Insight Kindling

by Chess Desalls

  I DRAGGED my leaf mattress closer to the light pile and sank down on top of the leaves, thinking about Ray’s infraction as I stared at the crags up above. Light from our artificial fire reflected off the sharp points in the darkness. The crags looked about as jagged and itchy as my mattress felt.

  Who made up the TSTA’s rules? Who decided what was good or bad for travelers and the worlds around them? I frowned. I didn’t know what world the TSTA was in or why it had any authority over me. All I knew was fear and how fear led me to where I was now—in a cave, behind sheets of water, healing balm and deadly fires.

  I shuddered. I’d always heard that knowledge was power; yet, the more I learned, the more questions I had, and the more powerless I felt.

  My eyes fluttered, blinking back yawns. “Goodnight guys,” I whispered.

  Ivory snored, already out. I heard Ray fluff up his mattress, over by the part of the cave that had become Ray’s Corner ever since he’d spent so much time there during his recovery.

  I don’t remember whether Ray responded before I fell asleep.

  The next voice I heard belonged to someone I’d met long ago, a voice I never thought I’d hear again… Unless, of course, I traveled to the past.

  “Why hello there,” the voice said.

  My shoulders stiffened. My mouth grew dry. I called out to the darkness. “Edgar?”

  “Yes,” said the voice. “I came to check in on your plans—to learn of your progress.”

  “Where are you?” I asked. I moved my head and eyes from side to side, looking around, straining to see something. Finding nothing. Squinting in the blackness. Once I realized I was standing, I tapped my feet on the ground. My shoes squeaked. Opening my arms wide, I felt around for walls around me. There weren’t any.

  I frowned, feeling trapped. “Edgar, are you there? Why can’t I see you?”

  “I’m here,” he said. “You didn’t show up for your lesson.”

  “This is impossible,” I muttered to myself. “Edgar is dead. I saw his lifeless body. I was at his funeral…”

  “You were one of my best students,” Edgar’s voice said. “Among the brightest, and the most talented.”

  “Thanks.” I shrugged. Not knowing what else to say, I asked something that I worried might sound ridiculous. “How have you been, Edgar?”

  “I am well, Calla. I have more lessons planned for you.”

  “What kind of lessons?” I asked, my voice breaking.

  “Advanced lessons, reserved for the most talented of travelers. You may not understand them at first. You may not understand them at all.”

  I clenched my fists as my body broke into a cool, clammy sweat. “I’m so confused right now; I don’t know what to say. Edgar, I would listen to any lecture you’d be willing to give me. I miss you.”

  “Had I known you’d inherited the Remnant Transporter talent, perhaps I wouldn’t have spent so much time on the basics of time travel theory.”

  “How—?” I coughed. “How did you find out about my talent?”

  I sucked in short, shallow breaths of air from the blackness around me. Edgar had known that I transported Romaso with me to the Halls’ estate when I traveled to Shirlyn and Young Edgar, but I didn’t know whether he’d been lucid long enough to learn that I’d transported both Shirlyn and Romaso to the White Tower. Edgar had died—I hadn’t found the ingredients to his elixir in time.

  Guilt swept over me. Was Edgar’s ghost haunting me for what I’d done?

  I shook my head, knowing that wasn’t like Edgar. Besides, he’d offered to teach me more lessons.

  I looked around in the darkness, stepping forward with my arms outstretched. What I wouldn’t give for one of my father’s light sticks. “Edgar? Are you still there?”

  His voice never returned.

  I sank to the ground, shuddering, rapidly swallowing huge gulps of air to smother the sobs that welled up inside me.

  One misplaced gulp ruined everything.

  I started hiccupping. My chest jolted with painful spasms.

  Until a gentle nudge woke me up.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes, letting them adjust to the yellow-orange light. The light sticks had nearly burned out, and the room felt colder.

  From the darkness of the Falls, I guessed it was still nighttime.

  Shaking, I pulled the strings to the hood of my sweatshirt to trap whatever warmth was left inside, and rolled over to see who’d nudged me.

  “Oh, hey,” I whispered, relieved.

  Valcas had pulled his mattress next to mine and was lying on his side, facing me. He’d put on a sweatshirt and long pants for the night. Seeing as none of us had come through the Falls carrying blankets, we made do with what we had.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, worried.

  I nodded. “It was just a dream.” I reached out and grazed my knuckles along his jawline and chin and managed a smile. “You and Ray should ask my father to borrow his razor. You’re both getting a bit scruffy.”

  Valcas chuckled softly. “I’ll ask, but I doubt he has a razor. Plaka’s never shaved as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Really?”

  “Chascadian men don’t grow facial hair. It’s a wonder they have eyebrows—their women don’t.”

  I raised an eyebrow, glad that I had one to raise. “That’s… different. What’s it like being half Aborealian and half British?” I asked.

  Valcas put an arm around me, pulling me and my mattress closer to him. “I don’t know. What’s it like for you, being half Chascadian and half American?”

  I winced. “I don’t know anything different. I assumed I was human, that all the feelings of not fitting in had something to do with being a teenager. Now that I know I could have been born without eyebrows, I consider myself fortunate… and ordinary.”

  “You’ll never be ordinary, Calla. Not with your talents and your heritage.”

  “Yeah, so I’m learning,” I said, still thinking about my dream.

  Valcas brushed my cheek with the back of his hand and leaned in. As much as I wanted him to kiss me, I caught my breath, worrying about how awkward things could get if Ray or Ivory woke up, especially Ivory.

  He stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Our lack of privacy.”

  He kissed me on the forehead. “We could go for a walk. Or I could wait until tomorrow, when we finally get out of here.”

  “You really think we can do it—get out of here? What about all of the cutting into stone and needing to build a ladder? That could take weeks, even with all five of us helping.”

  “After what I just saw in there, I don’t think any of that will be necessary.”

  I propped myself up on my elbow. “Did you find out something about the watch? Another way out?”

  Valcas reached into his pocket and pulled out my TSTA watch. Handing it to me, he said, “The watch is a useless ornament. I’ve gone through all of its settings. It has multiple time zones, but there are worlds that I know exist that aren’t included. I don’t understand why the TSTA gave it to you.”

  I wrapped the watch around my wrist and snapped it closed. “If we can’t use the watch, then what are you so excited about?”

  “The watch has a flashlight that I used to closely inspect the sides of the Falls. One side has vines growing up along the rocks, out of the balm layer. If we can rope the vines together, we could climb them to get high enough to jump into the air layer.”

  I frowned. “That sounds faster, but no less dangerous.”

  “We could cushion the ground with our leaf mattresses while we climb up to see how high we can get.” He smirked.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “Will the vines be able to hold all of our weight? Don’t we all need to be in motion for it to work?”

  Valcas smiled. “It will be fine. Plaka’s baglamas works differently than the travel glasses. Once he gets going, the music will be able to pull us through time with him.”

  Whatever look I gave Valcas made h
im laugh into a pillow he’d made out of a sweatshirt stuffed with leaves.

  “What?” I asked, puzzled.

  “I can’t wait to see the look on your face when Plaka shows you his method of travel.”

  NIGHTTIME ENDED when I was no longer able to ignore the stomping of my father’s feet. Through the slits between my eyelids, I sluggishly watched as he paced back and forth along the pool of water at the base of the Falls. He led with his heels, his hands clasped behind his back. Stomp, stomp, stomp.

  I couldn’t blame him. He’d spent more than enough time behind the Falls to have contracted a serious case of cabin fever. I could only imagine how much he wanted to get out, how much restraint he showed by not running off and leaving without us.

  Yawning, I sat up and stretched forward, feeling my back and hamstrings loosen as I reached for my toes.

  I glanced over at Valcas who was still fast asleep, despite my father’s stomping. His mattress was still parked next to mine. He lay there, facing me, with his eyelids shut and his lips relaxed into a loose smile.

  My father cleared his throat. Right behind me. I jumped, not knowing whether I’d tuned out his stomping while eyeing Valcas, or if he’d tiptoed to the space behind me.

  “Good morning,” I said, trying not to look or sound guilty. Not that I felt guilty. It wasn’t like I’d done anything wrong. Still… Despite looking years younger than Mom, my father was an intimidating man. From what I’d observed, he was gentle only when he needed to be, which was usually when he was healing.

  “I expect Valcas was up most of the night studying the air space inside the Falls,” he said. “Do we wake him or do we let him rest?”

  “Oh,” I said. “He came to bed sometime in the middle of the night.”

  My father raised his eyebrows. His soft blue-green eyes darkened as he glowered down at me. “Came to bed?”

  “Ugh, nothing like that.” I grudgingly crawled up out of my mattress and waved my arms in front of me as if I were trying to dissolve the awkwardness hanging in the air between us.

  “Nothing like what?” my father said, narrowing his eyes.

  “He wanted to talk to me about what he found in the air layer,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We were trying to be quiet so we didn’t wake up Ray and Ivory, who are in here with us.”

  My father nodded. “And?”

  “And nothing,” I said, still flustered. “I was having a weird dream and Valcas woke me up. He was worried about me.” I wondered what his problem was. Who was he to start acting all fatherly after having known me for less than a month? Valcas and I hadn’t even kissed.

  My father’s face reddened. His lips started to shake at the corners. My eyes opened into round circles as I waited for the storm. Just as his face was about to turn purple, he started to laugh. He laughed so hard that he doubled over and knelt on the ground, grasping his knee with his hand to keep from falling over.

  “What?” I said.

  “And… what did Valcas find while studying the Falls?”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling completely stupid. “He said he saw vines along one of the walls. We could use them to climb up the wall instead of having to spend forever digging out a ladder.”

  My father nodded. “That is wonderful news.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m, um, going to go wash up then and finish packing in case we’re able to leave today. I’m sure Valcas can fill you in on the details when he wakes up.” Still embarrassed, I turned to escape through the tunnel.

  “Calidora—”

  I turned back at the mention of my name. My father had said it so softly and with so much affection, that I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Yes?”

  He smiled, his eyes sparkling. “I trust you… and Valcas… to make the right decisions. There is a reason I trust him with your life. There’s also a reason that I trust you with his heart.”

  I drew in a slow breath. Okay. Having nothing else to say I nodded and quickly headed through the tunnels toward the latrine.

  WHEN I returned from my brief escape, I had just enough time to finish packing my backpack. We decided to take Valcas’ advice about taking our mattresses with us into the air space. I strapped the TSTA watch to my wrist. We packed in ten minutes.

  Valcas and Ray went through the Falls first, to catch the rest of us as we came through so we wouldn’t accidently run through the fire layer and get burned. If that were to happen, we were fortunate enough to have easy access to the balm layer to heal. But why bother getting burned in the first place?

  My father entered the Falls next, then Ivory.

  I entered the Falls last.

  When my turn came, I took a couple of deep breaths, filling my body with as much oxygen as possible, like a bodybuilder pumping herself up before a round of heavy reps. I held the last breath, which I hoped would last long enough for me to get through both the water and balm layers. Now that I wasn’t burning from head to toe, getting flooded with healing goo—which separated my lungs from the air I needed to breathe—didn’t sound so good.

  I closed my eyes and stiffly walked forward, restraining myself from breaking into a run, although I desperately wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

  The water layer rained down on me with greater force than I’d remembered, dousing me completely with cold, fresh water. I ground my teeth together to keep them from chattering.

  A half dozen strides later, I reached the next layer, the balm layer. I felt my foot press into a wall that wobbled and stretched before giving in to the pressure of my foot and letting it break through. When it did, I felt the surface snap and my foot being sucked in like a vacuum. I staggered forward, reaching out. But there was nothing to catch or hold on to. The gooey gelatinous blob found my hand, pulling it and the rest of my body through, until I was completely submerged in the balm layer.

  Convinced that my face was turning blue from lack of oxygen, I felt my chest contract. I needed air. I needed to breathe. I stepped forward, and then stepped forward again, and again.

  I don’t know why I felt I needed to fight the balm layer. When we’d come through the Fire Falls, I welcomed the sensation of the balm layer, and how it filled my eyes and my lungs. This time, though, I resisted. My lungs begged me to give in; every cell in my body screamed at me to inhale.

  I was sure I’d black out from lack of oxygen. This time I was afraid—afraid of my air passages filling with liquid, afraid to lose control, afraid to let go…

  HAD I kept my eyes open, I would have seen the hands reaching out to me inside the balm layer, before I ran into them.

  Surprised by the sensation of fingers pinching my arms, I gasped. I reflexively opened my eyes as my mouth filled with fluid—a thick, heavy balm that tasted of aloe, lidocaine and heavy perfume, similar to a spray I’d used for the worst sunburn I’d ever had. Instead of flowing into my lungs and easing the burning sensation, the balmy fluid caught in the back of my throat.

  The hands pulled me forward.

  I broke through the balm air, wheezing and choking, trying to spit the balm out of my mouth while attempting to suck in air through my nose. The process didn’t work very well.

  I wiped my eyes and looked up at the person who’d pulled me through—Valcas.

  “Are you all right, dearest?”

  I looked around at the members of my team. All of them, including my father, were covered in blue-green goo. I grimaced. How were we supposed to climb vines when we were slippery messes?

  “I feel ya,” said Ivory. “When you come through this way, it feels more like the healing balm of death, doesn’t it?”

  I snorted what was left of the balm up into my nostrils, which got me choking again. I gasped for air and laughed. Ivory always knew exactly what to say during the most awkward moments.

  “I’m fine,” I said, flicking from my fingers the balm I’d wiped from my eyes. It glopped onto the ground with a wet plopping sound. “How do we get this stuff off?”

  “Do not wast
e it,” my father said. Because of my dramatic entrance, I hadn’t noticed that he was gathering as much of the balm as he could and collecting it in a glass vial. “The healing balm is precious. It may prove useful later during our journey.”

  “So, then, we’re not going to go back to the TSTA to tell them we’ve completed our mission?” I asked.

  “Over my dead body,” said my father. He whispered, but his words were wrought with fury. I rolled my eyes, realizing I was starting to think with the same type of words my father used to speak—wrought with fury. I couldn’t describe how weird that felt.

  “But don’t you want to see Mom?”

  “In time,” my father answered, a touch tightly. “Before I am delivered to the bowels of the TSTA, I would like to visit my homeland, to walk again through its soil, to once again breathe the air of my ancestors, to prepare—”

  Ivory coughed. I could tell it was a fake cough, designed to catch our attention. It worked.

  “You’re getting a bit dramatic, Healer,” she said. “What do we do about the bigger problem—the Uproar?”

  “Seeing as trapping it did not work, I think we should figure out how to shoot it,” he replied.

  Ivory looked at my father like he’d gone crazy. “We can’t shoot the Uproar. Why would you even say that?”

  “Not with bullets, Chauffeur, but with fire.”

  Ivory and I exchanged a glance. Maybe he had gone crazy.

  “And where do we find this magical fire shooter?” she asked.

  “We will need to track down the most powerful inventors we can find,” he said, pacing back and forth along the air space, adding emphasis to his words by balling his hand into a fist in front of him.

  Okay. This was an interesting change of plans, not that we had fully formed plans to begin with.

  “But, who?” I asked. “The only inventors I know are Edgar and Enta… and Edgar’s dead.”

  My father stopped pacing. “Enta Vittor?”