Transmigration

by Nicholas Maes

  They were almost across the park. Centre Street was fast approaching and Simon was wondering what his next step was. A sign zipped by. It pointed to the Brooklyn Bridge.

  The bus appeared from out of thin air. As they reached a square at the end of the park, the bus rammed them at an oblique angle. The ambulance spun, skidded wildly, and wound up bashing into a wooden fruit stand. The collision wasn’t terrible but the ambulance was finished.

  The driver alighted. He was bearded and dressed in a getup so ragged that it was amazing it didn’t fall to the ground. He walked toward the ambulance, taking long, graceful steps. Despite his appearance, he moved like a king.

  Tarhlo.

  “Outside!” Simon yelled, clambering to the sidewalk. “And keep holding hands!”

  “Where now?” Emma asked, standing beside him.

  “Just follow me!”

  Crossing Centre Street, they entered the bridge’s promenade. Three hemindhs tried to block them but he scattered them like bowling pins.

  They were sprinting. Clara couldn’t keep up so Simon took her on his back, not once slackening his hold on Emma. He was surprised how light his sister felt; she was weightless, in fact. When she wrapped her arms about him, his kaba glowed with such raw energy that he was sure the jogger’s body was about to catch flame.

  He felt weirdly calm. The luras on the bridge were eyeing them suspiciously, as if grasping there was something odd about the group. Sirens tore the air, a sign the cops were closing in. Tarhlo was on their tail with a legion of bolkhs. Simon hadn’t a clue where he was headed or how he would escape this situation — in other words, things were desperate. And yet, deep inside, he was calm, even happy. When he glanced back at Manhattan, he was only thinking how beautiful the city looked. How odd. They were in a terrible jam yet he’d never felt so tranquil.

  This was Clara’s doing. With his twin on his back, he was finally complete. Nature had fashioned them to complement each other and now, at long last, they were fitted together. He could have flitted off and never been found. He could have abandoned his shatl, left New York City, wandered to the far side of the globe, and done well for himself. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. His place was there, beside his sister. He would sooner die a million times than be parted from his sibling.

  Except.

  The bridge’s first tower was fast approaching and there were frenzied shouts ahead. Around the tower a crowd was gathered — a familiar one of vadhs and shatls. They numbered in the hundreds and more were arriving. They were laying siege to the path before them.

  “It’s no better behind,” Emma said.

  Simon wheeled indifferently. Sure enough, a sea of hemindhs was dogging them closely, with Tarhlo in front. He was too far off to see his face clearly, but Simon guessed his father was grinning.

  A helicopter hovered above. There were cruisers at both ends of the bridge and police boats guarded the river below. The bolkhs paid the cops no notice. They couldn’t care less what any lura thought.

  Below them were four lanes of heavy traffic. How funny, Simon thought. The drivers weren’t aware of the commotion above.

  Dogs rushed forward from the bridge’s Brooklyn side. When they were ten feet off, they struck Simon’s “wall” and went flying back into the hemindhs’ ranks. Tightening his grip on Emma, Simon pressed on. As he advanced, the bolkhs were forced to give ground.

  At first the task was manageable. The hemindhs were loosely packed and easy to dislodge. But bit by bit their masses thickened and more and more shatls rushed up from behind. Their weight was growing and Simon was having to strain. He’d gained the first tower but his shatl was shaking. He muscled on, like a bulldozer pushing against an increasing mound of earth — eventually its mass would bring the engine to a stop.

  Ten more metres gained. The cop in the chopper was yelling something. Some birds assailed Simon from above, bouncing against his field, breaking their wings and dropping to the bridge in droves. Clara’s mouth was near his ear. She was breathing softly and smelled vaguely of thyme.

  Another ten metres. Simon was feeling light-headed but happy still. Whether they escaped or not, his task was simple. To strain until he could go no further.

  “Watch it!” his mother yelled. “They’re attacking from behind!”

  From behind, Simon thought in a daze. Okay. He’d deal with them too. His kaba laboured and the sky grew brighter. From far off he heard his mother shouting, while Clara’s breathing was soft and even.

  “Stop! Let me address my children!”

  Tarhlo’s voice rang out like a trumpet. He was speaking through the ragged man, but there was no mistaking his forceful presence. As the bolkhs drew back at their leader’s command, Simon stopped straining and looked around. Jenny and Emma instinctively drew nearer, while Clara dropped to the ground to give him a rest. They were trapped between two armies and there were luras to deal with. Simon got his bearings: Brooklyn was on his left, Manhattan on his right. Beneath them the flow of traffic was constant. Their motion was causing the bridge to vibrate.

  “My children,” Tarhlo boomed, from a short way off, “first, you must know how proud I am. You’re fighting your own kin, but your exploits do the Khalkons proud.”

  He paused. The chopper was trying to swoop in closer. At a nod from Tarhlo birds swarmed the machine. The pilot got the message and retreated instantly.

  “But this battle has ended, as you must know. We are many and you are four. Even if the woplh is strong, how long can he withstand our fury? If he thrusts five thousand vadhs from the hamax, we will find five thousand more. And if you escape this bridge? Where will you hide? Where can you go where we won’t find you? We have the might of the wind, the sun’s raw power, the patience of the earth, and the rain’s soft cunning. Stalemate is the very best you can hope for.”

  Tarhlo paused to let his words sink in. The city’s background sounds intruded: honking, yelling, countless people going about their business, unaware that their future was being decided. A future that was looking more and more bleak. Jenny and Emma were starting to wilt. Clara was blank. Simon felt serene.

  “But why should we be satisfied with stalemate?” Tarhlo resumed. “Why should we give in to your resistance? We can’t defeat you here, but we can, and will destroy these vadhs and shatls. We can throw them into the river or stand in the path of oncoming cars or jump from buildings onto crowds of luras. The means of inflicting death are many. And despite my reluctance to prove so cruel, that will be our course of action, right here, right now, if the hamax doesn’t return to us. You wish to keep the luras safe? We will kill them ruthlessly if you don’t join us. You will let us use our hamax as nature intended. Otherwise …”

  Simon’s calmness left him and nausea took over. So running from Tarhlo had been useless from the start. His father was right. Nature had built them to incarnate bolkhs, even if this meant the luras would suffer. If they struggled, luras would die. If they surrendered, luras would fade over time. There was no third way …

  Or was there?

  While Tarhlo had been talking, Clara had wandered over to the railing. It was designed to keep pedestrians from tumbling to the traffic below. No one noticed how she’d gripped the railing, how she’d lifted her body, how she looked with longing at the marvels of Manhattan and the sun’s transcendent glory as it reached its zenith. No one noticed … and when they did it was too late.

  “Clara!” Emma shrieked, as the hamax jumped.

  Clara was special. There had not been a hamax in over ten thousand years. She was rarer than the finest wines, the purest gold, the choicest jewels. Yet her body still fell like a stone.

  Simon was after her in a heartbeat, sped on by five thousand cries of anguish. A woplh is just as rare as a hamax, yet he too fell like any common pebble.

  As he flew through the air in the wake of his sister, he was aware of the silence that was preparing to clasp them. It lay between the blasts of horns and shuddering metal and shrieking brakes, bet
ween luras and bolkhs screaming in horror, between the wail of sirens, the chopper’s blades turning, and the river lapping against the bridge’s stone blocks. They were falling, falling. It took an eternity to travel to the lane below and, as much as Simon tried to hurry, he couldn’t catch up to his twin sister. The engulfing silence kept them apart.

  He saw her hit the roadway hard. He saw her legs buckle and her torso shake and her skull strike a surface that was cruel and unforgiving. And that was the easiest part by far. She was in the path of a pickup truck that was speeding forward at fifty miles per hour. It would crush her every bone and organ and leave nothing of her rareness behind.

  Except that Simon drew his shatl about her. Except that his kaba managed to link with hers. Except that he generated just enough force to sustain the pent-up shock of the truck and, in the blink of an eye, bring it to a standstill. Over a dozen cars collided. The city’s skyline shuddered and the noonday sky was filled with curses. But he’d been true to his word and guarded his sister.

  “I didn’t fail you,” he whispered, as a mass of blackness closed in.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was drizzling lightly. Simon loved to watch the rain on the window. A nurse had left it open a crack and the sound of the traffic passing outside was like waves crashing against a shore, reminding Simon of his life in Vancouver and a set of routines that was his no longer. Not that he minded. He had Clara now.

  She wasn’t well. Both her legs had broken in the fall and she would be in traction for weeks, maybe months. Her spleen was ruptured and one kidney might fail. She was bruised all over and her skull was fractured.

  These injuries weren’t the chief concern. Most worrying was the fact that she was in a coma. Day and night her eyes gaped open, unblinking, expressionless, and unresponsive. The nurses changed her bandages. Nothing. The doctors poked her and shined lights in her eyes. Nothing. Jenny and Emma sat by her side, addressing her softly and stroking her limbs. Nothing. And when Simon leapt inside her, he could never see her kaba. Back and forth he’d wander her hollows, but he never caught a glimpse of it. It was like visiting a mansion that the owner has abandoned.

  That’s not to say her hollows were empty. Over a hundred kabas were contained within. At first their presence puzzled Simon, until he realized they were the newborns whom the bolkhs had ousted. Refusing to take part in their murder, Clara had generously hauled them in.

  A radio was playing somewhere in the background. The station was a local one and a panel was debating the events from three weeks back. They’d been so strange and crazy that New Yorkers were discussing them still. Why had homeless people gathered on the bridge? Why had that young girl jumped? What was her link to the mysterious jogger who’d saved her life at the cost of his own? Why did he match the description of a man who’d died the night before over in Bellevue? And how had the pickup truck stopped so quickly? People were concocting the wildest theories and conspiracy freaks would be busy for years.

  There was a sound at the door and Emma and Jenny stepped in. Visiting hours had just begun. They always appeared at the start of the day and would stay until the last possible moment. Earl would arrive at some point or another. As soon as he’d learned what had happened to Clara, he’d caught the first plane from Paris. No bolkh had bothered stopping him. While he spent as much time as he could with the girls, someone had to look after the bills. He’d travel to Atlantic City each day and visit the casinos.

  “Good morning, Simon,” his mother called.

  “Hi,” Jenny said, laconically as always.

  “Good morning,” Simon answered. “Anything new?”

  “Not much. It’s raining out.”

  “So I see. Is Earl okay?”

  “Sure. He’ll be along later.”

  “Have you had breakfast?”

  “There wasn’t time. We wanted to get here as soon as we could.”

  “Well, when you do get something, can you bring some coffee? I can’t drink it, but I love the smell.”

  “We will dear. Give us a couple of minutes.”

  Simon glowed, causing his shatl to smile. When Clara had been placed in the neurology ward he’d occupied the patient in the bed beside her, a woman who’d been knocked flat by a stroke months earlier. From this vantage point he could hang out with his family, even as he kept an eye on Clara. Given the circumstances, it was a fine arrangement.

  A scratching at the window caused his smile to fade. He saw a bird staring into the room. No matter how often it was shooed off, it always came back. The staff had called in pest control and chemicals had been sprayed on the ledge and window. To no avail. Either this bird returned or another just like it. It was as dedicated a visitor as Emma and Jenny. Occasionally it cheeped, as if to say, “You’ll never see the last of us.”

  Simon was frowning now. While the first confrontation with the bolkhs was over, the war was only getting started.

  GLOSSARY

  Bolkh creatures that exist in spirit form.

  Bolkhin the language spoken by bolkhs.

  Domh the last refuge of the bolkhs.

  Hamax a legendary saviour of the bolkhs.

  Hemindh a human or animal that has been occupied by a bolkh.

  Kaba spirit or soul.

  Lakhn a human soul that is damaged (i.e., drunk, insane, comatose, drugged, etc.).

  Limnl a bolkh who has ousted a lura baby’s soul and permanently occupies his shatl.

  Lura the bolkhin word for humans.

  Shatl a human body or “vessel.”

  Smakho a bolkh concoction that intoxicates.

  Vadh an animal body or “vessel.”

  Vrindh a mix of bolkh and lura.

  Woplh the protector of the hamax.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to Michael Carroll for listening favourably to my pitch about a talking rabbit. And heartfelt thanks to Cheryl Hawley for her close editing of the text and many helpful suggestions. I also owe Sox a huge debt: without his input, there would be no story.

  Copyright © Nicholas Maes, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Substantive Editor: Niki Chaplin

  Copy Editor: Cheryl Hawley

  Design: Jennifer Scott

  Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Maes, Nicholas, 1960-

  Transmigration [electronic resource] / Nicholas Maes.

  Electronic monograph.

  Issued also in print format

  ISBN 978-1-4597-0232-5

  I. Title.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

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