“Why are you looking for me?”
The man hesitated and looked at his hands as if the answer was there. He seemed to have found it. “Because I belong to you.”
“You belong to me?” she repeated, slightly amused. “I don’t belong to you. I don’t know who you are. How can you belong to me if I don’t know you?”
“Would you allow me to show you?”
She laughed. “How can you show me such a thing?”
He reached around his neck and pulled out a thin necklace hiding inside of his shirt. He pulled it up and over his head before holding it up for her to see. Dangling from the end of it was a pocket watch. “This belongs to you.”
She tilted her head. “Everything seems to belong to me according to you.”
He laughed and the sound was warm, so very different from the heat from the lake. It flowed over her and did something funny to the bottom of her stomach…like the jittery caress of fingertips. “Once I told you I would try to give you the world and you told me to fuck off. So no, you don’t own everything but there are some things that are uniquely yours. Such as me…and this pocket watch.” He tried to laugh again but something akin to a sob broke free from his throat. He tried to cover it up by turning away from her but that only made her curious.
She crossed the grassy bank until she was standing on the other side of him. “Why are you crying?” she asked. She realized, in the end, she couldn’t tell if it was curiosity that made her ask…or concern.
She must have surprised him because he jumped back and rolled his watery eyes. “You scared me, damn it.”
She grinned up at him. “You don’t seem to be the type to be scared by much.”
“On the contrary, I am scared a lot of the times, by a lot of things. I’m just too stupid to show it.”
She hummed before making a decision. “What’s your name?”
“Aiden,” he replied. He bent his head so he could take a closer look at her face. “So…you’re really not Jin?”
She shook her head.
“If your name is not Jin, then what is it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have a name. I’ve tried temporary names, such as Angel and Ali, but they never stick. My head doesn’t turn when Yansá says LaTosha or Ebony so…I just gave up.”
“Why have you forgotten your name?” Aiden asked. The necklace dangled from his hand. “Better yet, how do you even forget your name?”
“I don’t remember why or how. If I did, I would probably remember my name,” she answered. The man smiled, like he recognized something in her but the look slid from his face, maybe before he even noticed it. She turned from him and went back to where she’d laid her hunt for the day. “You’re welcome to stick around. There is plenty of fruit. I found an apple tree, you see. I’m staying here until I figure something out.” She took a seat. “You see that lake house out there?” she asked, pointing. “Every day it burns to the ground and every morning it is rebuilt. Yansá says it rebuilds itself but she must think I’m stupid. So I’m staying here to prove her wrong.”
He nodded and sat down beside her, wiping his face dry.
“So you’re looking for me?” she asked as she stared out over the lake of fire.
Aiden shook his head. “I don’t think it’s you I’m looking for. I’m looking for a woman by the name of Jin. You aren’t Jin.”
A strange feeling thudded in her chest, heavy and sad, yet she nodded, knowing he was right. “I’m not Jin,” she insisted, declared, “but why are you looking for her?”
“I love her and because I didn’t do a good job protecting her, I lost her.”
She looked at him and tilted her head to the side like an inquisitive kitten. “So you were her bodyguard?”
The man frowned. “Well, no. I’m not exactly her bodyguard but–”
She laughed. “Then how did you fail to protect her if it wasn’t your job to?”
Aiden’s back straightened as if he were insulted or upset but his face showed confusion. “Isn’t it a job to protect someone you love?”
“Not a job. A desire. Failing to procure the desired result isn’t failing a person. You didn’t lose Jin because you didn’t protect her. You lost Jin because someone took her away from you. You can’t be held accountable for someone else’s actions, Aiden. You’re a victim, too. Maybe it would be easier to find her if you remembered that. Remember that you are looking for her because you miss Jin, want Jin, not because you feel guilty that you lost Jin.”
Aiden’s hands clenched but he said nothing to follow her advice.
She pointed to the pocket watch. “You’re using that necklace to find her? Was it something important to her?”
Aiden nodded. “I gave it to her and she always wore it.” He flipped the watch the back where a feather was engraved into it. “Right before I lost her…” he paused and cleared his throat, “before someone took her away from me, this feather showed up on the back. It took me a long time to realize why. It’s a phoenix feather. Do you know the myth behind the phoenix?”
“Faintly,” she said. “Something about being reborn…” she paused. Her head snapped towards the lake house. “Being reborn from flames.” She stood and took a step towards the water. “That’s it!” She smacked her forehead. “The house isn’t being rebuilt. It’s being reborn.” She turned to Aiden, looking down at the necklace. “Like a phoenix …”
She reached out to touch the necklace cradled in his hands, slow and careful.
“What is it?” Aiden asked, watching her.
“I need to see something,” she murmured. I’ve been out here for weeks and it took me weeks to get it! Her fingers had only grazed the pocket watch when a fierce hot pain shot across her fingertips like she’d touched an open flame. In reaction, she shoved it away.
“What’s the matter?” Aiden said, worried.
“It was hot!” she exclaimed, clutching her hand to her chest. “I touched it and it was hot!”
Aiden looked at the pocket watch necklace then back up to her. “It feels cool in my hands.”
It’s only hot for me? What does that mean?
There was a rustling sound in the woods and she noticed that darkness had fallen a long time ago. Her thoughts about the chain dwindled away as the pain in her fingers did.
“Just a warning. There are creatures that protect this lake. The Tule-Tule. They attack when I go into their woods, otherwise, I think they are harmless. I wouldn’t travel into their lands thinking they are friendly, though. I have no idea what they are.”
“And you’re not scared?”
She shook her head. “Only when I fight them but the feeling doesn’t last long.”
“Brave woman.”
“It’s not about being brave. It’s about accessing threats. Until they attack me outside of their woods, I don’t fear them much. And if they do, I can protect you,” she said with a cheeky grin. “I can shoot far and,” she patted her spear. “I’ve become pretty good with this. A gun would be nice.”
“I trust you would be a good shot. You look like you would handle a gun well,” Aiden bit into an apple that she had offered him earlier. “How did you end up here?”
“I woke up here,” she pointed towards the hill, “in Oti’s hut, on the floor. I know this isn’t the place I came from. I like it. I am happy…but sometimes I want to see more. I feel as if I’ve seen much, much more. But I can’t get down the path that they say leads elsewhere and there isn’t anything beyond those woods on the other side of the lake. Plus, where would I go? I don’t know where home is. I don’t know where I belong.”
Aiden hummed and took another bite. His eyes lit up and he pointed towards the lake. “Look.”
Just like every other night, the flames from Tulekahju rose up and engulfed the lake house. They sat in silence as the house was reduced to ash. The flames died down after a long while and the lake became peaceful again. “Now we wait. It’ll be easier now that you’re here to help me stay awake.”
>
They woke up around noon. Aiden’s hand was draped across her waist but she paid little attention to it as she noticed the sun high in the sky. She sat up with a curse on her lips. Aiden was a little slower to rise–a fact that she knew was different from his personality somehow. She knew that he liked to wake up early, explore, gaze out into the world and take it in. He sat up as if something were tethering him to the ground and groaned. She looked down and saw him holding his side.
“Are you okay?” she said, her voice pitched in worry.
Aiden grunted. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” He pulled his hand away and there was a faint red residue.
“You tell me it’s nothing and you’re fine?” she yelled. “Raise your shirt.” He did as she asked and she bent over and started to inspect the area. “Why does it look like you reopened a bullet wound?”
“Because that’s what it is. It’s been healed for over six months but…Khione told me this would happen. This realm is peaceful with people who belong here. I wasn’t sent here. I infiltrated this realm. It’s rejecting me.”
“And this is the result?” she gasped. She took the linen that her fruit was stored in and stared at it. “This isn’t the most sanitary option but…” She pressed the cloth to his side.
He hissed then laughed. “You were always so heavy handed.”
“Always?” she asked, her brow raised as she looked up at him. “I don’t know you.”
Something in his eyes sobered, dimmed the light that came with laughter. “Right,” he acknowledged.
Aiden was silent after that. Instead of resting, he followed her around like a puppy, traveling with her into the woods, watching her picking berries and nuts, watching her hunt. No Tule-Tule attacked but she could feel them watching. He helped her carry what they collected back to their post by the fire lake as night fell. Their dinner was filled with conversation about Jin, the woman Aiden was looking for. How they met, how they fell in love, the timeline of two people meant for each other…according to him, anyway.
“Jin looks a lot like you. Except for the white hair.”
She reached and touched the ends of her silvery curls. “I kind of like this. It reminds me of Storm. I feel like Ororo but without the hail, fire and windstorm powers, which would be nice. Like, just to summon up a rainstorm or a nice cool breeze at will? Amazing,” she sighed.
Aiden began to laugh–he was always laughing at something she said–but was sized by coughing fit. She offered some of the water from her canteen but he shook his head. Just like before, when he removed his hand, this time from his lips, it was covered with blood.
She was beyond worried now. “You need to leave. You’ve only been here a day and this realm is killing you!”
“I can’t leave,” he said as he wiped his mouth. Blood stained the back of his hand. “I can’t leave without finding Jin.”
She smacked his arm. “You haven’t even been looking for her! You’ve been here with me talking about her! If she’s lost in this place you can leave and come back! Regain your strength! Try–”
“Put on the necklace,” he pleaded, his voice low. He coughed again and turned to the side to spit blood out. “Put it on. You…you are,” his breath caught again and he hissed as his hand went back to his side. The area just above his hip was bleeding freely, soaking through his clothes.
“I’m not putting on that damn necklace. It burns! Just…I need to get you out of here.” She stood and looked around, lost. She hadn’t the slightest idea how. “Stay here.”
“Please,” Aiden begged. “I can’t leave without you…”
She ignored him because he made no sense and ran in the direction of the grassy embankment towards the road that would lead back down to Oti’s hut. Except…she couldn’t find it. She raced along the tree line, looking for the sand path but it was like it never existed. Determined, she breached the line that separated the lake shore from the woods but she heard rustling, a branch breaking, and a low dangerous hiss.
“He do leave this place,” drifted from the woods. “He no belong,” it hissed. “He do leave this place.”
She reared back. “What?”
“He do leave this place! Leave this place! Leave this place! Leave this place!” It chanted over and over.
She didn’t have the time for this nonsense. They weren’t in their woods! She raced back down the bank and to Aiden’s side. In the short time she’d been gone he’d gotten far worse. The color was draining from his face and his shirt was soaked through in more places than just his side. Blood stained his teeth and tears lined his eyes as he tried to breathe through the pain. “Aiden…we have to leave,” she whispered, scared and anxious. “The Tule-Tule–”
Before she could get the words out of her mouth, a shadow emerged from nowhere, standing between them and the light from the fire lake. Instinctively, she reached behind her back and snatched an arrow from her quiver, notched it and let it fly without hesitation. It caught the figure in the eye.
It was a Tule-Tule.
What in the hell…
The Tule-Tule were grotesque, lanky cyclops with oily grey skin, long gangly arms and misshapen heads. Its back was ramrod straight and its hands dragged the ground, weighed down by heavy tree trunk like limbs. My gods, it was ugly!
The Tule-Tule she’d caught with her arrow squealed as it tried to pull it out, its oily hands slipping, unable to grasp the shaft. She heard a loud rush of rustling behind her and she looked over her shoulder.
They are emerging from the woods! They never leave the woods!
“Aiden…we have to go. We have to go right now.” She bent low and helped him stand by placing his arm across her shoulder. He groaned and hissed and clutched at his side, his head lolling from side to side as if his brain couldn’t decide what to do. This is no good. She scanned her surroundings with the eye of a woman who’d forced her way into someone else’s home and learned it by wandering around when they weren’t home.
Can’t go into the woods. Can’t go back to where I came from. Where? Where? Where?
“The lake house,” Aiden gurgled. “The lake…house.”
Yes. The lake house. She turned both of them towards it. A Tule-Tule hissed. A word floated before her eyes. Alar. She knew how it worked. She knew she had the power to do it. She just knew. It was the only way she knew she could cross the lake of flames and land safely at the lake house.
“Aiden,” she said, as numbers flew into her head–the proximity of the other Tule-Tule to them, the taste of bitterness in the back of her throat as she felt Aiden’s pain, the heat of the flames, the distance between them and the lake house. “We’re going to move very, very fast. It might hurt a little.”
“I can take it. Just go.”
A squeal just over her shoulder caught her by surprise. She dug low and thrust up with her spear, catching another Tule-Tule in the throat. She wrenched the spear free and slung the bright, bright red blood from the tip. “Hold on!”
She whispered alar and felt a tingling power gather under her feet, that power bursting forth, soaking into her skin, her cells, her soul, before she and Aiden were flying across the lake of fire. She slammed into the door, breaking through it as she and Aiden skid to a roll across the lake house floor. She picked him up, drawing on strength from deep within, her surroundings, the water, and the air. She laid him on a table in the center of the lake house, mindful and careful and all too aware of his pain. She peeled his shirt off, some of it dried, causing the shirt to stick to the surface of his skin. When she’d wrestled it free, she wrung it out, blood pooling on the floor before she pressed it against back his wounds, praying it would all stop. He groaned again, this time louder and she watched, horrified, as more spots on his body bruised, going red and then purple. He’s bleeding out from the inside.
“It’s okay,” she whispered over and over again brushing his hair off his sweaty forehead. “It’s okay.” She looked out the window. “They seem to be scared of the fire and should be gone
soon. Then I can figure out a way to get you out of here so please hold on, Aiden.”
“Jin,” he breathed. “The necklace.”
Panicked, her hands began to shake and she felt she would start crying at any minute. Why was he so fixated on her? Why didn’t he just leave in the first place so he could be safe? Why was the thought of him dying crippling her? “I’m not Jin,” she sobbed.
He reached out and touched her. He cradled her face between his hands and his blood smeared across her check but she didn’t care. “You are,” he croaked between labored breaths. “You are. I know you, Jin. I know you.” She felt something being pressed into her hand. It burned but she endured it. “Put it on. You have to believe me. You are Jin. That is your name. I belong to you...and you to me.”
She wanted that to be true so damn much. She let the pocket watch slide from her hand until she was holding just the chain. It was warm too, but not as hot as the pocket watch. Something was telling her to put it on, singing for her to put it on, screaming for her to put it on, but her better judgment told her that it would burn, that it would hurt her.
Sometimes we burn the old, so the new can grow.
“You wouldn’t lie to me,” she said with a conviction that came from deep within. She looked around the inside of the lake house, then at the necklace. There were no answer on its shiny surface but there were answers in its weight and its texture. She unhooked the clasp and slid the necklace around her neck. The pocket watch bounced off of her chest, but the folds of her kaftan protected her skin from the heat. The moment she closed the latch, she staggered as a squealing pain blasted under her eyelids, so strong she dropped to her knees. Her hands flew to her head as the pain worsened and bright lights swam in her vision.
As soon as it started, it was gone. The pain, the bright lights, the loud noises, all of it, gone. She inhaled a large galloping breath, willing her heart to slow down, for her breathing to regulate, to give her a chance to speak.
A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck Page 48