Another two days later, Timothy Niman relayed the message to Mayor Rochester that the great pyramid of Gizeh was but a massive heap of stones, with a handful of pillaged, looted chambers. If there had at any point been a medium in there, it must be long gone. All hopes now rested with Emily and the others.
All the while General Fatique prepared a press release to notify as many people as possible about the true nature of the planet they called home.
* * * *
At the hospital on Alternearth, Summer Paige was in the office, busying herself with administrative tasks. She knew very well, if she was honest with herself, that she was just avoiding seeing Timothy. She still owed him an answer to his marriage proposal, and she still wasn’t sure what to tell him. Using the discrepancy in their respective ages as a reason to decline his offer sounded ridiculous, even to her ears. And the fact that she was rational and centred where he was emotional and laissez-faire was a confirmation rather than an imponderability of their relationship. On the other hand, she was a doctor; she had a position she loved here at the village’s hospital, whereas Timothy was a protector. Now that the connection with Earth was stable again, there was no telling where he’d be stationed next. The fact that she was battling with herself in the first place, she finally decided, should perhaps be reason enough to doubt the whole thing.
She was about to leave and look for Timothy to break up with him, when in the corridor she met John and Eugenia. She walked slowly; he tried to match her unusual pace. Summer immediately knew that something was wrong. Eugenia dreaded the hospital, she would never come here if it could be avoided. All thoughts of turning down marriage proposals were forgotten when John said, “She started coughing up blood,” and Summer saw that neither of them could have gotten any sleep last night.
* * * *
After Emily, Carl, and Mandy had eaten and refreshed themselves, they wasted no time but headed straight for the pyramid. They were too far away from any form of messenger service, so the news about Gizeh being a lost cause never reached them. It would have made no difference, though. Geared up, equipped with torches, a map, a compass, an old woman who served as their guide and Elizabeth, who acted as translator for the local woman, they entered the great temple through the stone door on top of the pyramid. Elizabeth’s donkey, who had taken a fancy to Carl, stayed at the foot of the building and patiently waited for their return.
It was less dark than they expected. The old Mayans had carved the passageways in such a way that the sunlight, streaming in through the main door, was reflected by polished, mirror-like surfaces, and thus shone through the corridors and illuminated the chambers on the topmost level. As they descended, though, they had to switch on their torches at one point, as the redirected sunlight grew dimmer with every level they passed.
The walls were rough and dark, some covered in nocturnal flowers and light sensitive mosses. The delicate plants quickly withdrew their petals when the light of a torch swept over them. The air was cool and damp, but stuffy.
“I feel like we’ve descended a million steps already,” Carl grumbled. “Does it ever end?”
Mandy looked at her compass, then said with surprise, “We should be below the ground by now.”
Elizabeth asked their guide and translated the woman’s stream of rough, fast sounds. “She says the pyramid is just as large underground as it is above. This way, if the village was attacked and the temple destroyed, they could still hide out below the surface.”
“Good thinking,” Carl admitted.
“Do we have any idea where we’re going, Elizabeth?” asked Emily.
“To the main sacrificial chamber,” came the reply.
“The what?” Mandy asked.
Carl rolled his eyes, which fortunately was barely visible in the semi-darkness. “Please tell me you know that the Mayan’s believed in human sacrifice.”
“Well, I didn’t know that,” Mandy huffed. “What does it mean?”
While Carl explained to her, in great and gory detail, about human sacrifices, Emily walked up to Elizabeth.
“I’ve noticed that the people here view us as strangers, but treat you as one of their own,” she began.
“I was born here,” Elizabeth confided. “My grandfather was something like a mix between a mayor and a high priest. They’re glad that, now that I’m back, I can fill out his shoes.”
“And will you?”
Elizabeth paused for a moment, then she looked at Emily. “I think I will, yes.”
“That means you won’t be coming back with us.”
To that the newly elected mayor/high priestess didn’t reply. They walked a while in silence until the old woman, walking safely in the middle, called out for them to stop. They had reached a crossing where four corridors met. In the ceiling, as they saw when the woman showed them, gaped a hole. Square, merely big enough for one person to squeeze through at a time. Mandy had seen an old ladder a little way back that she went to fetch.
“What’s up there?” Carl asked while he watched Mandy put up the ladder. It was a perfect fit, designed for just this occasion.
“The secret entry to the main sacrificial chamber,” Elizabeth translated. “A hidden room to access the main temple.”
Up there was another, much narrower, corridor they had to follow; until they stepped through a low door and at last stood in a huge hall. They were deep underground now. Not as deep as the pyramid went on, but this was the heart of the temple they gathered from what the local woman told them in a hushed, awe filled voice. It was an enormous chamber, pitch dark, of course, but when they shone their torches hither and thither they saw gigantic drawings on the stone walls in shining colors, as if they had been painted yesterday. A huge statue was at the far end and before it, surrounded by a circle of what looked like holy stones with detailed engravings, stood a boy.
Mandy, the first one to direct her torch to the statue, gave a surprised shriek on encountering the child. Carl was next to her in a heartbeat, gun in one hand, torch in the other. So was Emily. Elizabeth could only stare.
It took them a moment longer to understand that the boy wasn’t moving. As motionless as the statue he stood inside a circle of holy stones, naked but for a feathered crown on his head and the remains of a painted body armour on his skin. His eyes stared into the distance.
The woman who had brought them this far walked up to him. Hidden from view up to the moment she lit them was a group of candles on the right and another one at the left hand side of the statue. Quickly the chamber was illuminated by their warm, flickering glow. The woman knelt, touched four of the stones as if she had done so countless times, bowed and laid down a set of flowers she took out of her bag. A long withered bunch she took away. Her movements were those of someone who was used to this ritual. When she finally spoke the eyes of the protectors were on Elizabeth, who tried to translate what she heard.
“She is addressing him in the highest form of praise.” It was hard to follow the woman’s words; she spoke fast and in an old dialect Elizabeth was just barely familiar with, “The names she calls him are unfamiliar to me; at least I suppose those are his names. Now she is introducing us.”
“Should we say something?” Mandy whispered. None of them had lowered their guns.
“I don’t think he can hear us,” Carl said. “He looks quite dead.”
Emily shook her head. “I don’t think he’s dead. He’s probably just caught in one of those time pockets Dr. Wagner-Reyes keeps talking about.”
“What do you do now?” Elizabeth asked. She was met with three quizzical glances. The protectors hadn’t planned that far ahead. After a while, the local woman was now cleaning the chamber as if the others weren’t there, Carl softly spoke, “There must be a way to make contact.”
“How long do you think he’s been here?” Mandy asked, without expecting an answer. “All alone in the darkness. Poor kid.”
“I never thought I’d say this,” mumbled Emily. “But perhaps it would help
if Eugenia was here. She is, after all, the other planet’s equivalent of…him.”
With calm deliberation, undisturbed by her visitors, the woman swept the floor with a crude broom, carefully avoiding the area inside the circle of stones where the boy stood.
“You said you think that Earth’s climate has everything to do with the fact that the planet thinks we’re deliberately abandoning it,” Elizabeth said. She, too, spoke softly now, so as not to disturb the holy atmosphere in the room. Emily nodded.
“You left out the bit where Earth is actually an animal rather than a planet.” Carl helpfully pointed out.
Ignoring his statement, Elizabeth went on. “Then maybe we don’t even need to establish contact, as much as just let him know we’re not going to abandon him.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Mandy. “We can’t simply walk up to him and strike up a conversation.”
But none of them could come up with a satisfying solution.
* * * *
Chapter 49: Not Alone
Summer dreaded giving John the news. He sat on a stool he had drawn up next to the hospital bed in which Eugenia lay like she had five years ago: unresponsive and limp. Her eyes were closed, she was drifting in and out of consciousness these days. The skin pale against the white sheets, the beautiful curls dull and unkempt. Seeing her like this made Summer forget all the grief she had felt towards her or even John. He was in and out of it himself in a way. Sometimes he didn’t even acknowledge when someone walked into the room or talked to him. He just sat there and kept watching her, his chest rising and falling in time with Eugenia’s.
She pondered the best way to break the news to him that the woman in the bed before him was dying, but failed to come up with anything remotely adequate. Eugenia’s organs, tests had shown, were shutting down one after the other. They were not used to function independently, as the planet had probably nurtured her. Now her body was not equipped to sustain itself. Add to that the stress of being all alone Eugenia so frequently spoke about—her physical form was withering away like a bouquet of forgotten flowers. If Summer wasn’t certain that leaving Alternearth would instantly kill her, she’d suggest taking her to a hospital on Earth, where they were better equipped and maybe could come up with a solution. Although somehow she doubted that. Eugenia was not of this world, and neither was her illness. After careful consideration and many sleepless nights, Summer believed what John had told them that day at Mayor Rochester’s; that Eugenia was connected with the creature on whose skin they lived. Perhaps they had been connected for so long that being apart was killing her. It decidedly wasn’t doing the planet any good, if the heat wave was anything to go by. The consequences for mankind if both of them died were gruesome.
“You’re telling me.” Timothy’s voice interrupted her morose soliloquy. He had sneaked up on her and was standing close now. His eyes followed her gaze through the panelled window into the hospital room.
“How is she doing?” he asked.
“Dying,” was her simple reply.
“I thought so.”
Without her having to ask for it, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and pulled her into a tight embrace. He always knew when to do that, she momentarily mused.
“Word got back from Emily and the others,” he told her after a spell of silence. “They found a boy in a temple. Looks like he’s kind of like Earth’s version of Eugenia.”
“What did they do?”
Timothy gave a hum. “There wasn’t much they could do in the first place. In the end they wrote a message out of pebbles. Emily thinks this way it will be visible long enough for him to read it, even though time on the outside moves much faster for the guy.”
“What message?”
“Didn’t ask. But you know what?!” Without waiting for her to inquire further he continued, “The storms have passed.”
She half turned in his embrace to look at him, just to make sure he wasn’t joking. “They did?”
“Yeah. Weather forecast for Earth: blue skies all around. Except Egypt where it’s snowing like crazy this time of the year.” He chuckled. “Sally was pretty bummed.”
Summer covered her boyfriend’s hands with hers and said, finally at ease with her decision. “The answer is yes, Timothy. I want to marry you.”
The timing wasn’t right for blissful declarations of love, or kisses that expressed the very same thing. So they just stood like that for a while, content in each other’s presence. Until Summer whispered, “I have to tell him,” and Timothy released her. He didn’t go with her into the hospital room, but he waited outside; and when Summer came back, all red eyes and pale cheeks, he took her home and held her as she relived what had happened to her sister so long ago.
The next day a storm hit. For two weeks the villagers had suffered in the damp, heavy air, and finally the storm clouds over the sea found a breeze that carried them to the settlement. At first just rain, then hail, then rain again. It didn’t get light in the morning, the clouds just looked more luminous during the day than during the night.
Peter stood in the doorway to number twenty-three, relishing the cool air. From a distance he heard an uproar coming from the stables; the hounds were howling again. Their behavior had been random in the last weeks, even before the heat. He saw Tyson rush to the hospital, no doubt to alert John, who spent his time there now. Something must be seriously wrong then, Peter decided. But when the boy emerged a few minutes later, John wasn’t with him.
For a moment he felt himself tense. His body, out of habit, prepared itself to go and look after the man he had so hopelessly fallen in love with all these years ago. In moments like these he forgot all about himself, or the fact that by now he had made a promise to someone else. Someone he loved, too, if differently. Today, for the first time, he hesitated. Today, for the first time, he thought about Luke and the silent patience in his eyes whenever Peter made time to spend with John.
“Enough,” he quietly spoke into the rain. It was time he closed this chapter of his life, or perhaps the whole volume; put it aside, set it on a shelf, one with a door that could be locked, and then—he lost himself in the metaphor for a moment and needed a minute to find his way back again. Close this chapter and start living the next one fully, he finally settled on. He considered himself lucky to have shared his life twice with a man like John. But he was with someone else now, someone he did love more than his own life. It was time he committed to that. Peter closed the door.
He found his husband on the sofa, deep in thoughts. When asked what was occupying his mind, Luke replied with a question, “What do you think the time pockets truly are?”
“Well, Luke, my love, a random unrelated time event, or R.U.T.E. as it is more commonly called, is a—”
But Luke interrupted him with a wave of his hand, “That’s not what I meant, Peter. Put aside the rational explanation of something like that. What could be the true meaning of them? Why do they exist?”
“I quite believe I can not possibly answer this question, although it is a deeply interesting one. Why indeed?”
Luke absentmindedly patted the cushion on his right, inviting Peter to sit with him. When he was seated, Luke sat up straight, as if the better to think like that, and said, posture and voice slightly excited, “Well, if you bear with me for a moment and not just dismiss my idea; but could it be that the time pockets are a self defence mechanism? A means of protection. A lot of animals can do quite marvellous things to protect themselves, why not this one?”
Peter pondered this theory. “Taking into consideration that the planet we walk upon is in actuality a giant, sentient creature floating through the universe…then I do think everything is possible.”
“I thought so, too.” Luke’s smile vanished when his eyes flickered to the wall clock. It was past the time for Peter’s usual trip to see John at the hospital. He shot his husband a quizzical glance. Peter leaned over to cup his face. “I chose you,” he promised.
T
he smile on Luke’s lips reappeared.
“Luke, would you do me the immense honor to go to the greenery with me and check on your tomatoes?” Peter asked with an air of festivity.
Luke laughed, “I thought you’d never ask.”
They hadn’t been to the greenery together in a while. The tomatoes were growing like crazy these days.
* * * *
Chapter 50: How It Must End
One planet thrived and one was dying; just like it had been before, only know the sides were reversed. Like a set of parallel lines that meet in infinity just to switch tracks, the planets’ roles were suddenly reversed.
The boy finally made it out of the cupboard, although the man he had become in the meantime didn’t realize it at first. It happened while he was sitting next to a hospital bed, watching a dying woman, hoping, praying, willing her to survive. When a new wave of spasms shuddered her unconscious form he cradled her in his arms, but to no avail: her body convulsed, her breath hitched and then she sagged against him like a rag doll with its strings cut off.
He held her as long as the night lasted. Dawn found the two of them an entangled bundle—one devoid of all life, one all but holding his breath, as if that might bring her back somehow. The doctor came and tried to pry her from his arms, but he would let no one touch her. He clasped to her body like it was a vital part of his own. Perhaps it was. In his desperate attempt to leave nothing untried, one last hope blossomed before his mind’s eye. He took her in his arms then and walked out of the room. Out of the hospital. Out of the village, into the forest, to a place only the two of them knew. A long forgotten temple that was really a tomb in the middle of the forest. One miracle had already occurred there, and if John kid himself earnestly enough, he almost believed it could happen one more time.
It was quiet around them. Neither animals nor plants moved, as if they felt the loss of their Goddess, as if they were preparing to die with her soon. It was noon when he reached the temple, but it could have been anytime, the sun hid behind thick, gray clouds; ashamed to be witness to the scene that unfolded beneath her. Softly, lovingly he knelt on the ground in the middle of the tumbled down stones and laid the woman down on the naked earth. She looked like she belonged there.
The Second Wave Page 23