by Dan Glover
"I don’t understand how any of this is possible, my precious Lily... what kind of magical place is this?"
"When I saw you three frolicking in the sea, I dashed away to meet you. When we returned in just a matter of a few minutes the concuba—which before was only a couple of rooms... all I needed—had grown into this vast castle.
"I sense this moon is far older than our beloved Earth. These plants... they too are ancient. They are filled with love and will do anything to make us happy. This is a place where dreams come true, my sweetest Lauren. We have but to wish and it will be granted."
"Then we must take care and guard our thoughts against cruelty."
"You will learn that this is a place where aggression, derision, and hate are not needed. Oh my sweet Lauren... if I could have dreamed a place to spend eternity, this would have been it. You'll see."
"What do you call these plants, my precious Lily? Concuba? That is a strange name."
"I made the name up, my darling Lauren... from what I can tell, all the plants here on Miranda issue forth from a single organism. I think that is why there are no animals here. The entire moon is one vast plant."
"Is this plant intelligent, my lovely Lily?"
"Remarkably so, my sweetest Lauren... being so much older than we are, this organism has evolved a special capacity for compassion and love... it thrives upon our feelings."
"Let us give that old plant something extra special to smile about, my lovely Lily."
Chapter 75—Regarding Kirk
The child grew quickly.
Though he was human and so supposedly prone to slow maturity, by the time Kirk was three years old he had become a young man. Luciana had reservations about keeping him at the Isle of Skye, isolated from all the others, but he had suggested it was better that way. He had begun speaking not long after she discovered him lying on the Persian rug on the upper of the old villa.
"How is this possible, my sweet Kirk? Am I dreaming?"
She was so full of questions but the most daunting one was whether she was merely imagining all that was happening... if the thin thread holding her sanity in place might have finally snapped.
"No... you are awake... it had to be like this, my sweet Luciana. It was the only way to get back to you."
He spoke slowly and methodically as if his voice was still unable to keep up with the stream of his thoughts so he had to focus all his attention on his dialogue. His heretofore burly features had softened though the intensity in his eyes was something Luciana had never seen before.
Sometimes it frightened her how much food he consumed. He was hungry constantly so they had taken to hunting the gnu that migrated into the north country each springtime, smoking the meat, and storing hundreds of kilograms of it in the root cellar under the villa.
"You'll be fully grown in another couple of years, my darling Kirk. What are our plans then? Will we remain here?"
"I would dearly love to return to Toulon, my dearest Luciana."
Though she desired it, Luciana had reservations about reaching out to Kirk the way she used to do at the end of the day when their chores were complete and the time had arrived for them to retire for the night.
He was still a boy yet the fire burning in his eyes told her that he wanted to be touched too, to love again too. One night it just happened. Luciana didn’t even realize what she was doing and suddenly...
"Oh, I am so sorry, my sweet Kirk... I should not have allowed this to go on."
"But you are my wife, my sweet Luciana. We are doing nothing wrong."
"You're just a boy."
"This body is that of a boy, my sweet one. My mind is that of a man of a thousand years and more."
Was he right? She supposed it didn’t much matter.
"Want to do it again, my lovely Luciana?"
"Kirk! Do you really have to ask that?"
He smiled at her while softly shaking his head the way he did.
"You're an idiot."
Rushing back from an ancient yesterday she remembered how it sometimes bothered her that he never told her that he loved her like a normal person would. Instead, he would shake his head, give her a smile, and say: "You're an idiot."
But what did he mean by saying it again now? Was he ashamed of her somehow? Had he always been embarrassed by her actions and her words? She knew she wasn’t a smart person but still, did he honestly think he was so much smarter than she? If only they could go to Toulon right away instead of waiting she might be able to ask her mother for advice.
It surprised her that her father and grandfather had not returned. She hadn’t asked them if they planned on coming back to the Isle of Skye but she assumed they would, if only to finish the work they had started on the old villa.
"You have that look in your eyes, my wondrous Luciana. Tell me about it."
Kirk would always know whenever she was troubled... it had been one of his many endearing qualities that had made him such an integral part of her life for so long... even after the news of his demise had reached her.
"Oh... it's nothing, my love. You wouldn’t understand anyway."
"Please try me, my lovely Luciana. You're right... I probably won't understand but maybe you'll feel better just talking about it."
"I miss my mother, my precious Kirk. I don’t know why but all of a sudden I feel a need to see her again."
A shadow had fallen over his face as if he knew something that he was unwilling to share with her... it was about her mother.
"I'm sorry, my lovely Luciana, but your mother as you knew her no longer exists in this world."
Her hearts felt as if they had both stopped cold as the night seemed somehow darker and more ominous than she had ever known it to be, even during all her long centuries in exile.
"What happened, my darling Kirk?"
The words caught in her throat. Maybe she didn’t want to know... perhaps if Kirk didn’t tell her the awful news that was shining in his eyes she could go on believing that her mother was alive and well and living in the south of old France.
"Grandmother Lily is actually your mother, my sweet Luciana... the girl known as Ena now swims under the surface of Lake Baikal back when it first came into being. She was sent there the same way that I was sent here."
"I don’t understand, my sweetest Kirk... Grandmother Lily is my mother? That isn’t possible."
It was obvious that Kirk's brain had become addled, perhaps from the quickened growth that he experienced. The boy was delusional... perhaps even ill. He seemed to read her mind.
"You are right, my darling Luciana... I suppose I have grown used to telling myself stories. Please forgive me."
"Don’t do that... don’t tell me the truth and then go back on it, my dearest Kirk. Please make me understand what has happened."
"We should take a trip to Toulon, my most special Luciana. We will find all the answers to your questions waiting there for us."
He clearly knew more about things than he was letting on... had he been in contact with her mother and grandmother? And how had he suddenly appeared at the Isle of Skye? How had he become a baby again? None of the recent occurrences were making any sense.
He was right in that she did want to go back to Toulon. It had been too long since she sat in its orchards and lulled herself to sleep with glass after glass of good red wine. The sunshine would gladden her spirits and it would be good to see all her friends and family once more. Would they accept her? She had been so mean to them, driving them away when all they wished was to help her. It would serve her right if they all shunned her now.
"Can we go tomorrow, my darling Kirk?"
"Tomorrow it is, my precious Luciana. Now what were you saying about doing it again?"
Chapter 76—Endings
She had begun her journey alone.
She supposed that was how everything was meant to end. All her copies of the old journals were so well-thumbed she could scarcely read them any longer... the tales of her people, of her lovers
and her friends, all contained in the old books that were themselves slowly turning back to dust.
Nate had never arrived like he had promised.
She had no way of knowing how long they had frolicked in the fresh water seas... a trillion years, at least. Kāne had slipped away first... she didn’t know if he had died or simply vanished into the mystery that surrounded them as had always been his wont.
When Natalia disappeared together with Kāne she and Lauren talked of how the girl had always longed for that man and how they were somewhere together and happy in the company of each other.
But she knew better.
She had seen the signs... Natalia had begun to age, subtly at first, but then in ways more pronounced. No one said anything... they didn’t have to. They all knew this day would come... they had been born and like everything born they carried the seeds of their own demise within their very beings.
Perhaps a trillion years was too much to ask for... yet it seemed too short. Where had it all went? She had been born long after her peoples' sundering from the Lake and yet she was the first of their kind. She had swum its waters when they were new and she watched as the Lake aged along with the world.
Often times she looked up at the night sky wondering if the People were still out there somewhere...if they had migrated from Earth as Nate had foreseen so long ago, or if they had instead died along with their beloved planet. She would have liked to have seen it one more time, to have dove into her Lake again and feel its waters rushing through her gills.
It made her sad to have lived so long.
Perhaps she alone did not know how to die. It frightened her at times thinking how she might well exist even as the light of the universe slowly seeped away leaving her alone and cold in the darkest of all nights.
The journals kept her going. She had copied them so many times she had forgotten but when she began to read she was magically transported back through time to old Orchardton Hall and its sandstone hallways ringing with the laughter of children and the sounds of pleasure, the smells of good food and the cold nights spent snuggled deep under fleece blankets with her Ladies.
She mourned Lauren most of all. The girl seemed to diminish as the eons flew by, growing wan at first and later languishing in the waters as if she had lost all ability to swim or to even exist beneath the sea.
One day she was gone.
Lily searched forever but found no trace of her... a trillenium later she still woke to the music of Lauren's voice yet when she rose she realized she was only dreaming again. Perhaps the girl found her way home, after all, though more likely her bones would one day be found at the bottom of the fresh water sea where they so loved to frolic.
The concuba was dying.
Each new dawn fewer plants lifted their yearning heads to the simmering red star sweltering overhead. She sensed the plant's angst at the thought of its impending demise yet there was nothing she could do to help it.
During the deep nights the stars were few now and farther between, like a family born together yet destined to drift forever apart. Though the smoldering red orb in the sky still lighted the days the nights were chilly now, almost frigid at times, and she began to don clothes woven of concuba threads.
"What are you doing here, my special Nate?"
She was sure she was dreaming. She had been meandering along the sullen beach considering not for the first time on throwing herself into its darkest depths and remaining there forever. The man had stepped out of a chasm of sand that seemed to open before her eyes with a smile upon his face and her name upon his lips.
"I told you I could never forget my Lady, my darling Lily. I've come to take you home."
"I thought home was where I was, my sweet Nate. Touch me the way you used to do... prove to me that you are real."
It didn’t surprise her when he vanished as quickly as he appeared... she had grown used to the delusions. Lately they had taken on a more surreal tone, one which alarmed her and yet soothed her as well.
Nate would be back. He seemed to bounce into her life for a moment and then bounce out. He had never actually touched her but his scent often lingered long after his visage had vanished into the air from which it sprang.
Sometimes their conversations lasted longer than at other times. He hadn’t changed other than a sort of fuzziness that had sprouted around the edges of his being... as if he was both there and not there. She was certain it was all in her mind until the day Kirk appeared.
It was odd that she would remember Kirk so well while the others who once frequented her life had faded into the abyss of memories like the old ossuary bones lurking in the pits below Orchardton Hall.
"What are you doing here, Kirk?"
She seemed to recall a dream of the man. Riding upon the train on her way to Lake Baikal she had met a Gypsy girl named Natalia... the girl was dying... and as she gaze at her Lily sensed the music floating all about the passenger car they were sequestered within.
Kirk had appeared to be wearing a grotesque mask with a gigantic frozen grin engraved upon it only it wasn’t a mask at all... the man had startled her and upset the music so that it grew discordant.
"I am waiting for you, Lady Lily."
Funny... she hadn’t realized Kirk was with Nate... the man stood back in the shadows as if he was fearful of exposing too much of himself to her vision. The two men had become inseparable over the centuries which was one of the reasons she had dug a deep moat between her and the love she felt for Nate.
Had she been wrong?
Perhaps if she had accepted Kirk into their lives she might have prolonged her time with Nate. In fact, when Kāne appeared with Natalia she thought at first that it was Nate coming back to her. She often wondered how well she had hidden her disappointment.
Nate seemed to be appearing at regular intervals though her capacity for telling time had been compromised long ago. At first, his image seemed to shimmer and if she looked closely she could see through it. Later, he became more corporeal, as if his focus was slowing bringing him together.
One night he touched her.
It was nothing, really... a caress, nothing more, the way he used to softly touch her cheek with the tenderly smooth skin on the back of his hand. She had started back, afraid that her mind was finally succumbing to the lure of the insanity that had lurked around the edges for billions of years.
At the moment of his touch he was yanked away as if an enormous elastic band had been secured to his back. She watched him go, being pulled into the distance by some invisible force that wanted only him.
I'll be back.
He didn’t speak the words so much as mentally project them at her in the fashion that Kāne was prone to do at times.
Chapter 77—Teacher
"You're going about it all wrong."
He often wondered why he wasted his time talking to these people... none of them save one had even a slight sense of what he was trying to teach them. In fact, he got the distinct impression they thought he was the student.
He realized things had changed but he couldn’t quite pinpoint the moment that it all happened. Was it Kirk appearing in New York City with the nanobots already in his possession? It was possible, and though he had many profound plans about how to construct the miniature marvels he had yet to perfect even least first step.
What had he said about the nanobots being trans-generational? He should have paid more attention... he had been so startled to see Kirk in his dormitory room that he had become momentarily flustered. His appearance convinced Micah that the strange memory of living in the south of France with a group of immortal beings wasn’t just a dream at all.
Knowing the years of depravation were coming made it even harder to inoculate his own body with the nanobots but in the end he had no choice. He was dying. About the time he began to despair that Kirk had been playing some sort of elaborate hoax on him, the box opened of its own accord and he became the metal monstrosity that he so abhorred.
; It was as if he was a silent witness watching it all unfold again, incapable of changing anything. He hated himself even as he was inoculating the three scientists with his tiny terrors yet again it seemed as if he was following some predetermined plan all but unalterable.
Kendra was unexpected.
He remembered her as a sullen little thing that shot darts at him with her eyes each time he tried to speak to her. Now though, she was lustrous as the North Star, bright and shining like a jewel cut to perfection.
What he felt for Karen paled in comparison and Ena scarcely occupied his senses. What was more, Kendra seemed to harbor feelings for him that he had searched for all his life. She taught him ways that he had never imagined existed and she did it with such aplomb that he loved her all the more for it.
When Ena attempted to force him into going back to old America, Kendra stepped in. She informed Ena in no uncertain terms that Micah would not be going anywhere with her.
"Thank you, my sweet Kendra... Ena didn’t want to take no for an answer."
"You are more than welcome, my darling Micah. I can tell that Ena likes you. I don’t trust any of those Lake girls... they run around on their men all the time."
"I'm not sure that was it... she said I know old New York City better than anyone. That's why she wanted me to go with her."
"She's a liar, my precious Micah. Besides, that city is a thousand years old. No one knows it any longer. She had other designs for you, but you belong to me."
It gave him a secret thrill to have women fight over him. All his life he had been a misfit, a sickly boy who pretended to be a genius and yet hadn’t the slightest inkling of how love worked.
"What is this box made of, Micah? I've never seen any material like it."
Karen had appeared at Cornell ages ago, a transfer student from Oxford. He'd heard about her and was waiting when she showed up one Sunday morning in late summer. Proudly showing her around the building—his building—he had taken a chance and introduced her to his nanobots.