by J B Cantwell
“Aster,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Have you seen this?” Her mouth hung open, as if she had intended to say more, but then, distracted, had forgotten whatever it was.
I sat down heavily onto the floor and put one arm over her chest, pushing her back a little.
“Don’t sit so close,” I said, parroting the warning I and every other kid on Earth had probably heard a hundred times. “It’s not good for your eyes.”
She obliged, but only scooted back a few inches. Now that she had found this magical box, where stories and music and entertainment flowed, she seemed unwilling to part any farther away from it than that.
I watched the show over her shoulder. It was a silly cartoon about a rabbit and a fox. Together, the penciled characters danced in a lush, green meadow, singing a song I hadn’t heard before.
“It’s called television,” I explained.
She glanced over.
“What is it?” she asked. “That woman, she doesn’t seem to care about it at all. Rhainn-y won’t believe this when I tell him. We’ve never seen magic like this.” Her eyes were wide, as if she couldn’t understand how anybody who possessed such a treasure would ever stray so far away from it as Grandma had.
I smiled, almost laughed. But then I remembered my promise to her, that I wouldn’t laugh at her again.
“It’s sort of normal on Earth,” I explained. “Most people have TVs—er—televisions. We call them TVs for short.” Her gaze drifted back to the set, drawn by the howling cry of one of the characters on the screen. “It’s not magic. Anybody can get one.”
“Can I take one home?” she asked, eyes glued again to the fox, who was now running through the field, his rear-end on fire.
“I don’t think it would work at home,” I said, leaning back against the wood floor.
It was sweet, watching Cait. Looking around the room, sparse as it was, I realized it was full of things she wouldn’t yet understand. Normal things like light bulbs and radios, would seem magical, impossible, to her.
Grandma came through the kitchen doorway and stopped, watching the two of us sitting in front of the television. She looked conflicted. One second, she seemed happy to see us there, safe in her house. Then the next, a cloud came over her features.
“Oh, is the little miss talking now?” she asked, busying herself as she noticed my gaze. She had an armful of salad greens, still black with the gritty soil she grew them in beneath a canopy to protect them from the rains.
Cait looked up at the reproach.
“Sorry, ma’am,” she said, her voice small and quiet.
Grandma’s face broke into a smile, obviously surprised by the comment from her. She moved across the room to us, wiping her dirty hands on her flowered apron. She knelt down before Cait.
“I don’t bite, you know,” she said, reaching out one hand and brushing a strand of Cait’s brown hair away from her face. “I tried to tell you that before.”
Cait didn’t recoil, but she didn’t lean in, either. I could tell she was uncomfortable.
“Cait can be shy,” I said.
Any five year old would be, having lost her family and winding up on a strange, hostile planet.
“You don’t need to be shy with me,” Grandma said, smiling. “I just want to help you get back to…wherever you came from. Back home.”
Cait’s eyes grew wide, and she pushed herself away from Grandma, her cartoons forgotten. She leaned up against me like a pup against its mother.
I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to have the same argument again, not when we were just getting settled. But I understood Cait. And I wanted a respite, myself. I needed a break from Corentin rule, just as she did.
I wrapped my arms around her and found she was shaking.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Nobody is going to make you go back there.”
Grandma looked surprised and withdrew her hand, not wanting to scare the little girl further. Her face was confused, concerned, and sad all at the same time. After a few long, awkward moments, she spoke again.
“How about we eat dinner,” she said, forcing a smile. “You must be hungry.”
Cait peeked out from where she was burying her face in my chest. The kitchen did smell good.
Grandma and I both stood up, and I offered a hand to Cait.
“Don’t worry,” I said.
Tentatively, she reached out and took it.
Grandma turned off the set and we settled down at the table. She produced a giant bowl of pasta covered in a chunky sauce and handed the serving spoons to me while she tore at the lettuce for the salad. I scooped up a serving of spaghetti and plunked it inexpertly onto Cait’s plate. She stared at it, unsure, as I served myself and Grandma.
My stomach was doing backflips as I sat and stuffed the first delicious forkful into my mouth. My tastebuds exploded as I inhaled bite after bite. It wasn’t until my plate was half empty that I even looked up to find that Cait had yet to pick up her fork. I hastily wiped my face with one of Grandma’s old fashioned napkins.
“You should try it,” I said. “It’s really good.” And it was. Meals served in the Fold, while sustaining, always seemed to be lacking in flavor. My pleasure synapses were firing like mad as I took a piece of buttered bread from a plate nearby and shoved half of it in my mouth.
“What is it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose distrustfully.
“It’s called spaghetti,” I said.
“Why is it bloody?” she asked.
Grandma laughed, staring back and forth between us uncomfortably, unsure if Cait was joking.
“It’s tomato,” I explained. “It’s a kind of vegetable, only it’s got all kinds of spices in it to make it taste really good.” She looked up at me, still unconvinced.
I shrugged.
“Suit yourself,” I said. “But it’s dinner.”
She picked up her fork and stabbed at the pasta. Then, when she finally seemed determined to at least try a bite, she lifted the fork up off the plate, only to watch the slippery noodles slide right back off.
“Here, let me show you,” I said, leaning over. I took her fork and twirled it around in the noodles until I had a kid-sized bite wrapped around it. “Here.”
She took the fork from me and took the first tentative bite.
Her eyes grew round again, but this time from surprise, as she tasted Earth food for the first time. After that, she didn’t speak for several long minutes as she mastered twirling bite after bite onto her fork and navigating it into her mouth.
I sat back, my own plate cleared, and watched her, satisfied that I had brought her some joy. For a moment I forgot the turmoil of my return, the sting of my skin. I just sat there, enjoying the sight of this one little girl in the midst of discovery.
I looked over at Grandma and noticed that her own food had been left untouched. She caught my eye.
“How is it that she doesn’t know what spaghetti is?” she asked. “Or tomatoes?”
I didn’t respond, just stared back at her. She didn’t want to hear the answers I had to her questions.
A long silence hung heavily between us. I, unwilling to budge in my account of what had happened to me. And Grandma, who seemed to be trying to decide what to believe.
She hasn’t decided yet. Not for sure.
“You know,” she finally began, “I saw your dad not long ago. There was something about him that rattled me.” Her body gave a visible shudder at the memory.
But before she could continue her story, a gravelly sound made us all freeze. It had been so long since I had heard a sound like that, of automation, of technology, that it took me a minute to figure out what it was I was hearing.
Then, it hit me. The sound was of a car crunching down the gravel road as it approached the house. I jumped up from my seat, not bothering to wait for either of them to join me, and headed towards the front door.
CHAPTER THREE
Mom.
She was already crying by the tim
e she was out of the car, forgetting to close the door as she leapt from the driver’s seat and ran towards me. My worry about what she would think about my story vanished as I ran for her, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, blurring her dark shape. We hit, and I instantly felt that we were two people hanging onto each other for dear life. I pressed my cheek into her lumpy sweater, smelled the laundry detergent, hid inside her arms.
It had always been like this. Just me and her.
She was talking, screaming I think, but I could barely hear a thing as she gripped me to her. After a minute the sound stopped and her crying returned. I pulled away a little, meaning only to look up into her face, but she held me fast. I breathed deeply.
“Mom,” I said. “Let go.”
“No,” she said. “I’m never letting you go again.”
Something between a laugh and a cry escaped my throat, and I stopped struggling. All those months I had been out there on my own, waiting for this moment, and now we were here, together.
But, unlike I had expected, the fear that had grown inside me as I had faced down demon after demon in the Fold did not evaporate with the feeling of her embrace. I had thought I’d feel safer, that she would be able to fix everything once I got to her in an instant, her magic more powerful than any wizard I ever could have dreamed up. But nothing changed in that moment except that I was no longer alone. Maybe it was facing reality, maybe it was me growing up a little bit, but I didn’t feel any safer than before. Now, reunited with the people I loved, I suddenly had even more to lose. And I was acutely aware that, even though I was home, it wouldn’t be for long.
“I thought you were dead,” she sobbed into my hair. “I thought—your heart—”
“No,” I said, my voice cracking. “My heart’s good, Mom.”
Somewhere behind me little footsteps tramped along in the dirt, and soon I felt myself being gripped by another pair of arms.
“Don’t leave me like that!” Cait yelled, hugging tight to one of my legs.
“I didn’t leave you,” I said, looking down at the top of her head. “I just came out to—”
“You said you wouldn’t leave me alone!” she cried. The temporary joy brought on by her plate of strange spaghetti was gone, and she had fallen back to being terrified.
Finally, I broke Mom’s grasp. I only allowed one quick glance into her eyes before I knelt down before Cait.
“It’s okay,” I cooed, wrapping her in a tight hug. I picked her up and turned to Mom. “This is my mom. Mom, this is Cait.”
Mom stepped back, surprised.
“Hello,” she said, confused. Then, trying to sound friendly, “Who might you be?” She wiped her face with the palm of her hand and forced a smile.
Cait just glared.
“Aster’s mine,” she said, wrapping her arms around my neck as if I were her favorite doll.
I laughed.
But Mom couldn’t be bothered to be distracted by the cute little girl for long.
“Where on Earth have you been?” she asked me, new tears springing to her eyes. “We searched everywhere for you. We had the police all the way out here. I even went up to that camp you were talking so much about, thinking that somehow you’d made your way there after I told you you couldn’t go. But when you weren’t there, I—I—”
“I didn’t run away,” I said, hoping she would believe me. “Mom, it’s not like that. It’s not your fault.”
Tears streamed down her face again, lit only by the dim bulb on the porch Grandma had flicked on.
“And your father,” she continued, barely listening. “I found him, out in his shack on the mountain, thinking he had come and taken you. But all he could do was blather on about other planets and aliens and magic and…oh, Aster. Where have you been?”
I froze, my mouth already open to answer her questions, but no words came out.
My father was talking about planets? And aliens? And magic?
Overhead a crack of thunder boomed across the clouds, lightning flashing across the night sky like a fireworks show.
“Better get back inside,” Grandma called from the porch. “Last think you need is another burn.”
Cait jumped down from my arms, so fast I was almost insulted by how easily she gave me up at the mere mention of the rain. But I couldn’t blame her. Even mild injuries could seem like the end of the world to a little kid.
“Another burn?” Mom asked, grabbing my arm and trying to inspect it in the dark. I sucked air through my teeth at her grasp on my still-sore skin.
“Let’s go inside,” I said, turning, cradling my arm.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You’re hurt.”
I moved towards the house and she followed, wrapping her arms around my shoulders as we walked. It wasn’t until we were in the light of the kitchen that she saw the damage that had been done to my body. She let out a little shriek as she took in the red, scaly covering that had been healthy skin only this morning.
“What happened?” she asked, shepherding me over to a chair and practically shoving me down into it.
But my mind was latched onto something else, was racing madly. Dad. He knew what was going on, might have known this whole time.
“We got caught in the rain,” I said, distracted. “It’s nothing. I’m alright. What did Dad tell you?”
“What do you mean what did he tell me?” she asked, grimacing. “Where have you been?”
Cait sat back down at the table, staring back and forth between her half-eaten plate of food and the rest of us.
“He’s been with me,” she said, picking up her fork and twirling a bite of spaghetti onto it. “On Aeso.” She looked up at me and smiled. One of her baby teeth stuck out at an odd angle, and I realized it must be wiggly. “He glows.” Then she focused her full attention back on her meal, slurping up her noodles.
I cocked my head. Glows?
“Aeso?” Mom asked. “What’s that?”
My wonder at Cait vanished in an instant, and I stared back at Mom. I wanted desperately for her to believe me, but I was terrified that she wouldn’t.
“Mom, I promise I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “But first, tell me what Dad said. It’s important.”
She stared, clearly not understanding why I suddenly had so much interest in the father who had abandoned me so many years ago. Finally, she relented. “Nothing,” she said, sitting heavily into a chair across from me. She held her hand out across the table and I put mine into it. She didn’t seem to want to let go of me.
Grandma crossed to the kitchen and pulled down a bottle of an amber covered liquid from the shelf.
“It was more of his usual blather,” Mom said. “I thought he had been taking his medications, but apparently not.”
“But what did he say?”
“What does it matter?” she sighed. Then, seeing that I wasn’t giving up, continued. “He kept going on about some warrior person on another planet, and that aliens were coming here to invade. It was the same stuff he always used to talk about, only worse. You know he’s always been on about other women he’s engaged to marry, other planets he’s planning to travel to, other dimensions he’s visited, the voices in his head…” She took the drink from Grandma’s outstretched hand and absently set the glass on the vinyl tablecloth, her face disgusted at the conversation. Her fingers worked around the edge of the rim absently. “He didn’t look good. He hasn’t been taking care of himself. He kept talking about hiding gold.”
I reached out, steadying her hand on the glass.
“He told you he’s hiding gold?” I asked. My heart was suddenly thudding in my chest, and fear started to prickle along the edges of my brain.
“Yes, something about his birthright. It was hard to understand him, Aster. He wouldn’t stop. When I tried to get him to sit and talk calmly, to tell him you were missing, it only made him crazier.”
“What did he do?” I asked. “When you told him?”
She sat back, eyeballing me.
“He started pacing, as usual,” she said. “He didn’t speak to me again after that. He just paced around and around. After that, he came back here.”
“He came here?”
Grandma slurped loudly from her own glass at the far end of the table.
“That’s what I was about to tell you,” she said.
“When?” I asked, turning away from Mom. “What did he do? Why did he come?” The brief feeling of comfort I had felt was draining away. What did he know?
“Didn’t even barely look at me,” she said. Her eyes were wide again, terrified for reasons I couldn’t understand. Her own glass was empty now before her, her hands wrapped protectively around it. “He just blew right by me, straight up to the attic. He banged around in there for a good hour, but when I tried to talk to him he just ignored me. Then, just before he left, he came back downstairs. He sounded so normal.” Her voice cracked at the memory. “I hadn’t heard him speak so clearly since he was your age, since before the illness took him.” She stood up from the table and moved to the foot of the stairs, looking up as if she could see the ghost of him descending from the attic as she spoke. “It was right here. He looked me in the eye, told me everything would be alright now. But his eyes—” she broke off, a sob choking her words.
I stood up from the table and approached her, forced her to look at me.
“What about his eyes?” I asked.
“They were—they were—black,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Like the darkest storm cloud you’ve ever seen.”
Her shoulders shook, with either fear or sobs, I couldn’t tell. I stepped back, reeling, and braced myself against the couch.
It wasn’t possible. The Corentin’s power couldn’t reach all the way to Earth from the Triaden.
Or could it? Who was to say he couldn’t possess a single soul that walked the barren wasteland that remained?
With a wrench in my gut I remembered Jade’s eyes the last time I had seen her, mad from Corentin possession. Black as coal.
And suddenly the completeness of the Corentin’s efforts to stop me finding the gold I needed settled upon my shoulders, weighing me to the floor like a stone.