“Stop it,” Il’lyse said. “Shut up! I was never pregnant. The Lord Tunderek never lies to anyone. Never!”
“Sister,” said Zoey.
“No!”
She turned over and buried her face in the pillow. Her words that followed were muffled and broken. Along her backside were numerous scars from burns and cuts that Zoey had yet to learn about. Zoey rested a hand on her and rubbed across a stretch of her spine where the damage had been minimal.
Veran’uvia gathered her things and walked to the door. She looked at Zoey and said, “I have to get back down to the camp before anyone starts asking questions. I truly am sorry about this revelation. Not all answers are the ones we want to hear. It’s part of why I tell people I don’t know what they’re talking about. Goodbye.”
She let herself out. Now it was only the two sisters alone in their brother’s condo. Zoey rubbed a hand over Il’lyse’s when the older sister turned her head at her.
“Do you mind if I take my shower now before you do?” said Il’lyse. “I know you said you wanted to take one, but I feel like my whole body is going to wash down the drain by the time I’m done in there.”
“Yeah, go ahead,” said Zoey. “I need to check on the dough that I left sitting last night, as well as double-check the ingredients in the fridge.”
“Dough? Do you cook like Dad does?” Il’lyse sat up. By instinct Zoey was ready to help her sister to the bathroom, but Il’lyse waved her off.
“Not quite like Dad, but I cook sometimes. Dasos and I have been taking turns between breakfast and dinner, and tonight I was planning to make pizza by the time he got home from his weekly game night.”
“Pizza? Never mind. It’s good to know that he still does game nights with those friends of his.” She hobbled on her left foot toward the pair of doorways. Il’lyse stopped for a moment to look around and then point towards the bathroom.
“It’s where he met his last girlfriend, actually,” Zoey said.
“Really?”
“Sort of. They had sex before that, and refused to call themselves a couple until the day she dumped him with nothing more than a hand-written note.”
“I can track the woman down and teach her a lesson, you know.”
“I know, but I think Tonny gets the first privilege on that one since Shungdi’s her little sister.”
Il’lyse had entered the bathroom by now, but she poked her head out and gave Zoey an incredulous look before closing the door. “How much did I miss in the last two revolutions?”
Zoey walked to the door and leaned next to it so that Il’lyse could hear her better while the shower was running. She waited for the sound of water running. “You missed more than I did, that’s for sure,” said Zoey. “At least for that whole time, I mean.”
“Do you miss Earth?” said Il’lyse.
“I might miss a few people, or a few places that I never got to visit, but I think this world is definitely better than the one I grew up with. Even now with the madness going out there. It’s nice having an actual family.”
“Maybe I should find your Dasos and Tong-Chang. I wonder if they would take me in.”
“Our Das’ithrios and Tong-Chang are my Dasos and Tonny. The friends I had on Earth were chill, cool people who shared a few interests. We were together because we met in school, but I don’t know if we’d have stayed in touch with one another once that was over. This family of ours took me in when I needed support. I never had one back on Earth.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Mom or Dad I know.”
“You say that, but I know them better than that. Dad loves his adventures, and Mom loves being good at everything that she possibly can be. It tore her apart inside when you died, and it got worse a year later when a Hulda’fi showed up at a medical clinic in some space station – the Allied Medical Institute. She made a bad call in trying to deal with an unknown number of them. She blew up an escape shuttle leaving the maternity ward, thinking that it was three rebels and no one else.”
The water stopped.
* * *
Mom, what the fuck did you do?
“She told you this?” said Il’lyse. She wiped her face to do away with the water that dripped down from her hair.
“I had to look it up, because talking about it hurt her too much,” Zoey said. “She says that she made a mistake, and that she blamed herself ever since that day; that she would never have done it if you hadn’t died. She retired from the Peacekeepers over it. When I saw the article I couldn’t hold back my own tears. There was a mother with a newborn baby on that craft with the lone Hulda’fi. Evidence at the scene had suggested that the Hulda’fi who went there was seeking help, and the laeknir were too frightened to help her. That was when Mom showed up, and the girl fled, taking the mother and her baby hostage.”
A revolution ago there was a sister who felt nauseous in the morning, and had a number of growing symptoms besides. She had been sent to the facility on Dereskoo, but the girl had fled. Soror Valide had been asked to track her down, but her sister with the Hulda’fi turned up dead within the day.
Cold, infinite beyond, Il’lyse wanted to believe that this story Zoey told her was another lie. She wanted to believe that Lord Tunderek was honest to her. She turned the water back on and repeated this idea to herself over and over. The Lord wasn’t a liar. He couldn’t be. But the idea, the truth, was more bare than her skin, and more far brittle than her right leg was at the moment.
She punched the side of the shower stall. If Il’lyse couldn’t believe the Hallowed Lord and Lady then who could she believe?
“Are you going to be OK?” Zoey asked.
“I don’t know,” said Il’lyse. “I don’t know what I’ll be.”
* * *
Dasos sent her another message while Zoey was preparing two kinds of cheese to be shredded. She checked her phone, which sat on the counter, and the message said that both he and Tong-Chang were on their way home. She nodded at it and then used her knife to make one last cut on the larger blocks of cheese. Zoey had arranged the two kinds that she’d picked out, still hoping that they were the right ones, since the majority of cheese types had different names than the ones on Earth. Her plan was to shred a block of one and then the other, alternating them, until she made a blended ratio of the two cheeses that she could work with.
The machine on the counter that she and Dasos used on occasion was akin to the food processors that Zoey was familiar with, but with one major difference to the shape of the lid. She had inserted the first block of cheese, ready to shred it, when Il’lyse hobbled out of the bathroom.
Il’lyse went to the couch, still naked except for the towel hanging off of her head, and grabbed the underwear and shirt from the sofa. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve made a bad habit of forgetting to take any clothing with me into the shower. It’s been a long two revolutions.”
“Just hurry up and put those clothes on, and we’ll be fine,” Zoey said.
“Right.” She pulled the shirt over her head first, her face showing displeasure at Zoey’s order. Il’lyse looked down at the design on the front of it at last. “I am a super cake pro?”
“It’s one of my shirts for work. Like I said, I need to do a load of laundry. There are spare towels in the walk-in closet if you want to wrap one around your waist.”
Zoey shredded the first block, followed by the second one. She glanced up and saw her sister doing as she suggested. She shredded the third block, filling the machine. Zoey poured the mixed cheese into a separate container when she suddenly heard rapid footsteps outside.
* * *
The city-wide lockdown had begun, and Trullwick wasn’t the only one from the sound of things. Dasos saw the camp set up across the street from his condo once he and Tong-Chang had arrived in the area. Trolleys were shut down, and he’d had to call a reluctant salir to drive them due to his concern for his best friend being tired.
At the street entry into the condominium, he sent a message
to Zoey saying that they were on the way up. There was no response from her, but he was sure that she was home. Dasos entered the ground floor corridor that led to the elevator and walked until he reached the lift. There was an Aelf woman standing inside, her back to Dasos, who was crying. She wore a white and green, sleeveless long coat, which was the norm for laeknir.
“Excuse me, laeknar?” Dasos said.
The woman turned. It was Veran’uvia again. She smiled, her tears still apparent, and said, “I need a new galaxy to live in. Too many ghosts in this one.”
“Tell me about it. Are you going to be alright?”
“Maybe. That depends on all of us, and whether or not we’re prepared to make the same mistakes over and over again. There were some things that cost us too much centuries ago, and it would appear that the wrong people have brought them back.”
“My condo is upstairs if you need a drink or anything.”
“No, I came from there – your sister, Das’ithrios. She’s . . .” She stopped to press her hand over her face, and shook her head.
“What happened? Laeknar Saludalta?”
She stepped out of the elevator and seemed to ignore Dasos at first. Tong-Chang raised her hands to her mouth. Dread filled Dasos’s heart as well.
Then the laeknar looked at him and said, “Go to them. Go, now. I’ve had my fill of all this. Too many ghosts.” She walked away, heading for the camp and mumbling something that Dasos couldn’t hear with any clarity.
Them? What does she mean?
Tong-Chang put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Go on ahead. I’ll be right up. I don’t have it in me to run right now. Don’t argue; I’ll be fine. Go.”
He nodded to her, and took the stairs. He already ran more than he had planned to today, but the three levels of metal, wood, and concrete that sat above him, and soon below, were nothing. There was nothing but his heartbeat and whatever awaited him inside his condo.
If Zoey was hurt in any way he was prepared to burn down the whole building. If the Hulda’fi were involved, then he was ready to hunt down every last one of them. These scenarios rushed through his brain until he reached the door. It was unlocked. That didn’t matter. He could have broken the lock with the force that he used to open the damn thing.
“Zoey!” he said.
Standing at the entrance to the hallway was a relief to his greatest worries. She looked back at him with a pair of emerald eyes, her expression somewhere between confused and annoyed. She then hobbled on her left leg, and Dasos could see that her right was bent, her foot not touching the floor.
“What happened to your leg, Zoey?” he asked while stepping further inside.
She shook her head at him, her lips curling down and eyes turning more sour. It was as though she was furious with him. Did he say or do something wrong?
“Wrong sister, Das,” she said, but from his right rather than in front of him.
He looked to the kitchen and saw another redheaded Aelf with the same green eyes looking his way. Two of her? No.
Go to them, the laeknar’s voice echoed between his ears.
Dasos dropped his belongings when the obvious slammed into his soul. He sped across the room. His heart felt as though it might erupt, and his eyes as thought they would put any supernova to shame. He raised his arms to feel her, feel anything, in case this stopped being real.
The young woman before him withdrew when his hands reached her shoulders. With fury in her voice she said, “No, I can’t. We can’t. This . . . I . . .”
She choked. As clear fluid flooded her eyes she shook her head one last time and plowed into her brother for the first time in many revolutions. All of her weight became his, and he held her without any intention of giving this woman back to whatever pit of the universe she had escaped from.
“Dasos,” Il’lyse said, “my sweet brother. I’ve done some terrible, awful things. They made me a monster.”
“You’re home, Lyssa,” he said. “Welcome to our haven.”
[ 52]
Home. Haven. She had heard these words before, but this was the one time she accepted them. She needed them. She shivered as she let out a heavy breath, weighed by every decision she had ever made.
Il’lyse remembered the day when the three of them had made their clubhouse in the forest and called it their haven. Time and elements had done away with that place. Now this condo was theirs. There was Zoi’ne, too. She belonged here as much as Il’lyse did. For the first time ever, Il’lyse accepted this and smiled at her little sister. She was so going to have to make this up to that girl when she had the chance.
The front door opened again from its ajar position. Tong-Chang walked into the condo and looked at her for a moment before closing the door shut.
“It’s good to see you, Il’lyse,” said Tong-Chang.
“Tonny, you butt, come here,” Il’lyse said.
Tong-Chang walked over and joined in the hug. This felt too real to be a dream, but too wonderful to be real. Cold, infinite beyond, Il’lyse missed these two people in her arms.
She turned after moments had passed, and put her hands on the Ginserei’s soft cheeks. Il’lyse said, “I heard about today—what you did, I mean. How are you holding up?”
“I was trying not to think about it,” said Tong-Chang. “It still pains me whenever I do. We left when the third death had been counted. Any more and I would have been too sick to stomach it; sicker than the mornings I’ve had with this.” She looked down and pressed a hand on her tummy.
Il’lyse was uncertain as to how she had missed it earlier, but seeing the bulging belly made her feel as though her eyes might fall out of her head. Now it made sense what Zoi’ne had referred to a couple of times today. Her best friend in the whole galaxy was pregnant, and Il’lyse hadn’t been there for her until now.
“How long?” Il’lyse said.
“Since we reached Natt Grans,” said Tong-Chang. “As soon as we were less than a day from reaching the station my tangouchu had begun. I had bought myself some medicine for it, but I was too late.”
“Who’s the father?”
“I’d rather not say. The sire is dead to me. I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m ever assigned under him.” Her next breath was a strained one. “Stars beyond, how I wanted a career with the Allied Peacekeepers, and to be close to the people I care about most. I wanted to tinker with machines all day and not worry about politics.”
“Sorry, Tonny.”
Tong-Chang went to the counter where Zoi’ne was running more cheese through the electric grater, disrupting the moment that they were having. The younger sister made an inaudible apology for the noise she made with the device, but Tong-Chang snorted.
“You’re fine, love,” she said. The two of them reached over the counter and kissed one another.
If she hadn’t before, then now Il’lyse felt as though she had missed a lifetime of events in the time that she was gone. Her sister and best friend were a thing? She was going to need time to figure out how she felt about that.
“Right,” said Zoi’ne, “the dough is doing well, but I miscalculated what I needed last night and have enough sitting for two large pizzas. I have enough cheese here for both of them, so I guess that works out. I think I have enough sauce and toppings too inside the fridge, but it’s too early for dinner.”
“What, exactly, is pizza?” said Dasos.
“It’s sort of a flat pie with bread on the bottom, cheese on top of that, and extra stuff over the cheese. It’s an Earth favorite."
Together, the twins and their childhood friend burst out laughing. Before Il’lyse knew it, they were huddled on one side of the counter, Dasos and Tong-Chang in tears, and all three of them laughed.
“What?” Zoi’ne repeated.
“It’s just that,” said Tong-Chang, “you’re describing a food we used to eat a lot when we were little.”
“Yes, but we call it something else here,” said Dasos.
“I don’t know, ‘pizza’
sounds simpler.”
“That’s just great,” Zoi’ne said. “Here I was thinking that I’d somehow managed to introduce a new food to this side of the galaxy. Next you’ll be telling me that carrot cake exists with a different name.”
“Carrot cake?” said Il’lyse. “Who puts carrots inside of their sweets?”
“Earth does. If I had a recipe for it, I would show you.”
“You Earth folk eat some strange things. I never even tried those Funyuns.”
She saw, out of the edges of her peripheral vision, both Dasos and Tong-Chang parted from her sides to look right at her. It must have sounded to them like she’d made up something random. Dasos looked up at Zoi’ne, whose gaze was a curious one.
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