Discovery at Nerwolix

by C. G. Coppola

  “You see,” Clarence shifts, “the Ellae massacre didn’t sit well with half of Dellapalania. Sure, everyone knew about the prophecy. They knew what we were doing was wrong on some level but it was a massacre,” he whispers the word, “of everyone. Humans and Dofinikes and Nerwos and anyone who came seeking refuge. Ellae had become an escape. For those who’d learned of it, they were able to flee there quietly and safely. And in the raid, practically no one was spared. Elders and children…” he shakes his head, lowering it. “Such a heinous crime. They knew what they’d done, and so had the Three Worlds. The Leaders had dragged some of the Dofinikes back to Dellapalania but Sampson here,” he gestures to him, “was a high profile. They didn’t want to fan the flames of what they’d done. Me? I wasn’t nearly as important, but I was known. And persuasive. They knew if I returned, it’d only do them damage. So I was originally kept here with him and Vix, who is the daughter of a high general. They wanted her to return as well, but as he was so respected, they dared not darken his name by imprisoning his only daughter. So they kept the three of us here and the rest were sent back.

  “The humans—the final few they’d spared—had their memories wiped and we were kept on Harrizel for nearly sixty years. Of course the Leaders wanted to keep an eye on Earth. They wanted to make sure the humans weren’t onto us, weren’t mobilizing for this great, prophesized attack. So they had me travel there a few times a year, assuring them our actions hadn’t caused some great ripple to trigger the catastrophe. Of course I’d contemplated fleeing, but I was warned that if I never came back, they’d kill Sampson. An empty threat, I’m sure, but I couldn’t risk it. Besides, it was all my fault. I couldn’t let him pay for my sins. The bright side was that I got to watch over Ruth, see her grow. I was still terrified that if I made some sort of contact, someone would know. And she’d be killed. So for fifteen years I stayed away, until the time I came back and she was pregnant.

  “Still just a child herself, I couldn’t do nothing. So I told her. Who I was, who she was, and what happened to her parents. Of course she didn’t believe me—I was some strange man telling stories. But I kept coming back, kept telling her the same stuff and I guess… finally…it fell into place. How slow I’d aged, how I knew things about her, about her childhood in the orphanage, how I could hear her thoughts. And one day, she believed me. Every trip back to Earth I’d check in on her and Helen, give them what I could, help them how I could. Ruth…” he takes a breath, staring off, “Ruth wanted to come back with me so badly. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t. I tried explaining, tried telling her about the danger she was in. But she couldn’t understand what was waiting for her. What they’d do to her if they found her.

  “So she stayed on Earth and every time I would come back, we’d talk more and more about Ellae, about her parents and what happened. I was still so afraid I was being followed, that they’d find her, kill her and Helen and I’d have to watch my life destroyed all over again. I…” he takes a deep breath, “I couldn’t bear it. So, for a while, I left again. I thought it’d be best if I vanished from her life. Give her a shot at a normal one. Her and Helen. But then she called for me during one of my trips. I came back, showed up when Helen had turned twenty-five,” he gulps, finding his words. “Ruth was terrified. She’d found out she was ill… cancer… and Helen…” he gulps, “Helen was pregnant. Ruth didn’t want her daughter to grow up without knowing the truth. Ruth also swore she was being followed. Maybe it was the illness…maybe it was true. I-I don’t know. And I didn’t know what to do. So, we talked about it and decided to tell Helen. It was time. I knew I’d told Ruth too early, knew that if the Vermix had known about her, they’d be able to access her mind quite easily. But Helen, she was already a quarter of a century. It’s easier to train the mind, block untrustworthy connections at that age. So we told her.

  “Naturally she didn’t believe us, but at least she had the truth. But then…” he blanches, “the birth was difficult and,” a gulp, “you came out of the hospital… and your mother didn’t. Ruth was heartbroken. She blamed herself. She thought we’d put too much stress on Helen by telling her. When she took you home, she decided she wanted different for you—she wanted a clean, uncontaminated life that had nothing to do with Harrizel or Dofinikes… or me.”

  Clarence lowers his head. A long, silent moment passes. “So I stayed away again. When I traveled to Earth, it was always to different continents. She knew when I came to visit, when I was near, but she never called to me. Not once.

  “Years passed like this until Beshib started requesting humans. I had no idea… no conception of what they meant to do to you, but I had no choice. I was to collect you or the Fychu dies,” he glances briefly at Sampson. “So I started bringing you back. One at a time, under the cruel lie Beshib had crafted about the World war. Every time I took a human I…” he inhales, “I couldn’t help but think of Anne. My Anne. I couldn’t help but see her face. Think of the first time I saw her in that lavender dress—the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I wondered if she’d still love me, knowing what I was doing. I’d lost count of the humans I was taking, distracting myself with the memory of her smile. It was all I could do.

  “And then, one time, I heard Ruth call to me again. But just once. And then her voice went out. I raced to her… but found you,” Clarence looks at me, a tear rolling down his cheek. “It was the first time I’d seen you since you were born and you were on the floor, dying. I-I didn’t know what happened… how you…” he shakes his head with a sniffle. “Ruth was gone and I knew you didn’t know a thing about me. But I couldn’t leave you. It wasn’t what Ruth wanted, but I had no choice. I gave you a second life—I had to take you back with me. So I told Sampson that you were coming and he promised to keep an eye on you.

  “I wanted so much to tell you; I wanted you to know the truth—but I couldn’t endanger you. I couldn’t lose you. You were the last of my living family. You are my last connection to her… to my Anne,” he reaches out, grasping my hand between his. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, Fallon. I’m so sorry,” he squeezes me, another tear rolling down his cheek.

  I don’t know what to say—to any of it. My head is clouded, my heart breaking at his story. Staring down at our hands, I try to make sense of it. Try to piece together a history too unreal to be true. “You’re my great-great-grandfather?”

  Clarence nods.

  “And you…” I try to ask, but I’m not sure what I want to know. He broke the entire thing down, told me the whole story. What left is there to question?

  “I’m sorry,” he repeats, still squeezing my hand. “I wanted to obey your grandmother’s wishes. I really did.”

  “She never said…” my thought trails off, memories of her uncanny insight into my head racing to mind. She always seemed to know what I was thinking, always knew when something was wrong or if I was lying. But it couldn’t be true. Granny Ruth would’ve told me—she would’ve told me! We never kept secrets! We were always so close, so in tune with one another. My heart thumps hard in my chest when I think of why. But no… it can’t be true. I’m human. I look like a human. I am human.

  But… but what if I’m not? I knew Ellae was familiar. I knew I’d known it from somewhere. Not my memories but… but my great-great-grandmother’s. My great grandmother’s. It was their memories I was recalling, not mine. My heart speeds up, my mouth suddenly dry.

  “I need a minute,” I stand, my legs like jelly beneath me. Reid sits paralyzed on the bed, still trying to process the entire thing himself. Sampson and Clarence look like they want to say something—or stop me maybe—but neither speaks. They simply watch as I push past the curtain.

  Outside, the cool night air hits me and I’m able to breathe again.

  Somewhat.

  You are my last connection to her…to my Anne.

  I’m the last of Clarence’s family and he’s… he’s the last of mine. I only ever had Granny Ruth and now, now I have a great-great-grandfather I nev
er knew about. I’m in shock, still finding it all hard to believe when I try racing through the details. How he fell in love with a human, my great-great-grandmother, and how all this started. What he must’ve gone through, losing her, Virginia, Ruth and Helen. And then me. I’m all that’s left from what he started in 1910. A hundred years. It’s been a hundred years since he first saw her. And everyone’s gone except me.

  Suddenly, the tears start flowing. I’m not even sure who I’m crying for. Myself, Clarence, Granny Ruth… Anne? I don’t know. I don’t know who to think about, who to feel worse for. In my blubbering state of confusion, I don’t know who reaches my side and, ever so gently, picks me up. Everything I see is diluted through a watery shield, but I can’t help it. Everything is different now; everything has shifted.

  The tears are still pouring out of me, hard sobbing heaves leaving my chest. I’m vaguely aware I’m set down on a bed and an arm wraps around me, cradling me to a chest. I inhale Reid.

  “Sshh…” he soothes me, stroking my scalp. “Sshh…”

  I grasp the collar of his shirt in clutched fingers and cry into his neck. We lay like this for a while until my sobbing tires me out. At some point I stop, a deep sleep overtaking me and I drift off in Reid’s arms, the image of a woman in a lavender dress and red hat the last thing I see.

  ***

  It’s still dark outside.

  Reid is on top of me, asleep. One arm lays over my chest and the other is hanging off the bed. My eyes hurt. They’re swollen and stiff, like I spent the night with them open. Staring up at the wooden ceiling, I try recalling why they feel this way. And everything comes flooding back. Everything Clarence told me—about my great-great-grandmother and everything in between. About who I am, about my true past, something Granny Ruth never told me. The same sharp sting returns and suddenly, it’s hard to breathe. I don’t know why I feel like this. I’m the same as I was yesterday…except not really. Nothing has changed and everything has.

  Reid stirs.

  I peel his arm off me and carefully slide out from under him. Crossing the small space, I move past the curtain and head out into the crisp morning air. Peering out to the lush green canopy, I breathe in the cold, trying to find the equilibrium I lost since Clarence told me the truth.

  You are my last connection to her…to my Anne.

  The familiar urge to cry rises but no tears come. I must’ve cried them all out last night and now, now there’s nothing left. I can’t cry anymore. It’s too fresh or something, like I’ve used up too much emotion in a short period of time. I just discovered a family history I never knew existed and the one person I’m dying to talk to about it is no longer here.

  Granny Ruth… how could you keep this from me?

  “Fallon?”

  Behind me, Reid is gloriously naked from the waist up. He’s in his jeans, his fingers working the zipper, closing it with a lazy, halfhearted effort. Squinting, he walks closer, running his hands through his bed-hair. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “Just woke up.”

  “You okay?”

  I turn back to the dark trees ahead. Only a few of the jarred fireflies are still glowing, giving the city minimal light. Focusing on the closest ones, I lose myself in them, watching their golden wings flutter, trapped against the glass.

  “Hey,” Reid joins my side, gently kissing my forehead, “why don’t you come back to bed?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  He leans against the edge of the bridge, staring into the trees with me. “It’s a pretty night.”

  “I think it’s morning.”

  “As long as we don’t have to be up for a few hours.”

  “We are up.”

  “With the others…” he glances briefly to me. “I like when it’s just the two of us. Doesn’t happen too often.”

  I bite my lip, still staring off into the distance.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head.

  “Come on… you got to want to talk about it. How could you not?” He bumps my hip, offering a small smile. “What’re you thinking?”

  Letting out a deep breath, I shrug. I’m about to tell him I’m not thinking anything—that I’m doing my best to block it all out—but suddenly, the words pour out. “I don’t understand. How could—how could any of this be real? I just… I can’t believe it. Can you?” I look at him. “Everything Clarence said?”

  He takes a moment to consider. “I think this world is full of things that seem impossible. I never thought I’d be here, doing what I am…” he glances at me, “…with you. My life consisted of traveling and tournaments and taking care of my siblings. It seems like a different lifetime, like it belonged to someone else,” he shrugs, “so yeah, I can believe it. I never know what’s coming next.”

  “Does that scare you?”

  “I guess it should.”

  “And it doesn’t?”

  “There’s only one thing I’m really scared of anymore,” he looks at me, his eyes burning.” And I’ve had to face that fear over and over.”

  My breath hitches, my stomach and chest igniting with the same fiery sensation I get whenever he looks at me like this.

  “But,” he faces the trees again, “I just take it a day at a time. What else can you do?”

  “You can leave.”

  His head snaps to me, his brows scrunched low over his eyes.

  “You have a choice. You can go back. Leave all this,” I gesture around as my voice shakes. “You’d never have to face that fear again.”

  “I already told you,” he steps closer. “I’d wake up every morning to someone else. And I couldn’t bear that. Every day, every day I wouldn’t—”

  “But you—”

  “You don’t understand,” he takes my face in his hands. “You don’t get it,” he gulps, his eyes scorching mine. “I can’t live without you, Fallon. I won’t. I don’t know how many times I have to say it. And if I go back, it would be half a life. You are the reason I’m here. You are the reason I’m not scared of what’s coming next,” he moves closer, his breathing growing heavy. “It doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you.”

  I’m paralyzed under his gaze.

  “I’m never leaving—you know this, right?”

  I nod in his hands.

  “So don’t ask me again. It’s not a choice for me,” he manages a deep breath, “it never was.”

  “I love you so much,” I throw myself into him, wrapping my arms around him and crushing my face into his neck.

  He’s momentarily startled by my sudden movement. But he’s squeezing me just as tight, running his hands down my back. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m right here,” he grips me harder, holding me to him, “and I’m never leaving.”

  “I’m afraid you will,” I whisper into his neck. “You have family. You have people who miss you. How can you give that all up?”

  He’s silent, and I know he’s asking himself the same question. How could he give it up, give them up… and for me?

  “You want to see them,” I whisper.

  He runs his hands down my back, squeezing me. “Of course.”

  “And you can. You have the ability,” I sniffle, dangerously close to tears. “If I could see Granny Ruth again…”

  “It’s been a long day,” he hooks an arm under my knees and lifts me, cradling me to his chest. “You’re tired… let’s go back to bed,” he carries me past the curtain and although I do my best to fight it, I softly cry into his neck, inhaling his sweet scent. It’s soothing, and probably the only thing to comfort me right now. Laying me down, Reid pulls the blanket up before climbing in next to me. “It’s okay,” he wraps his arms around my body, holding me close to him.

  After I’ve cried myself out, I finally slow to a stop. A gulp. “Sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Being such a girl,” I sniffle again. “I didn’t mean to cry all over you.”

  “As long as you don’t cry all over some other
guy,” he smirks. “I’m fine with it.”

  I stare at him—this beautiful man who’s choosing me, who will always choose me. Images of what Clarence said fly back, of what he felt for Anne, how it all came back to her. Reid and I gaze at each other for a little while longer until I can’t help the next words.

  “Tell me about her,” I whisper.

  “Who?”

  “Allison.”

  He frowns. “Why?”

  “I’m curious,” I run my finger over his bottom lip. “Indulge this one girly night of mine. Please?”

  Reid exhales, leaning back. He strums his fingers down my back as he stares up at the wooden ceiling. “What do you want to know?”

  “What’d you love about her?”

  His laugh rolls into a hearty scoff. “Uh…I don’t know…” he sighs, focusing on the ceiling. “She was beautiful. Real beautiful. Turned heads wherever she went. Everyone wanted her but she wanted me,” he shrugs with a sigh again. “It made sense to be together. I don’t know. Everyone said we should be together, so we were.”

  My chest burns at the thought of him paired off with her—the perfect couple. And even though I asked for it, I can’t help my next question either. “How did you propose?”

  “I asked during Christmas. My brothers and Amber wanted to be there. They pretty much planned the whole thing.”

  “Were you nervous?”

  “Honestly?” he’s frowning at the ceiling. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I knew she would say yes. Maybe…” he lets out a deep breath, “because I was expected to. My life was already planned out. I was just following what was expected. Marry Allison, pop out a couple of kids, and once I retired from competing, I’d join my dad in the shop.”