Lost and Found

by Mary Hamilton

  From somewhere above, she heard Miranda’s shouts growing louder. “Marzi. Where are you? Where’s Tovi?”

  With every passing second, the enormity of the emergency increased. Marzi’s frantic concern rapidly turned to panic and terror. Where was her brother? He had jumped on a beam and started down the hill, just as they always did. Well, except that the beam was not white but colored. What color? Blue, but what did it matter? Tovi was gone.

  She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. She needed to think. What to do? She could run home and tell her parents, but that would take time. If her brother was in trouble, maybe it would be too late by the time they returned. She could keep looking. Maybe he fell off the beam and bumped his head. Yes, that was probably it. He was just lying in the moss somewhere unconscious. Or maybe he was hiding from her because, well, because that’s the kind of thing he liked to do.

  In her heart, though, she knew otherwise. She’d seen the instantaneous look of terror on his face as he started down the hill. He was in trouble and she needed to find him.

  She picked herself up and started to climb the hill. There was only one way to find him. She’d have to jump a colored beam herself. She met her two friends close to the top. “I’m going after him.” She sped past them without pausing.

  From over her shoulder, she heard Laeky shout. “Going where? Where is he?”

  Marzi didn’t respond. Struggling to keep her breath, she kept running. As she crested the top of the hill, she paused and began to look for a beam. There were several forming but they were all white. No point in jumping one of those, she knew exactly where they would take her.

  Then she saw it, a pale green light forming not ten meters distant. She stared as it increased in intensity to form a beam. It shone like an emerald in the night. Bolting from her position, she ran toward it, never taking her eyes off the target. As she approached it, she heard several shouts.

  The first came from Miranda. “Marzi, wait. Don’t.”

  The second shout was a deeper male voice, one she didn’t recognize. “Stop. Right now. Don’t go near that beam.”

  Without breaking her stride, Marzi leapt for the green moonbeam, landing squarely with both feet. She shuffled forward and felt the pull of gravity begin to work. The wind freshened in her face and the muted details of the hill, mostly obscured by dusk, became a dark charcoal swirl. Pinpoints of light sparkled around her, quickening their pace as her speed increased. Then she saw a brilliant green flash, and all else faded to black.

  ◆◆◆

  As Jarek ran along the crest of the ridge, he could hear voices ahead. Off to his left, he saw a blue moonbeam spawn into existence for a few seconds, only to vanish. The voices ahead grew louder and sounded frantic. Something must have happened. He shouted, “Kids, get off the slope. Right now. Do not go near any of the beams.”

  Within a few seconds, three forms came into view. Two teens were just standing and yelling. A third was bounding toward a green beam that was just becoming visible. “Stop. Right now. Don’t go near that beam.” He poured on a burst of speed but to no avail. The teen, a girl by the look of it, mounted the ribbon of shimmering light and slipped over the edge of the hill. “Cogs and gears! She jumped on a colored beam!”

  Jarek panicked, having no idea whether the young girl was in real trouble or not. Then it occurred to him that he’d have to explain all of this to his boss, Director Dornan. Breathless, he reached the edge of the slope where she’d gone over. Looking down, he saw nothing. The emerald beam had vanished along with the girl. He shouted, “Hey, are you down there? Get back up here, right now.”

  Silence. No sound, no movement. His mind raced. Where could she have gone? Maybe the beam transported her to the bottom of the slope, just like the white ones. No, it wasn’t in existence long enough. It had only been visible for a few seconds. She couldn’t have made it more than twenty meters or so.

  Still, he could go to the bottom and check. As his mind raced through his limited options, the remaining two teens ran up beside him. The girl, sounding as frantic as he felt, tugged on his arm. “Where did they go?”

  He turned toward her. “They? There was more than one?” He’d only seen one go over—a teenage girl.

  The boy chimed in. “Yeah, Tovi and Marzi Gloam. He went first, and she went after him. You gotta find them.”

  Jarek stared at the two kids as he tried to focus on a solution. He came up with only one. He would just go after them. And when he caught up with the two, he’d give them a real piece of his mind. “I’ll get them.” He began surveying the top of the slope for a colored beam.

  The girl, her voice pitched up at least an octave, sounded desperate. “Should we go get help?”

  Help? Should they get help? “No. Just stay off the beams tonight—tell everyone to stay off the beams.” He continued to search. And then a hint of light, not white. As he broke into a run, the faint glow intensified into a brilliant red beam. He shouted over his shoulder as he leapt, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter 5: Marzi

  Marzi picked herself up off the ground, a ground that didn’t feel quite right. Rather than the usual soft cushion of grass, she’d found herself on a harder surface covered with dirt, pine needles, and damp moss. Standing, she wiped her hands on the pink blouse that covered her dark blue pants. She also had her favorite sweater with her—white with pink and blue tiny flowers embroidered on it—sleeves tied around her waist for when it got cooler later.

  She stood still for a moment before turning around to take in her surroundings. She’d never seen this part of Pangrove before. The darkness of the forest and the size of the tree trunks assured her that she was not at the bottom of the slope. She forced her thoughts back to her brother and the events just prior to her landing. “Tovi?” The name came out soft. “Are you there?”

  A drone of insect buzz and chirping crickets filled the air. But she heard no response to her call. She grew braver. In a louder, more authoritative voice, she tried again. “Look, weasel, you come out right now. If I have to go home and tell Mom, she’s not ever going to let you go beam hopping again.” It occurred to her, though, that going home might not be an easy feat.

  The woods looked very different, at least for several meters around. She glanced up and could barely make out branches above her. The lower trunks stood straight, tall, and unadorned.

  Marzi eased over a few meters and craned her neck to get a good look at the sky. If she could see the moon, she’d have an idea in which direction to head. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of brilliant stars twinkled in the inky blackness. Through a break in the thick canopy, she could make out what might be a moon, although it was not one that had shown on the slopes just minutes before. This sliver of a crescent hung lower in the sky than the full moons of Pangrove.

  Her heart sank a little more with each second. Something was wrong. She whimpered, “Mom? Dad?” She knew her parents couldn’t hear. They were at home waiting for her and Tovi to return. Tears began to fill her eyes, but she wiped them with her sleeve. Crying wasn’t going to help.

  She shifted her gaze back to eye level and began to survey her surroundings. Her eyes acclimated to the darkness. Starlight found its way through the heavy cover of leaves and branches. The trees were widely spaced, perhaps four or five meters apart. She looked around for a road or path but found none.

  Rotating several times trying to discern the best direction in which to walk, Marzi briefly wondered if staying put might be the best idea. After all, once her parents found out she was gone, they’d come looking for her. This is where the beam had deposited her. They would show up here too. If they came.

  She sat down, running her fingers across the rough, damp ground. Feeling the water on her hands, she realized she was thirsty and hungry. She’d eaten a light dinner but nothing since. “I’ll hold on here for a while.”

  Marzi wasn’t sure what time she had jumped on that beam, but she was sure that she’d been g
one from home for over three hours. After another thirty minutes, she stood. “It’s just me, I guess.” She looked up at the stars again, at least the ones she could see through the tall, full trees. Everything in the sky looked different. Her class had studied astronomy last year, but she didn’t recognize anything above her.

  Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and struck out in a random direction, exactly which one she wasn’t sure. For the first hour, the walking was easy. She moved ahead, weaving through the trees and staying on course by occasionally checking the stars. Other than the sounds of insects, she heard nothing but her own footsteps. “I’m bound to run into someone soon.” Even in the country outside Pangrove, there were villages scattered about, and, in the space between them, farms littered the landscape.

  The farther Marzi walked, the more the trees closed in, with smaller trunks and lower branches. At some point, Marzi found herself walking uphill and fighting through dense brush to make headway. Sweat rolled down the side of her face and she could feel the itching and stinging of scratches on her hands. She stumbled a couple of times and, with each fall, felt less inclined to get up. Finally, she broke out of the heavy brush into a clearing. About fifteen meters ahead, the ground appeared to end. She crept cautiously forward until she came to the edge of a cliff looking out into what appeared to be endless water. She could hear crashing below, a sound unlike anything she had ever heard.

  Marzi strained her eyes and saw sparkling lights on the water. Looking skyward, she lost herself in the enormity of the sight—thousands, maybe millions of stars blanketed the heavens. Glancing back down it dawned on her that the twinkling lights on the water were reflections of the stars. She could go no farther and plopped down on the hard ground. The young Azyrean looked up and down the coastline for some sign of life but she was alone.

  She could either pick one of the directions following the coastline, or return the way she had come. Tears gathered again. This time, she let them roll down her cheeks, too tired to do anything about them.

  Marzi twisted toward the thicket from which she had just emerged, some fifteen meters distant. In the tangled mass of vegetation, she could make out small points of light —burning yellow lights conveniently arranged in pairs. The pairs of piercing yellow lights remained stationary for a while and then shifted. Eyes.

  Chapter 6: Marzi

  Marzi realized that fierce beasts must have tracked her and now waited for her to fall asleep, so they could attack and drag her away. It occurred to her, though, that they didn’t need to wait until she was asleep, they could probably take her any time they wanted. She gazed out around the horizon for signs of dawn, any lightening of the sky. Darkness held sway.

  The eyes watched her. She watched them back. After a while, her blinking became more frequent, and with each blink, her increasingly heavy lids fought to remain closed. Marzi lowered herself into a position lying down parallel with the cliff, her face toward the woods. She watched for movement among the predators but, on reflection, knew there was nothing she could do to stop them if they came for her. A warm mist rose off the ocean, enveloping her like a blanket. She gave in to the lulling mist and constant pounding of water on the shore.

  Her eyes grew heavier and her fears subsided.

  ◆◆◆

  Marzi felt a light hand gently shaking her shoulder. “Marzi, honey, wake up and come in the house before you catch cold.” She looked up to see her mother standing over her, a large wooden spoon in one hand and a dish towel over her shoulder.

  “Mom? How did you get here?” The young girl rubbed her eyes as she looked around. Gone were the ocean, the cliff, and the woods. The light from the kitchen window lit up the back yard as if it were day.

  Her mother laughed. “I’m always here, you know that. Where else would I be?”

  Marzi furrowed her brow and rubbed her floppy ear as she always did when perplexed. “But I was trying to find Tovi. He jumped on a colored beam and disappeared. I had to go after him.”

  “Tovi’s in the house drinking hot cocoa. If you don’t hurry inside, he’ll drink yours too.”

  “I’m coming. Just give me a minute to wake up.”

  ◆◆◆

  Marzi came awake with a start to find herself lying at the edge of the cliff. Daylight had made its initial appearance. The black sky with its countless small twinkling lights had become a blue-gray canopy with hints of orange, purple, and pink on the horizon. She rubbed her eyes and stretched. Looking toward the woods, she saw no signs of life. Maybe the yellow eyes had also been a dream.

  Thirst quickly replaced her fatigue. She gazed out across the open water beyond the cliff, knowing that most likely it was not drinkable—she had learned in school that the large seas were salt water. She felt an overwhelming need to slake her thirst. Turning toward the woods, she took a few cautious steps and then halted, surveying the wall of brush in front of her. Marzi moved to the left and started forward again. Within a few steps, she saw an opening in the thick tangle of vegetation, an obvious path. Her spirits lightened. This path proved that there were Azyreans in the area. It took only a few seconds for her to realize that it could easily have been an animal path.

  Still, following the path was better than fighting her way through the brush again. Her hands still itched and stung from the night before. Easing up to an opening in the bushes, she paused and looked back at the cliff and horizon beyond. After taking in the sight and salty smell of the ocean one last time, she turned and crossed the threshold into the forest.

  Within an hour, the brush on both sides of her thinned and large trees became dominant. Driven by a burning thirst, she quickened her pace. Pangs of hunger also began to gnaw at her. Her walk became a trot and then a run.

  A half-hour later, Marzi stumbled onto a babbling brook winding its way over rocks through the deep woods. She went down on both knees and cupped the icy water in her hands, sloshing it into her mouth. With each drink, her thirst subsided. She sat back on her heels, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

  With her thirst quenched, hunger now rose to the top of her priority list. She looked around the edge of the stream for plants that looked edible, although she had to admit that she hadn’t a clue what an edible plant looked like. She stood and followed the brook upstream for a few minutes before spying what looked like a piece of meat sitting on a rock.

  Now, any other time, Marzi would not have even dreamed of touching food that had been left out in the open like this, much less eating it. But she felt desperate. She looked around to see if there was anyone nearby. Perhaps a hunter had left it there and gone off into the woods for a moment. After all, with no houses nearby, one would have to relieve himself or herself somewhere, and it would defy common sense to do it right by the stream.

  But nothing in the area moved. Even the sounds of the insects, which had been loud the night before, were muted. She walked tentatively toward the meat, stopping a couple of meters from the rock. She peered at the food, feeling hunger raging in her stomach. It looked like tarobird meat, but maybe a little different. She squinted her eyes and moved closer to get a better look.

  Marzi told herself it was a bad idea. And yet she advanced. Less than a meter from her meal, she paused for one last look. Her next step changed everything.

  Chapter 7: Marzi

  Marzi’s world spun so rapidly that she couldn’t see details around her. The only thing of which she was certain was that she was hanging upside down. She knew because, when she looked up, she saw the ground instead of the sky. She screamed, “Aaaaiiiiiiyyyyyaaaaa!” She’d taken that one step, and something had snared her leg, hurling her into the air. Now she hung from that something, spinning like a top.

  Nausea began to combine with her dizziness. The rate of spin slowed, and she started to make out details in the world around her. Trees, bushes, and the brook all zipped by. She slowed more and more until….

  Marzi found herself staring into the brilliant piercing blue eyes of a beast that sta
red balefully back at her. She screamed again and tried to shake herself loose, only to feel the binding around her lower leg tighten.

  A voice, low, hostile, and alien responded to her scream. “Aus’towain, Lapis.”

  The blue eyes shifted back and to the side only to be replaced by a new set of icy blue eyes attached to the creamy face of a strange being. Straight, pale hair the color of corn silk fell over and around two short pointed ears. The face, which was feminine, moved closer to Marzi’s and stared.

  “Help! Get me down. Please.” Marzi felt her panic rising. Once more she tried to twist loose, only to find herself spinning around again. “Help!”

  The person owning the face sat on the ground beside Marzi and continued to stare. “Ah, you speak the common tongue.” The being reached around to her side and, after a pause, stood so that Marzi could see only legs.

  After a brief shaking of the line that held her, Marzi felt the tension on her leg suddenly ease as she tumbled to the ground. Rolling with the fall, she pulled herself into a sitting position a couple of meters away from the being and eyed her with a combination of fear and curiosity.

  From a seated position, she could better make out what she was dealing with. It was definitely female. Oh my, even sitting, she is a giant. Dressed in earthy tones of forest green and brown, the giant stared back at Marzi.

  Off to the side and slightly behind this female sat an enormous beast. Its features resembled those of a dog, only much larger—bigger even than Marzi. The beast was the color of midnight—a dark bluish black—with pale piercing blue eyes. It eyed the Azyrean with what looked like wariness. Although its mouth remained closed, pointed teeth extended down from inside the upper lip.

  The being cocked her head and arched an eyebrow. “What are you?”

  Marzi stared for a moment, not quite sure what to make of the question. Finally, she responded, “I am lost.”