by Jason Letts
“You really think that’ll work?”
“I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot. As for you, you’ll want to seal yourself completely on all sides. Hopefully it doesn’t take him long to discover this new aspect of his environment.”
A tiny droplet swelled and fell from an extension of the vapor wall stretching along the ceiling. The droplet fell against the stone floor and soon a puddle formed. Corey hummed and moaned a harsh, bizarre note while he listened for the captive. The feet found the water, and the hand felt the cool drop against its bristly skin. The eye looked but couldn’t make out the source for the darkness. An ear appeared, and instantly that inconceivable sound slipped through the ear and into the mind of the host. The ear dropped to the floor, twitching and shaking.
Corey listened to the reverberations of his tune inside the mind of the assailant. He listened as it became muddled with the host’s own thoughts, intertwined with the neurons in the brain. He plumbed its depths, beating into tense and guarded areas. When the echoing sound returned to Corey, it had changed, and Corey absorbed the alterations.
“Ipswich, you can come out now,” said a raspy voice through the stone. A moment later, Kevin kneeled at Corey’s feet, begging for the news. Corey tilted his head down at him, the wrinkles on his face looking sour and indignant.
“What is it? Did you get through to him?”
“Pyrenee. I learned Pyrenee. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“No, it doesn’t. I’ve never known anyone with that name.”
Corey reached out and snatched Kevin by his coat, yanking him closer. Spit flew out of his mouth as he spoke and his voice stung Kevin’s ears.
“Why do you lie to me? I’m trying to help you! Would you trade all of our lives for your secret?”
Kevin brushed off the old man’s hand and stood up.
“I’m telling you, I’ve never heard that name before. I swear on my daughter’s life. Now how are you going to protect my family and our village?”
Corey calmed down and leaned back in his seat.
“Perhaps you haven’t, but you know something. And the price for keeping it will become more severe with each passing day. We’ll take the prisoner to Darmen and ask for support. The guards we have will work your home into their patrol, but if the armies of the sun are intent upon getting to you, how long do you think our measly camp can withstand them?”
His voice trembled, and he knew that Kevin would not give away his secret. Kevin closed his trap around the prisoner’s foot, and he carefully transferred it to Corey’s aids. Kevin bid him a respectful and reverent goodbye and left to make the cold trek home.
“What are you hiding from me?” Corey’s voice traveled into Kevin’s ear just when he returned home to find his family safe and sound. But Kevin made no reply, leading Corey to become suspicious that he would risk sorting out the identity of Pyrenee on his own.
***
The front door slammed and the sound of trudging footsteps traveled into the living room, catching Jeana’s ear. She looked up from her studies to see Mira enter. Her rosy cheeks and in her pink knit cap, she looked like the princess of winter. Jeana watched her daughter as she dropped her bag, removed her coat, and rubbed her hands together.
“How was school today?”
“Just fine,” Mira responded, going about her business without concern or self-consciousness. “We talked about hibernating animals. It was a long time ago that you taught me about that. And we learned how to determine wind direction by wetting a finger. One kid might have frostbite because of it.”
For some reason, it only now occurred to Jeana how much Mira had grown. Jeana felt for the first time that Mira spoke to her as a friend might instead of as a dependent child. She was developing a life of her own now.
“Maybe for tomorrow’s lesson you’ll be sticking your tongues to metal poles.”
Mira chuckled and shook her head, taking a seat near the fire.
“What have you been reading about?” Mira asked.
“Oh, somebody wrote something about storing gifts. I didn’t know that was possible except for healers and the like, but I guess if you can find the right medium then you can save them. I’ll have to give it a try.”
“That sounds interesting,” Mira said, but Jeana saw she hadn’t really been paying attention. She stared blankly into the flames. It pained Jeana to see her daughter like this. She could have just been tired, but Jeana remembered her loneliness and thought she could see it in Mira’s face even if it wasn’t on her mind.
“What do you say we spend a little time planning for your party?” Jeana casually suggested.
“Alright,” Mira said, perking up and turning to her mother. “What do we need to do?”
“That all depends on what kind of party you want to have. What is something that you want to do that would be fun for the others too?”
Puzzled, Mira scrunched up her face and shook her head.
“I don’t know what anyone else would want to do. What do normal kids do at parties?”
“Well, let me think about that,” Jeana said, politely. “I don’t think it matters much what other kids do at their parties, because this is your party and we want to make it special. Let’s see if we can think about what we know we’re going to have and then make a game out of it. So what are we going to have?”
“Food and decorations,” Mira replied.
“Ok, can you think of anything we can do with food?”
“I know!” Mira said, a sudden burst of light coming into her eyes. “First of all, we take a nice chocolate cake.”
“Uh-huh,” Jeana said.
“Then we cut a piece for everybody.”
“Yeah,” Jeana said, smiling and coaxing her on.
“And then we burn them to see how many calories we would have eaten!” Mira flushed with enjoyment at her idea, but Jeana tried to hold her smile as it lost its luster.
“That’s a really good idea,” Jeana said, “but you know what might work a little better? How about we have a taste test? We can blindfold everyone, stick food in their mouths, and they have to guess what they’re eating.”
“Oooo! That’s a really good idea. Wow, you’re good at this.”
“Oh, I just got lucky. Let’s think of another game, maybe something that we can use all of this extra paper with.”
Mira sat for a moment and fished around in her mind for a thought.
“Ok, how about we take the paper and show everybody how it was made from trees?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Jeana said. “But it might take a long time though. Maybe a drawing contest would be better, or a paper airplane contest, or some simple origami. What do you think?”
“Yes, let’s have a paper airplane contest. That sounds so fun.”
“Great, ok. So we’ve got a couple of activities for everyone to do when they get here, but how should we decorate the house?”
“Why don’t we just use the decorations we’ve always used for my birthday?”
Jeana took a deep breath, looked down, and then cleared her throat. She realized she had made a mistake when she thought her daughter had grown up.
“While The Periodic Table of Elements would certainly be new to them, wouldn’t you rather have something new? Maybe we could think of a theme for the party and make the house look like something else.”
“Make the house look like something else? I guess we could knock a hole into the roof and make the house into an observatory. We could bring my telescope to the attic and look at the stars.”
“Stars!” Jeana interjected. “That’s perfect. We’ll have an outer space theme, turn out the lamps, and have glowing stars, planets, and shooting stars hanging from the ceiling around the house. You can even replicate the solar system and make sure the planets are the right distance apart. Instead of paper airplanes, they can be paper spaceships.”
“Oh, that’ll be great! I’ll love that!”
“Perfect. Let’s move on
to the invitations. What kind of clever invitations can we make that will get everyone excited about coming to visit you at your party?”
“How about this: I’m oxygen and they’re hydrogen, and together we make water. Everyone likes water. We couldn’t live without it!”
“Interesting. Let’s get as many ideas as we can. Do you have another?”
“I’m sodium and they’re chlorine, and together we make salt?” she posed, reluctantly.
Jeana set her jaw and tilted her head. She looked at her daughter and, even though it was obvious, wondered why this was so hard. There were so many things they still sheltered her from, and Jeana wondered how long she could hold on to her naiveté.
“What is something that is really popular with everyone at school, something they hide from adults and are a little secretive about?” Jeana asked, after deciding that she had to speak plainly because Mira wouldn’t ever hit on what she was getting at by accident.
“Something they are secretive about? Well most likely I wouldn’t know about it too, but actually there is one thing. They like to play this dice game called Makara. I guess it’s…cool. I’ve never played it so I don’t really know about it,” she said.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Jeana said, even though it wasn’t true, because she thought it was more important for Mira to make friends than it was for her to stay away from a bad game. Jeana thought she could put the values she had spent the past fifteen years instilling against a little risk without too much harm coming to pass.
“Ok, so it’s decided,” Jeana went on. “Do some investigative work and find out how you could use Makara to make a good design, and I’ll even whip up something to go along with it. Now, what do you say we get started on the planets?”
“Sure.”
“Grab some colored paper, scissors, and glue.”
Without a word, Mira ran upstairs to fetch those objects. While she was rummaging around upstairs, Kevin came through the front door. Much slower than they had going up, Mira’s footsteps sounded her return to the ground floor. A concerned and confused look took shape on her face.
“Where are my scissors?” she asked.
Kevin reached deep into his pocket and withdrew Mira’s scissors. He motioned to hand them to her, handle first.
“Oh, I forgot I still had these. Sorry about that,” he said.
“What were you using them for?” Mira queried.
“Cutting,” Kevin replied, putting the scissors into her hand. He then briskly walked up to his room.
“Could you get started?” Jeana asked Mira. “I’m going to go talk with your father for a minute.” Hearing their bedroom door close, she hastened to follow in his footsteps. Knocking quickly, she walked into her bedroom and found her husband taking off his jacket in front of a frosted window.
“What was that about?” she said.
“What was what about?”
“With the scissors. You’re not usually so short with your daughter.”
“Looks like I can’t hide anything around here, least of all a surprise birthday present for my girl. It could’ve been a surprise for you too, but not anymore.”
“I’m sorry for being accusing,” she said, warming up to him. “What have you got planned?”
“I’m just trying to do something for her,” Kevin said.
“It doesn’t sound like it’s going well. Is there something I can help with?”
“No, no, don’t you worry. I’d better take care of it myself.”
***
Yannick, wrapped in cloth and metal plates, leaned against the wall near the Darmen Exchange office. Water droplets trickled from the second story walkway and made a line in the snow a couple of feet in front of him. He scanned the crowd with concealed eyes, watching the figures as they meandered around the market and waiting for someone to take an interest in his services.
A few people shuffled in and out of the door he guarded, but no one paid him much attention. He spat on the ground and kicked some snow over it, looking dejected and impatient. But someone caught his eye and pulled him away from his thoughts. A beautiful woman walked toward the gate, and he turned his head to follow her with his gaze.
Looking further and further to the right, he noticed a sudden change in the air. A mist formed and stretched from the ground to the ceiling. He backed away from it, moving to his left, but found the undulating cloud had completely blotted out the marketplace. The two sides joined in front of him and soon the cloud had encased him in a small chamber.
Yannick pushed up against it, but it wouldn’t give way even though it never felt hard. He punched and kicked at it, eventually yelling for help. The people outside couldn’t see what was going on, and no one knew to come and help him.
Someone did come, but Yannick immediately knew he had not come to help. A tall man with graying hair and a fiery expression on his face walked through the wall of floating water and entered his tiny, enclosed space.
The man charged at him and shoved him up against the wall. Batting him away, Yannick cocked his fist and threw a punch at the man’s face. His fist connected with a tiny patch of cloud that appeared out of nowhere and disappeared as soon as it had sustained the punch. He threw a few more, but they met the same effect. The man, without flinching or moving at all, didn’t take his eyes off of him. He looked like he waited for the right words to come.
Again, the man grabbed Yannick and pressed him against the wall.
“Thought it was safe to come back after hiding out for a few days, didn’t you? Did you think it would blow over and we’d forget? Who did you send after my daughter?” Kevin sneered.
“Who is your daughter?” Yannick asked in return.
Kevin took his head and knocked it against the wall.
“Mira, the girl with the pink cap, the one you gave away, you criminal! You worthless, freeloading drifter!” The emotions overwhelmed him, and Yannick felt little force from Kevin’s hands.
“What are you talking about? I remember that girl and our deal was reputable from top to bottom.”
Talking through his teeth, Kevin’s anger flared.
“Then explain to me why someone came to murder her just after you made your deal. Who did you sell her out to? Who wanted to get to her?”
“Calm down,” Yannick said, brushing off Kevin’s grip. “Now do you want to have a conversation about this or do you want to keep acting like a tough guy?”
Kevin leaned in to whisper to Yannick without taking his eyes away. “I know about you. I know why you’ve been banned from Darmen and why you waste your time festering up our town. I know you don’t know what kind of awful things are going to happen to you when people find out you’ve been spying for the other side. Now you tell me right now what you did and I might let you off with just a beating.”
Yannick locked eyes with him and knew he meant it.
“I didn’t talk to man or beast, fish or fowl, when I was on the job for that girl. I could tell somebody talked to her though, the way she wanted that hair back, and now I’m guessing it was you. I gave it back to her the same as I got it. I swear.”
“You swear. You swear, do you? Well, you just made another mistake because I know whom you dealt with. I know who it was who sent that man into my home to kill her. Pyrenee.”
“Okay, are you listening, man? I’m going to tell you what you’re looking at. You’re looking at someone who has never heard that name, who never did anything other than what your daughter specifically asked, and who knows the accusations you are making against him are false. Now you can either keep bludgeoning me for information I don’t have and you wouldn’t be able to do anything with, or you can get me on board and I can help you. What do you have to say to that?”
Kevin eyed him warily. In his heart he wanted to believe the problem was right there in front of him and he could make it go away, but he knew that in the end this scruffy twenty something wasn’t what kept Mira in danger. Kevin took a step back, giving Yannick some breat
hing room.
“Alright, that’s good,” Yannick said. “From what you said, you don’t know who came after you, and neither do I, but we can fix that. You said someone broke into your home, did he leave anything behind?”
Kevin thought about what he saw on the night of the attack, he thought about everything that happened with his prisoner, and he thought about Corey, who probably listened in on their conversation at that very moment.
“He didn’t leave anything behind, but a part of him is still here. We have a part of his body that is separated from the rest of him. It’ll be shipped off to Darmen soon so that the commanders can have a look at it.”
“Well a part is all we need,” Yannick said, showing Kevin some optimism and resiliency. “If I can just get a hold of that part, I’ll know right where to go to get you what you need. Let’s—”
“It’s not going to be that easy. The prisoner is in Corey’s possession now. We’ll have to ask him if we can get to it.”
Mentioning a meeting with Corey made Yannick’s eyes grow large. Kevin felt the same hesitation too. He had refused to cooperate fully with Corey before, and the thought of returning so soon made him nervous. Especially now that he needed something from him, Kevin knew he wouldn’t be able to keep Corey in the dark a second time.
“We’re talking about business now, right?” Yannick said. “I know it’s personal for you, but this is business for me. There will need to be some compensation. Do you understand?”
“We’ll figure that out later,” Kevin replied. “We can’t do this without Corey’s support. Either he makes it happen or the whole plan is a waste.” He said this knowing full well Corey had probably already made his decision about what he would do. Still, Yannick and Kevin made plans to meet and approach him.
Yannick watched the vapor wall around him dispel through his peripheral vision. It melted back into thin air, revealing the marketplace and all of the people going about their business as though nothing unusual had happened. Nodding, Kevin joined the crowd and was lost to Yannick’s eyes. Feeling unsettled and peculiarly vulnerable, Yannick also departed.