Trinka and the Thousand Talismans

by Christy Jones

  Chapter Twenty

  Family Reunion

  Trinka felt warm and calm. She knew the peace she had felt among the flowing streams of Parthalan, the joy she had felt at seeing her mother escape from her palace on Apostrophe, the freedom she had felt sailing through the waters and winds of Brace, and the thrill that had slipped through her mind when she had dreamed of flying away from the towers of Ellipsis. Somewhere, she heard a sound that reminded her of waves.

  Trinka opened her eyes and, for the first time, wondered where she was. She suddenly sat upright, and saw that she had been lying on a bed of sand. She looked behind her, expecting to see Aunt Vashti’s palace and a horde of guests and talismans tearing down at her, but instead she saw only a lush green forest with thick, white clouds floating in the brilliant blue sky overhead.

  She turned as she caught a glimpse of white skirt fluttering beside her, and was surprised to see, not Ashira, but Annelise.

  “Trinka, how did you bring me here?”

  “I didn’t bring you here, I… Annelise, you’ve got to help me.” Trinka looked up to see another familiar face staring down at her.

  “Hey, sis!”

  Trinka winced. Had she blown everything and ended up on Ampersand again?

  “That glad to see me, eh?” Kolinkar laughed. Trinka felt his strong hands catch her under the arms and haul her to her feet.

  No sooner had he set her down again than another voice greeted her.

  “Oh, Trinka!” Tarian exclaimed and immediately clapped Trinka in a huge, warm hug. “I’ve been so worried about you!”

  Kolinkar mouthed something that looked like “mothers” as Tarian finally let her go.

  “I thought it was a mistake, going to Apostrophe, but I found Mother…” Trinka began. Her voice trailed off as her eyes scanned the beach, longing, hoping…

  She spotted her father at the water’s edge, cradling a tall, white figure in his arms. Her long dress streamed out into the waves. Her hair had come loose from the red flowers that held it upswept, and it fell softly over her shoulder. She stirred slightly and slowly lifted a hand toward her forehead. She no longer looked like the youthful lady Trinka had seen on Apostrophe. Slight wrinkles graced her face, her dress hugged her hips more tightly, her skin had slightly speckled and sagged in places, and her delicate fingers showed signs of wear. Her eyes no longer showed the timelessness of an empty life, but the fullness of the age that was due her.

  It was the most beautiful sight Trinka had ever seen.

  “Mom!” Kolinkar dashed over and picked her up, twirling her around several times before finally setting her back down on the sand. The rest of the flowers fell loose from her hair, and she looked up at him dizzily, marveling at the way her firstborn son now towered over her.

  “Kolinkar… how did you get so…?” she began.

  “Mom, this is my wife, Tarian.”

  “So nice to finally meet you.” Tarian grasped Ashira’s hand and shook it warmly.

  “When did you…?” Ashira started to say, but her voice trailed off as her eyes rested on another person standing nearby.

  “Annelise?”

  “Yes, Mom.” Trinka’s sister stepped forward. Watching the two of them standing there, facing each other, was like looking at some strange kind of mirror. Both had the same tall, slender build, soft hair (although Annelise’s was blonde and, at the moment, tidier), and large, expressive eyes. Only their coloring was different, with Ashira’s rich, dark looks appearing the exact opposite of Annelise’s pale complexion. Even their clothing looked alike, with Annelise in her ethereal robes and Ashira still wearing her long, white wedding dress.

  “I never dreamed the day would come when I’d see you again,” Annelise said as the two of them embraced softly.

  Trinka caught her father’s eye, and he nodded, urging her forward. Trinka took a deep breath. Her turn. Slowly, she stepped closer to her mother, and waited. Her mother paused thoughtfully, and her eyes widened.

  “Trinka?”

  “Yes, Mom. It’s me, Trinka.”

  Ashira’s eyes grew even wider as she looked her over. “I’m so…”

  “Disappointed?” Trinka suggested, praying that the answer would be “no.”

  “Yes, terribly!” Ashira exclaimed. “Just look at you!”

  Trinka’s throat tightened.

  “Here you are, half grown-up, and I never got to see it because I’ve been…” She began to look vague again as she pondered just where she could have been for the last half of her daughter’s life. “I don’t know what to do, I feel like I could…”

  A piercing scream hit the air.

  The five of them turned and saw Vashti and her daughters struggling with their long skirts at the edge of the water. Jamilah was the first to pick up the hem of her soaking wet dress and make her way toward them.

  “You did it! Where are we?”

  The rest of the family looked at Jamilah.

  “Who are you?” Ashira asked.

  “We’re cousins,” Trinka explained.

  “Oh,” her mother replied, clearly more confused.

  “I demand an explanation for this!” Amir said stiffly as he appeared behind Vashti. The water had washed some, but not all, of the splattered desserts from his cape.

  Not only had Vashti, Amir, Bahir Faruq, and all the rest of the wedding guests who had gotten caught up in the mist arrived, but behind them Trinka noticed all her talismans (Grble, Ullali, Alfredo, Stanley, Spigot, and Spout) still looking toward her, eagerly, expectantly. She looked by the water and saw the six sailors from Bram’s ship who had been with them. And from the edge of the forest came Habba, Wynn, Aart, Sten, Oana, and Ewen. Trinka looked in astonishment at the huge assembly, which seemed to include almost everyone she had met in her travels… and then some.

  Kolinkar leaned over to Annelise.

  “How’d you do all this?”

  But Annelise shook her head and held out a thin, pale hand that pointed directly at Trinka. Everyone seemed to be staring at her.

  She shifted on her feet. “Well, I was thinking about wanting us all to be together, and the elaphromyria, and I knew we had to get away to someplace safe, and I was thinking about all the places I’ve been, and I guess I sort of concentrated too hard.” Trinka swallowed. That would be a first.

  “You mean you brought everyone who ever gave you a talisman with you?” Annelise asked, astonished.

  “Well, seeing the talismans reminded me of all the people who had given them to me, and believed in me, and…”

  “If you brought us here, then send us back!” Vashti demanded. “We’re supposed to be witnessing a wedding!”

  Trinka looked at Amir, who stood with the light glinting off the golden threads in his jacket and his head held high, strong, and proud, like the magnificent winged aeluroscelis that carried his golden chariot high above the palace towers in Apostrophe. He stared in astonishment at his beautiful, young bride-to-be, who was now standing―wet, disheveled, and practically his own age―at the side of another man.

  Trinka looked at her father, who stood a few steps away from the rest of the crowd. His hair stood on end, his seaweed sweater dripped, and a faint glow of hope shone from his gray-blue eyes.

  “Madam,” Amir pronounced stiffly, “I do not understand any of what has happened today, but as I made a promise to you, I stand ready to fulfill it.”

  Ashira looked down at her dress, then back at Amir with even greater astonishment than before. “Sir,” she said, “I am shocked you would suggest I could marry anybody but my husband.”

  Amir’s chin never wobbled as he tried to exit with dignity, but he had to settle for retreating into the crowd.

  “A sticky situation indeed,” Bahir Faruq assured him.

  “Wait!” Vashti entreated him. “This is all a slight misunderstanding.”

  “Slight?” Amir’s face flushed the color of his cape.

  “I mean, we can’t have you leave your wedding without a bride
,” Vashti simpered. “Our family is not without its share of eligible women. I mean, I’m practically divorced.”

  Amir’s eyes flashed, and Vashti quickly changed tactics.

  “And then there’s… Jamilah!” she called out desperately, but her oldest daughter only looked at them with a scowl.

  “Sabirah. She’s a beautiful young lady and a mere decade away from a marriageable age.” Sabirah batted her eyes ingratiatingly while Amir turned away in disgust. “If you’ll just wait a little longer, I’m sure we can…”

  “Just what do you mean by all this?” another man near them demanded. Trinka had never seen the elderly gentleman before, but his presence seemed somehow familiar. When Aunt Vashti saw him, she bit her lip and retreated.

  “My father,” Jamilah whispered beside Trinka.

  Some of the talismans in Vashti’s trunk, like Stanley, must have belonged to him as well.

  “There seems to have been a miscalculation that Amir and Ashira should marry,” Bahir Faruq explained as he greeted his longtime business partner.

  “You mean you’re trying to marry my former intended?” Musonas demanded.

  Amir seemed taken aback for a moment, and Trinka’s father stepped forward.

  “More importantly, you were trying to marry my wife,” he said icily.

  “This was all her doing!” Vashti seethed at Trinka. “If she had never come to Apostrophe, this never would have happened.”

  “Quite possibly,” Bahir Faruq asserted. “We are fortunate she arrived in time. It is unfortunate you failed to tell Amir the truth earlier.”

  “I do not appreciate your duplicity,” Amir sniffed.

  Vashti looked like she was going to try to soothe her way out of it, but after seeing the faces of those she had offended, she could only cower quietly.

  “So this is how you behave in my absence,” Musonas turned to his wife. “I can see I must take drastic and immediate action,” he announced.

  “You mean you’re getting divorced?” Sabirah whined.

  “Worse than that. I’m moving back in!”

  Aunt Vashti turned paler than the pristine white sand beneath her feet.

  “There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Ashira said as she looked at her sister. “How did everyone suddenly get so old?”

  Vashti’s lip curled.

  “That’s not what I care about,” Musonas interjected abruptly. “How do we get back to where we came from? I’ve got work to do!”

  “There you go, already thinking only about yourself,” Vashti snapped back. The two of them began bickering, and Jamilah rolled her eyes while Sabirah covered her ears.

  “All they do is complain!” Sabirah whined above her parents’ voices.

  As Trinka looked at the three of them, all she could think was how much she wished they would leave this place and go back to Apostrophe where they belonged. No sooner had she thought it when she blinked, unable to believe her eyes.

  They were gone.

  She looked around uncertainly. Did everyone else see what she saw?

  “What’d you do with them?” Jamilah blurted out.

  Apparently, what she saw was no mirage.

  “I guess I sent them home,” Trinka answered quietly.

  “I’m sure you did,” Annelise said soothingly.

  “But how?” she asked her sister even more softly. “I already used up all the elaphromyria.”

  “You don’t need it,” Annelise shook her head. “You’ve created a new place. Just like we can do things on Ellipsis that people can’t do anywhere else, your place has its own rules. You can do things here no one else can.”

  Trinka swallowed hard.

  She hadn’t known she was getting herself into so much responsibility.

  “You mean to say that this, this young girl has power that no one else has?” Amir bristled.

  A clamor of voices arose.

  “If she’s the one who brought us here, she’s the one who should send us home!”

  “You expect a young girl to do something no one has ever done before?”

  “No offense, lass,” Yerik told her, “I’d sooner swim to shore than be sent hurtling through the unknown.”

  The commotion grew. Trinka felt the voices pressing in all around her.

  “She can send me first,” Annelise announced confidently. Everyone quieted to listen to her clear, calm voice. “I believe in her.”

  The crowd murmured as she turned to say good-bye to her parents.

  “Well, normally, I’d say you can’t experiment on your older sister,” Bram told Trinka. “But I’m sure you can do it.” He put his arms around Ashira. “You’ve already put us back where we belong.”

  The two of them took Annelise into their embrace for a moment.

  “Come back soon,” Ashira whispered as she gave her eldest daughter a kiss on the forehead.

  “I will,” Annelise promised. She turned to Trinka, with a look that indicated she was ready.

  But was Trinka ready? What if she sent her sister to the wrong part of Ellipsis? Or missed it altogether? But no, she mustn’t think about that. After all, she had concentrated hard enough to bring everyone here. As Trinka remembered that day on the steps when her sister first gave her the vial, Trinka imagined her sister at home, among the graceful glass towers of the City of Mirrors. She belonged there. She should be there.

  And, in another moment, she was.

  With a small sigh of both heartache and relief, Trinka turned her attention back to the crowd.

  Oana’s wide brown eyes looked back at her in wonder.

  “I always knew you were special!” she exclaimed.

  Trinka smiled. “So are you,” she answered with a hug. “You’re a true friend.”

  “I, um, showed the whole class my painting during share time,” she ventured.

  Ickle and Fiszbee rushed up, creating a breeze that blew the hair back from her eyes.

  “Gooood!” they chortled in unison. “We knew you could, we knew you could.”

  Trinka laughed. “Exactly.”

  “Trinka.”

  She looked up as Ewen hesitated then stepped forward. “I’m sorry for what happened to you in Parthalan.” His words spilled forth in a rush. “It was all my fault. I thought I was protecting our people. But after I found out you’d gone, I realized I was wrong. You never did anything to us. You came in peace, and I’m the one who destroyed it. I felt terrible, and I missed you. Will you forgive me?”

  For a moment, Trinka felt a twinge of the hurt he had caused her―and everyone else―that day. She had trusted him and thought he was her friend. Friends didn’t betray you and hate you and threaten you. But then again, friends did ask your forgiveness when they did things they later realized were wrong. She glanced over at Bram and Ashira. After all, if Ewen hadn’t done what he did, she might never have gotten brave enough to go to Apostrophe. She had never thought she could forgive or even think about her mother again, and now she loved her more than ever.

  Trinka turned back to Ewen. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Ewen grinned, but before he could respond, Oana gasped and put her hand to her face.

  “What?” Trinka asked.

  “I just remembere―my mom will wonder where I am.” Her eyes grew wider. “And I hope I haven’t burned the bread!”

  The three of them laughed, and the echoing sound reminded Trinka of their happy times together in Parthalan. She closed her eyes and pictured the golden fields and lush, green forests and Oana and Ewen being back home there. When she opened her eyes, they had gone.

  “It’s a wise person who has learned how to forgive.” She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Habba―and Wynn, who immediately caught her up in a tight hug.

  “I hope I, uh, didn’t cause too much trouble by visiting you, with Renwick and everything,” Trinka stammered.

  “Trouble?” Habba’s aged face grew even more wrinkled with his puzzled expression.

&n
bsp; “You’ve brought all of us closer together,” Wynn assured her. “Sometimes people take what’s most important to them for granted until they almost lose it. Then they realize they have to work hard for it again. And that’s what you’ve done for our sense of peace. We’re going to work for it, harder than ever now.”

  Trinka nodded in understanding.

  After a final, nearly bone-breaking hug, Habba reminded her, “Come see us anytime. No matter what happens, you can always come home to our house.”

  “I’ll remember,” she answered, and sent them home.

  “Young lady, I do have many important matters to attend to,” Amir interrupted her thoughts. “So, if you would kindly send me home in an expedient manner…”

  “Gladly,” Trinka answered with a smile. Amir opened his mouth, but before any words could form, he was gone.

  She looked at Bahir Faruq and all the other people from Apostrophe. She didn’t even know many of them, but she supposed they must have given Vashti (and Musonas) some of the talismans that Jamilah had then given her.

  “How am I supposed to send you home when I don’t know exactly where you’ve come from?” Trinka murmured aloud.

  “Just send them with me,” Bahir Faruq answered. “I’ll see that they get to their proper places, if they aren’t there already.”

  Trinka nodded and, with a smile, sent Bahir Faruq and the rest of the crowd back to the only place in Apostrophe she could think to send them. She had a feeling Aunt Vashti’s terrace garden was going to be extremely crowded.

  She looked at Jamilah, the only one left from Apostrophe.

  “I’m not sure I want to go back home,” her cousin said.

  “I’m not sure I want you to go either,” Trinka answered. Somehow, she felt it would be much more difficult to send someone who didn’t want to go.

  “But I probably should. Or my mom and everyone might come here looking for me.” Jamilah grinned.

  “Then I’d better send you,” Trinka returned quickly.

  “You’ll find a way to come see me again, won’t you?” Jamilah asked.

  Trinka paused then nodded.

  “We’ll find a way.”

  And Jamilah was home too.

  “Now, look here, lass.” Yerik and the other sailors started backing away as she turned toward them. “There’s no need to send us anywhere.”

  “I’m sure we can fish right here from the island for quite some time,” Knop concurred.

  Trinka smiled mischievously. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “No, no,” the sailors muttered.

  “You’ll never find a ship full of sailors as brave as we are,” Matros mustered.

  “The bravest!” Vann’s voice cracked.

  “Hear!” the others echoed in unison, but the fear in their eyes betrayed their words.

  “Look!” Knop suddenly called out. “It’s the ship! We’re saved!”

  Sure enough, Bram’s ship came sailing around the corner of the island. Raido and Snorri cheered when they saw them, and Matros, Vann, Gudlaug, Yerik, Knop, and Thork ran toward their companions as fast as their feet could carry them across the sand.

  “Hard to navigate around an island that was never here before―especially without our navigator!” Snorri called out.

  “I tell you, lass,” Raido roared, “We’ll be calling the wind for a long time with this story!”

  Trinka grinned and watched as the sailors waded out into the water and scrambled aboard the ship, to the hearty greetings of their companions.

  At last, only Kolinkar, Tarian, her mother and father, and her talismans remained on the sand with her.

  “Well, it’s nice to know that even though I’m old, I’m still wanted,” Ashira sighed, smoothing a few strands of her fallen hair. “And to think that only this morning I was a beautiful young maid.”

  “You’re more beautiful now than the first time I rescued you,” Bram assured her with a grin. “I’d much rather have you old enough to be the mother of my children.”

  “And now you’re going to be a grandmother!” Tarian announced. Kolinkar beamed.

  Ashira and Bram looked at each other briefly, and keeled over backward on the sand.

  ”     End Quote     ”

  “It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

  - Ursula LeGuin