the bear into your world. He said I could do better, be forgiven, that I’d have the chance to do something good here. He made me think that maybe I could make up for everything I did wrong before.”
“So you want me to know what kind of man you were?” He nodded. “Come on, you can tell me more when we stop for lunch.” She moved away, leading him north again. Jon wondered what she was thinking.
They hiked a number of miles in near silence. Bahabe identified only important landmarks and features of the jungle. Jon tried not to worry that he’d already lost the trust of his guide.
Instead, he took the time to reflect, to search out that sensation he’d felt in his fingertips the day before. It had felt like paresthesia in a way, like his nerves were falling asleep, but in the opposite direction, as if they were waking from some dormant state. He concentrated on feeling it again, but couldn’t decide whether he succeeded, or whether it was just his imagination.
They had come a good long way and the jungle canopy dipped lower to their heads. Trees gave way to thick brush, disturbed only by Bahabe’s trail, and then Jon was able to make out a dark rise of misshapen igneous rock. The brush was gradually reduced to hardy grasses and a few patches of yellow flowers, and farther up the rise only moss and lichen. The old, dark rock sloped up gradually to a misty, jagged summit. It was a bright, blue day, and Jon was pleased to see the sky again, after those few hours in the shade of the canopy.
“Nice spot,” Jon said.
The girl hunkered down to the ground, looked up at him. “Well it’s a bit early, but we might as well stop here for lunch.”
Jon had carried their pack, and he handed it over to the girl. She dug them out some dried fish and pears, both of which were fresher and tastier than Jon had known travel food could be. They sat down together in the grass.
“These are amazing,” Jon said.
Bahabe raised her eyebrows, “Yeah we’ve got some good food. The fishers bring in fresh stuff every day. These pears are wild.”
“Wow. We don’t really have wild food where I come from,” Jon said. “Sometimes it feels like all the food I eat is brown.” Bahabe scrunched up her nose at this.
“We may not have this all to ourselves for long,” Bahabe said ominously. “Nak-sak doesn’t know I know, but those maps on his desk?” Jon nodded he’d seen them. “He’s planning a deal with someone from Anek. He’s sketched out a whole stretch of our cleanest shore to be built up with bigger docks, an inn, a market, plots to sell.” She sighed. “I think he’s trying to build a spot for rich folks from the mainland to come live.”
“And when they do,” Jon guessed, “they’ll get all the best fish, and the wild fruit trees will be cut down, and your village will do the work while he gets all the money.”
“That’s it,” she said gravely.
“Bahabe that’s awful. Are you sure?”
She shook her head but said, “I’ve been in there several times when he was out, looked at all the maps. He keeps the ledgers locked up, but yes, I’m sure. It’s all there, in the sketches, in his ambition.”
“Why don’t you tell everyone? I can’t believe they’d want this.”
A beat. “I’m not sure. Maybe I should. I just… usually try to avoid it all. Really I just want to leave. It’s kind of selfish, but I figured more ships, more chances to get away.”
Jon understood.
“I mean, I love this place,” Bahabe continued. “Even though not everyone is polite to me, they’ve always taken care of me, let me do my own thing. Marnha’s been a great dad.”
“I can tell he loves you,” Jon said.
“But I’ve always had this feeling…” she trailed off.
“The wanderlust,” Jon said. “I know it well.”
“No,” she disagreed, squinted at the sky, “something else. More specific. Like, a sense of gravity, but eastward.” She sighed the words, “But I’ve got no way to go. I guess I was thinking I might sneak on a boat when the Anekans visit again.”
“I guess that’s what I’ll have to do too, unless they’ll let me work to pay for my passage,” Jon said.
Jon wanted to invite her, suggest she go when he did, for he knew he couldn’t be long for this island, based on what he’d seen in the vision. It didn’t seem right. At the least, it was too soon, and how could he promise anyway?
“Enough of me,” Bahabe said around a mouthful of pear, “let’s talk about that crazy vision. Isn’t that what’s going to tell you what to do?”
The words and images of the Light in the silver temple were etched in Jon’s brain, a fragment of a map of the wilderness he’d been dropped into. Were they indeed directions for his journey, or things that were inevitable?
“I think it’s a start,” Jon said, “but the way the Light spoke, and Mr. Bear… it’s not the way I’ve always thought of fate.”
“You said there’d be a choice, or a chance,” Bahabe said. “It didn’t sound like fate.”
“Yeah. I feel like I could just walk away, maybe not go back to my world, but ignore the feelings the Light gave me and just make a new life here. But that’s not what I want. For the first time since my mom died, I want to move. I want to embrace this, whatever it is, and make something of it.
“I felt something yesterday, when you mentioned the Elder might be dangerous. It was like a tiny fire at my fingertips, like if I were to touch something, I’d give it a shock. I’ve been thinking about that, and about the vision.”
“You’re thinking you’re a magician?” she guessed.
“Have you ever just felt like you could do something you’d imagined, and when you tried, it actually worked out?” Jon said.
She grinned. Effortlessly, she spun a prism of light into existence between her palms. It was simple - a pyramid, yellowish, rotating lazily.
Jon was speechless. “You?” he stammered.
Bahabe laughed with real joy. “Yes, me!” The pyramid turned orange. “I can make s
hapes out of light, and when I try really hard, I can watch little visions in the facets. Sometimes I think they show me what’s going on in the world, but I’m still not sure.”
“Bahabe that’s amazing!” Jon fairly hollered, eliciting another laugh from the girl.
“I have no idea why I can do this!”
She watched him, amused, as he stared at his hands, perhaps willing them to project their own display of ethereal light.
“I...How?” Was all he could get out.
She thought a moment as if remembering. “I guess it was kind of like what you’re describing.” She chuckled at the boyish look of hope on Jon’s face. “I just sort of felt like I could do something, so I sat, and I tried. It started with just a spark, but that was enough to keep me going. In the dark, at night, I would practice, until I was old enough to come out on my own, and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.”
She looked like she wanted to say more, but stopped herself.
“Well it’s just… amazing,” Jon was still shocked, his gaze shifting between Bahabe and his own hands.
“Here, let’s try something,” Bahabe said as she rose. Jon followed her to the nearest tree. “You said it felt like fire? Put your hand on the tree,” she instructed.
Jon obeyed, trying to focus on that feeling in his fingers.
“Maybe, just try a little heat, okay? For me, it’s not just the focus, but my confidence, and a little faith, that makes things happen.”
Jon would have said he had little reason to believe he possessed any supernatural ability, but reeling from the shock of seeing another human being do magic, and flashing back to his walk across the worlds, and the majesty of the Light in its heavenward temple, and the luminescence shining in his veins, he thought he might have to reconsider.
“The voice told you to trust in the Light, right Jon? Nothing will be withheld, it said.”
He let himself be confident, and the feeling came more easily than expected. There was a warmth between his hand and the bark of the tree, slight but unmistakable. He tried to push a little further and thought his hand grew warm.