Iliona and the resumption of ties

by Ariane Souza

  “And not only gave them tasks, but you were organized. That absurd amount of nils being opened on the night before the singing, it really confused us. Later, we knew there was even a map showing the points where they were supposed to appear. We found such map. What was that for?” Lumma continued, clearly shaken by Muriel’s words but trying to disguise it still.

  Ed looked at Muriel as not believing she had organized that. He had commented that episode with her, and she had acted regularly about it.

  “Found it?” Muriel repeated it, taking a deep breath. That map was with Flen, if Lumma knew about it, she hadn’t just found it. “It was an option just in case we needed a distraction. Your persecution had increased and so the number of our groups at risk, so we needed to deviate your attention. And it worked.”

  “Interesting.” Lumma’s smile deepened, and Muriel didn’t understand why. “Anyway, you will also do as a great example. Some ilions might turn away when they hear that you joined in what you fought against so hard. Your cause might weaken. But you have abilities to be a brilliant timer.”

  “Even if you change our memories, as you already did with some of us that didn’t escape in time, this story doesn’t end here. There are many of us across the town, we’re just one group.” One ilion said, indignantly.

  “And, even if I go with you, this doesn’t mean I’ll become one of you,” Muriel added, serious.

  “Don’t go El. It’s a trap. You can’t trust they actually want you to attend their school. And even if it’s so, they might treat you quite badly.” Someone said from the back.

  “We can’t trust they actually will let us just go if you accept their offer.” Another ilion said.

  And many others spoke words of agreement to that.

  “So do you prefer to face oblivion?” Muriel turned to them. “We also don’t have a guarantee that’s the only part of our memories they will change, aren’t you worried about that? What if they change it all?” She paused, observing their half-illuminated faces by the blue flashlights they were carrying. “If you still remember you can go on. It’s already done, we already broke reclusion, and now the paths we opened will just enlarge. But you must bear in mind all we did, and why we did it.” Then she turned to Lumma again:

  “That’s why you’re making me this offer, isn’t it? Because you already know there’s not much you can do now. If there were, you’d just erase our memories without further asking.”

  “Like I said, this situation became more serious than we expected. Infinzy might be entering the city as we speak. Nagranto is already waking up, and we will just wait for now.” Lumma answered.

  “What’s wrong with that sower dragon? Why is he even here?” Another timer came mumbling behind Lumma.

  “He’s my pet. What have you done to him?” One of the ilions behind Muriel answered, with a nervous voice.

  “I did nothing. He was sleeping, but when I got out from the nil and passed by him, he opened his wings, growled, and couldn’t stop moving. Then he just flew away!”

  “You interrupted us to bring news about a dragon?” Tris cut him off.

  “No. I bring news from Erry. We found him, he’s in Nagranto.”

  “Good.” Lumma smiled. “Muriel if you could just tell us your choice, we might even have time to meet with Erry tonight.”

  “I guess my decision is quite evident. I’m going with you.” She said.

  “Great. Now I’ll back further to find an area that is not sealed. Tris, would you guide her?” She said giving her back to them and turning away slowly. While Tris walked toward Muriel and offered her a hand to hold, as whom invites someone to dance. Then Lumma stopped, and without looking back, she added:

  “About you, Ed. I could just leave you here with them. But you are a timer nonetheless, and one of the good ones. Then, you have the chance to also come with us now so we can handle your situation properly.”

  “By the last events, I can even picture what you mean by properly….” Ed started, but he was interrupted by Flen’s voice coming from behind them:

  “Now?” He and his companions had just climbed the hole Muriel and the others had also gone up a few minutes ago. He screamed the word because the earphone he was wearing was baffling the sounds.

  Zian felt that was no good. He turned his flashlight to him and could see he had an absorber whistle in his left hand, sized and shaped as a sparrow wing. It could be of any color, but it was so white Zian could distinguish it even with the dim lights.

  “Ert Suah,” Lumma said, and despite nothing happened after that, she smiled even so. The wind abruptly undid her hood when she put on the earphones she had taken out from inside her cloak and shouted back: “Now, Flen!”

  “Bob we have to get out of here.” Zian rushed toward him, turning off his flashlight.

  “What about Muriel and the others?” He asked turning around.

  But Flen started blowing his whistle that produced an acute sound, very similar to the one the wind was making over the grooves, while his companions encircled the group of ilions. All of them had earphones on. Ed covered his ears with his hands and ran to where Lumma was. Zian did the same, except that he moved in the opposite direction, with Joanna and Bob dropping their flashlights and imitating him. Everybody was unquiet with desperate, trying to find a gap in the circle that was closing around them. The three got to get away running in the dark, with no lights so as not to call attention, keeping their ears covered all along. Tris had put some earphones on Muriel too, after quickly putting hers.

  They began to fall to the ground. Some faster than others. They were caught within the circle made by Flen’s companions, who also hindered the ones trying to cover their ears.

  Flen blew his whistle ‘till it became ashes and disappeared in the wind. It didn’t last three minutes. When Muriel looked back, she saw all her group lying on the floor. Sleeping. And her eyes went wet.

  “You said you would spare their memories if I chose to go with you!” She said altered.

  “Yes, I did. Although I didn’t say which memories.” Lumma paused while Flen and the others approached them. “I already opened the nil. Let’s go.” She added.

  “They will go on living. The words inside the whistle told them to forget only about you, and everything related to humans. They will wake within some minutes, and take the train back to the city.” Flen explained to her.

  “Grotesque methods indeed,” Ed said, scanning around and looking at Lumma. “My situation will be properly handled by decadents.”

  “As long as I can see you’re here with us, and not there, among them. I just can figure you’re enjoying decadence.” Lumma said staring at him. He greeted his teeth and entered in the nil first.

  Then Tris softly pushed Muriel into it, who looked back again, to all those sleeping ones among dropped flashlights. She remembered Bob and Joanna, and others, like Zian, who would never remember her again. And she crossed the nil after shedding a tear.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t know the three of them had escaped and watched from far, from behind a boulder, they disappearing into the night of the Grooves Valley. Disappearing into a nil that made no spark nor sound.

  24

  Your Consequence

  “Good afternoon. May I help you?” Silvia asked.

  While Zian, Bob, and Joanna walked back to Nense’s cosmian, where uncle met nephew and Bob and the others explained to everybody it all that had happened. In Nagranto, most of the city was already awake.

  Elin agreed to open a nil to carry Timothy and Bob back home. And because Zian told them Erry had been seen in Nagranto, she went along with them, just in case something happened and they needed to run away quickly again. Tevis, Zian, and Hugo remained with Nense.

  It’s was already afternoon in Nagranto when they crossed the nil. When they arrived at Timothy’s though, there was a moving truck in front of the house. And Timothy’s parents, along with other helpers from a moving company, were putting the things they were
carrying out of the house, inside of it.

  When Timothy approached Silvia, she questioned him as if he was a stranger looking for help.

  “Mom, what’s happening?” Timothy asked already feeling a cold sensation in the pitch of his stomach.

  “Mom?” She laughed slightly and looked around at Bob, Joanna, and Elin looking at her just a few meters behind Timothy. “Are you with him? Do you need any help?”

  “Mom, what are you doing? Why these people are emptying the house?” He asked again, looking at the helpers.

  “Listen, kid, I don’t know why you’re talking like this. But I’m moving to a house in the center. We are. My husband and I. Are you new in the neighborhood?” Then she looked at the others again, asking: “Are you the ones who bought our house?”

  “You sold the house?” Timothy asked aloud, indignantly.

  Marcus heard him, and approached them after putting a chair inside the truck:

  “What’s going on?”

  “This kid… he seems to be lost.” Silvia responded. And the way she called Timothy for the second time, brought to his mind the face of someone that had lied to him.

  “I don’t feel like a kid anymore. I’m thirteen, and I’m your son, Timothy. We live in this house, or at least used to. How come you sold it so quickly?” His indignation was growing fast.

  “We don’t have any sons,” Silvia said, more serious this time. “I don’t know you, and I don’t understand why you’re acting like this. But if you calm down I’m sure we can solve this.”

  “Silvia, are you sure you don’t remember him? Don’t you remember us? I’m your brother Bob.” Bob said, approaching them with Elin and Joanna, and putting one hand over Timothy’s shoulder, who already had tears in his eyes.

  “I don’t have any brothers, I’ve always been an only child. This is getting weird.” She said, looking at Marcus.

  “Don’t cry. Wherever problems you’re having, things will be all right.” Marcus said, leaning forward to look Timothy in the eyes, and stroke his hair.

  “Are you his relative?” Silvia asked Bob.

  “Yes, I’m his uncle.” Bob nodded, with the words barely getting out of his mouth because he was also starting to cry.

  “Listen, we’ll have to go now,” Marcus said, scanning around and noticing everything was already inside the truck, and the helpers were only waiting for them. “Are you going to be ok?” He asked Timothy.

  “When did you sell the house?” Bob asked.

  “Actually, it was a crazy thing. When we woke up this morning, a person was waiting for us in our living room. He told us we needed to sell the house to him and that he had another good one for us in the center. I don’t remember what happened next, except that we slept again, because we woke up, hours later, on the living room floor. And when we did, the moving truck was already in here, with the papers and the money. And we just felt moving home was the rightest thing to do.” Marcus said, as also thinking that was something profoundly wrong with that situation, but could not help doing it.

  “It was very quick indeed. But since we have no sons and nothing else holding us to this house, we ended up thinking: why not? Aren’t the unexpected things, the best ones in life?” Silvia added.

  “How was the person who was waiting for you?” Elin asked.

  “Well… I don’t remember.” Silvia said, scratching her head.

  “Me neither. Nor the name. I just know a person who wanted to buy the house was waiting for us in our living room. We heard what he had to say. Then I just can’t remember.”

  “This person’s name was Ed? Do you remember this name, Ed?” Timothy asked with tears and anger mingled.

  “Hmm….sorry, I don’t remember this name,” Silvia said.

  “Are you ready to go?” The truck driver arrived near them.

  “Oh yes, We’re done here,” Silvia said keen to end that conversation.

  “Can we… can we have your new address?” Bob asked, already feeling he was demanding that from strangers.

  Silvia and Marcus quickly looked at each other, and this latter one slightly shook his head. Silvia understood the sign.

  “I’m sorry, but no. I mean, this whole story seems a bit confused. And we don’t even know each other so…” She started. “But I bet you’re going to find your mother, I’ll hope for that.” She said, making Timothy cry even more.

  “Ok then, sorry to bother you. I hope you live well in your next home.” Bob said, also shedding tears.

  “Bye!” Marcus and Silvia said one after the other. Wondering why those people were crying because of them. And they got into the moving truck that departed leaving behind Timothy’s empty house and heart.

  *

  “If they asked me if I knew you, and I answered them no, I wouldn’t be totally lying,” Ed said toward Muriel.

  They were both alone. Occupying the two seats in front of the rectangular table in Lumma’s office in the Administration building, whose door Flen was watching on the outside while Lumma and the others went to Nagranto to find Erry.

  “And I would understand. Apart from visiting Bob, there was nothing suspicious about my actions. I was very careful to hide things from you.”

  “You mean to use me.” He said, in a correcting manner. “I thought unusual when they announced a non-timer ilion would be my partner. But I didn’t bother much. Now I know that I should have.”

  But she did not answer. She was still thinking about the sleeping ones she had left in the Valley.

  “Because of this, they thought that I was the one leaking information. Now they can expel me from timer’s group because of it. Not that I would care much to be apart from it, but I wouldn’t be able to use my techniques anymore. And I do want to improve them. So, if they ask, I don’t know you.” He explained dryly.

  “It’s fine by me. I’ll say I don’t know you as well.” That made him look at her for the first time since they had arrived in the room. “Since I’m going to Timers School and they think you a traitor. To be known as a friend of a traitor is not a good beginning. Not in this case.” She said, returning his gaze.

  “But I’m just seen as such because of you.” He protested.

  “Did I ask you to go to that cavern?”

  He paused.

  She continued:

  “After knowing they suspected me, you should have stepped back. Waited. But you did not. Then finding you with us was the confirmation they needed to claim your treason. That’s your consequence. Not mine.” She said, serious. Her bulky dyed black hair was covering her shoulders.

  Ed went speechless.

  Until the thud of people, falling on the table in front of them, called their attention. Bob appeared first, then Timothy and Joanna, and Elin for last.

  “Bob!” Muriel exclaimed standing up, evidently happy to see him.

  “What’s happening in here?” Flen opened the door to check on that noise. And when he saw Timothy he recognized him from a past visit. He entered the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Hi, El,” Bob answered, helping Timothy to stand up.

  “So do you still remember me?” She asked almost in a whisper so Flen could not hear.

  “And not just me, but Zian and Joanna as well. We escaped.” He nodded, whispering back.

  “The boy wanted to see you. So we figured you would be in the Administration building since it’s to where they take…well, the prisoners. And I opened a nil to bring us here.” Elin hesitated; looking at Ed, not knowing if that was the correct word to use.

  While Elin was walking through corridors, making some questions, the other three kept hidden in an empty room. Timothy and Bob were so immersed in the last scene they had just lived in Nagranto, they did not even pay much attention to the building’s glass walls and its lemonish lights.

  “Once in the building, I just had to ask where the new arrivals were. I knew where Lumma’s office was, then I used another nil since they would not just let us walk up here. And it worked.
” Elin said, standing up from the table as well. “I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for an important reason.” She said toward Flen, who was approaching them.

  Timothy recognized Flen as well. But Ed was the one he wanted to see. So he kept staring at him, with watery and angry eyes, while Ed remained sat, staring back at him.

  “I’ll teach you something, kid,” Ed started. “It’s very rude to stare at others like this.”

  “You lied,” Timothy said. “You told me they would be ok. You said more than once my parents would still remember me. But they don’t. Now they’re gone.” He sobbed.

  “What do you mean gone?” Muriel interrupted.

  “For what they told us, someone wanting to buy their house visited them. They fell asleep and woke up later with this incredible wish to sell the house. When we get there, they were already putting things inside the moving truck.” Joanna summed up.

  “They don’t remember anything, but for what they told us, we think it was a timer who visited them,” Elin added.

  Flen felt a chill down his spine.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Timothy asked toward Ed.

  “No, it was not me. I was too busy crawling inside walls in the Grooves Valley.” He sighed. “And about the lying part, you’re also wrong. I honestly thought they would remember you.”

  “You. Thought?” Timothy drawled. “So, you weren’t sure, but you affirmed something that important without even minding if it was true or not? Why don’t you just said they mattered nothing to you?”

  “They matter nothing to me.” He stood up.

  “Ed!” Muriel reacted.

  “She is my sister Ed. Now she doesn’t remember me either. It hurts when you talk about it so nonchalantly.” Bob commented.

  “Why are upset with me? Ask Flen, I didn’t even take part in the singing. He did.”

  “But you were the one who said I didn’t need to worry. I was so calm when I watched them sleeping, and they were actually forgetting about me.” Timothy reminded him, bitterly.