by N. A. Cash
I walked into the room and flicked on the light. The dull florescent light caught specks of dirt floating around the room. Along the walls stood several bookcases crammed with leather-bound books—except for one wall, where several shelves of pots filled with dark speckled dirt jutted out. In the center of the room was a twelve-foot carved wooden table sagging under the weight of a mountain of books. I turned on a small but powerful desk lamp sitting on another smaller desk at the center of the room, which made up for the otherwise dim lighting in the room. I plopped down in the chair behind the desk.
For a moment, I closed my eyes and breathed in the musky scent of leather and paper mingling with a faint scent of lavender. I picked up one of the many books that had fallen to the floor. It was one of those that I had pulled from the shelf with the intention of reading but got consumed by discouragement and despair. The faded, two-inch thick hardcover book was bound in a stiff, dark-brown velvety material. I flipped it open and searched the gold-edged pages until something caught my eye.
Scanning the page, I noticed Aunt Vern’s neat, small script. I read.
August 30, 1985
In 1975, the remote landmass of Île de Sable (Sandy Island) gave birth to a peculiar set of people, who all hail from the same descendant line from Latiptian decent. Reportedly, a small carrier plane flew over the island. In its path, it dumped a black, plastic suitcase which cracked open on impact with the ground. After investigation, we saw sparkling powder, some of which spilled onto the ground of Pap’s backyard. The whole family rushed out to investigate it. For those who touched it (about nine people in total), we all reported two main experiences after the event: 1) temporary blindness and 2) strange dreams.
Over the years, various gifts have been reported and documented by all who were exposed to the substance—gifts of controlling weather, greenery, and even people’s emotions.
After discovering our gifts, several of our family members experienced some “troubles”, which led to Pap sending us away to various parts of the world. Although the Patel line has been honored as the most influential family on Île de Sable because of Pap, who was known as “Ka Makua Kane”, we have not been able to return to the island since then.
I excitedly turned a few pages and saw other bits of hand-recorded information by Aunt Vern about the various flowers she discovered she could make and what she guessed they could do. As I brought the book closer to read a paragraph on a particular flower that I saw inside the house, a piece of lined paper fell out and floated to the floor. I bent to pick it up and felt its smoothness. After flattening out the creases, I saw another neatly written script, except this one reflected a heavier hand; the lines on the paper left deeper impressions.
July 22, 1982
The Patel family’s gifts appear to be becoming more potent. I recently heard rumors about a young girl who can turn any metallic object, whether aluminum, steel, or anything in between, into gold. Another lad has the ability to swim for miles underwater without the help of any breathing apparatus. The majority of the gifts seem to have been focused in this family. I have checked some of the other lines of people rumored to have been on Île de Sable at that time, and they don’t appear to have gifts. I don’t understand it. Why this family?
A.W.N.
October 4, 1982
A recent lady I just met (not taking into consideration her amazing smile) displays some level of gifting. I noticed some “odd” occurrences that happen when I’m around her, not including the rapid beating of my heart, of course. Plants and flowers come alive when she’s near! They just look more beautiful. I’ve tried to ask her about it, but she changes the subject. Could this be a gift? She skirts any questions I ask about her personal life. For now, though, I just enjoy her company and her smile. Oh, that smile…
A.W.N.
I turned the paper over and over to see if there were any more anecdotes from what looked like a page from a diary. I flipped though the book and shook it to see if any other pieces of information lay in there. Nothing else fell out. I reread the pieces over and over. Who was A.W.N.? Did he or she have something to do with Aunt Vern? Why had she never mentioned him or her?
Being so deep in thought, it took a moment for me to notice a strange scratching noise coming from…somewhere. As far as I knew, there wasn’t anyone else in the house, so I felt relatively safe. I held my breath, listening intently for the noise again. As I strained to hear, the sudden noise caused me to jump. It sounded closer than before. I pitched up and studied the room. I saw nothing but the soft light glowing from the table lamp. I sat up on the chair, searching around again. Suddenly, a tiny ball of fur darted across my foot. I leapt up and screamed!
The mouse darted diagonally through the room, stopped mid-path, and turned towards me. It looked emaciated. Its beady red eyes peered at me as its whiskers twitched frantically…rhythmically. In its mouth, it held a tiny object that glinted in the dim light. As I worked to slow my breathing, I stared closer at it. Cautiously, I stood and tried not to move too abruptly so as to scare the creature. The mouse raised up on its hind legs and tilted its head, as if to get a better look at me. I took a guarded step forward. The mouse didn’t move; it just continued to look curiously at me.
“Put it down.” I spoke to the animal in a low, soothing voice, hoping it would understand what I said. It continued to stare at me with those red eyes. I took another cautious step forward. I swore it must have been my imagination, because the mouse dropped the shiny object and winked before it turned and ran off.
I bent down to pick up the object and saw another memory card. I turned it over and over in my hand. This I had never seen before, despite all the places I searched.
I ran up to my laptop in the living room, tapping my feet impatiently as I waited for it to boot up. As soon as the home screen appeared, I jammed the memory card into the designated slot and waited for the icon to come up on the screen. When it did, a folder with three letters displayed—AWN. My breath stopped. Was this a coincidence or some divine force? I double clicked the icon.
Several thumbnail photos popped up. I clicked on the first one and saw a medium-built male with wild black hair, standing in the front of a solitary grey stone building that resembled an old church in the middle of a grassy field. He wore wrap-around black shades and a full baggy African print body suit, similar to wingsuits that extreme sportsmen used for skydiving. His smile was huge. The next few pictures contained the same image of varying quality—some lopsided, some in focus, some out of focus, and some that looked like he had practiced taking photos with the camera propped on a tripod.
I scrolled though a few more pictures of the countryside, of various buildings looming in the background, and of nature shots. As I flipped through the pictures, I stopped at one photo of the man with a lady who looked like Aunt Vern. I recognized her stance, the way she kept her posture straight as if she were held up through her back by a vertical string. The hazel eyes gave her away too. This picture looked a lot like the younger photo she had shown me of her Mam and the rest of my aunts. She smiled, too, as if she was having the time of her life. Her arms were looped around the man, and, as she looked in the camera lens, he stared down at her with a tenderness in his face. I paused at the photo and stared. She seemed so happy, and I assumed whoever this man was, he added greatly to her joy. There were a few more photos of them in various states of happiness, several with her by herself bending over with laughter, like she couldn’t catch her breath.
After a few frames, the scenes switched. The next few photos were solo shots of the man. The focal point of these photos was the front of a house. My house. Our house. I noticed the screen on the outside and the same vines growing up the sides of the building. The photos were taken at different locations around the house.
A video came next. I double clicked on it. The opening frame of the shaky video featured the same man with a handheld video camera. He was standing in the woods surrounding the house. I turned up the sound on my la
ptop and strained to hear him whispering through the speakers as he said, “It looks like this is her house. As you can see, it’s in the middle of the woods. This matches what I know about her. She appears to thrive off plants and their energy. I wonder if they are what she lives off and how she gets her power.”
The shaky picture moved around to the side of the house, with various shots of different angles of the house.
“She behaved strangely the last time we met. This is how I knew she was one of them. I’m going to find the evidence I need to prove I’m not going crazy.”
The picture paused at the back door of the house, then whipped abruptly to show the woods. It appeared as though the narrator had stumbled and tripped over something small, and the image focused on a stand of trees at the back of the house. His voice came back through but this time, his whispers were tinged with fear.
“Did you hear that?” His breathing came louder and faster.
The camera panned the woods in a quick sweeping motion, almost too quick to focus on any one image. It was as if he used the camera as his eyes to search for the source of whatever sound only he could hear. He seemingly found the source of the sound and began moving cautiously towards it. He paused, pointing the camera downward, aiming at a yellow blur surrounded by green pixels. He adjusted the focus, and an image of a flower came through.
“It’s one of them. She gave a similar one to me last year, in celebration of…” His voice cut off as the camera’s angle quickly rolled from the ground to the sky. In the background, I heard a sharp gasp, and then a thump. The camera fell, rolled, and finally stopped to focus again on the flower. In the background, all I could hear were screams as static overtook the image, and it faded to black.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I sat in my chair, breathing hard. What happened?
After calming my unsteady breath, I replayed the video a second time. Then a third. I couldn’t see anything or hear any noises other than those regularly found in the forest—the tweeting of birds, the rustle of trees, the distant rumble of a plane flying somewhere overhead. I watched the video one last time and pressed the pause button right after the camera fell and before the screaming started. I studied the frozen frame, trying to identify anything out of the ordinary. As I stared at the picture, my eyes focused on the flower. I pulled my chair closer and examined the ground surrounding it. My eyes wandered to the left of the frame. A bright red substance pooled in the lower left of the image. In the background, slightly over the red substance, I could see the outline of a distinctive shadow. The almost imperceptible image flashed quickly in and out of the frame before the camera turned off. After panning through the video frame by frame, I was able to pause at the image. I stared so long at the image I felt my eyes crossing.
Somewhere in the back of my mind the image jogged my memory, then it clicked. I jumped up, pushing my chair back so quickly that it fell over with a crash. My hands flew to my mouth, and I screamed. “No! No, it can’t be!” I whispered to the empty house.
I rushed to Aunt Vern’s room and threw open one of the closet doors, rummaging for the item. It hid behind a few shoeboxes at the far back of the closet. My hands clutched around the fur object, and I pulled hard, dislodging it from underneath the containers on top of it. Gazing at it, I noticed a few faded crimson stains splattered over the item. I took it back to the computer and placed it against the picture on the screen. After adjusting the item, it matched perfectly to the distinctive piece of clothing. Aunt Vern had been there when this man had gotten hurt, maybe even killed. He’d snooped around the house, something happened to him, and Aunt Vern was there. I shook my head, trying to clear it. I let the jacket drop to my feet and rushed back at the laptop, searching frantically for anything else. There were no other files after that.
I sat in the front of the computer screen, tapping my finger rhythmically on the mouse, making a slight click-click-click noise. Night had fallen now, and I couldn’t see the spot where it may have happened. There probably won’t be any evidence there anymore anyway. Aunt Vern no longer was around for me to ask her about the man. No one knew about their disappearance, so I couldn’t call or tell anyone. I ejected the memory card and turned it over and over in my hand. Aside from the tiny teeth marks from the mouse, it looked exactly the same. I don’t know why I expected it to look different after revealing its secrets to me. The only thing I thought to do was to go to bed and wait until the crack of dawn to continue my investigation.
I had set my alarm for 5:30 a.m., stirring a few minutes before the alarm sounded. I lay in bed, listening to the familiar sounds of the waking day. Getting up and dressed took a few minutes, so I waited until the sun began rising, casting its soft glow across the dew-filled sky. The air that drifted in through the open windows was moist and smelled fresh, as if washed from the light rain that fell overnight. I pulled a thin tan sweater over my shoulders and shoved my bare feet into a pair of boots I kept by the back door. After stepping outside, I scanned the backyard. The thicket of green trees lay several feet from the house and radiated a misty green lushness against the pale blue sky.
Thick grass muted my footsteps as I slowly strolled over to the edge of the forest where I remember the video ending. I checked around and only saw various small flowers, mostly weeds. I took another few steps forward and saw them. There lay clusters of five buttercream elongated oval petals, each individually centered around a mocha center. I dropped to my knees and bent closer to pick one. The stem was a chartreuse color, which almost blended perfectly into the petals and felt fuzzy when I touched it. I plucked one from the ground and held it close to my face. I recognized the flower now from one of Aunt Vern’s books. It was called a Lindheimera Yellow Star and mostly grew in the state of Texas. I knew Aunt Vern had been experimenting with their properties because their pistil was usually a yellow color. These ones, though, had been modified.
I turned to take the flower inside so that I could compare it to one in Aunt Vern’s old books when something glinted in the sunlight, catching my eye. The image flashed so briefly that I engaged in a short back and forth dance to see exactly where the object lay. I saw it glint again, about two feet away from where I stood. I approached the spot and bent down to find the lens of a camera. The plastic around the lens was worn with age and from years of exposure to the weather. I picked it up and stared at it. It felt like a weight in my hand. Around the rim, the letters AWN were scratched into the plastic. My heart beats accelerated in my chest.
I searched the grounds around it, hoping to find the other parts of the camera. Another few feet away from the lens, I found a cruddy strip of cloth about one foot long and six inches wide, blackened from the elements with an unrecognizable color. I picked that up too.
After searching around for half an hour more, I felt the sun beating down on my hair and sweat pooling underneath my armpits. The Louisiana weather sometimes switched so quickly—one minute it felt a cool sixty degrees, the next, you were being blasted by eighty-degree heat and sweating profusely. I took my treasures and entered the house once again. I placed the cloth and the lens on the edge of the kitchen counter for a moment and put the flower in a small cup.
In my mind, I tried to remember where I last saw the book with the information about the flower I held. It was one of the last things I studied with Aunt Vern. She made me read about the blossom and its properties and, when she made one appear from one of pots she pulled off the shelf, she took a vial filled with an iridescent blue liquid and released a few droplets of it on the pistil of the flower to change the yellow pollen to a mocha brown. She had observed it for a few moments and walked pulled one of the journals from the shelves and began to write in it.
I walked over to the kitchen counter, put the flower on the table, and began to sift through all the titles on a shelf next to the fridge. As I read through the covers, I found the title I searched for—Exotic Plants. This medium-sized book was less than one hundred pages long. Most of it Aunt Vern wrote in
her own hand; I’d typed and printed pages under her watchful eye. I sat at the table and flipped through the book until I found a Polaroid of the flower, neatly glued to a page.
Texas star plants stand up to 30 inches tall and spread widely. They are hairy plants with triangular lower leaves. Their upper leaves tend to be smooth and round. The flowers are in clusters at the end of the stems. Each flower contains up to five petals and range in color from bright yellow to a deep mustard. The flowers begin to bud when they are about one – one and a half inches tall. They continue to bloom until the plant reaches about one foot tall.
Texas Yellowstar plants are wonderful plants to house in gardens.
This text looked to be printed out from a website and cut to the measurements of the page. There was more writing which described where the name of the plant came from, cultivating and growing instructions and other suggestions of how to keep a garden, which I skimmed through. Underneath it, I saw Aunt Vern’s neatly scrawled handwriting.
Tried the blue jewel with the Yellow Star today. Changed pistil from yellow to mocha. This means the concoction works. Flower now has deep sleep properties. One brush with pollen along with a speck of silver dust can cause the subject to fall into a deep sleep; if not awakened within four hours, the condition will remain permanent.
I picked up the flower and stared at its center. The brown pollen was firmly embedded in place. With the flower in hand, I headed to the basement, where I knew Aunt Vern would’ve kept her concoction.
Once in the basement, I found a small red button so unnoticeable, you would’ve missed it if you didn’t know it was what you were looking for. I pressed its shiny red surface. A few muffled clicks and soft groans filled the room. The bookshelf on the far right of the room moved aside, revealing yet another room. I walked through the tight opening into that room. Brighter fluorescent motion-sensing lights popped on one at a time. Because of the sensitivity of the chemicals, this room had to be kept more sterile than the other. Whereas the other space reminded me of a used bookstore, this space resembled a laboratory, with polished floors and steel walls. Shelves with vials of liquids in all colors and textures lined this room. Each vial bore a yellow label with black letters. I’d had spent a lot of time in this room, too, with Aunt Vern, learning what these various liquids were and what they were used for.