by Topaz Hauyn
Others would surely find her stupid, doing so, before she checked each corner, but what was the point in her situation?
She was sweating. There was a little child and its mother who guided her down here. If she was right, she had changed time somehow, because those clothes didn’t fit with anything she knew or ever saw in a museum.
The question was how and which direction? Into the past or the future?
Lilianna was pretty sure, she would never be able to figure out the how without elaborate scientific tools. Given the clothes of Marion, those weren’t available here.
As for the time, she guessed she was sent to the past. In her time nobody believed in gods and goddesses anymore. Why should people restart that in the future?
She pulled off the first boot. From walking over the dry ground it was already dry as well. No snow remained, like on her jacket. The floor would stay dry as well. At least she didn’t make a mess inside.
A shadow fell on Lilianna.
Marion stood in the way of the Moon light. Then, she moved to the side, rustling in a corner.
“Just putting the harvest away and finding some foot for dinner”, said Marion. “Sweetheart, come over.”
The little girl edged along the wall until she reached her mother and climbed on her back, holding tight and not moving again.
Lilianna blinked.
Did Marion really walk around with her daughter always clinging to her hip or her back?
She shook her head.
It wasn’t hers to judge or ask.
“I’ve something to eat as well”, said Lilianna. She put all her things next to her backpack and searched inside for the dried jerky and the flavored soybean sticks. The plastic wrappings rustled as she pulled them out. Then, she pushed everything to the side where the little girl had sat, so there was space in the middle of the house.
She didn’t see another door in the dim light, nor did she find another rope ladder leading to a second floor. It really seemed to be a one room tree house. Like the one she had built as a child, with her parents.
Would she ever see her parents again?
Marion came to the center and put something rectangular down and placed things on it. Then, she stopped and looked at the things Lilianna had put down.
She tipped against one of the wrapped, flavored soy sticks. The plastic rustled faintly.
“You really are Lilianna from the story”, whispered Marion.
“I’m not from a story”, said Lilianna.
“Sure you are. It’s 2249 A.C. in your year counting”, said Marion.
She moved around something behind her until she sat with her legs crossed and her girl sat in her embrace.
“We still tell the stories of those people who vanished on top of the mountain. Nobody goes there without a reason”, said Marion.
Lilianna watched the girl grab something from the rectangular thing and bite off it. The scent of earth and sweetness filled the room. So this was dinner?
She wasn’t hungry anymore.
“You have those rustling plastic things history talks about. The reason we live here, where, in your time, there was only snow”, continued Marion.
“You said, Rome is underwater?” Lilianna wanted to make it a statement, but it sounded more like a question.
She saw the girl cuddle tighter against her mother.
She wanted to do the same. Cuddle into her mothers arms, close her eyes from the world around and feel safe.
So, not the past. She had time traveled into the future. Marion knew about Rome and about the plastic problems they had. Did she really indicate climate change had thawed all the ice but left the top of this mountains intact?
Lilianna tried to think about technicalities and avoid her feelings. She didn’t want to deal with her feelings, but, what else was there to do? She already felt tears running down her face. Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing her parents again, or her friends from university. Did she really become a story? One of those missing people she heard about herself?
“Can I go back?”, asked Lilianna, grabbing the last straw of hope she had.
“I don’t know. You’re the first in all the stories who ever reappeared”, said Marion. “Moreover, there are still people climbing up and never climbing down again.”
Lilianna drew her eyebrows together. She should be the only one? How could that be? And didn’t Marion climb up to the mountain top herself today?
“What about you? You just climbed up”, said Lilianna.
Marion caressed her girl and ate some sweet, earthy smelling things from the middle.
Lilianna preferred to go with the food she knew. She picked up one of the flavored soy sticks and unwrapped it. The rustling of the plastic sounded louder than ever before. She stuffed the package into a side bag of her backpack. The other things had no packaging, therefore she mustn’t search for a bin.
“I’m the medic of the village. I must climb up on top of the mountain and harvest the blue flowers. They are the main ingredient for an antidote. It’s the villages only source of income”, said Marion and kissed her girl on the hair. “It’s risky. I never know if I come back and pray to the gods and goddesses for their protection before I climb up.”
Lilianna chewed on her soy stick. That was a lot to comprehend. Antidotes, gods, her time travel.
She tasted the artificial flavor of tomatoes mixed with basil. The texture wasn’t tomatoes and basil but pressed together beans.
Usually she liked it.
Now it felt more like chewing on cardboard that soaked up all the wetness inside her mouth and macerated until she couldn’t chew anymore. She hastily gulped and drank some water from her canteen.
The girl watched her attentively. Following all her movements with her eyes.
“Surely you want to go back”, said Marion, after some minutes of silent eating. “You can try tomorrow. If you want to, I guide you back to that protruding rock plateau where we first met.”
Lilianna nodded. That sounded like a good idea.
“Are you sure it works?”, asked Lilianna.
She wasn’t. From the little she had heard, Marion couldn’t either.
“No”, said Marion, like Lilianna already thought. “I don’t know. But I have no proof to convince you otherwise.”
More silence between them.
Lilianna watched the girls eyes closing and reopening and closing again until her grasp on her mother loosened, and she fell asleep, breathing evenly and with little sound.
“How is life around the village?”, asked Lilianna.
She wanted to know more about this time. She wasn’t sure, she was willing to gamble a second time travel. What if she never reappeared? What if it didn’t work a second time? What if she missteped and fell down and died?
Somehow the last idea frightened her the most.
Climbing the mountain had been a challenge for her. A way to prove she could manage difficult situations.
Well, compared to where she was in now, climbing a mountain seemed like playing with child toys. She felt out of her league and alone.
“We grow vegetables on the small patch of land around the village and on most places under the trees. We live in tree houses to have as much growing space as possible”, said Marion.
That sounded bad, to Lilianna. She had no idea about how to grow and harvest something. To her, all her food had always come from a supermarket. Like magic, it had been on the shelves. In theory, she knew the ingredients had to be grown someplace called farm, but she had never cared.
“Two times a year come the merchants to trade the antidote I make and some field fruits we don’t need. In good years. In others, we buy food from them”, continued Marion. “If you can add something useful you are welcome to stay. If not, the village council will ask you to leave with the next merchant passing by.”
Lilianna gulped. She didn’t know if she could add anything to a farming village. Having to leave the mountain and go into completely unk
nown territory sounded frightening.
Yet.
She stopped that frightening thoughts.
She had done exactly that. Hadn’t she? Traveling to the other side of the world to climb that mountain without knowing the language of the country or its customs. She even had paid more money to get guides who spoke a bit of broken English to communicate.
“How come I can talk to you?”, asked Lilianna.
Marion shrugged.
Another mystery.
“You sound like a stranger, but I can understand you. Nobody will believe you’re from around the mountains”, said Marion.
Well, that meant she had a dialect, but she could at least understand the people. That was something. And maybe, traveling this new future could become fun as well.
“Let’s talk in the morning”, said Marion. “The last merchant just left. The antidote takes time to make. You’ve some time to decide what to do and to see if you can add something valuable to our community.”
Lilianna nodded.
“Thank you for helping me”, said Lilianna.
She felt lucky for having Marion. What would have happened, if she had stayed on that rocky plateau, waiting for her guides? Maybe she would have frozen to death. Now, in this warm tree house, she had a chance of survival. A chance to discover a new world.
She watched Marion move to the side and lay down with her girl to sleep.
Lilianna moved to the side where her backpack laid, used it as a cushion and tried to sleep.
The sweet scent of the food had vanished. Her teeth were still unbrushed, but she didn’t want to wake up Marion again to find a place to brush her teeth. She could ask tomorrow. And she would find a way to make herself a new life here. Even if she could return, she wouldn’t find her way down the mountain all alone. What if she didn’t return to her time? Back then it took them tree days of walking to come to the top. Too risky.
Her eyes felt heavy, her limbs tired. She needed to sleep and regain her strength to face this new world. What an adventure.
She smiled into the night and the light of the Moon, which fell into the room.
Lilianna closed her eyes and listened to the wind outside. It was low and similar to the one she knew from sleeping in her tree house as a little girl. A comforting thought, that helped her fall asleep.
THE END
Love against all Rules
Lisbeth stood in front of the book shelve of her starship shop, preparing for today’s customers. She thought about yesterday’s dinner. The guy had been nice enough. Was nice enough good enough to form a connection for life and produce children? She didn’t think so.
The books in front of her were more exciting than that guy. Whatever his name had been.
Aside from that, the starship crew was already large enough. The last generation, her parent’s generation, had made having lots of children a priority to replace the shortage they had experienced after off boarding the customer batch on the last livable planet they had found.
She remembered, how her parents told her time and again, that she had to fulfill her duty and get at least two children. One to replace her, one to replace her partner. Better yet, have a third one just in case. And now with twenty-five years, she was still looking for the right partner. Her two older sisters already formed connections and both got their first and second child. Before her parents left life.
Lisbeth, third daughter to the former starship captain had inherited one of the starship shops from her mother, while her eldest sister Eleni got the captain’s seat from her father and her elder sister Marimbe a place at the planning board that still had a few empty places. There, Marimbe decided with the others about the next flight directions and planets to check for livable conditions.
Planets did change, solar systems vanished in the time the starship needed to reach a destination. So far only a few had fulfilled their needs. But there were still people for three more worlds aboard who needed a new planet to live on. Not to forget the crew who had to wait for a fourth habitable planet. Planets Lisbeth would probably never see, for she belonged to one of the many crew generations that grew up, got children and died in the service of the starship and the people they transported.
Lisbeth liked her place. The little shop, meaning three rooms on the large generation starship, selling everything someone might need, living or sleeping, during the travel. Add to that some luxury items like second hand old books on paper, candy for children and the occasional antique board games. Not to forget the postal service, that allowed everyone to send messages to others who didn’t need something this time and were too far away to reach each other in a single day of awake time. Everyone was woken up once every ten years for a day to stretch, get some real exercise and learn the news around the starship. Therefore, every day there were new faces in the shop.
A wonderful thing, in Lisbeth’s opinion. For she could talk to new people each day without getting attached to somebody. Getting too close to their customer, or as her older sister Eleni often said, becoming stupid, wasn’t an option. Staff and customers didn’t mingle.
Ever.
Which was fine with Lisbeth. There were some nice looking men among the crew that were her age and she had had dinner with them through the last couple of years every now and then. She just hadn’t met the right one. She would keep trying, she had time enough. They still kept up the yearly calendar from back on Earth, although it lost its meaning so long ago in most areas. Regarding fertility and ability to bear children it was still working. That meant at least twenty to thirty more years of time for her.
The rug in Lisbeth’s hand was soft and perfect for dusting the display she had prepared for today’s group of customers. A new display of fairy tale books, mixed with some newer science fiction books about the new worlds they would find and settle on. She even had a new electronic biography in her shop about one customer they left on the last planet. One her grandparents had seen. One where a lot of the staff had decided to stay. A drainage of staff they still felt.
The biography talked about the first struggles, how they overcame them and founded a flourishing society. Her customers would be happy. New biographies were rare to get and therefore treasured.
Sometimes Lisbeth assumed they fed their hope for a new world from those biographies. Even aging only one day per decade, all customers have been awake for a summed up period of nearly two years by now. That was a long time of hoping, waiting and making plans about living on a yet unknown new home.
The door to the hallway slid open and a group of customers walked in. The first ones today. A few women, most men. All in their twenties, about her own age.
Lisbeth smiled and put her rug away. This group smelled different from the last one yesterday. Maybe they needed to shower first? She managed not to wrinkle her nose and to keep her smile plastered on her face.
The whole group turned to the book display.
She stepped aside to make room and turned to the next shelve, rearranging the board games she bought yesterday. Buying used meant always having new games and never running out of stock. Most people were happy to sell things they didn’t need any more and buy others they liked better.
Getting here first meant having the best choice of the day, for she didn’t have time during opening hours to refill the shelves with the new acquired stuff. She could understand the urge to read a good book.
A second and third group came in. The door opened and closed constantly, until it stayed open. Most people formed a long line, waiting for their turn to check the bookshelves.
Lisbeth stopped watching the new customers from her metal seat at the side, next to a small table. Large enough to lay down a book, small enough to take up little space. The first group came over, one by one holding a book or presenting their old smart badges with the electronic copy of the biography. She checked them all out. First the women, then the men. Until only one was left.
He had chosen an old fairy tale book. But it wasn’t the book which l
et her look twice at his face, nor was it his old smart badge or his short, brown hair.
His face with a pointed nose had freckles. Not a few, but many. All over his face where light orange freckles. Little spots that seemed to shout “touch me, caress me” to her. Her heart beat faster watching those freckles move as the man smiled at her. A smile brighter than the sunshine she saw on the displays that played old movies from Earth.
“How did you manage to keep your freckles without sunlight for over six thousand years?”, asked Lisbeth.
“What a nice question”, said the man and laughed.
Some customers turned around, searched for the source of joy, saw them, grinned and returned to stroll through the store, looking for what they needed or wanted. Someone came over to pay.
The man with the freckles stepped aside to make room.
“I’m Timotey”, said the man with the freckles. “What’s your name? You’re new, right? Last time there was an older man working here.”
He must have seen a lot of clerks in the store, thought Lisbeth. Each about five or six times if he came each time he was woken up.
“Yes. I’m new and here three years. I’m Lisbeth”, said Lisbeth and smiled in his direction. “Shall I check you out, or do you need some advice? Maybe a present for your girlfriend or wife or child?” Men often asked for advice on gifts.
He leaned a little closer and said: “Yes, please. I need help to find the right gift.”
His voice was deeper than the ones of the other men she knew and went to dinner with. But his smart badge revealed, that he was her age, twenty-six. Plus about six thousand years of sleeping and dreaming of a new planet to live on.
No meddling with the customers, Lisbeth reminded herself.
For the first time she was tempted to ignore that rule to get to know a single man better. It was a rare feeling of lightness and flutter in her stomach she couldn’t place made her anxious. Did she catch a virus? Surely not, that would feel different.
Another customer came over to pay and directly behind him some more.
Lisbeth was gracious for the interruptions which gave her time to compose herself. Or at least try to compose herself. Somehow she physically felt Timotey’s presence next to her as if he was close enough to touch her, although he stood a few steps away.