by Abra Ebner
Heather finally replied, as though my words were a command. “The marks on your back—” She faltered for a moment. “You have to be The One. You have to.” It was as though she was convincing herself.
The title brought pain to my heart. A part of me was hoping it was behind me.
“We all saw it, back in Seattle. It was the tree and the raven. The mark on your back, it’s—it’s the raven.”
I tried once more to look, grabbing at my skin with my hand, unable to see.
“Here,” Heather grabbed me and began to trace my back with her finger. I followed the sensation, feeling as she traced the outline of a small raven that seemed similar to the ones I’d seen before—on the tree where Edgar had died, on the trees I used to make into a swing.
“What?” I felt a bit violated, wondering how it was I could receive such a mark unnoticed. “What does it look like?”
Heather sighed impatiently. “Like a raven.”
I turned to face her. “I know that. But, like a burn? A tattoo?”
She nodded, finally understanding, “Like a tattoo. Only it’s white, and barely visible. But it’s there!” She tilted her head with a baffled expression. “You didn’t have that before? It looks old.”
I snorted. “No. At least, not that I know of.” There were many things I never knew about myself, but I figured that this was likely something I would have known. Someone would have said something.
She looked star struck. “I am so honored!” She began to jump up and down. “Come, I need to show it to her.” She grabbed my arm and began to drag me forward.
I still did not know who her was. I felt awkward all of a sudden, pulling away from her and refusing to go any farther. “How do you even know what this tattoo thing means?”
She laughed. “The tree also bears the very same mark, the same exact carving. I wouldn’t mistake that for the world!”
I stood frozen, my hand on Jack. What was happening? Was I really this important? I wanted to blend in here, not this. I did not wish to lead. At least, not like this.
“This is a miracle. I found you. She will be so happy!” Heather bowed then.
I was annoyed now. “Who, Heather? Who are these people? Who is she?”
Heather was eager to divulge her secrets, “Well, the mayor of our new town, his name is Scott. And well—”
My eyes flew open. “Scott?” I interrupted. It was too much of a coincidence to ignore the fact that it could in fact be my Scott.
She smiled big, “Yes, Scott! It was his tree, the sacred tree! We brought it with us. It’s in the village! Do you know him?”
I laughed to myself, seeing now what I had created. When I had instructed Scott to lead the world to safety I hadn’t really expected for him to do it, no matter how hard he’d tried. I thought back to the day in Seattle, and the tree. The neighbors had watched me leave, seen what I was and what I could do. I had left myself exposed. It had only been three days since the end, three days and these people were already worshipping me as though I were a god.
“Well. Don’t get too excited, Heather. I’m not what I was.”
Heather’s eyes were beaming now. She walked back toward me and took my hand. “Come, please?” She was begging now.
I nodded my head, giving in. “Fine.”
We trudged the rest of the way out of the forest. As we walked out and onto the beach, I saw an older woman standing by the water. It was not what I had expected. A part of me wanted her to be Sarah. She was gazing at the river, her back to me.
“This is amazing,” Heather kept muttering, dragging me across the rocks and toward the woman.
The old woman heard us and turned, her aged face like a ghost as my eyes fell across it. I halted, my heels digging into the sand, which gathered around my feet. Heather stopped muttering and looked back at me with a confused expression. Then she looked to the old lady, seeing that we were now staring at each other.
“Uh—” Heather began to talk but the old woman lifted her hand and silenced her. Heather pouted.
I breathed slowly, tears welling in my eyes. The old woman smiled, wind catching in her grey hair. There was a horse nearby, digging in the rocks. Jack made his way toward it.
“I—” I tried to speak but couldn’t.
“My dear.” The old lady tilted her head.
“How are you here?” Never had I expected her.
“I wish I could have told you sooner, Elle. But, you see, I couldn’t.”
“Heidi, I—”
She continued to speak. “All my life I have been watching over all of you, each as different as the next. I tried to hide you from them. But, you were different. I knew you had a greater path ahead, so I had to let you go.”
I shook my head. “Heidi, I don’t understand.” A tear ran down my cheek.
“There were more of you, my dear. Many more. All your siblings, all my children, each of you had magic inside you. I had to protect you.”
My breathing was sporadic. “You knew?”
Heidi nodded slowly. “I always knew. I kept you for him. I nurtured you.”
“For him?” I gasped.
“Yes, Edgar. I was the human end of this whole plan. I knew all along what would happen. Scott found me in Seattle and I told him, but, he already knew.” She chuckled. “You have brave friends.”
I shook my head, still frozen in the sand. “He knew this would happen?” I motioned to myself.
Heidi shook her head with a grave face. “No. He really thought that it was over, that you would find your way home. I didn’t expect to see you ever again.”
I believed her words because I always had. “And my brothers and sisters?”
A look of happiness and loss crossed her face. “They went home at last. You made sure of that. They were lost children, just as saddened as you were, but they had tried to forget it. I tried to help them forget.”
I thought of all the kids we had in the house. I remember how they watched me, watched everyone, as though frightened. Now I saw that aside from fright, they were also hiding. I then thought about all the foster families Heidi had placed me with, each trying to make me forget, each trying to make me smile. It was all connected, it was always the plan. “And—” I paused, faltering over my words. “And the money?”
Heidi laughed, her wrinkles collecting around her eyes. “It was yours all along. Though, I did love the painting you sent. Don’t see many of those.”
I couldn’t help but smile. There was something comforting about all this, as though I was never alone, always guarded.
“I will take care of you, though. Just like always.” Heidi took a step toward me, a slight limp in her step.
“Oh, Heidi.” I closed the gap between us, wrapping my arms around her. “Why didn’t you just tell me? I loved you so much. You were a mother to me.”
She rubbed my back with her hand. “I couldn’t, my dear. I couldn’t.”
I let go of her.
“Let’s get you home, shall we?” She patted me on the arm.
I nodded.
Heather whistled and her horse lifted its head. Jack also looked. Her horse was grey and tall, much taller than Jack. To their advantage, the horse was also tacked up with a bridle. The horse made its way toward us and Heather helped Heidi onto her back. Jack whinnied, clearly in love with this new mare.
“This is Sugar,” Heather whispered.
Jacks ears were perked. “I think I’ll walk,” I added. Jack was prancing around like an idiot, making controlling him close to impossible.
Heidi laughed and we began forward.
“Will you tell me about it? About what happened, about magic and dreaming?” Heather whispered as she walked beside me, holding onto Sugar’s reins. It was as though she was afraid Heidi would hear.
I rolled my eyes. “Magic doesn’t exist.” At least, not anymore it doesn’t.
She frowned, sensing my cold demeanor toward the subject. “Oh.”
I turned back to the river and
walked on. After all that had transpired, I was in no mood to be worshiped and I certainly was in no mood to feel as though I were important. All I cared about was trying to understand, my head filled with the memories of my foster brothers and sisters. I tried hard to remember each, trying to pick their talents but seeing none. For the last three days I had been formulating a plan to blend into society, live a simple life and learn to grow a garden for real. Now, though, it seemed I was a legend.
After a few moments of walking, I heard Heather take another deep breath. “What about dreaming?” she whispered, keeping her eye on Heidi as she dozed on the back of Sugar.
I rolled my eyes again. “What about dreaming?”
I heard her hesitate, afraid to ask but clearly too eager to care about repercussions. “Well, it stopped.” Her voice shook as she said it, as though I’d find the news to be disagreeable, which I did.
My pace slowed as I rolled her words over and over in my head. It stopped? How does it just stop? I thought about the changes that forging the contract had made. I hadn’t thought about dreams, and that they would just stop, but it made sense. Dreaming was a magical thing, a place we were never meant to go. Falling asleep and waking up in their Heaven was a gift, a treat, but I had taken it from mankind forever.
“It just stopped?” I asked, hoping she could solve this problem for me.
“Yeah, about three days ago. A lot of things happened to us then. That was one, but now we all feel empty, disconnected somehow. It’s hard to explain. It was as though we were unplugged from a socket of sorts. We all seemed to black out. I remember being in the woods when it happened, and everything went dark, but when I woke, I had traveled about a mile up the mountain. By then, everything was like this, alive and thriving. I don’t know how long I was like that. It could have been hours, or even days. There is no way of knowing time anymore, so the best we can do is acknowledge that it happened, and try to move on.”
She was like a spout of information.
I stopped to look at her as Heidi snorted in her sleep. “You blacked out?”
She nodded gravely. “Every single one of us did. Luckily, no one in our group was hurt. It seems that though we weren’t there mentally, at least something was working. It was like we all were put on autopilot.”
I was shocked. I had created a worldwide reset of everything, launching my once fantasy life into a science fiction horror classic. “And now you say you feel disconnected?”
“Yes.” She thumped her hand to her chest. “As though I’m all alone. I feel none of the echoes that I used to. Do you know what I mean by echoes?”
I remembered the way I used to be able to feel Edgar. “Yes, I know what you mean.”
“It’s just weird. I used to be so intuitive, so in tune with things, like others’ feelings. But now, I just feel my own feelings. It’s very strange.”
“Do you feel sad?” I asked, wondering if her feeling was similar to what I once felt, before Edgar. Perhaps she was a lost child that had been forgotten like I had, saved by Heidi.
She smiled. “No,” she replied simply. “No. Actually it’s nice, like there’s no need to worry. It’s as though I actually have to take care of myself for once, and that’s all that matters: living.”
“Oh.” I was relieved. I don’t think I could have ever lived with myself knowing I had caused billions to feel the same pain I had felt. I knew exactly what she meant.
I, too, felt the disconnection from everyone else and the absolute unity of my inner being. It was as though someone had enhanced the hearing in my soul, forcing it to listen to what I wanted, and what I needed. I hadn’t thought about Edgar too much over the past few days, far less than I would have thought. It was as though I wouldn’t allow myself to feel sorry about it, to feel sad or helpless. I could only listen to what was happening here and now. I missed him, of course, there was no denying that. We had shared the truest of loves and I wanted it back, but in due time.
We began to walk again, Jack straying on ahead as though the appointed leader.
“How do you get him to stick around like that?” Heather spoke in a normal tone now. I could tell that talking of the dreaming and magic was a ‘hush, hush,’ thing.
I shrugged. “I guess he’s just like that. I used to be able to attract them to me with a sort of scent, but that’s gone now. I’m just like you.”
It seemed as though Heather could not understand what I was saying. “But you’re not like us. You’re something much more.” Her eyes were wide. “You are The One.”
There was that title again.
She pointed all around us. “Obviously you were touched by something none of us can ever understand. Even if now you are a physical equal,” she pointed to my head, “up there knows you are something much different.”
I laughed, feeling awkward still, but not quite as much as before. Heather was growing on me, and though she still seemed amazed, she wasn’t as crazy about it as I had originally deduced.
Heidi began to snore and Heather looked happy about the fact. “So, now will you tell me about the magic?” She smiled widely with eager eyes.
I looked down at my feet as I walked through the sand and dirt along the bank. “Sure.”
MORNING
The smell of last night’s campfire wafted into my nostrils as I sat up, my back stiff. I saw Heidi rolling a stick in the fire, smoke rising and blowing toward me. I brought my hand to my mouth as I leaned over and instantly threw up on the sand beside me, revealing last night’s dinner of more berries. Heather promised that in the morning light she would catch us a fish.
Heidi chuckled, “Still getting used to this, aren’t you?”
I was too ill to answer.
The morning light was grey as it lit the trees and river. The sun had not yet breached into the valley, but I felt the warmth of it coming. I wiped my mouth and buried my vomit with sand, standing and walking to the river where I washed my hands and splashed water on my face. I hadn’t thrown up in what felt like decades, and I had forgotten what it even felt like to be sick. My head whirled as I watched the river, so I shut my eyes. I leaned back onto my hands, trying to will the stomach ache away.
“Awake already?”
I heard Heather’s voice then, and I looked back, seeing her face through a few wisps of smoldering wood. I nodded.
“Are you alright?” She began to stand, glancing at Heidi as she continued to burn the end of the stick.
Heidi was old, and I was amazed that she was even out here. Perhaps she knew, though. Perhaps something told her to find me.
I exhaled. “Yeah. I’m just a little sick from all the berries. I need something real to eat.” A flash of macaroni and cheese crossed my mind, causing my stomach to rumble, the sick feeling forgotten.
She smacked her lips. “Yeah, I feel weak as though I were up all night drinking. Clearly that was not the case.”
I laughed.
“Here, let me teach you to fish.” She walked away from the fire and to the river’s edge beside me. She grabbed my hand and yanked me up as my head rebelled, whirling once more as I leaned away from her and threw up again.
“Whoa there. I think sick was an understatement.” She rubbed my back, slowly lowering me back to the ground.
I leaned forward, once again washing in the river.
“Well, maybe you just sit and watch today.”
She grabbed something from her pocket and began to unwind it. I watched as she knelt at the water’s edge and began to dig in the mud, finding something to use as bait and shoving it onto the little hook on the end of whatever it was she’d unraveled. She then tossed a small wad of it in the air as she began to swirl her arm above her head, causing the line to go taut before she released it forward, leaning her body into the river. As the hook and bait hit the water she leaned back, wrapping the end of the line around her hand and giving it a few soft tugs.
I began to doze as I watched her hand, but after a second she yelped and yanked back ha
rd. “Not very hard to catch anything these days,” she struggled to speak as she wrapped the twine around and around her hand, reeling it in as the line thrashed about.
“Wow,” I said under my breath.
She gave me a proud smile as the fish began to jump above the water, revealing the fact that it was huge. With one last tug she flipped the fish onto the bank, grabbing a nearby rock and smashing its head before I had time to look away. The nausea rose in my stomach once more, but this time there was nothing to throw up, so I just dry heaved instead. The bones in my chest felt as though they had been crushed together, my stomach muscles flexing uncomfortably.
Heather looked at me with alarm. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
I heard Heidi laugh again, like she did when I was little and the older foster kids teased me.
I grimaced and looked away from Heidi and back at Heather. I had my hand on my chest. “No, it’s alright.”
My mouth was pursed and stung, the acid eating away and leaving a bad taste. I walked to the river and dug a hole that was about a foot from the water, allowing it to fill. I cupped my hands inside it and brought water to my mouth. The sand would filter it; at least enough that I hoped it didn’t trigger another kind of sickness.
I watched Heather take her prize and walk back to the fire where she stoked the coals and added leaves. I was afraid to walk back and sit, afraid that the scent would be too much to handle. Heather combed the beach for a long stick, finally finding one. She brought it to Heidi, handing her both the fish and the stick. Heidi shoved the stick through the center of the fish and then held it over the fire.
I looked away, trying to find something more appetizing to watch. Jack was grazing nearby. Living like this was hard. I was used to the pampered lifestyle of the house in the meadow. My whole body ached and I saw now why it was so many people always seemed so grumpy. The human body was soft and I was amazed that they had lasted so long. It was as though I’d downgraded, finding that what I thought was pain before was nothing in comparison. I took a deep breath and slowly stood, feeling a little bit better as the fresh air by the river cleared my lungs. Willing to try again, I walked to the fire and sat between Heather and Heidi.