Eye of Flame

by Pamela Sargent

  The man relaxed, leaning against a tree behind him. “I’m tired,” he said. “It’s hard to stop them by yourself.”

  She was puzzled. She remembered reading something about tidal waves and knew that this one had not behaved normally.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the man went on. “Someone was just fooling around.” He smiled at her, showing even white teeth. “It happens sometimes.”

  Alia loosened the straps on her knapsack, letting it fall to the ground. “You’re going to get awfully sick, wandering around like this,” said the young man. “Don’t you think you should go back?”

  “Go back to where?” she asked warily.

  “You know where. Whatever institution you wandered out of. Didn’t they tell you that you might get sick?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if I believe it any more.” She watched the young man carefully. “I’ve walked a long way. I don’t think I want to turn back just yet.”

  “But I’ll take you back. I’m sure it’s much nicer there than here. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Alia thought of Tomas and Tamu and her life at the hospital, free from any demands. The older patients had been there for fifty years or more and seemed content; in fact, one old man had grown terrified of the thought that a vaccine might be found for the patients and they would be forced to leave. The doctors had to tell him that no one would be forced out, and everyone else had been as relieved as the old man.

  “I suppose it is nicer,” she said to the young man. “It’s easier at least.”

  “Don’t you miss all your friends? They’ll be so happy to see you again.”

  “How would we get there?”

  “Oh, it’s easy, and it would be fun too. I’ll show you.” The young man started to climb the mountain. Alia followed him, dragging the knapsack. As she scrambled over some rocks, she noticed a huge red globe hovering above some trees on a ledge just above her. The young man reached out a hand, she grabbed it, and he pulled her up. She saw a huge balloon, bright red and attached to a large basketlike bottom. The young man had apparently tied it to one of the trees.

  “We can go back in my balloon,” the young man said, walking toward it.

  “How?”

  “It’s simple. When we want to descend, all I have to do is pull this—” he pointed to a rope attached to the balloon “—and we land; it lets some air out. To go up, I just pour some sand out of one of those bags there.” He grinned at her. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  “Sure does.”

  “We can have a great time on the way back,” said the young man. “Come on, let’s go.” He turned toward the balloon. Alia raised her arm quickly and chopped him on the back of the neck. He toppled forward with a soft moan and lay silent.

  She quickly climbed into the basket, cut the rope holding the balloon down with her knife, and poured sand out of one of the bags. The balloon rose, grazing some tree-tops on the way. She was soon above the mountains and could see the desert on her right. The balloon hovered above the mountains, and she waited for it to start drifting.

  “What now?” she muttered. The vehicle was of no use to her if it stayed here. She felt a warm breeze on her face; then she began to move. The balloon drifted to the north. At least, she thought, it won’t go back to the hospital.

  Ahead, she noticed that the mountains had started to curve to her right, surrounding the desert. She moved further away from the sea and was soon over a thick green forest. She had left the desert behind.

  Deer were leaping through the underbrush below her, waving their small white tails at the balloon. A slender river wound through the trees, and she could see two horses, black and chestnut, on its banks. A flock of crystalline birds, with feathers that were prisms, swam in the river. Alia, clinging to the side of the basket, gazed happily at the forest. It was worth it, she told herself, it was worth it for this.

  Then she glimpsed something on the edge of the forest. She squinted as the balloon floated on, and was able to discern large crystalline structures just beyond the wooded land. The crystals were green, gold, silver, blue and pink; some were spirals; others were slender towers. They glittered in the sunlight. As she came closer, she saw large golden insects buzzing softly in the sky over the crystal buildings. A city, she thought, and something jarred her mind.

  Home, her mind whispered. She was a child again. She stood in a garden while her mother made the roses grow. She was over the city now and could see people moving through the streets on silver bands. A few people were floating over the city, apparently unsupported by anything. Her father was giving a concert with his mind, and people gathered near the house to listen. Alia heard only silence and the rustle of leaves. Silvery vines formed patterns on the sides of some of the crystals, wrapping themselves around the buildings, then unwinding and forming new patterns. There were parks scattered throughout the city with trees and ponds, and she could see children playing in them. The other children wouldn’t play with her. She could not float up to the treetops or make the thunder roar. One of the golden insects passed near her, and she saw people inside it. They gazed at her through the transparent golden walls of the craft and waved.

  Home. Bits and pieces cluttered her mind, traces of the memories she had lost. I have a brother, with red-gold hair like mine, and he sometimes dances with me in the garden. My home is sapphire-blue. Once he made a cloud for me, and it rained on the flowers. She tugged at the rope attached to the balloon and began her descent. Father is composing. He listens to the universe, the stars and winds, and adds his own notes. They tell me it is beautiful. I can’t hear it. He listens to other times. I can’t hear them. He travels. I cannot follow. The balloon fell slowly toward a sapphire spiral, then landed with a bump in a small garden behind it.

  A tall blonde woman was in the garden gathering pink flowers. Near her stood a man with silver hair. They wore white robes and stared at her as she clambered over the side of the basket. The balloon bobbed uncertainly next to her.

  The woman let go of the flowers and they fell in a pink mass at her feet. “Mother,” Alia said softly. “Father.”

  Alia. The name was unspoken as it entered her mind. “Let me stay,” she said, “don’t send me away again, let me stay.” She began to run to them, arms outstretched. The woman turned away. The man still watched her, but did not hold out his arms.

  She was surrounded by a blue cloud, frozen, unable to move. I’m sorry, Alia, something in her mind whispered, I’m sorry, please believe that. Then, very slowly, she fell forward, almost floating, until the blue cloud turned black.

  Alia could hear a loud humming sound. She opened her eyes. She was rushing through an underground tunnel aboard a conveyance with transparent sides. The garden had disappeared. Around her, Alia could see only rock and an occasional flashing light. Someone had put her in a chair, and she struggled vainly at the straps which bound her to it.

  Eta, the woman of the desert, sat in front of her, but she wore only a green robe and had removed her make-up. Next to Eta sat the young man from the beach and the old man who had guided her up the mountain. The young man was slouching in his chair, staring at the floor. The old man, also in a green robe, had trimmed his beard.

  “What are you going to do with me?” asked Alia.

  “You have to realize,” said the young man, still looking at the floor, “that we are civilized. None of us has entered your mind; no one has since the time you were first taken to the hospital. It was necessary then, as you must know, but we haven’t entered it since. If we had, you would be back at the hospital now and would never want to leave again. If I had, you could never have surprised me and stolen my balloon.”

  “We didn’t think you’d get this far,” said Eta. “You were timid when we placed you at that hospital. It seemed perfect for you. I didn’t think you would become so adventurous.”

  “Take me home,” she said. “Haven’t I earned it? I know my mind is weak, but there must be a place for me. Ask my parents, they�
�ll keep me; they have to.”

  The old man shook his head. “Would you want your parents to bear that?” he said softly. “They made the same decision everyone in their place has made.”

  “We tried to spare you all this,” said the young man. “We tried to discourage you on your journey. We could have terrified you, driven you back with our minds, but that would have been wrong, using our minds like that against a helpless creature.”

  “Please take me home,” she said. Her words seemed feeble. On her last night at home, she sat sleepless in her room, trying desperately to raise her table with her mind, sobbing with frustration.

  “What would you have us do?” said the old man. “Structure our society around misfits and atavisms? Would you want to live with us, knowing that there was really nothing your poor mind could contribute? You can’t shake the mountains or move the sea or bring meteors close to earth in showers of fire. You can’t sail the clouds across the sky or make the spring come early out of the ground. You will never be free of the tyranny of time and space.” The old man stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I tell you this, even though you will forget. We do the best we can; we place you in environments that will make you happy. We prevent your suffering by removing memories of the past. Would it make you any happier if I told you that there are fewer of you now, that soon there will probably not be any?”

  “Don’t tell me all that,” Alia said bitterly. She glared at the old man. “You have your own reasons for sending me away, I know that.”

  The old man sighed. “Yes, we do,” he said. “Do you have any idea of the control we must exercise over ourselves in order to be certain that a momentary impulse isn’t expressed outwardly by our minds? Helpless people such as you would be a constant temptation. You would be pawns which we could dominate, and you would make us cruel and decadent.”

  “That tidal wave,” the young man muttered. “I couldn’t resist the temptation. I was glad when I saw how terrified you were. Do you understand that? I never want to feel that way again.”

  “You’ll be in a very nice place,” said Eta.

  “You’ll be happy there,” said the old man. “It’s all arranged.” Alia turned from him and looked out at the rocky walls rushing by them. They seemed to blur slightly as she watched.

  I can’t remember anything that happened to me before I came here, and neither can the others, or if they can they’re not saying. The doctors tend to be a bit restrictive, but that’s probably understandable. They don’t want us traipsing around picking up all kinds of germs that might make us really sick. They wouldn’t be too happy to know that Moro and I are on our way to the village.

  Moro is skiing ahead of me. He slaloms along, then stops for a bit so I can catch up. I’m not as good a skier as Moro, and I have to go slowly. Moro has sneaked out of the hospital several times, and so has everyone else, I guess. The doctors don’t make it too difficult, although they usually get annoyed if they find out.

  It’ll be my first time in the village. Already I can see it, just over the next slope, cottage roofs covered with inches of snow. Moro knows a tavern where they’ll serve you without asking questions. The bartender there used to be at the hospital; I think most of the people in the village were once, but they’re old now and were given permission to move.

  Moro says that there’s a city down at the bottom of the mountain, if you can call it a city. It’s not much larger than the village up here. A few patients have been down there, but it’s impossible to get to it in winter; you could never make it back up the mountain even if you got there. But Moro will take me in the spring, he’s promised, and I’m looking forward to the trip. I don’t like staying in the hospital all the time, but as long as I know I can go somewhere, I can stand it.

  I manage to come to a stop near Moro without falling over. He is laughing, and there are crinkles on either side of his eyes. He kisses me on the cheek, and I begin to laugh too, stopping only to inhale some of the cold mountain air. I am falling in love with Moro, with his laughter and his talk and his sapphire-blue eyes. We will go to the tavern, and if I manage to acquire some courage with my beer, I may ask him to move into my room.

  I think he will accept the offer.

  Big roots

  After Father died, I stayed on at his camp. I had put off leaving for a lot of reasons. One was that I felt at peace there, in a way I hadn’t for a long time, and another was the need to settle matters with my sister Evie. Maybe I still would have been there, struggling against a world intruding on my refuge, if my sister hadn’t appeared to me in the guise of a False Face and the spirits had not spoken.

  The camp was a cabin with two bedrooms, a kitchen and living room that were on the side facing the lake, and an attic with cots and sleeping bags. We called it a camp because that’s what everyone in the Adirondacks called their summer places, whether they were shacks or mansions. Father had sold his house after Mother died, and lived at the camp during the last two years of his life, before my sister put him in the hospital.

  My grandfather had built the camp and cleared the land around the cabin, but the pines were crowding in, and long knotted roots bulged from the ground in tangled masses along the path that led down to the lake. One of the pines, during the year since my father’s death, had grown larger, its trunk swelling to nearly the size of a sequoia.

  I didn’t know why this tree was growing so much faster than the others, but its presence comforted me. I would sit under the pine and think of its roots spreading out under the land, burrowing deep into the ground. We had deep roots in these mountains, my family and I, and I had felt them more lately. My grandfather’s people had come there early in the nineteenth century, but my grandmother’s Mohawks, the Eastern Gatekeepers of the Iroquois, had been there earlier. She had grown up on a reservation in Canada, but my grandfather had met her in Montreal and brought her back here after their marriage. This land had been a Mohawk hunting ground, the forest they had traveled to from their villages to hunt beaver and deer, and where they had sometimes encountered forest spirits, long before white settlers had moved into the mountains. My grandfather had brought his wife back to her roots.

  I had pulled up the canoe and was sitting on the dock, thinking about Grandma’s life while watching the loon. The bird had taken up residence in our part of the lake a couple of weeks earlier, and I wondered when more loons would join it. The loon would float on the water, moving its black-feathered head from side to side like an Egyptian belly dancer, then dive. It would stay underwater for three or four minutes, and I could never predict where in the bay it would surface. I had been like a loon underwater myself for the past year, living at the camp, diving below the turbulent surface of my own life. The bit of money I had saved was running out. Pretty soon, I would have to emerge.

  The wind picked up and the trees sighed. Sometimes I heard voices, as if people were chanting and singing elsewhere in the forest. Now I heard the sound of a car in the distance. It would be Evie; I was expecting my sister. Our great-aunt and a couple of cousins lived in the nearest town, but they hadn’t called since the funeral, and I wanted nothing to do with them anyway; Aunt Clara had led the family faction that disapproved of my grandfather’s marriage. My brothers, who lived in Seattle and Atlanta, had already said they wouldn’t be visiting this summer, and I hadn’t made any friends in town. So it had to be Evie, along with her husband Steve and her three kids by her first husband, my niece and nephews who couldn’t sit in place without a VCR and a boom box for more than two minutes. It would be Evie, because anyone else would have called first to ask for directions, since the only way to the camp was along a narrow dirt road through the woods. It would be Evie, because we had business to discuss. She was here to change my mind.

  I got up and climbed toward the cabin. A winged shape soared overhead; I looked up as an eagle landed in the uppermost branches of the largest pine. Evie’s blue Honda was rolling down the rutted dirt driveway that led to the cabin. She wou
ld unload a television, a VCR, and a ton of rented cassettes, to keep her kids quiet, and Steve would sit in the kitchen making bad jokes while Evie and I cooked supper. The noise from the TV would be deafening, because all the movies my niece and nephews watched had lots of special effects. I was sure the sounds would frighten the eagle away.

  But when Evie got out of the car, I saw that she was alone. “Got the whole weekend,” she said, “and I’m taking Monday off. Steve’s watching the kids, so it’ll be a real vacation for me.” She went around to the trunk and opened it. “Brought some food in the cooler, so we won’t have to cook tonight.” Evie took after our father, and he had gotten his looks from his mother. My grandmother had looked like Evie when she was young—a tall woman, with coppery skin, thick black hair, and dark brown eyes. I had our mother’s blue eyes, and my black hair had gone gray early, so now I colored it reddish-blonde. I didn’t look anything like my grandmother, but I had her soul, which was more than you could say for Evie.

  I helped her carry the cooler and her suitcase inside, relieved that the kids and Steve weren’t with her, but still wary. Ten years lay between my younger sister and me, and we had never been that close. We had gone for years without even phoning each other while she was having kids and getting a divorce and I was drifting, afraid to come home. She wouldn’t have come up here alone just to relax and visit with me.

  The two bedrooms stood on either side of the bathroom, separated by a narrow corridor. I had been using the bedroom our grandmother had slept in during her summer visits, and took Evie’s suitcase to the other. A quilt covered the bed that took up most of the small room, and a crucifix hung above the headboard. I never slept in that room, mainly because I didn’t like the idea of sleeping under a crucifix, especially one that made Christ look so peaceful hanging there, as if he were only snoozing. I also knew my grandmother had come to hate the sight of the cross, which only reminded her of the nuns who had tried to beat a white soul into her. I could have taken it down, but then Evie would have been whining, “Where’s Dad’s crucifix”? even though she hadn’t been to Mass since her divorce. My father had wanted to die here, in the room he and my mother had shared, but Evie had insisted on the hospital, so an ambulance had come up the long dirt road and driven him the fifty miles to the city. Father had lasted less than a month there, barely enough time for my brothers to realize that he was actually dying and to get to his side to make whatever amends they could.