by Steve Cash
“It’s Nicholas,” I said.
“And Eder,” Geaxi said, reaching for the door and opening it.
“Who is the young one?” Opari asked.
“Nova,” Geaxi and I said, then climbed out of the big car together.
I’ve never been much of a philosopher on the “why” of things. To me, it’s just a part of the game, never the game itself. I have always been fascinated, however, with the “when.” Synchronism, coincidence, luck, fate — all are words for that place in time where the rules change and, whether we like it or not, so do our lives.
Geaxi and I ran and got to them first. The mist had settled and it seemed abnormally calm. Willie and Star were close behind and Willie rushed past me to pick up Nicholas, who had passed out completely just before we reached him. I knelt down to help and Eder saw my face.
“Zianno,” she whispered, then slipped after Nicholas into unconsciousness.
Star leaned over to look at the stricken man and woman. She had no idea she was staring at her own father. As she bent down, she held the back of Caine’s head with the palm of her hand. Nova made a quick move and stepped in front of her.
“Keep the baby away from them!” she said sharply. Her voice was clear and precise, not angry or demanding, but something was visibly wrong. She looked quickly at Geaxi and glanced at me. “Keep the others away,” she said quietly, “and help me, please, they’re very sick.”
The light was fading by the moment and I thought I saw another man approaching with a lantern. No one else seemed to notice.
“Who are they?” Star asked. Her eyes were wide and frightened and she instinctively held Caine tighter, straightening up and backing away. “And who are you?”
Nova looked a little frightening herself. Her hair was short and black and parted in the middle with bangs across her forehead. She had some sort of oil in it, which created an odd sheen in the mist and fading light. She wore heavy eye makeup, unusual I thought for any twelve-year-old, but especially for the Meq, and it was dripping down her face like black tears.
“You’re Star, aren’t you,” Nova said. It was more statement than question.
“Yes.”
“And that is your child?”
“Yes.”
Nova looked at Caine’s dark, curly hair peeping through Star’s fingers. “Take him inside. The two of you must stay clear of these two,” she said, nodding at Nicholas and Eder.
“Why did you say the word ‘him’?” Star asked. “How did you know my baby is a boy?”
“I. I just knew.” Nova bent down and put Eder’s limp arm around her own shoulder. As she did, she said softly, “Please, you must back away. My name is Nova. We’ll talk later.”
Suddenly Opari was in the middle of all of us. She looked at Nicholas and Eder, then pulled their eyelids back and ran her finger over their lips, which were turning purple and blue. “This is a virus,” she said, then looked at me. “They are dying.”
Daphne arrived just in time to hear Opari’s last words. She was slightly out of breath and gasped, “It is. Spanish flu. took three souls yesterday in Falmouth. we thought it. came home with the soldiers, but my goodness. ’tis everywhere.”
Geaxi turned to Opari. “I have seen this before, once before,” she said. “It was in Constantinople during the thirteenth century. Have you seen it?”
“Yes, many times in one form or another. It is quicker than the wind — a black seed that kills fast and at random.”
“A virus, no?”
“Yes, the worst kind. It can. hegaz egin?”
“Fly” Geaxi translated.
“Yes, and it mutates to survive.”
The man I’d seen approaching with the lantern was an old man, tall and wearing a whaler’s coat and hat. Willie yelled to him.
“This way, Tillman, quickly!”
The man neither hurried nor slowed down. As I was to learn, that was how he did everything. He was Tillman Fadle, Caitlin’s last descendant. He stood a full head above Willie, probably six feet eight or nine, and as he held the lantern out, for just a moment, he looked more like a vulture than a man. I couldn’t see his face. The lantern’s light was too weak. It was antique, made of glass and brass with tiny holes in the top. The light came from a candle inside. The heavy mist was seeping through the holes and making the flame spit and dance.
“Thought it was you,” the man said. His voice rose and tailed off at the end of every sentence. “Couldn’t tell, couldn’t see,” he went on. “Knew it was, though, knew it was. Had to be.”
“For God’s sake, Tillman!” Willie interrupted. “Of course, it’s us. Now help me with these people, will you?”
“No! Please!” Nova shouted. “It isn’t wise.”
Willie started to speak and Daphne cut him off.
“It is all right, my dear. Really, I assure you. If this family could be spooked by the flu, then we would have been gone from this place long ago.”
Nova had been kneeling the whole time, still trying in vain to support her mother and Nicholas. Geaxi bent over and placed her beret on Nova’s head, then wiped the mascara and black tears off her cheeks.
“Come, Nova,” Geaxi said. “You must help us get them inside. It is safe here.”
Opari reached over and took Nova’s hand. She made sure Nova was looking at her before she spoke. “How long have they been sick?”
“Eder, only one day,” Nova said in a monotone. “Nicholas, two.”
“Were you searching for us?” Star asked suddenly, as if something had just struck her, but didn’t quite make sense.
“No, Star,” Nova said in the same flat, distant voice. “Not all of you. Just you.” Then her eyes found mine and I saw more tears running down her cheeks, only these were real and clear. “For so long, Zianno,” she turned and whispered, “I thought this day, this time, this moment, would be for rejoicing. Now it’s here and. and. what is this?. why is it like this?”
I said nothing. I could hear Tillman’s old lantern swinging on its brass hinges and the candlelight flickered and slashed across Nova’s dark eyes. Everything else was silence, except for the big limousine, parked and idling behind us.
“Come,” Geaxi said. “There is much to do.”
All of us helped carry Eder and Nicholas inside, with Daphne leading the way. In the rush of the moment, even in the falling dark, what I remember most were the eyes and movements of cats, dozens of them, following us, darting in front of us, peering down from tiled and thatched roofs, from every window ledge, every doorway. Willie told me later that the farmers and fishermen in the surrounding country considered them good luck whenever sighted. The “Cats of Caitlin’s Ruby,” he called them. Legend said that on the day Caitlin died they began to appear, one by one, then stayed and multiplied. They never came inside and rarely gathered all at once. But they did that night. They were all there. I will never forget their eyes.
Daphne led us through an entrance hall and down another long hall flanked by stairs leading up on both sides. There were few lights along the way, but I could see the wide beams overhead, ancient and straight and still holding their weight in an even line. I could also see the sweat glistening on the faces of Eder and Nicholas as we carried them through.
Finally, we were able to lay them down on two separate beds in what Willie called his “quarters.” There was a large stone fireplace in one corner with a fire already blazing.
Opari said, “Strip their clothes and burn them. Wrap their bodies in wet sheets. We must try to break the fever.”
She moved quickly back and forth between the two beds, telling Geaxi, Nova, and me exactly what to do, then turned to Daphne and told her that she and Willie and Star and the baby had to leave — there was nothing they could do and it was indeed dangerous. Daphne agreed reluctantly and took Star and the baby upstairs. Willie said he would be in the kitchen and within shouting distance. As he was leaving, he asked, “Should I send Tillman for a doctor?”
Opari never looked
up and said evenly, “No. I fear it is too late for that.”
For several minutes, Opari and Geaxi did everything they could to break the fevers of Eder and Nicholas, who remained unconscious and struggling for every breath. Their lungs were filling with fluid and getting worse. Their blood could not oxygenate, and as a result, once their clothes were removed I noticed their feet had turned black up to their ankles. Nicholas seemed to be hallucinating. His eyes would open and shut at random and his body jerked and convulsed. His breathing became more labored than Eder’s and I knew he was much closer to death. I tried saying his name over and over, hoping to wake him, but it was no use. Nova did the same with Eder, holding her hand and repeating in her ear, “Wake up, Mama, wake up now.”
I caught myself staring at Eder’s face and body. She was a woman in her forties, going gray in her hair and slack in her limbs. Her belly was rounder and her breasts sagged slightly to the side. The lines in her face were the same only deeper, more permanent. She was still a beautiful woman, but bore no resemblance to the girl she had been, to the Meq, to the child-woman who had lived for over two thousand years completely immune to the virus that was killing her now. It made no sense. There were three of us in the room, three Egizahar Meq who carried the Stone, and we could do nothing. This powerful, mystical Stone that could make animals and Giza change their minds, their reality itself, was impotent and unable to do the one thing that mattered—heal.
Opari stayed busy trying to make them comfortable. She mostly pointed and nodded at what to do, saying little and moving quietly. I did hear her whisper once to Geaxi, “Sailor should be here.” Geaxi only replied, “Yes, but this was never expected. Never.”
Just then, Nova turned and grabbed my sleeve with her free arm. “Where’s Ray?” she asked. I knew there had always been something between them, more than I’d had a chance to see in St. Louis and more than Ray had ever let on in Africa. Still, her question caught me off guard.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, he was kidnapped, stolen, I don’t even know if he is alive. I’ll find him though. The Fleur-du-Mal knows where he is, I’m sure of it. As soon as. as soon as—” I stopped and looked hard into her eyes. “Where is Carolina, Nova? Tell me. Tell me now.”
Before Nova could say a word, the door to Willie’s “quarters” burst open and Star was standing there wide-eyed and trembling. I am certain no one had told Star the dying man lying in the bed was her father, but when she appeared at the doorway, unasked and unannounced, I knew at a glance she had somehow figured it out. What happened next is still a mystery to me. The Meq have a word for it—berrikutu—the “talking touch.”
Star had changed from her trousers and navy jacket to a long striped dressing gown, probably borrowed from Willie. Her hair was wild and tangled and slightly wet. She even held a towel in her right hand and it looked as if she’d run downstairs the moment the truth had struck her.
It had been fourteen years since she’d seen her father’s face, and physically he had aged twice that, but she walked over to him and sat on the bed next to him and held his hand in both of hers. “Papa,” she said in the softest voice. “Papa,” she said again, then again and again as if the word itself had shape and weight and meaning beyond the sound. It was a word to her from another life, another self. It was a word she’d buried in order to survive, but used without speaking it aloud to protect her in Louisiana, in the camps of Mulai and Jisil, maybe even through our escape and the birth of her own son. It was her secret word, her magic word. “Papa” had power. “Papa” was the one word that kept her alive and the one word she never thought she would say again.
A single tear dropped from her eye and fell by chance on Nicholas’s dark blue lips. One more time, one last time, Star whispered, “Papa.” As if by magic, his mouth opened and his tongue went to taste the tear. His eyes fluttered and opened. He looked around wildly at first, then focused on Star’s face. I have no idea how he got his breath because his lungs were filled with fluid, but he opened his mouth a little wider and almost smiled, then spoke to her, or at least to the woman he thought she was.
“Carolina, honey, I knew you’d be here. I told everybody. I remember. I remember—” He paused and looked away, squinting and blinking, but his eyes couldn’t or wouldn’t focus properly. “Where are we?” he asked, looking back at Star. “Where are we, honey? I’m a little cold.”
Without saying a word, Opari handed Star a wool blanket. Star exchanged looks with her, then glanced at Nova sitting on the other bed and holding Eder’s hand.
“Carolina is your mother,” Nova said simply.
“And he is my father,” Star whispered.
The two women held each other’s gaze for several moments. One was not much older than a girl, yet had born a child herself, and the other was a woman nearing thirty, yet still in the body of a child. An “understanding” passed between them that was beyond age, gender, or species. A bond and trust were formed instantly through the timeless sense of love and the endless sense of loss.
Star turned and leaned over her papa and kissed him full and hard on his blue lips, not as herself, but as Carolina — the Carolina who was in his heart, his mind and memory, his last words. And she kept kissing him. No one stopped her. No one tried. She kept kissing him and crying and kissing him until it was over and Nicholas was gone.
Gently, Opari and Geaxi lifted Star away from Nicholas. I took the wool blanket and began to cover his body. Just as I pulled the blanket over his head, Eder moaned and coughed. She tried to speak and coughed again, only it did no good. Her lungs were too full and she was too weak. Her eyes were still closed.
“Mama,” Nova said, then leaned over and whispered in Eder’s ear, “do you know where you are?”
Eder coughed again, this time violently. Nova held her closer. There was nothing she could do. Then, suddenly, Eder opened her eyes and she was staring at me. She moaned again and her eyes fought to stay open, then somehow she began to speak, and while she could, she told me what she saw.
“I see your mama and papa, Zianno.”
“Where? Where are they?”
“Just ahead, oh, what is the name of that place, that old fort in East Africa?”
“I. I can’t remember.”
“Baju will know. He always knows where we are. Yes. Baju will know.”
Eder never closed her eyes. She left as quickly and thoroughly as Solomon had and I closed her eyes as I had his. Nova laid her down on the pillow and sat still by her side for several minutes, staring at her mother’s face and features. Behind me, Opari began a low chant that seemed at first to have no melody or words. I learned later that it was not Meq. It was older; a chant she had learned from her mother, who said the Meq had learned it from “others” during the Time of Ice. It was called the “Song of the Glacier.” Her mother said the “ancient ones” sang it together at the passing of one of their kind. They sang it to give shape and sound to the departing spirit, which was like a newborn at death and needed the strength of the still-living spirits to begin its infinite journey. They buried the “old” body of the “new” spirit in the direct path of an advancing glacier and chanted the song, or prayer, for hundreds of miles to and from their camps.
It was slow and beautiful, a song of mourning, but there was no time for mourning or ceremony. Circumstances would not allow it.
I left Willie’s “quarters” and found Daphne and told her what had happened. We both found Willie and his first concern was Star. Daphne assured him she would look after Star and the baby. Willie and Tillman Fadle then took the bodies of Eder and Nicholas into Falmouth for several reasons, but the most immediate was to confirm the cause of death. If there was danger to anyone at Caitlin’s Ruby, most importantly the baby Caine, then all precautions must be taken. Opari stopped her chant as we lifted Eder from the bed and she warned, “The man ‘old Tom,’ the one who gave directions to these two, is in great trouble. The virus was still able to fly when they met.”
�
��What about here? Now?” I asked.
“No danger,” she said. “No danger now or when we found them.”
Nevertheless, after Daphne had taken Star and Nova upstairs, we all agreed the wisest and surest thing was to have postmortems performed in Falmouth by a medical doctor. I knew that none of us — none of the Meq — could be affected, but everyone else was in harm’s way.
The wrapping and removal of the bodies was tedious and difficult. Willie, being taller and stronger, took charge of the task. He was exhausted and confused. I felt numb and Opari said little except to tell Willie what to ask the doctor. Geaxi was completely silent. Afterward, Geaxi, Opari, and I sat quietly in Willie’s “quarters” until we heard the doors on the big limousine open and shut, then the crunch of gravel under the wheels as Willie and Tillman Fadle made their way up the drive and through the gate. No one spoke. I saw the headlights flash by one of the old leaded windows and in the few seconds of illumination I saw the eyes of a dozen cats outside on the ledge, staring in at us. I turned to mention it and then saw the eyes of Geaxi.
Eder had been Geaxi’s oldest and truest friend, a confidante, a sister, and more. Geaxi was the Stone of Will. She could run nearly as fast as Ray and escape almost every possible restraint. She was the Spider. She was graceful, silent, proud, and a master of acting in the moment. But when she was confronted with the death of a friend, something happened to her inside. She became frozen and her grief was so frightening, so deep, and utterly alone, she went to a place I have not been. Opari, fortunately or unfortunately, knew this place. She had been there.
“Do not waste your tears in that cold place,” Opari said. “You must turn away and come to us. We must remain. We must. Blood of time, we are.” Opari picked up Geaxi’s hand. “Shed your tears now, Geaxi.” She took my hand and joined it with her own and Geaxi’s. “Share your tears here, now, with us, or they will be your poison.” She paused and added, “You must do this.”
Geaxi cried that night as I have never seen her, before or since. Her whole body shook and sobbed and Opari and I held her between us. Some nights pass quickly, some do not. Some are so long and sad and empty, they are no longer in time and they never pass or resolve. But they exist, and finally, eventually, end.