Above the Star

by Alexis Marie Chute

  “All of them.”

  Her wide eyes meet his. “All of them?”

  “All but one.” Archie briefly catches Ella’s gaze.

  “‘Once on the island, the Tillastrion is within reach,’” Tessa reads. “‘The portal-maker is there, in our time and realm . . .’”

  “Tessa—”

  “What is this? Was Arden writing a story?” Tessa shakes her head, her brow scrunched. “Why does he have notes on the Canary Islands? And magic?”

  Archie steps aside as passengers line up to disembark. He fidgets with the bag, though watches for a moment when he can pluck the notebook from his daughter-in-law’s grasp. “I’m not going to lie to you, Tessa. It’s complicated.”

  Tessa snaps the book shut and fishes Ella’s phone from the side pocket of her daughter’s backpack. She plugs in her ear-buds and passes them to Ella. “You’ve been really patient. Here.” Ella is engrossed in her device as the three join the line. Tessa slams the journal against Archie’s chest, leaning in so close that her nose is almost touching his.

  “Is he here?” Tessa breathes, her jaw clenched tight. “Is Arden here?”

  “I don’t know . . .” Archie fumbles. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Then why are we in the Canary Islands? Tell me the truth or I will fly Ella and me home this minute! And you, Archibald, will be relocated to the Seattle Seniors’ Center!”

  “Fine, Tess.” Archie throws his hands up in surrender as they continue to shuffle along with the line, their feet now treading on the marina platform. Shoulders slouched, he confesses, “I found Arden’s notebooks and wanted to come here—for all of us to come here—to feel closer to him somehow. He was studying this place. Who knows why. And I . . . I miss him.”

  The fierce edge fades from Tessa’s expression. “I get that,” she says finally. “But please, please don’t let Ella see those notebooks. I don’t want her to be reminded of him. I don’t want to be reminded of him.”

  “I understand.”

  “And you be careful, too. I don’t know why Arden did what he did—and I’ll never forgive him—but we need you, Archie. Ella needs you. I can only guess that whatever is in those notebooks is trouble.”

  Archie is about to speak, but the cruise director’s high-pitched voice interrupts him. “Ready to explore the Biosphere Reserve at Timanfaya National Park?” she says. Valarie smiles with her lips but not with her eyes. Her enthusiasm is thick, insincere. Archie and Tessa realize they have reached the front of the line.

  “Let’s go and have a nice day, okay, Archie?” says Tessa. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She gently taps Ella and signals for her to remove her earbuds, then helps Ella up the steep first step onto the bus.

  Archie shifts on the spot. “You know what, gang? I’m a little tired.”

  “You’re not coming?” Tessa asks. “Why, Archie? What are you up to now?”

  “Cool it, Tess! I’m beat from these last few days at sea. You’re right, I shouldn’t have brought this bag. It’s too much. I’m going to have a coffee at that café over there.” Archie points. “Read the paper. If it’s in English, that is. Don’t worry about me. And I promise, I won’t get into trouble.”

  “I don’t know . . .” Tessa bites her lip, but takes another step onto the bus, looking over her shoulder for Ella, who has already claimed a seat, though not at a window. The camera club members have swiftly slid into all the best spots. “I really think we should stay together.”

  “A day watching the boats is just what I need. Go! Enjoy yourself. I’m a stone’s throw to the Odyssey.”

  Valarie taps her foot firmly though her painted smile does not waiver. “Are we about ready, folks? Tick, tock.”

  “Ready,” Tessa says. She climbs on and squishes in beside Ella.

  Archie waves as the ancient motor vehicle takes a wide turn before groaning into gear and chugging away. He strolls toward the café.

  Once the black exhaust dissipates and the bus has tipped out of sight, Archie straightens his back, his weary gait transformed into a deliberate hustle. He digs into his bag, retrieves the blue book, flips to a dog-eared page, and traces the handwriting with his finger. He steps out onto the curb beside the road and hails a cab.

  “To the artisan market! Mercado Artesanal in the plaza of Haria. Here is your tip. Now, drive fast, man!”

  Chapter 4

  Archie studies the notebook intently, bracing himself with one arm as the cab races around pedestrians milling in the streets. A small pen drawing illustrates the appearance of Archie’s destination: a shop called Treasures pinched between two larger storefronts. The sketch shows a flat-roofed structure with a distinctive, broad crack beginning at the foundation, splitting the façade. The wooden sign is cut in the shape of an island with a steep volcanic mountain at its center.

  “Do you know this place?” Archie asks the driver, holding the book out toward him. The driver glances at it, frowns, and shrugs.

  Archie heaves himself out of the cab at the mouth of the artisan market, which clogs the narrow street with stalls capped in weathered green canopies that swell in the wind. The local vendors anchor their wares with fat stones and tarps over their produce, as tourists hold tight to their hats. A light rain begins to fall. Archie tucks the notebook inside his bag and turns up the collar of his jacket. A scooter toots its horn at him as he stands in the middle of the road, feeling immediately frail and helpless.

  “Dear god, how am I to find it?” Archie wheezes. As the words pass through his lips, the sprinkling rain turns torrential and pounds down on the square-cobbled street, splashing up to Archie’s knees. The old man shivers and shelters his bag as he watches the vendors parcel their jewelry, hand-sewn purses, and woven hats, tossing their tubs and boxes into the backs of cars that wait, already running. Dark-haired boys in sneakers and tank tops, younger than Ella, disassemble stands and crank the handles of shop awnings as tourists seek shelter within their doorways.

  Archie begins a slow, wet march up the now vacant roadway. His bones quiver in the damp breeze, his hair is blown ragged and water trickles down his neck. “Nope, that’s not the one,” he says to himself, studying the buildings along his route. “I know you’re out there, Arden,” Archie tells the rain. “I will find you, my boy.”

  Water droplets catch in Archie’s bushy eyebrows—once the same shade as Arden’s: deep chestnut brown, Archie recalls. Arden had always been a kind and thoughtful boy. “You only came home with a black eye and bloody lip for stickin’ up for some other kid,” Archie remembers aloud. “And you always wanted me to get out of my recliner and have adventures with you. To travel to the places you read about in your history textbooks. Well, looks like you’ve got your wish,” he mutters as he nears a bend in the road.

  “Now, wait. What do we have here?” Arden’s drawing stands before Archie in three dimensions, from the low flat roof to the crack, now a gaping fissure where two scraggly cats find refuge from the storm. “Treasures! By golly! It’s real!” Heat surges through Archie’s fingers and toes. The shop sign is faded and splintering, but unmistakable.

  Archie ducks beneath the low doorframe and enters the dimly lit shop. Haphazardly placed lamps send out flickering light that illuminates the curling smoke of multiple sticks of earthy-smelling incense. Beneath the perfumed air is another, distinct smell that abruptly halts Archie mid-step. “That fragrance . . . what is it?” he wonders, lost for a moment in half-thought, half-memory. “Fresh and wispy, warm, floral, spicy even—I can almost taste it . . .” but before Archie can place the smell, a strange voice breaks through his trance.

  “Is there something you are looking for?” the voice asks innocently enough, yet with a resentful inflection.

  Archie’s eyes, which he hadn’t realized he’d closed, snap open and he is back in the immediacy of his body, weighed down by damp clothes.

  “I recognize you,” the voice continues.

  “Wh—where are you?” Arch
ie stutters, peering around at the aged cabinets and dusty displays. “I’m looking for something, yes, something I believe you may sell.” Archie weaves his way toward the back of the shop, where a child sits on a stool. He wears a camo-patterned fishing hat and rests his chin against his Adams apple.

  “Your son was here.” The sound comes from the boy, but it is an old voice, raspy and curt.

  Archie’s chest tightens. Arden! he screams in his head and nearly bursts out smiling, but his thudding heart suddenly pierces him with fear. If everything I have read is true, then that is not a boy sitting there. Archie slowly considers his words before speaking. “You remember my son?”

  “How could I forget?” the boy taps the glass counter he sits behind with a long, pointy silver-white nail. The counter is lit from within, displaying oxidized metal jewelry. It highlights the boy from his collarbone to his nose, revealing sickly gray skin, but still the boy’s eyes are downcast and in shadow. His black lips move, as if replaying a long-rehearsed conversation of which he is loath to speak. As the moments pass, the boy taps the glass harder and harder.

  “Your son came looking for something. I assume it is the same something that you are after,” the boy hisses, finally, after a tiny crack appears in the glass countertop.

  Archie nods. “Yes, the Tillastrion,” he pronounces slowly, his trembling voice a pitch higher than normal. The word is etched in his mind. Finding the Tillastrion has been Archie’s mission, his sole preoccupation since he found Arden’s notebooks thrown roughly into a box and stuffed between the rafters in the attic.

  Archie did not blame Tessa for purging their home of all reminders of Arden. His departure from their lives was sudden and jarring. Even Archie had silently questioned his son, wondering why he would give up on his family like a coward. It took Archie months of reading to discover where Arden’s notes had taken him. Now, Archie stands where his son last ventured. This shop was the final clue. Archie’s heart flutters at the thought of reuniting his family, though he masks the feeling with a throaty cough.

  “Do you have it?” Archie asks when the boy does not respond. “The Tillastrion? Do you have one I can buy?”

  “I may, or I may not,” says the boy. “First, do you know the purpose of the device?”

  “I do, or I believe I do,” Archie hedges. “But you may not believe me if I tell you.”

  “Oh, I would believe you. Yes. And it is your lucky day,” the boy snaps, jumping from his stool and wrenching off his hat. The light from beneath the cracked glass casts light on the boy’s face, though he is not a boy at all. The grey skin on the creature’s face and bald head are split open with white protrusions. His eyes are immediately blinding like the sun, glaring in the dim shop. Archie stumbles backward. “I am Zeno, the maker of the Tillastrion.”

  Archie had prepared himself for this moment, knowing that who he would meet would be beyond the realm of anything he had ever known—anything of this world. Yet, the presence of Zeno is far more terrifying than Archie anticipated from reading Arden’s research. The old man immediately brings up bile in his mouth. He sucks it down and swallows hard, biting his fist to abate the nausea. Archie wobbles on his feet. The sickly taste rises again and he chokes on it. Vomit drips from his bottom lip but he does not wipe it away. All of a sudden, Archie’s vision turns blank, seeing grey-black as if he stood up too quickly, and all that he can think of is to escape from the constricting walls of Treasures, sprint to the Odyssey as fast as his tired legs will carry him, and sail to the other side of the world from Lanzarote.

  Unsure of the creature’s malice—and winded by the shock and terror that claw at his sanity—Archie backs up on wobbling legs, his trembling hands feeling for obstructions at his sides. Still, his hip connects with the corner of a table. A blown-glass vase tumbles to the floor and shatters. The sound is so startling in the presence of Zeno that Archie covers his ears. His lungs burn for air. Archie’s mind swirls with delusions from which he cannot tell what is real and what he has conjured, as if he actually has gone mad with dementia as Tessa frequently asks him when he forgets to shut off the gas stove or misplaces his wallet at the petrol station. Archie turns to run.

  The creature does not flinch at the crash or at the old man’s retreat, but continues speaking. “I have made the Tillastrion once before, but it was stolen from me.”

  “Arden,” Archie says, pausing before crossing through the doorway back out into the rain. He whispers to himself, “Archibald, be brave. You’re so close. Everything Arden wrote was true. You can find him. Don’t give up!” Archie slowly turns back to face the creature. There, dripping rain on the wood floor of the fragrant shop, surrounded by treasures of magnificent color and mysterious origin, Archie feels his son’s presence, like a shadow at his feet. “I will find Arden. I will find Arden,” he whispers to himself before speaking up.

  “I’m sorry for what my son may have done. But, but is there—by any chance—another Tillastrion here? Could I . . . could I pay for them both?” Archie fumbles over his words as he projects his voice to the back of the shop, which is dark but for the glowing case and even brighter yellow eyes, like two floating suns.

  The creature chuckles. “It is not as simple as that. What is your name?”

  “Archibald Wellsley.”

  “As I have already told you: I am Zeno. You would do well to show me respect, as I am the bearer of Naiu in this pitiful dimension, and heir to the kingship of the Bangols. As for your questions, Archibald: the price . . .”

  “Please, I am a man of little means. I spent near all my savings to bring my family here . . .”

  “Your family?” Zeno repeats, his eyes bulging. “The child? I must know. Do they travel with us?”

  Archie realizes he has said too much. “Oh, they’re not here; not with me, exactly.” He backtracks. “They’re on the continent. Not on the islands. I’ll go to them after I use the Tillastrion, you see. They are waiting for me—in hiding. But, but of the child, who exactly do you mean?”

  Zeno appraises Archie with narrowed eyes, reading the truthfulness of the old man’s words. “Your son spoke of a girl, but pay no mind to my question. If she is not here, she is of no concern to me,” Zeno replies slowly. “Now, we must proceed in the manner I see fit. First, tell me what you know of the Tillastrion. I must ensure you are not a fool—or a thief.”

  “I only know what I have read,” Archie begins. “The Tillastrion is a portal-jumper, from one world to another.”

  “Close,” Zeno replies, “but not quite. It only transports from this wretched place to my world. To Jarr, to the island of Jarr-Wya. That is all.”

  “Jarr-Wya?” Archie gulps.

  “Are you afraid, Archibald Wellsley?” A hungry smile spreads across Zeno’s pointed face.

  “Yes. I am scared,” Archie admits.

  “Good.” Zeno looks thoroughly pleased and climbs back on his stool. “Don’t you want to know what happened to your son?” he asks.

  “He went to your world.”

  “Again, so close,” Zeno nearly sings. “Arden came here looking for the Tillastrion, just like you. But he was greedy and untrusting. He stole from me. He agreed to my terms and then broke his word.”

  “What are your terms?”

  “All I ask is that you bring me with you. I have unfinished business on Jarr-Wya.”

  “Why wouldn’t you use the Tillastrion yourself? To go back anytime?” probes Archie.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Zeno snaps. “Maybe you are a fool! I am from there, thus I can make it, but I cannot use it myself, you see. Someone from here must help me operate the device. Our two worlds are connected, Archibald. Mine is of course superior, yours the derivative with no magic. If one wishes to transport from Jarr to earth, a person from earth must build the Tillastrion and operate it with a Jarrwian traveling companion. And vice versa. To travel from earth to Jarr, someone from Jarr must build the device and operate it with an earthling companion. Do you see? There mus
t always be two.”

  “Then how did Arden use it?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Arden tried, you are right. But he changed his mind about keeping his word. He soon discovered that I am much more powerful than I may appear.”

  “What did you do to him?” Archie chokes out, running to the counter and smashing his fists upon it. The crack spreads.

  Zeno smiles and leans in closer to Archie. “It’s not what I did to him. It’s what he did to himself. He lied to me, tried to jump portals, to my dimension, without my company and thus the curse of the Tillastrion transported him to ageless, immortal, torturous black; the space between worlds from which no one can return.”

  Archie gasps and his eyes fill with tears. He covers his mouth and falls to his knees, on top of the broken vase, but there is no physical pain like the stabbing ache of finality Archie knows in his heart. He can no longer hear or see—or chooses not to. Lost in sorrow, Archie struggles to regain his breath. His blood seems to fill and pulse in his head, drowning out his ability to think.

  Suddenly, Zeno’s voice is in Archie’s ear, so close that the Bangol’s stench, like decaying flowers, fills Archie’s nose and the coarse hairs on the old man’s skin stand erect. “Your son was right, Archibald. About my world. About Jarr-Wya. He was right, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is a cure for the child, your granddaughter. What was her name again?” Zeno pauses. “Ella.”

  Archie’s damp clothing clings to his skin and feels suddenly suffocating. He searches his mind, straining to remember if he mentioned Ella to the creature, or if, in all of Arden’s notes, he had read something about a cure in this parallel world that Zeno speaks of. So many of the notes are cryptic and scrawled in Arden’s messy penmanship. Archie reminds himself to look later. If I have a later.

  “That’s why he left us,” Archie finally says. “To find a cure for Ella. It all makes sense. Ella’s tumor was growing and untreatable. All the doctors said she would die.” Archie shakes his head. Sweat trickles down the side of his face. “Arden was pale and reclusive, working long hours at the university, returning to the library after reading Ella books at bedtime. But I remember. The week before Arden disappeared, his spirits were up. He smiled more, laughed from his gut. Oh yes, and he brought Ella a gift! It was a potted plant. Tessa—my daughter-in-law—was furious.”