by Dan Glover
"I am as much at fault as you, my precious and beautiful Lauren. I've been reticent at showing my love to both you and our lovely Natalia but please know it is always and forever abiding there deep within both my beating hearts."
The spell was broken.
As tears flowed and hugs and long-inhibited laughter and kisses began erupting between the two of them, Lily sensed that all of Lauren's odd behavior was hiding something far more sinister and foreboding. It wasn’t long before Lauren confirmed Lily's trusted intuition.
"Are you having dreams of Kirk too, my sweet Lily?"
The question was so incongruous with what they were discussing that it took Lily back momentarily to the day Karen and Marilyn showed up at Orchardton Hall with three children in tow asking for shelter from the storm of dying that was pelting the rest of the world.
"You're not welcome here. Go away."
Lauren had hustled her and Natalia into the safety of the castle while she confronted the interlopers... the same women who had held Lily captive for years under the pretense of study. When Lily made to go outside, Natalia held onto her.
"Stay here, my sweet Lily. Allow our darling Lauren to drive these horrible people off. They have no right to be here."
"They'll die without us, my tender Natalia... I cannot permit that."
"Those are the same people who would have killed you, sweet Lily, and cut you up into tiny pieces, all in an effort to discover your secret. Don't do this thing. Stay with me."
Her lovers had been right. If she had listened, the three of them would have lived a life in a paradise of a world no longer troubled by the human beasts that had persecuted her and her kind for ages. Even now, Lily felt the hate emanating from them... the longing to be free from those of the Lake yet unwilling to face up to the sure and certain death that awaited them.
Rather than listening, Lily had pulled away from Natalia, gone to Lauren, and convinced her that it was better to allow the People to stay. She rationalized that it was the only way to ensure the survival of her own species.
She had been wrong.
Instead of being what she'd hoped for—loving, gentle creatures prone to helping rather than harming one another, this new breed was a mixture of all the worse traits of both species combined.
Nate was no better. He only took advantage of her feelings to ingratiate himself into their good graces before reverting to his natural ways... the man-child who yearned to be more and yet would never make the effort to obtain that which was rightfully his.
Kirk was a problem. She couldn’t remember him stepping from the automobile with the other children that long ago day of the Great Dying but where else could he have come from? Had he prior knowledge of the power of the Ladies to sustain human life and so made his way on his own to Orchardton Hall?
If so, that meant he came from the future. As incongruous as that seemed, recent advances in the field of warp technology led inexorably to the conclusion that time was not what it seemed... rather than a river continuously flowing in one direction, time was like a blanket covering all that was known... indeed, all that could be known.
Lily had long talks with Nate on the subject of warp technology during the many days and nights they spent together. Though she had voiced her concerns over the dangers of warp travel, he had as he always did sought to assure her of the inherent safety compared to other types of travel.
"When we generate a warp bubble around our craft, we are no longer subject to the effects of gravity or time as we know it in this universe, darling Lily. That allows us the freedom to move from one place to other without actually moving. Instead, we stand still while the universe as we know it moves around us."
"Teach me this, my sweet Nate: if space and time are bound up together, doesn’t that mean the machine you have constructed can traverse both?"
"Not in the sense you seem to mean, my wondrous Lily... time and space can traverse the machine, yes, but we stand still inside the warp field."
"What if someone or something encountered the warp field itself? Is that dangerous, my precious Nate?"
"That is something we have yet to work out, my sweet and tender Lily. Though we have made experiments by putting inanimate matter into contact with the warp field, it simply disappears and we cannot learn where it goes."
"But it doesn’t simply vanish, my brilliant Nate?"
"It vanishes from the space and time it inhabited before making contact with the warp field, my lovely Lily, but where it reappears is a mystery."
Lily had suspected the truth of Kirk for years yet always pushed the thought from the forefront of her mind into the dim recesses where she kept all her awful secrets tucked safely away from prying eyes and murderous thoughts.
Even as a child Kirk had been difficult. It was only on the other boy's account—the one named Drummond—that Kirk had seemed tame. In comparison, he was. Drummond drank all the time, bullied the boys, and raped the girls. She did not mourn his passing when he left Orchardton Hall to start a colony on the western coast.
She always had hopes for Kirk even when her intuition told her differently. After the attempted coup when he helped Marilyn try to seize control of Orchardton Hall and failed, she had the chance to cast the deciding vote to exile the man.
She weighed that decision long and hard before making up her mind to vote for exile. Yet on the day of the trial, Lily spoke out in favor of allowing Kirk to stay. She knew it was a mistake even as the words emerged from her mouth but it was too late to undo what was done.
"Yes, sweet and loveable Lauren... I have been having dreams of Kirk... or rather nightmares. I know that according to Micah and to Nate, Kirk is dead, but something tells me they are mistaken."
"What do your dreams speak to you about, my sweet Lily? What stories do they tell?"
"They take me away to a place far from here. I am alone. Though I wait for billions of years—I even see our old sun flare up into a gigantic red star to devour our beloved earth—no one ever comes for me. I feel as if I've been forsaken by everyone I once loved and who once loved me.
"Even though this place is a paradise where I wait, I am ready to die. Yet I cannot. I go on living each day just like the one before as I see my future stretch out before me like a long road to nowhere. Though I do not understand why, I feel I am marooned on account of what Kirk has done, and more properly, will one day do.
"I sense we are all in terrible danger, sweet Lauren. Until and unless we manage to confront what Kirk has become, we are living on the abyss. He has only to whisper the order and we'll be pushed over the edge."
"These are but dreams, my darling Lily. Pay them no attention. As long as we're together, nothing can harm us."
Lily knew her only recourse—now that Lauren had rebuffed her attempts at staging an offensive before Orchardton Hall came under attack—was to contact Nate once again. He would listen to her pleas if nothing else than for the sake of the love they still shared.
Despite her best intentions, she had to give in to her desires to see the man one more time.
Chapter 24—Black Holes
His dark dreams were consuming him.
Joshua tried to keep his mind on the vineyard but lately other things were weighing more heavily on his mind than perhaps they should. He'd always had surreal dreams but nothing like these.
Most days he couldn’t tell if he was awake or sleeping. He remembered when he was ten years old how Grandmother Lauren told him about his father... how the man had virtually no short term memory. Joshua always thought it was more of an excuse for Kāne leaving them all to go wandering the world but now he was beginning to realize the true scope of the lesson Grandmother Lauren sought to impart to him.
"Your father is my son, my precious Joshua. I know you must miss him and perhaps you also wonder why he never comes to visit. Our darling Kāne is like all the males of our species... they have no memory of anything in the past. Perhaps you will avoid this affliction but you must be aware that i
t could come upon you at any time as you grow older."
Lately he'd been forgetting things. At first he told himself it was normal... that everyone forgot something once in a while. But he always had a photographic memory. Once he saw something even for an instant he could recall it with perfect clarity, is if it was right in front of him.
Ena once told him that she had the same ability. In one sense she was his sister since they had the same father, but Ena had another father besides Kāne. She had the gift of foresight, or a curse as she called it. On the other hand, Joshua had never been able to see the future and now he felt a danger of losing the past.
Kāne had visited Orchardton Hall years ago when Joshua was still a boy. He remembered watching a strange man walk across the courtyard and how a shiver of recognition had run up his back. Late that night when he was supposed to be sleeping he heard a tap at the door of the cabin. A moment later the rusty hinges creaked as the door opened.
Curious, Joshua had crawled from bed to peer through the tiny crack in his bedroom door. That same strange man had entered the living room along with Grandmother Lauren. He was talking to someone Joshua couldn’t see but assumed was his mother. The man's voice was little more than a hoarse whisper like the voices he sometimes heard in his dreams.
"No, I don't remember him. I'm sorry."
He could hear his mother sobbing though he couldn’t see her from his vantage point. Joshua yearned to open the door and present himself to this handsome stranger but something held him back.
"You don’t remember me either, do you?"
The man turned his head and looked right at Joshua. Somehow he knew the stranger could see him right through the door. The same shiver of earlier ran up his back as he stood stock still for fear of creaking the floorboard upon which he stood.
"No, I do not."
The stranger spoke while still looking at the door behind which Joshua stood trembling. Something told him that if he didn’t fling open the door that instant and run to his father's arms he would never see the man again. Yet it was as if his feet had grown roots and he could not move.
A second later the stranger vanished. Joshua stood at the door for a long minute wondering if he was dreaming the entire sequence of events. Finally he crept back to bed as the soft sound of his mother's weeping leaking through the wall.
The following morning at breakfast there was no mention of the visitors in the night. His mother seemed her same joyful self though when Joshua examined her profile when she was engaged in cooking he thought he could see the traces of her tears still streaking her cheeks.
Years later he ended up in the south of old France after his mother became enamored with Nate, the first of the hybrids. He adored the man too but Joshua had a difficult time keeping his mind on things. As long as he was working in the fields he was content but should he stop to wonder where it was all leading he quickly became flummoxed. Other folk that he conversed with seemed to have plans and goals in their lives while Joshua floated about consciousness like froth on the early morning tides.
When Nate left Toulon to visit Orchardton Hall, Joshua assumed the man would return within a fortnight. Three months later it was dawning on him that Nate wasn’t coming home any time soon. It bothered Joshua a good deal that the harvest was at hand and he was left to bear the brunt of the work.
A year later, Joshua left Toulon to journey east. He only made it fifty kilometers or so when he came across another vineyard long abandoned and yet still salvageable. The women kept entering his life and vanishing again, sometimes before he learned their names.
He wanted to see the world but a fear of the unknown began breaking over him. Joshua had always prided himself on being an adventurous boy but when it came down to putting that into practice, he learned that his morbid dread of death washed away any lingering ambitions to sail away by himself to parts unknown.
He yearned to know his father. Grandmother Lauren reluctantly told him that the man's name was Kāne. Even though he was her son, she had nothing good to say about him.
"When Kāne appeared at Orchardton Hall, I didn’t know who he was, at least not until I looked into his eyes and saw the same look I once loved. He has changed with the centuries though. Once my son was full of life... he sought to make the world a better place for everyone around him.
"The man known as Kāne is indeed my son but he is not the same person I once loved. He has evolved into his father, a hateful beast who took advantage of me ages ago. When my son revealed his new name, all those dark feelings came rushing back... it was his own father's name.
"The senior Kāne hated the world and he hated me. His only joy in life revolved around despoiling the hopes and dreams of others. I named our son Bilbla and I sought to shelter the boy from the raving lunatic that spawned him. Others in my family believed they knew better, however.
"They secretly introduced my son to that detestable animal who called himself a father. Kāne sank his bilious poison into the boy's mind. Bilbla was impressionable even as a young man.
"Remember, Joshua... if you ever meet my son... Kāne, your father... keep your distance. His mind has yet to reveal his true intentions for this world and for those who love him. He will ensnare you within his fantasies. He will lead you into the orbit of the same black hole that he has resided within for most of his life."
Joshua woke up early one autumn morning with an intense need to find his father Kāne. What Grandmother Lauren told him had drifted from his memory... something was amiss in the world and unless he found his father and aided the man in his quest, the world as they knew it would end.
"I must leave the south of France, my darling mother."
He had gone to Toulon one last time in order to say his goodbye. Though Joshua planned upon returning when his mission had been accomplishes—whatever it might be—he also sensed he could well be leaving for the final time.
"I know, my son... I've been waiting for you."
Chapter 25—Iron Oceans
He dreamed he was home on the Isle of Skye and that he overslept again and was late for chores and mother was pounding on his door.
At first, he thought if he pretended to still be asleep she would give up. Attempting to burrow deep under the blankets did no good, however, nor did it seem to help pulling a pillow over his head. There were no blankets and his pillow was a stone. Still, as he dreamed a dream of dreaming he lured himself to sink deeper into slumber by thinking how tired he was.
Try as he might, however, he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that he wasn’t asleep at all. He was wide awake. If that were so, what did it mean to be dreaming of the Isle of Skye, of mother, and of... what was it he had been dreaming of just now?
Cats... he'd been dreaming how he was with the cats again. They loved to play games and though most of them outweighed him by several hundred kilograms they were as gentle as kittens.
It puzzled him when he realized the tigers weren’t at the Isle of Skye... they were at Toulon, in the winemaking country where he'd come to make his home. Chester, the big cat, the leader of the pride, had become his favorite pet... if in fact a two thousand kilogram cat could be called a pet.
When Kirk left and didn’t return, Chester had gone into a funk. No one else seemed to notice it but Niall knew right off that the cat was depressed over Kirk's absence. He had even considered a way of bringing Chester with him when he left for old America but the anti-gravity craft was too small and Niall hadn’t the ability to sail across the ocean on his own.
"Don't go to old America by yourself, sweet Niall... I should never have said anything about Kirk. You'll only become lost, or find your death like he did."
Once Luciana asked him to go to old New York City and retrieve Kirk's body, the plan was set in place. He knew she was feeling guilty for having done so but he had no intention of changing his mind. So he did what he always did: he lied.
"I'll wait until Grandfather Nate returns, darling Luciana. He knows the way better than I
do and between the two of us we should be able to find the spot where he left Kirk."
He saw it in her eyes... Luciana knew he was lying. He could never fool his sister. The sad smile that spread across her face as she walked away spoke for itself. He told himself how happy Luciana would be when he brought Kirk's body home.
Kirk wasn’t dead, however... not like everyone said. Not only was the man alive but he'd saved Niall's life. Twisting his consciousness up out of someplace between sleep and waking, Niall realized the pounding he thought he was dreaming about was actually occurring.
Something large and possibly hungry was attempting to break down the door that guarded the entrance to the tunnel. He remembered kicking it open and then securing it by dragging a heavy shelving unit in front of it. The whole tunnel reverberated with the echoes of the effort being put forth to break through the barrier.
Something wanted in badly. Kirk sat at the other side of the tunnel ignoring the tumult as if in a trance. His shiny metallic body was undulating as if alive with tiny iridescent filaments that danced and swayed under an unfelt wind. Niall wondered if he was girding for a fight or if Kirk was perhaps dying.
The slamming sound of the cabinet falling over onto the concrete floor above seemed to startle Kirk out of his reverie.
"He's here. He must have followed you."
"Who's here, Mr. Kirk? Nothing could have followed me here."
The man stood up and walked toward the end of the tunnel with a shuffling sound that grated upon Niall's nerves like someone scratching on a dinner plate with their fork. In the dim light he couldn’t see Kirk's face but concern laced his words.
"He shouldn’t have come here. He's in danger."
"Who are you talking about, Mr. Kirk?"
Niall shook his head in an attempt to clear the cobwebs clouding his thoughts. He had told no one of his departure, and even if Luciana guessed where he was going, he doubted Grandfather Nate would come to old America. The man had been exhibiting all the signs of being in love with Lady Lily. He doubted anything could pry his grandfather from her side.