Travel Glasses

by Chess Desalls

  “What? No. No—” I squeezed his hand, begging him to believe me. I was telling the truth. I loved being with Valcas, but I didn’t think I’d fallen in love with him or anyone else. It didn’t make any sense. Was there some type of bond between me and creepy-eyed Valcas, something that would explain how he knew who I was and where to find me?

  Valcas looked at me with his bright green eyes. He pulled me closer to him and rested his cheek on mine. I sighed, thankful that he believed me, but I was also regretful because I knew I would have to leave soon. I couldn’t keep hurting him like this.

  “Can we go somewhere else?” I suggested. “Maybe outside the tower for a while?”

  “Of course. Do you want to go out for a ride on one of the flyers?”

  “Sure, I’ll meet you in the hallway near the entrance. I need to go back to my room for something first.”

  I walked quickly down the hallway to my suite. The travel glasses were on the floor next to the bed where I’d had my meltdown earlier that day. I grabbed my backpack and placed the travel glasses inside.

  HALFWAY THROUGH our flight, I pulled the travel glasses out of my backpack and placed them on my face. I focused on the scenery around us, the sunless sky, the moons, the purple-red dunes. I listened to the whirr of the Estrel-Flyer’s engine and the hiss of air as we passed through it.

  I felt Valcas’ movements, steady and strong, in front of me as he flew the Estrel-Flyer. My arms were tightly wrapped around him. My head nestled against his shoulder. I pressed every sight, every sound, every feeling into the travel glasses, wanting to remember every detail of the flight. Even though I didn’t remove them until long after we landed safely on the ground, there was no bright white light. I hadn’t traveled anywhere even though the travel glasses and I had both been in motion. Instead, I’d focused on burning every thought, feeling and sensation into memory. I’d recorded.

  “You were quiet during the flight,” said Valcas once we were standing in the hallway again. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes.” I answered Valcas in a word, but I told the travel glasses what I felt. My heart beat so heavily with emotion that I thought it might burst. Maybe I had fallen in love—with the idea of this version of Valcas. Maybe I was starting to feel whatever it was that he seemed to feel toward the version of me inside the photo of us.

  I went back to my room earlier than usual that night, wanting to see if I could play back what I’d recorded. Given that I hadn’t traveled anywhere else, I was hopeful that it had worked. Having recorded the scene myself, I also felt confident that I would be able to search for what I’d recorded and play it back. Then maybe I could search for other memories recorded in the travel glasses.

  The bedroom was dim, lit only by a chandelier of bulbs shaped like stars and half-moons. I sat cross-legged on top of my bed and put on the glasses. Instead of telling the glasses where I wanted to go, I told them what I wanted to see. I searched for sights and sounds by playing back the memories of that night that were still fresh in my mind. It felt a lot like a travel search, except that the place I was searching was somewhere inside the glasses, somewhere deep and internal.

  As I relaxed into my search I began to hear the hum of an engine and the soft whistle of wind. My ears and cheeks tingled from the wind’s chill. I felt the rise and fall of Valcas’ steady breathing where I held him tightly. The black sky was the darkest and brightest that it had ever been. The reds were more red and the purples more purple. Each sensation was more potent than it had been during the actual flight. The memories had to be coming from within the travel glasses, where they’d been recorded, instead of from my own mind where the memories had already begun to fade.

  After we landed and dismounted, we walked into the white tower. The hallway was blindingly white even though I still wore the travel glasses. I turned and looked upward to get a good look at Valcas’ face. I felt the recorder’s heart—my heart—leap, full of emotion and longing, but I gasped at what I actually saw. He was still handsome. His eyes were still green and every feature still perfectly formed. But something was different. Valcas was washed out, like faded ink on a photograph or red roses bleached by the sun.

  “You were quiet during the flight. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes.”

  But it’s not all right, I thought to myself. It was as if the travel glasses knew that the past version of Valcas was not real, that he had changed since then. I was with someone who wasn’t really there. My chest tightened. It was a familiar feeling. It was the same emotion I felt while watching Valcas discover that he could not see Juna through the zobascope because she was not real. But, instead of deleting falsehoods like the zobascope, the travel glasses distinguished truth from what was not real in a different way. Truth was bright and vivid. Illusions were faded and pale.

  Remembering what it felt like to look through the zobascope when Valcas was recording, I decided to try another search. The Valcas I’d first met wore the travel glasses nearly all of the time. Maybe the recording feature was part of the reason why. I didn’t fault him for not telling me about the glasses’ ability to record. I wouldn’t have told anybody about it either. Searching for someone by name and location was one thing. Intruding into their personal memories and observations was another. Is that why the zobascope and travel glasses both require a strong bond between the recorder and the viewer?

  I took a deep breath and relaxed. I searched the travel glasses again with my thoughts to see if I could discover anything that had been recorded. I thought about palaces that Valcas may have usurped, places where he may have traveled, people that he may have met. Bits and pieces of recorded memories surfaced. I was able to see glimpses of places that I knew I’d never seen before, those that weren’t part of my own memories. There were breathtaking landscapes, soaring palaces and dizzying flights. There were so many different places that I suspected Valcas had made a sort of travel journal or address book out of the glasses. All he needed was to play back his recordings so that he could return to any exact time and place.

  The travel glasses had also captured people. There were duplicates of the same people recorded at different times. Some were washed-out doubles and others were as vivid as the worlds in which they’d existed. I didn’t notice any particular female companions—no girlfriends or fiancées. I would have loved to have seen a recording of Lucinda Pell, but I guess that would have been before he took off with the glasses. The women that did occasionally appear in Valcas’ memories appeared reserved and unaffectionate. Were they oblivious to how good-looking he was? Hadn’t anyone else found him attractive?

  The recordings of people and places were accompanied by flashes of emotion—excitement, greed, anger, pain, loss. My heart ached, seeing just how infrequently positive feelings had been captured, like hope and happiness.

  Most of the recordings were brief snapshots, but there were also entire scenes like the flight that I’d recorded. The glasses held so much information that it was no wonder he wore them all of the time. He must have relied on them. Maybe that was why he hadn’t found me again since he’d shown up at Folkestone harbor, and why there had been significant gaps in time between his arrivals even though, in theory, he would have been able to find me instantly just by searching for me. Maybe he’d relied too much on the travel glasses.

  I started. Were there any recordings of me in the travel glasses? I kept searching, wondering whether the fact that my eye color had changed made it more difficult for Valcas to find the dark-eyed, dark-haired “beauty” he’d located at the dock. He did, after all, prefer darker eyes. Maybe by ruining the dark eyes he was searching for, I’d unintentionally interfered with or changed the elements of his search for me.

  Curious about this theory, I searched the travel glasses for females with dark eyes. The memory that surfaced felt confusingly familiar to me even before the recorded picture appeared. It was as if Valcas’ eyes were closed when he started recording. The closeness that I felt to the rec
order—to Valcas—was already stronger than it had been when I viewed his earlier recordings through the zobascope.

  A garden came into view. It was late summer in a world that looked like Earth. A young pale woman with wide dark eyes laced with dark lashes held a squirming bundle. I gasped, following the woman’s long blonde hair down to two tiny hands that were intertwining the blonde locks through even tinier fingers. The baby, as pale as her mother, was about one and a half years old with a full head of dark curly hair, studded with white satin bows. Two young hands reached out from my view into the scene where the mother passed the baby. The two hands carefully held the baby and held her up for a better look. Surges of emotion, wonder mixed with a startling infatuation, jolted me as I looked into the baby’s eyes—my own eyes—the way they once were, shaped and colored exactly like Mom’s.

  The memory and the people in it were vividly real. Mom has met Valcas? He knew me when I was a baby? And, he recorded it? I gasped for air.

  “Ah, she is beautiful. Exquisite,” Valcas said.

  Mom blushed slightly and nodded in thanks, but she also looked upset. Her lips twitched slightly at the corners of her lips like she wanted to say something. She looked so young and vulnerable sitting there all alone.

  “You and Plaka must be very proud. We’ll find him, Miss Winston. We’ve been tracking his silhouettes and the Uproar that is after him. I’ll keep you informed of any progress. In the meantime, you and this tiny beauty will be kept safe.” My chest tightened. Or was it Valcas’ chest? “If anything happens to Plaka—if we confirm that he is lost or deceased, we’ll let you know right away.”

  I could feel the loyalty and resolve in Valcas’ words, although I was not sure whether he was projecting these emotions onto Mom, my father or me.

  The recording ended, leaving me wishing that Mom had spoken—that she’d said something to explain why the Halls had any interest in keeping our family safe and how Valcas knew any of us. I also wanted to hear more about my father, where he’d gone, what he was like. Had something happened? Was this why Valcas was back in my life? Was that why he had been searching for me instead, protecting me from whatever was at the lake? Did the bond between us have something to do with my father?

  In that moment the travel glasses became more important to me than I ever would have thought possible, as if I were meant to have found them. I slipped the glasses off of my face and looked at them with a new appreciation. The travel glasses held the memories that Valcas had chosen to record. There may be more information inside them that could help me find my father.

  I put the glasses back on and blindly searched inside for anyone named Plaka using the description that Uncle Al had given me. I looked for more recordings of Mom and of me. I found nothing. I didn’t know whether it was because the recordings I was looking for weren’t in the glasses or whether I was so excited about finding them that I couldn’t relax enough for it to work.

  As I grew tired beneath the night’s passing hours, I became more and more frustrated with my inability to find out more about my father and Valcas’ connection with him. I removed the travel glasses. They’d confirmed that there was no longer any reason for me to stay at the white tower. I’d learned everything here that I could possibly learn. In order to get the answers to the rest of my questions, I would need to confront reality, that reality being Mom and the presently existing Valcas.

  Tomorrow I would have to say good-bye to green-eyed Valcas forever.

  I STAYED in bed late again, not wanting to face the day. My room felt colder than usual. The floor chilled my feet as I walked over to where I’d left my backpack. I dressed in the jeans and sweatshirt that I’d brought with me to the white tower. I slowly and deliberately laced up my running shoes. I propped the travel glasses on my head, slipped my backpack on my back, and then I paced. I paced back and forth through the suite of rooms until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  When neither Valcas nor his servants came for me, I ventured out into the long hallway where I paced some more. I knew that it was time to leave, that I must say good-bye. I just didn’t know how to do these things or where I was going to go. As I paced I thought of Mom, of Edgar and of Uncle Al. I thought of Enta, Romaso and Shirlyn.

  Then I thought of Valcas.

  He was the only person I knew who may still be out there looking for me, trying to “bring me back.” Fine, then. Maybe I would let him do that. He told me that he would protect me. He’d apparently told my mother the same thing. I thought back on all of the times he’d scared me, every bit of evidence that justified taking the travel glasses and running away from the palace. He’d searched for me. He’d locked me in a room when I wouldn’t cooperate with his plans. He’d told me that I abandoned security back at the palace—that he would recover me. He’d shown up at Enta’s homestead where he told her and Edgar that I would eventually need to stop moving. He’d found me at Folkestone harbor where he laughed at me as he chased down the Pipette with a larger motorboat.

  Would he have really hurt me? Or was he using my own fears against me for my own protection? If that was the case, he wasn’t doing a very good job at it.

  Approaching footsteps interrupted my thoughts. Someone else was in the hallway, patrolling it.

  “Oh, hello!” I called out as the mustached guard drew nearer.

  “Miss Winston,” he bowed.

  “May I ask you something?”

  “Yes, Miss.”

  “How do you always know my name? You knew it the last time you saw me too. Is that something you re-learn every morning as part of Valcas’ orders, or is there some other way?”

  “There are many ways, Miss Winston, although security orders prevent me from revealing all of them. I do apologize. I will say, however, that on this particular morning, I was asked to bring you a message.”

  “A message for me? From Valcas?”

  “No, Miss. The message is from outside of the tower. We are expecting a visitor soon. Someone is very rapidly approaching the tower.” He paused to hand me a small clear box. “You have what you would say is a telephone call.”

  My skin crawled with an uncomfortable tingling sensation as I held and opened the box. It felt slippery and cold, like a melting ice cube. I wasn’t sure what to do next. The guard was already hustling down the hallway, getting ready for whoever was quickly approaching. At least I would get to find out who was trying to contact me this time.

  I inhaled and then quietly croaked in the direction of the box. “Um, hello?”

  A familiar female voice answered. “Calidora, why haven’t you answered any of my messages?”

  “Mom?” My jaw dropped. She was the last person I expected to hear on the other end of the line. “You sent the telegram and letter to the Halls’ estate?”

  “Yes. I have very few ways of contacting you directly. Just as soon as I figure out where you are, you move again. You don’t answer your phone. I’ve been extremely worried about you.”

  “I never brought my phone with me. But, wait. I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just say that the messages were from you? None of them were signed and you said to use the glasses. None of it made any sense. And how did you know to call here?” I was on a roll. I had an arsenal of questions. If I was going to be blamed for not checking in with my mother, then I at least wanted some answers. I saved my best question for last. “Is Valcas still searching for my father?”

  A silence followed, long enough that I thought that I may have been disconnected.

  “Hello? Mom?”

  I heard a sigh from the other end of the phone. “The messages that I sent through Mona could not be encrypted. I didn’t want to leave any traces, to change anything in the past. The first message asked you to use the glasses because I hoped that Valcas could get in touch with you and explain what was going on. He contacted me after you fled from Enta’s homestead.”

  “Do you know how terrifying his messages are? Did he tell you that he locked me in a room in his palace and
that he tried to run me over with a motorboat? I thought I was running away from a really charming psycho freak.”

  Mom cleared her throat. “I can’t say that I agree with how he’s been handling this. Valcas has changed a lot since I first met him, but I know that he would never harm you. I’m sorry, Calla. I really should have told you more about all of this earlier. I wanted to protect you too.”

  I felt my blood pressure drop. The hallway was white, the same sickening white that blurred my vision when I felt like I was going to pass out. I closed my eyes and caught onto a silver doorknob to keep from sinking to the ground. Was this what she’d been keeping from me all of these years, leaving me completely clueless?

  “Are you a traveler?” I asked.

  “No, not exactly. I work for the TSTA as a travel communications facilitator. The Halls are my clients.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. What else did she know?

  “Is Uncle Al all right? Where is he now?”

  “He’s fine. Valcas told us about the incident at the lake after he said he had you safely in his custody. We were able to find him before further damage was done. Calla, listen to me. You need to understand something. You need to stop moving now. If you don’t, you will be in danger of getting lost.”

  “But I can’t stay here! I have to get out of here—there’s nothing left to learn. None of it is real. Valcas will be here soon and I have to say good-bye. I have to go. I’m nothing but a ghost to him here and I don’t want to hurt him anymore.”

  “Calla, listen to what you are saying. You are losing sight of what is and is not real. I sent Valcas to find and retrieve you once you started using the travel glasses so that you wouldn’t get lost. He was upset that you’d left and made a fool of him, but he agreed to go anyway. We couldn’t just leave you out there all alone. He’s on his way there now.”