The Reconciling [Part 1]

by April Lynn Newell

  “OK, where’s that?” Kesil asks, aggravated at Nic’s vague instructions.

  “That way.” He points across the plain towards the dark-grey clouds that have not moved in either direction.

  “That way? Are you sure?” Lesia flashes a flirty smile to him.

  Nic chuckles, a little condescendingly, as if he knows Lesia and her trick already, “Yes, I am sure.”

  “You seem so much older than you look,” she says.

  “I am 14! Been on my own since I was 10.”

  “On your own?”

  “Yeah, I’m the town orphan!” he says with humor and a hint of sadness, “At your service!”

  Lesia drops her gaze quickly, feeling the heat of embarrassment rush to her cheeks, “I’m sorry.”

  Nic grins, “I’m not!” Everyone perks up, taken aback by his abnormally chipper declaration to being an obvious outcast. “My rather dismal circumstances brought me here, and now I have purpose!” He points and winks at Lesia playfully. She grins, feeling slightly less awkward.

  “I’m sorry,” Chrissi cuts in, “but how can you be so happy about living here?” Her last word loaded with disgust.

  “Well…you will soon find out that the people of this town are very misled. Generations of misconceptions and strange, irrational superstitions have penetrated the culture to form the lovely Madquarah you see today! I’m the only person who has come back after passing through.”

  “Right. Why?” Lesia feels a mixture of interest and alarm. The boy is either psychotic or really sweet. Or is it both? She cannot decide.

  Phil makes obnoxious commotion as he gracelessly moves Chrissi to his other side and stands very close to Lesia. She hardly notices, though Phil is sure everyone else sees the debacle and his cheeks burn pink.

  “To help bring them the truth of course! Because I am the only one who has come back, I thought…” he pauses and a flash of sorrow pulls across his face, “I thought they would listen since I proved one of the deceptions wrong.”

  “What decept—”

  “What’s he telling you?” A man rounds the corner and interrupts Lesia’s flirting, though everyone else is just as interested in Nic’s explanation. “Is he telling you to go to the Tunnel?”

  Kesil recognizes the middle-aged, trouser-wearing dad. His son peeks around the brick corner of the old-fashioned inn.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact he is,” Kesil says, his interest peaking as well. “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing to me,” the man says grumpily. “Should be something to you though!”

  “What do you mean?” Chrissi steps toward the man.

  “I mean, no one ever came back from the Tunnel. You get close enough, you can hear the screams.” Fearful silence falls around the teens. “Guess he didn’t tell ya that huh?”

  “It’s a tactic! Things are not always—”

  “—what they seem,” the man finishes for Nic. “Yeah, he spouts junk like that all the time. My baby brother, he wanted out of here same as you, except maybe more because he grew up in this forsaken place. He went to the Tunnel every day until he got stupid—”

  “Courageous!” Nic jumps in.

  “—enough to try to go through it. Never saw or heard from him again. Same with every single person since who has tried to go through the Tunnel.”

  “Except me!” Nic retorts.

  The man leans in close to Chrissi, “We don’t think he’s all there, either he didn’t go in and wants to be a hero, or…”

  “What?” she prompts.

  “Or he’s one of them.” Tears of pure fear fill the man’s deep brown eyes causing Chrissi to visibly shiver.

  “Oh geez!” Nic shouts in frustration.

  “One of what?” Phil asks, eyeing the boy and stepping even closer to Lesia, positioning himself between her and Nic.

  “The shadows!” the man shouts in a loud whisper. “You heard them last night? They bang on windows, walls and doors, trying to coax you out. Every night they come, since he came!” he points accusingly at Nic.

  “That’s because, before I came BACK, this grey town wasn’t a threat, not even a blip on Tok’s radar!”

  Kesil lets out a barely audible gasp as the world begins to spin around him. The grass, clouds and town bend in towards him, suffocating every thought—past and present. He stares, open-mouthed at Nic as the boy continues to argue with the man.

  “You have no clue about the ‘bigger picture’! If you knew why I was really here, you’d listen!”

  “So tell me boy! Tell us!” The man turns, gesturing to a small crowd that begins to gather at the edge of town by the inn.

  “Why do we always draw strange crowds,” Lesia whispers out of the side of her mouth to Chrissi. But Chrissi is distracted. She watches dreadfully as Kesil’s whole world falls and shatters around them all. He winces as each piece of confusion becomes painfully clear. Finally, he looks to Nic, still arguing with the man.

  “Who?”

  They continue arguing.

  “WHO?” Kesil yells in perplexed anger.

  “What?” Nic turns to see an enraged and intimidating Kesil. “Um…you mean Tok?”

  “Yes. I mean Tok,” Kesil snaps through gritted teeth.

  “He kind of owns the Tunnel I guess. He wanted the town but the king wouldn’t give it to him so he made the Tunnel right outside the town limits and filled it with his minions, er, shadows to scare the people into oblivious submission,” he points the last two words at the man.

  “And you know this how?” Kesil glides toward Nic until he is dauntingly close.

  But Nic stands his ground boldly, squaring his shoulders as the rest of the crowd holds its breath, “Roi told me.” The middle-aged man lets out his breath, full of annoyance, and rolls his eyes. Nic continues, “King Roi told me and showed me old manuscripts of the ancient people of the town who lived hundreds of years ago when it all happened. They wrote everything!”

  “Wait!” Phil steps forward and pauses upon entering the ostentatious male stand-off and hesitantly, fearfully nudges Kesil back. The gangly teen is in stark contrast to the muscular boys, but Phil is filled with the boldness of newfound revelation. Like when putting a puzzle together without seeing the picture first, and there is only a third of the masterpiece left, but the depiction is already clear and just missing a few details. “Are there a lot of manuscripts?”

  “Yyyeah,” Nic answers as if the question is absurd and irrelevant. “All bound together. Roi just called it—”

  “The Book,” Chrissi, Lesia, and Phil finish together, all incredulous.

  “Who cares about the Book?” says Kesil. “What do you know about Unc—Tok?”

  Nic looks at the four of them, befuddled.

  “Tok is his uncle,” Lesia explains apathetically, feeling comfortable around the attractive boy once again.

  “It’s someone Nic made up to scare us!” the middle-aged man answers.

  “No! Tok has been trying to take Roi’s throne since the very beginning!” says Nic.

  “Beginning of what?” Chrissi interjects, her gaze hovering anxiously on Kesil.

  “Time.” Nic sighs as if a weight left him, as if he had held the information too long and was ready to release the burden at this very moment.

  Kesil laughs almost manically, “My uncle is 50 years old, man! You’re deluded, crazy, or there’s another Tok.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nic rounds his shoulders in surrender. “Your family must be enemies of King Roi and very close to Tok. This must be very difficult for you to hear but it is the truth.”

  Kesil stiffens as his tightened fist draws back and he grabs Nic by the shirt. Chrissi reacts swiftly, “Your uncle is strange! Right Kesil?”

  He pauses, but doesn’t take his bitter glare away from Nic. His grip on the boy’s shirt tightens slightly.

  She continues, allowing words to flow from where she does not know, “You said he creeps you out…that he scares you.”

  “He’s fami
ly!” But even before the loyal declaration, Kesil begins to lower his arm and releases Nic.

  “You owe it to yourself, and your parents, to at least hear both sides of the story,” Chrissi says, echoing Kesil’s own private resolve just days earlier. She can feel her hands and arms shake with nervous adrenaline. “Maybe they don’t know the truth either.”

  “Yeah.” Kesil steps away and looks out over the empty field. Dark clouds float motionless in the sky, stretching farther than his eye can see. He crosses his arms in indignation.

  Lesia and Phil look back-and-forth between the boys, shocked to silence. Chrissi faces Nic.

  “Which way to the king?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A midday sun shines brightly behind contrasting grey clouds. Lesia follows closely behind Nic even as her breath leaves her and her muscles cry out for rest. Chrissi has walked swiftly beside the boy for the entire two-hour journey while Phil and Kesil take up the rear, the latter still visibly sulking, head hanging low.

  “Not that I’m complaining or anything, that so isn’t like me, but are we almost there?” Lesia jogs up so she is on the other side of Nic. Phil snorts in laughter but quickly straightens up as Lesia’s glare sends daggers his way.

  “Yeah, just over this and you will see the Tunnel,” Nic points ahead as they begin trekking up a small hill.

  “Oh, great!” Lesia says as enthusiastically as she can muster.

  “Nic, is it true you went through the Tunnel? All the way through?” Chrissi is hesitant to ask Nic anything more, for fear his answers will reignite Kesil’s anger. But now she feels there is no other way, they must have an idea of what they will meet ahead.

  “Yes, Mack back there…he just can’t believe that his brother wouldn’t come back you know?”

  Chrissi nods, “So, how did you come back? If it is so dangerous?”

  Nic smiles with wisdom far beyond his years, “You just have to listen. ‘Those who seek will always find’.”

  “The Book?”

  “Yeah. You all should really read it more often. There’s some great stuff in there!”

  “Maybe,” Chrissi says meekly. “Can you tell us how though? I mean, what are we supposed to be listening to?”

  Nic stops and Lesia bumps into him, “So sorry!” her face flushes immediately.

  “You have heard it, haven’t you?” Nic’s eyes are wide in concern.

  “Heard what?” Chrissi retorts in rising frustration as the boys catch up.

  Nic shakes his head and the worry seems to slide off his shoulders, “Of course you have. Just listen Chrissi,” he puts his hand on her shoulder and looks deep into her eyes as if communicating his mystery by osmosis. “Listen.”

  Suddenly he skips and jogs to the top of the hill whistling a foreign tune. “Of course,” Chrissi mumbles to herself.

  Once they reach Nic at the top of the hill, Lesia plops down to take the rest her body has been longing for almost since they began their way to the Tunnel. Nic points down towards a river.

  “There’s where you want to go. The Tunnel is just before the river, you can see it very well from here, it just looks likes a grassy knoll. When you get close…” Nic pauses. “You’ll know.”

  “Wait, you aren’t going with us?” Lesia is on her feet so quickly everyone jumps in surprise, creating an awkward ring around her and Nic.

  “No, of course not. I have my mission, and you guys have your journey! You must go on, I must stay here.”

  “But how will we know how to get back?” tears pool in Lesia’s eyes.

  “‘Listen’,” says Kesil, mocking Nic.

  Nic shrugs and grins at Lesia, “You will be OK!” He pats her a little roughly on the back and turns to go.

  “Bye.” Lesia’s shoulders slump as she watches him go as swiftly as he seemed to have appeared. Everyone stares ahead, incredulous at what they just now realize is the most beautiful pasture they have ever seen.

  “Lesia,” Phil taps her shoulder repeatedly with each syllable of her name. “Le-si-a…Le-si-a…Le-si-a.”

  “WHAT?” she spins around so fast her foot catches on Phil’s. He tries to catch her but that only causes him to lose his own balance and they both tumble down the hill. Chrissi runs down after them trying not to laugh too hard and Kesil jogs behind, rolling his eyes.

  “Ugh! You clumsy egghead!” Lesia pushes Phil off her leg and stands up. He rolls over laughing hysterically. Chrissi and Kesil join them. “Why are you all laughing? We are…well we don’t even know where we are! We haven’t known for days! We are out of food and haven’t had decent sleep—”

  “And we are in paradise,” Chrissi finishes.

  “What?”

  “Look around!” says Phil, his open arms gesturing toward the bright wilderness around them. For the first time Lesia looks around. Her eyes comb over bright green blades of grass for miles, pink and purple flowers dotting the horizon, the refreshing sound of running water just a little ways in the distance, and huge trees perfect for climbing and napping. Then, all at once, everyone’s gaze falls on the deep, black, ominous Tunnel twenty yards before them.

  Birds fly high in a now clear, blue sky, chirping and singing happily. Squirrels bounce from limb to limb rustling leaves. The river runs at a calming pace from somewhere on the other side of the Tunnel. And suddenly, an ear-piercing scream breaks through the serenity. Tears find their way back to Lesia’s fearful eyes.

  “No, no, no, no,” she paces away from the Tunnel. “I’ve done a lot of things on this stupid journey but going inside THAT is not going to be one!”

  Chrissi gently hooks her arm in Lesia’s. “We have to, this is the way home,” she reminds her gently.

  “Maybe,” Kesil scoffs. Phil shoots a glare at him then quickly tries to take it back. Screams issue from the Tunnel again.

  “Regardless, it’s the only way to go,” Chrissi gulps, trying to summon confidence she can no longer feel. Everyone stands before the dark entrance, Chrissi and Lesia arm-in-arm, Phil and Kesil flanking them.

  “We need a plan,” Kesil says, finally feeling ready for action.

  “Like what? We have no idea what is in there,” Phil points out.

  “Let’s see what is in our bags,” Kesil dumps his backpack out on the ground, everyone else follows suit. As they rifle through their collective items, screams intermittently pierce their fearful tension.

  “Lipstick, three bottles of water, rope, two pots, four flashlights, blankets and clothes,” Lesia takes inventory. “Great, we’re set,” she says sarcastically, voice shaking.

  “Well, flashlights and rope may help,” Kesil begins gathering the materials and handing out flashlights. “Let’s tie the rope around each of us to ensure we stay connected and together. Something tells me we don’t want to be separated in there.”

  They each loop and tie the rope around their waists, taking longer than necessary as most everyone’s hands are shaking. Screams intrude once more and Lesia squeals, dropping her part of the rope.

  “Sorry,” she starts her knot over again. The rope is long enough to leave about five feet between each of them. Kesil leads with Chrissi following, then Lesia and Phil.

  “I feel like a dweeb,” says Lesia looking around anxiously for any glancing eyes. Perhaps Nic stayed behind to make sure they got off OK and now he sees her tying herself to her friends. Wait. Friends? Did she just think that?

  “Something tells me there isn’t anyone around here,” Phil says looking around warily.

  Chrissi takes a deep breath, suppressing her own fear and doubts, “Let’s go.”

  They move their train toward the opening of the Tunnel, one hesitant step at a time. Kesil reaches the edge and puts his hand cautiously on the rock forming the dark cavernous depth of the Tunnel, whose mystery would very soon unfold. He peeks around and inside.

  “What do you see?” Chrissi asks anxiously, ready to get it all over with. Maybe if they move quickly enough they won’t face any…complications. />
  “Nothing,” Kesil turns back to look at them. Their petrificant looks force a lump to his own throat. “It’s too dark, I can’t see a thing.” He turns to peer a little more, sticking his whole head over the edge of the rock and inside the Tunnel. Just as his eyes begin to adjust a rush of hot wind blows through, right at his face and the screaming follows. Kesil jumps back almost knocking Chrissi down. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he says, catching his breath.

  “Um…maybe we can go around?” Lesia offers. Everyone looks around the Tunnel.

  Phil laughs, “Well duh! That’s simple!” He jaunts over to the side of the Tunnel near a small patch of yellow flowers, forgetting everyone else was attached to him and causing them to turn and fumble over all their feet.

  “Ouch!”

  “Ugh!”

  “Phiiil!”

  “Sorry guys!” He continues anyway and takes a step over the patch of little flowers away from the entrance, then falls backward onto Lesia as if he hit a wall. Lesia falls backward into Chrissi, and Kesil tries to catch everybody only to come crashing down himself.

  “Phil!” Lesia yells. “What are you doing?”

  “I was…I was pushed down by something, or walked into something…” He stares before him trying to figure out what exactly happened. Chrissi stands up with the others. She walks over to the patch of flowers and feels around in the air with her hands.

  “I don’t feel anything,” she takes a slow, hesitant step forward only to hit something with her toes. “There’s definitely something there.” She swipes her hand out in front of her, nothing. “But only if you try to step through.”

  “Sooo, not so simple,” Lesia says.

  “Not so simple,” Chrissi confirms.

  “Well…through the Tunnel we go,” Kesil leads the way back to the darkness. As they come to the mouth of the Tunnel again Kesil gives some warning. “The air that came out with the last scream was really hot, so it may be pretty nasty in there.”

  “Great,” says Lesia. “Just what we need.”

  Phil rolls his eyes.

  “Don’t you patronize me Phil Jacobson!”

  “What? I didn’t…you couldn’t have seen, your back is to me!”