Far Side of the Universe

by melanie de coster

“That’s not true. You’re just saying that to get rid of me. I’m not that stupid.”

  Sara sighed, so Arthur considered it his turn.

  “Look, you’re the oldest child in the family, Achilles. Your brothers and sisters need you to take care of them. Your mother is expecting another baby and she’s weak. You need to teach them about the....the woods, you need to show them how to play tricks without getting punished. You have to make sure they don’t go out at night so that nothing bad happens to them. They need you. That’s your mission. And you’ll be helping us if you fulfill it.”

  Achilles hesitated.

  “Are you sure? It’s true that they’re young and don’t know how to do much for themselves. But I want to be a hero.”

  “You’ll be their hero.”

  “OK. But when I’m bigger...you’ll take me with you?”

  “We might not be here then, Achilles. We’re just passing through, you know.”

  “Obviously, that’s how the legend goes. I promise I’ll never forget.”

  Achilles said farewell to them one by one, and then bravely turned back to rejoin his family. The others had to keep moving.

  They waited until they were away from the market place and in a secluded area where they could talk without worrying about being overheard. The small path was deserted except for a few crates and barrels. Not even a hungry, scrawny cat to size them up.

  Sara looked at each of them. She asked the question that they were all thinking.

  “So now what are we supposed to do?”

  Albin responded angrily, “What do you want us to do? We don’t have any more directions! We certainly can’t go from village to village in hot pursuit of a person that nobody has even heard of.”

  “There might not be so many villages. We don’t know how big Lalea is. Maybe it’s really small.”

  Arthur’s remark left them speechless for several seconds, and then they all shook their heads at the same time. If Lalea were so tiny, someone like Scarface wouldn’t go unnoticed; in fact everybody would know him. They had no other choice but to continue their journey and question countless numbers of people. Which could end up taking quite a bit of time.

  Suddenly, a small man jumped out from behind a pile of barrels. He seemed even shorter because of his hunched back. His limbs also looked weak and scraggly. He was wearing dingy-looking clothes altered to his size and a tiny felt hat perched on the top of his head. He headed nimbly towards the group of five, lightly skipping as if he had marionette strings attached to him.

  Surprised, they didn’t make a move until the strange man stopped in front of them, and in mock courtesy, had bowed so low that his hat brushed the ground, revealing a tuft of brown hair.

  Albin was visibly outraged and spoke to him without a speck of courtesy.

  “Who are you? And how long have you been spying on us?”

  “I’m called the Duc because the Duc can withstand torture. The Duc knows where the man is that you’re seeking.”

  The Duc’s voice was nasal and annoyingly shrill. Albin couldn’t listen to it without grimacing.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He’s tall with long hair. He has a long scar on his left cheek. And he happens to know some foreigners. The only name he goes by is Scarface. He’s the right one?”

  The Duc spoke in an openly sarcastic tone of voice that Albin wanted to shove him up against a wall to take him down a notch. It was the first time in his life that he could have done it, but he withheld the urge because they needed the Duc. A gust of wind began to blow down the path, causing a tingle from his back up to the nape of his neck. He continued his questioning, ignoring Sara who tried to interrupt him.

  “Yes, that’s him. Do you know where we can find him?”

  “Albin...”

  “Shut up Sara. I’m all ears, Mr....the Duc.”

  The Duc squinted his weasel-like eyes in concentration. Then he slowly smiled, stretching out his thin, red lips to reveal sharp, yellow teeth.

  “The Duc believes we should continue this discussion at a later time.”

  “But why? I don’t get it!”

  “The Duc recognizes the signs. Even if it’s been a long time since he’s seen them. The passage is opening. It’s time for you to leave.”

  “But how...”

  “Time’s up. Stop by next time to visit the Duc. He’ll be waiting for you. He’ll be at the farm on the west side of Nonia. The Duc knows how to be patient.”

  He slipped away as quickly as he’d arrived. He was right; the passage was impatiently waiting for them. After checking to see that no one was nearby, they returned to the world they had left.

  CHAPTER 10 THE INTRUDER

  Arthur’s father continued fluctuating between the dream world and the real world with his wife there luring him back, Cosmo’s parents continued arguing about the existence of parallel universes, Albin’s mother continued stuffing him with homemade sandwiches to make grow tall and strong like his father who continued rolling around in the mud with the ones who resembled him the most. Not a one would have guessed the transformations their children were experiencing twice a week.

  Sara’s parents hadn’t noticed any changes either. They took her with them wherever they went, from exhibits to festivals and from movie theaters to concerts. They enjoyed lots of activity, and to them their week was incomplete if they hadn’t visited at least one or two new places. Their daughter’s curiosity remained the same, but they had no way of knowing she was taking in new information and comparing it to Lalea. Sara would never have told them she preferred a grassy meadow to a pile of smashed cars stacked one atop the other that was supposed to represent sculpture. She wasn’t expected to know about skies without soulless tall buildings or about the music of the grass blowing in the breeze since she was supposedly ignorant of how it felt to have her feet touch the ground. Sometimes she got angry with herself for not telling them about it. She would have enjoyed choosing Lalea for one of their weekly trips. Then, they could finally see her standing instead of pretending she wasn’t really in a wheelchair. They still felt guilty about her falling when they weren’t paying attention, when she was still a baby. Even if they refused to admit it.

  Yet she knew it was important to keep it a secret. And even if she couldn’t admit it, she feared that her parents wouldn’t see Lalea in the way she perceived it, and that their vision might undermine hers. Lalea was her world. Their world. It belonged to the misfits.

  But Sara would have to learn to share Lalea. The following week, when they were impatient to return to visit the Duc and continue their pursuit of Scarface, a new student showed up in class.

  His name was Aidan. They all of knew him from passing him in the halls. He was emblematic of Napoleon High School. Accomplished athlete, he was always surrounded by a group that called themselves his friends. He wasn’t even a bad student. He wasn’t one of those who bullied the group of five, he simply ignored them. From time to time, he made a joke about them, but that was the extent of his interest in them.

  Until that day in December when after a festive evening, he’d had a car accident. He’d been at the wheel, a new driver. He’d managed to drop off his friends before slamming into a tree that, according to him, had appeared out of nowhere. In reality, he had driven over a guardrail, his car flipping as it rolled down a ravine until it stopped thanks to a tree. If there hadn’t been a tree, Aidan would’ve been doomed inside a car with nothing to stop it.

  He had spent several weeks in the hospital while doctors sewed him back up as best they could and cared for what was left of him. He’d returned to school but was in a wheelchair. He had no intention of giving up and had sworn to his family and friends that it was only temporary. He would walk again. After all, his situation was different from the misfits, as he, too, had begun calling them so as not to be confused with them. He hadn’t been born handicapped. He was convinced that with good physical therapy and hard work he could play on the next season’s so
ccer team. His doctors hadn’t said anything to encourage or discourage him. Secretly, his coach was already looking for someone to take his place. And the high school principal had placed him with the M seniors since their schedule had already been adapted for wheelchairs. The most practical solution, he thought.

  It didn’t occur to the principal that Aidan would be separated from his friends, or that the M seniors might be unaccepting of an intruder who would most likely act superior to them. He was certainly unaware of how this new arrival would compromise their mission to save another world. He was one of many in the town who had no idea what they were learning in their history class that year.

  When Aidan was for the first time with the other students who couldn’t walk, he made a visible effort to not really be with them. He acted distant, trying hard to avoid any communication by moving as far away as possible. In and outside of school, he attempted to rejoin his former group. But those who had said they would stand by him disappeared one after the other. Very quickly.

  Soon, there were only one or two so-called friends who would take the time, when they didn’t have anything better to do, to talk with him or take him to the movies. The treatment they might give to a younger clingy brother. Aidan was having a hard time dealing with being pitied, the well-meaning condescension. Since his accident, he was no longer one of them, he was different. And he couldn’t forgive them.

  Having watched and predicted this abandonment, Sara tried being friendly with him. She was the only one to make this overture. Aidan rejected her kindness with rudeness, making it clear that she was nobody to him. If his former friends were no longer interested in him, then he was no longer interested in anybody. He was lonely and fought even harder to regain the use of his legs, making a promise to be less trusting of others.

  He wasn’t the only one focused on his recovery. Albin, too, couldn’t wait to see him walk again. So he could be rid of him and once again travel. They were all in agreement to share nothing about Lalea with Aidan. At least not before he had proven himself worthy. And nothing about his attitude suggested that they could trust him with their secret. Yet, time was of essence. The Duc certainly couldn’t wait indefinitely, and time might easily have accelerated during their absence. As for Merlin, despite dreading explaining Lalea to Aidan, Merlin had different reasons than his students for withholding the secret. He knew, however, that they would all have to give in to it. He went to visit Aidan’s parents to learn more about his new student. As a couple, they had both insisted that their son would proudly walk again. But the father, while walking Merlin to the door, confessed that the doctors had given up hope, and that his son would probably never run after a ball again. His wife refused to hear any of it, so that was why he had to act like he was hopeful. His words only confirmed what Merlin feared: Aidan was likely to be a fixture in their classroom for a long time. Since his students wanted to continue to travel, they had no choice but to bring him along.

  Merlin arranged for all the initiated travelers to meet after school at a fast food restaurant where the entrance and exit doors were wide enough. They needed to make a decision about Aidan.

  Merlin presented the facts. Since their options were rather limited, he hoped to get them to accept Aidan’s presence among them. Only Sara was favorable to the idea. She defended Aidan, insisting that he was trustworthy. Her fanatical enthusiasm for someone who was ultimately just a stranger made Albin even more annoyed with Aidan. Albin and Sara had always been partners in everything before Aidan’s sudden appearance. They had known each other since birth when they had been carried around the same hospital wings in search of miracle workers. Together, they had decided to enroll in the school when their class had been created. Since Aidan’s arrival, Sara had ignored Albin, and he couldn’t forgive Aidan for her defection.

  After two hours of heated debates and reticence due to fear rather than outright refusal— except coming from Albin—they decided to bring Aidan with them on their next departure. It wouldn’t matter, as Cosmo explained, if Aidan told anybody about what was going on in history class because no one would believe him. Their secret was implicitly safe because it was so unbelievable. Even his father hadn’t been able to prove the existence of interdimensional passageways. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. Cosmo’s father had read an impressive number of works on the subject, even science fiction novels. Like any good scientist interested in the future, he was aware that these authors presented passageways that would be explored sooner or later. But he hadn’t found even an inkling of tangible proof. He continued, however, to research the topic, much to his wife’s exasperation, and was on his way to becoming a walking encyclopedia on quantum mechanics. He had gotten very familiar with Einstein’s theories, which he’d already studied, particularly concerning the perception of dimensions. He’d also immersed himself in Heisenberg research about the inability to simultaneously measure the position and the velocity of a particle. He repeated these formulas as if they were magical, awaiting an illumination that would lead him to knowledge. While the apprentice travelers were arguing amidst the chatter and tacky décor of the fast food restaurant, he had just persuaded himself that through perseverance, he would discover the truth his wife refused to believe. And Cosmo’s father was very persistent.

  The students felt considerable apprehension when they arrived for their following class with Merlin. He had forced them to make a decision about Aidan but hadn’t explained how he was going to do it. Completely unaware of Merlin’s plan, they chose to avoid all responsibility by acting as if they knew nothing in front of Aidan.

  On that particular day, Merlin was running late. They were scattered across the classroom, scattered and uninterested. At least that was how they wanted to appear. But Arthur was readjusting his glasses more often than usual, Sara was nervously biting her lip, Albin was grinding his teeth without realizing it, and only Cosmo and Titiana kept their usual composure. Aidan didn’t appear to notice anything, doodling a drawing that he would throw away at the end of class without showing it to anyone—his usual behavior since his accident. His legs were no longer strong, but his hands—unlike those of his current classmates—had become more useful than ever. Yet one more difference, an advantage, which he never ceased to show off whenever possible. He wanted at all costs to distinguish himself from those he only knew of as the misfits, almost trying to forget their real names.

  When Merlin finally arrived, he studied his class with a look of satisfaction, or almost pleasure. Then he closed the door, asking them to gather around him in a circle. When he began to speak, his students, except for Aidan, looked at each other in surprise, forgetting to act disinterested. Merlin repeated their lesson about experimenting, about testing the power of the imagination. He was going to allow Aidan to discover Lalea like he had done for them. In exactly the same manner. Aidan didn’t suspect anything and obediently closed his eyes, yet inwardly mocking the teacher’s lesson. He was expecting to see some trick, not to cross through an invisible border to the other side.

  There were now six on the other side. Merlin’s voice sounded/ more and more distant as they let go of each other’s hands. Sara held on to Aidan’s a bit longer to reassure him before he got too confused about what was going on. His first reaction was to look at the scenery around him, surprised, of course, but mostly amused. He didn’t realize he was standing, and that he wasn’t the only one. He started looking around for the trick, a painted wall, a holographic projector. But the world outside, the sensations, were all too real. There were sounds, smells, nothing a magic trick could have recreated. He turned towards the others who were watching him and were just now realizing that Merlin had given them the job of explaining the truth to Aidan. The confused student, incapable of believing he was now somewhere else, started babbling some possible explanations.

  “It’s a dream, right. He hypnotized us and that’s why everything seems so...so real. I never believed that one day I’d be hypnotized,” he said in a calm, slow voice.
“Surely that’s what’s happening...right?”

  One by one they shook their heads. Since Aidan still didn’t understand, was incapable of understanding, Albin, scarcely hiding his bitterness, decided to enlighten him.

  “Look at yourself, Aidan. Look at us. We’re standing, we’re walking, we’re moving. I’m talking and you don’t need an interpreter now like you complained about to the principal last week. This is no dream.”

  “Yes, it is. It has to be a dream. It’s too surreal.”

  “Because it weren’t one, we’d still be in class trying to memorize names and dates from long ago. Today’s lesson is supposed to be about...about...”

  Aidan had forgotten. He felt an urgent need to remember the day’s lesson. All of a sudden his world depended on it. Cosmo absent-mindedly filled in the blanks.

  “About twentieth century American politics, the Vietnam War, Watergate. I doubt you’ve ever really understood how the scandal unfolded. At least not with Merlin as your teacher. I’ll tell you about it one day if you’re interested.”

  “All right. Admit it, if this isn’t a dream, and I said if, then where in the world are we?”

  “So we’re finally getting somewhere. We’re in a place called Lalea. It’s in a parallel universe, sort of. I’m saying sort of because I’m not sure if parallelism between this world and ours is really what connects the two.”

  “I don’t understand anything you’re saying.”

  Ablin took over. Cosmo was going to scare Aidan even more with his scientific mumbo jumbo.

  “OK, listen, I’ll make it simple. Surely you’ve read books or seen movies where people find or create passageways to other worlds.”

  “Right, Oh! You mean that...”

  “Maybe you’re not so stupid after all. Lalea is a part of a different universe. We can travel from Earth, from our earth, to here. But to do that, we need Merlin’s help. And something that’s in the history classroom. I don’t really know what it’s about, just that it’s important. If not, we could’ve continued traveling without you, imagine that. All we would’ve needed was a different base for takeoff.”