Lingering Haze (The Elusive Strain Book 1)

by James Berardinelli

  “My world doesn’t have magic. I’ve told you that.” Backus could be forgetful. I sometimes wondered if he was getting senile. Living for three-hundred years could lead to that, I suppose.

  “All worlds have magic, yours included. It may be that the magic is hidden or inaccessible. In the world I come from, magic is served through energy that flows from a place called the Otherverse. If the conduits to the Otherverse were all blocked, magic would still exist but no one would be able to use it. Perhaps it’s like that in your world.”

  I shrugged. Hard to explain to someone who had lived with the reality of magic for so long that the only mysticism in my world was associated with trickery. Was it possible that, among all the showmen, illusionists, and charlatans, there were a few real magicians? Considering my current circumstances, I wasn’t in a position to scoff.

  “Maybe it’s a barrier. Something you need to build immunity against.”

  Great. Exactly what I wanted to hear: the way to overcome the headaches was to subject myself to them over and over again until I became so used to them that they no longer mattered. Then I could label myself The Masochist Summoner.

  “Let’s push on. Fire and earth are the two easiest elements to work with. Air is mercurial and requires patience to control even in small amounts. Water is the trickiest of all, so let’s see what you can do with it. Drip a few drops into my wash basin.”

  “How am I supposed to get water? Out of thin air?”

  The smile made another appearance. “Precisely.”

  Over the next several hours (or cycles), I learned a few things. First, as long as I didn’t try any large magical workings, the headaches were manageable, especially if I accompanied each act with a dose of Blight leaf powder. Second, I couldn’t feel any emotions draining away but I was aware of becoming more focused and less anxious. Thirdly, Backus’ impassive persistence was irksome. The lack of compassion, the smug smile, and the superior attitude made me understand why he wasn’t the most liked man in the settlement. Idly, I wondered how much energy it would take to make him disappear.

  Chapter Twelve: Fragments of a Life that Was

  I was starting to remember. Maybe magic had opened the doors in my mind or maybe it was a coincidence but my past was returning. Some things were welcome, others weren’t. But, although the memories were coming back, they seemed disconnected, almost as if they belonged to another person. It was hard to reconcile that Janelle with me. People normally changed so gradually that their evolution was slow, measured, and continuous. For me, there had been a discontinuity in my existence and it was difficult to reconcile my “old” self with my “new” one.

  I also had difficulty ascertaining the differences between real memories and dreams. They were jumbled together. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t held any long, meaningful conversations with a beagle, but what about kissing a boy? What about holding him tight while dancing at Senior Prom?

  The memories came back randomly, not all at once. Sometimes a sight, sound, or smell (especially a smell) would trigger one. The scent of fresh-baked bread had brought back a cavalcade of holiday remembrances at my grandmother's house. Some would come at night as I drifted into that twilight world between wakefulness and full sleep. Others would sneak up on me when I let my mind go blank during the hours of drudgery that marked my daily chores. Some memories returned unnoticed; others electrified my attention with their forcefulness. However, instead of unifying my identity, they were fragmenting it – not what I had expected or hoped for.

  I didn’t mention any of this to Father Backus. I knew him well enough by now to recognize he would either ignore it or claim that it was “just one of those things” that Summoners had to cope with. I was becoming depressed with how little the priest knew about the subject of magic. Although he had never officially studied it, I would have expected that, over the course of three centuries, he would have accumulated more knowledge than he seemed to have. Was it possible that, in the less than half-season I had lived in Aeris, I had outgrown his teachings?

  What I didn’t confide in Backus, however, I told to Samell. He was a good sounding board, able to suggest things that put a particular memory in a different light. The jigsaw puzzle metaphor, although often overused, was apt in this case. Only when all the pieces had been put in their proper places would I have a complete picture of who I was (or who I had been).

  “You’re never going to remember everything,” said Samell after one of my frequent outbursts of pique. “Ask me what I had for supper ten days ago and I won’t be able to tell you.”

  “That’s a detail. No one remembers those things. But I can’t remember big things. Like my mother’s name. Or whether the girl I talked to was my sister. Or whether the boy I kissed was my boyfriend.” My frustration was difficult to put into words. He hadn’t experienced it so he didn’t know what it was like: the uniqueness of the amnesiac's reality.

  “Did you care about him?” asked Samell, referring to the nameless boyfriend.

  Did I care? Or should it be Had I cared? “I don’t know. If I think hard, I can almost see his face. But I don’t feel anything. No sense of loss. No longing to be with him again. And I don’t know whether that’s because we were never close or because I don’t have a full picture of what we might have been to one another.”

  “How could you have kissed him and not cared about him?”

  In Aeris, a kiss was as good as a marriage proposal. This was a more conservative society than the one I was familiar with. The conservativism made sense in a small community. The social fabric was based on a solid family structure. Children didn’t grow up and leave Aeris. They got older, married someone else from the town, and had their own children. It was as steady as it was insular. They would view kissing without a pledge as promiscuity and promiscuity was a danger to the stability of this tiny corner of the world. So the idea of kissing or touching or doing something intimate with someone other than a pledged life-mate was difficult to address.

  “In the world I came from, kissing doesn't have the… importance… that it has here. Sometimes, friends kiss. It can be… recreational.” The widening of Samell’s eyes alerted me that I had used a wrong word but I forged ahead. “I went to a dance with this guy. Sometimes after a dance, or even during it, people kiss. They do it because it feels right at the moment or even because everyone else is doing it and they don’t want to feel awkward.” With a sigh, I stopped trying to explain. I knew that by now my face was red. I had always blushed easily. That was something else I remembered.

  “I kissed Elena,” admitted Samell in a quiet voice. “We did it where no one could see but it was a promise between the two of us to be together one day even though our parents didn’t approve.”

  That surprised me. Aside from the elders, Father Backus, and now me, everyone in Aeris was on the same social level. There were no divisions, no landowners or nobility. Everyone was the same - peasants, farmers, workers. If two people wanted to be together, why keep them apart? Life here was difficult enough without having to look at the person you loved every day and knowing you could never have her.

  Aware that I might be wading into sensitive territory, I phrased my question as delicately as I could manage. “Are there rules in Aeris about who you can marry?”

  “Yes. There aren’t many but Elena and I, if we’d gotten married, would have broken one of them. You see, we’re cousins. My mother and her father are sister and brother. There are strict prohibitions against marrying someone who’s such close kin. It has something to do with unfit children. You’re encouraged to marry someone of the most distant blood but the only forbidden marriages are those who share a parent or grandparent.”

  As cruel and arbitrary as it might sound to Samell, I understood the reasoning (and even agreed with it). In a community like this, inbreeding was a danger. Only careful policing and arranging of marriages would prevent the gene pool from becoming too shallow. Elena was dead and that was a tragedy but it had solved a dilemma
for Samell.

  “I liked kissing her,” he said, his faraway look indicating that he was reliving the moment. My memories of my kiss were too vague for it to be more substantial than a moving picture. Had I enjoyed it? I didn’t know although I wasn’t averse to trying again at some point to find out. “The softness of her lips. The taste of her breath. The smell of her skin and hair.”

  “Do you miss her?” It was a stupid question but I couldn’t think of anything better to say and I knew that a prolonged silence would become awkward.

  “Not as much as I thought I would. I suppose it’s because of everything that's happened since. No time to mourn the dead. I lost other good friends as well. Esme lost Jeanmar, her intended.” I raised an eyebrow at that. I hadn’t realized Esme was engaged, especially to someone as dour and introverted as Jeanmar. “But she’ll always be special to me.”

  You always remember your first kiss. That was a saying from the other world. I envied Samell that it was true for him. I even envied his grief. My situation had robbed me not only of a clear, meaningful memory of my first kiss but an understanding of whether I should be sad about losing my partner.

  “Are you promised to someone else?”

  “No. It was always Elena for me. My parents knew that and, even though they couldn’t approve a marriage between us, they thought it would be counterproductive to force an engagement on me. Elena was promised to Hickard. It made for some uncomfortable moments.” I didn’t know Hickard although I might recognize him by sight. He hadn’t been in the search party although there could have been a lot of reasons for that.

  “The boy you kissed…do you remember his name?” asked Samell.

  “No. Just about the only thing I know about him is that we danced and kissed. It wasn’t that long ago.” His name was a blank. His features were fuzzy. He was an avatar of maleness in my mind. Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel anything for him. “It doesn’t seem real. Here, you and I talking, that’s real. Kissing some guy, it’s like it happened to someone else.” I wondered if we had gone farther than kissing. Something told me the answer was “no.” I hoped that was the case.

  The conversation with Samell resulted in my thinking about this mystery boy all afternoon as I went through the motions of carrying baskets of wash and hanging the clothing and bedding up to dry. The work was physically demanding (my hands were already toughening up with calluses having formed and hardened on the palms and fingertips) but it left my mind unencumbered. The catalyst for another memory was the prick of a small insect that Esme had called an “ear pincher.” Attracted by the scent of my sweat, it alighted on my bare forearm and gave me a kiss as potent as a wasp’s sting. I yelped and suddenly another piece fell into place in the jigsaw puzzle of my past.

  I was sitting cross-legged and barefoot on a blanket in the middle of what appeared to be a poorly-cut lawn or a meadow. It was a warm, breezy day and I was wearing a summery dress. My unbound hair, teased by the wind, refused to behave so I had pulled it back into a ponytail. I wasn’t alone. A guy - the guy - sat close by. Now I knew his name. Jarrod. How could I have forgotten it? How could I have forgotten him?

  The day had begun beautifully. A nice little picnic followed by some kissing. This was after the dance. That had been our first kiss. It hadn’t been our last. We were an “item” at school - or had been until graduation. Now, with friends scattering to the far winds and becoming occupied by summer jobs, the old social cliques were breaking down. By September, they would be gone as most of us went to college and the few who didn’t moved into the permanent workforce.

  Jarrod and I had two months together until I left for the West Coast and he headed south to Miami. Or at least I thought we had two months together. He had set a precondition on our continuing relationship that I wasn’t aware of and, when he made it clear what it was, I couldn’t agree.

  “Come on, Janelle. We’ve been together for over a month and we were friends before that. We've known each other since junior high.”

  Pressure. My friends had all said it would come but I hadn't believed them. It might be true of their boyfriends but not Jarrod. He was different. He and I… it wasn't all about physicality and hormones. We had a connection. Or so I had thought. An hour ago, I had been happy. Now, I was miserable. I wasn’t a prude but this was a step beyond my comfort zone. “I know,” I murmured. “I’m not ready.” Three words he really didn't want to hear.

  The rest of the afternoon progressed predictably, with him spending the better part of the next two hours cajoling and listing reasons why his “solution” made sense. What we had, he argued, needed to “evolve” or it would never survive our autumn separation. I heard the words and my heart broke – I couldn’t believe that Jarrod, my sweet, generous Jarrod was just like all the others.

  I didn’t give in. At first, I seriously considered it – not so much because I wanted it but because it was so important to him. But the more he pushed, the more upset I became about the whole thing. The harder he tried to convince me, the more remote and sullen I became. Eventually, he drove me home. We didn’t speak in the car and, when he pulled up in front of my house, we didn’t kiss goodbye. I knew then it was over. The next morning, I awoke to a text message from him telling me that he thought we had “run our course” and it was time to “take a break.” Two days later, I spotted him with Chloe Wendel. Looking at the two of them together, I had no doubt she wasn’t afflicted by my hang-ups.

  I had stopped working as I absorbed the memory. Unlike many of the other chunks of my past, this one came accompanied by a tidal wave of emotion. I felt now what I had felt then. I wanted to cry or throw up or both. Almost without realizing it, I started reaching for my magic. I caught myself before I touched it but was shocked at how easily I could access it. Too easily. For the first time, I recognized the danger. Emotion wasn’t just the fuel for magic; it was a catalyst. Instead of staring daggers at someone who insulted me, I might plunge actual blades into them.

  I asked Backus about it when I went to his house the next morning for my “lesson”. I knew it wasn’t a problem for him now but maybe it was an issue he had encountered in his youth.

  “Powerful emotions?” he ruminated. “I can see how that might be a problem, at least until you learn how to govern the use of magic. Can’t say I remember having issues with it, though. Even as a young man, I was rather… reticent. For a Summoner, though, too much emotion is always preferable to too little. The more you have, the more you can afford to lose. Some of the old lore tomes claim that all the most powerful Summoners were women since they typically have access to greater emotional reserves than men.”

  It wasn’t the most helpful advice he had ever given me. In fact, it was like a lot of what he had been telling me of late - obvious “secrets” I had either figured out on my own or that didn’t apply to my situation. He had been a dabbler and his lack of legitimate skill became evident in his lessons. To his credit, Backus was as aware of this as I was but he seemed to be at a loss about how to proceed from here. We both knew where this was headed: I would have to leave Aeris and seek someone who could act as a mentor.

  I didn’t want to go. I was just starting to feel comfortable in this village, the only home I had known since coming to this world. In Rickard and Lissa, I had found substitute parents. I had friends and was respected. If anyone in Aeris didn’t like me, they kept their feelings hidden. The elders, after an initial period of skepticism, had hailed me as the best visitor to Aeris in a generation. I was happy here - or as happy as a confused girl with uncertain memories could be. But I was also keenly aware that I couldn’t grow. If I stayed, I would end up like Backus - a second-rate wizard who had spent a life wasting his meager, underdeveloped talents. Maybe I’d marry and have children, but that wasn’t the reason a Summoner had spent his life bringing me here.

  What were the ramifications if I left? Aeris would be undefended if another wave of earth reavers attacked. No one talked much about it but killing half their num
ber meant there were more than two dozen from that group left with possibly others in reserve. Were they regrouping? Would it be better for the village if I stayed or left? If I was their target, would they spare Aeris if I was elsewhere? Or would it remain in their cross-hairs, a lone human habitation in The Verdant Blight and a place where they had suffered a defeat?

  As evening approached, a storm front crawled across the sky toward Aeris and its environs. The roiling black clouds reminded me of the air reaver squall from before the attack but this one seemed to be completely natural, at least insofar as my senses could detect. The village became a hive of activity as citizens prepared for the imminent combination of rain, hail, winds, and lightning. I watched with a detached curiosity, opening my senses to the immensity of the front as it swept in from the northwest.

  This was different in some indefinable way from the frequent summer thunderstorms in my world. It seemed raw and more untamed. The lightning was brighter, the thunder louder, and the winds howled with the force of a hurricane. When the rains arrived, mixed with hail the size of a golf ball, they did so in sheets, a deluge the likes of which I had never before seen. Calling this a “thunderstorm” was an insult to its majesty, power, and ferocity. It was nature unleashed. I wondered if this world’s incipient magic had something to do with this although my sixth sense detected nothing unusual.

  I was hunkered down with Samell and his family in their home. Like a mantra, Rickard repeatedly mentioned that the house was sturdy enough to withstand the storm, almost as if the reiteration would make it so. Everyone except Lissa was uneasy. She merely sat in her chair and knitted. Reading her, I could tell the calm wasn’t an act; she was genuinely unperturbed by the explosion of nature’s rage going on outside.