by Kara Timmins
Eloy closed his eyes and thought of the vines that wrapped around the stilts of the houses in Valia. He thought about the smell of the dining hall that made its way through the cracked windows. He recalled the bed across from the hearth in Neasa’s house. And everything went quiet.
The room was dark when Eloy opened his eyes, but he knew the shadows of the space. He was in Neasa’s house. Neasa and Malatic were still asleep, but they were now on the soft wood floor in Valia.
Eloy looked over at Timyr in the dark. “Timyr.”
Timyr opened his eyes. “I think I’m going to be sick. This is too much.”
“Can you build a fire first?” Eloy motioned to the hearth.
“Sure.” Timyr was groggy, but he found the stack of fresh wood with little difficulty.
Small sparks lit the room as Eloy turned to Neasa.
“Neas, you have to wake up. Malatic needs you to wake up.” He ran a hand over her temple and into her hair. Each stroke roused her, little by little.
“I’m dead,” she said.
“You’re not dead.”
“I’m dead,” she said again.
“Neasa, you’re not dead, but Malatic will be if you don’t get up and help him. You said you could save him if you were in Valia. You’re in Valia, so now you have to save him.”
She shot up to a seated position in the exact moment Timyr got a fire going and the details of her house came into focus.
“This isn’t real,” Neasa said.
“It is,” Eloy said. “Neasa, help me.” He had Malatic’s arm draped over the back of his neck.
She stood up and helped Eloy get Malatic into her bed.
“How long has he been like this?” Eloy asked.
“I don’t know. I lost track of time. I don’t understand. I don’t know what’s going on. Am I sick? Is this a dream?”
“No, Neas.” Eloy took her hand. “You’re home.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. I’ll tell you everything . . .” His words cut off as a thunderous sound came from the stairway to the front door.
The three took a step backward moments before the door flew open. Critiko and Gwyn rushed in hollering, their clubs raised and ready.
“Dad!” Neasa said.
Critiko froze, the anger in his face crumbling like night frost in the morning sun. A flash of confusion dashed across his face before being replaced by pristine joy. He dropped the wooden club and rushed to Neasa, wrapping his arms around her, making her look small. She folded into herself and fell against his chest.
“How did you get here?” Critiko asked. “We always watch the way in. I would’ve seen you.” He had his cheek pressed against the top of Neasa’s head.
“I don’t know,” Neasa said, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know.”
Eloy could hear her breathe in slowly through her nose, taking in the smell of her father. She probably thought she would never smell that particular scent again.
Eloy felt a friendly hand slap against his back. He turned away from Neasa and Critiko to find Gwyn’s outstretched, waiting arms.
Gwyn wrapped his arms around Eloy. “We were getting a little worried.”
“Us too,” Eloy said as he pulled away.
“Who’s in your bed, Neasa?” Critiko asked, concern edged out by something more fatherly.
“Oh, Dad!” The panic was back in Neasa’s face. She looked at Gwyn. “Do you have manalection and lorca?”
“I have some of both, I think,” Gwyn said.
“I need it,” Neasa said. “Please hurry.”
Gwyn was already halfway out the door. “Quick as I can run.”
Critiko crouched down and examined Malatic, pulling at his eyelids and feeling his neck. Neasa stood above them and looked back and forth between her father and Malatic, with one quick look behind her at Eloy, somewhere in the middle.
Timyr and Eloy stood together in front of the fire. If there was something they could do to help, neither one figured it out. Eloy looked around at the house: the little window that hinged outward and let in the air rich with the smell of cooking smoke and vegetation, the little table, and the bowl of fruit full and fresh on its top. Eloy couldn’t take his eyes off it.
Just as it had been when he and Neasa had come back from the forest so long ago, the object was such a simple thing. Just a bowl of fruit. Red fruit. Shiny and new. How many times had Critiko come and replaced the food when it started getting too soft to eat? How many bowls had been there waiting for Neasa to come home?
The clumsy, frantic sound of footfall reverberated through the house from the front steps. All four turned to look at the door as Gwyn rushed back in holding a leather satchel.
“You want it in hot water?” Gwyn asked Neasa.
“Yes.” She moved toward the hearth.
Eloy and Timyr sidestepped to get out of her way. Eloy made a motion to the door at Timyr, but he was already moving out. They’d gotten everyone there, but now they were in the way.
Eloy took one last look at the room and the three hustling around in the warm glow before going out. If Malatic could get better anywhere, it was here.
66
Eloy and Timyr walked out into the bustling early evening. The people of the town hummed about, their happy murmurs and laughter as soothing as a balm. Timyr sat with Eloy for a while, but Vivene had woken up and, enticed by her new surroundings, took off across the rooftops.
“Guess she’s feeling better,” Timyr said before going off to keep an eye on her.
Eloy struggled to comprehend that he was really there, sitting in Valia. All of the ideas he’d had, preparation he’d done, about finding a way back were now unnecessary. He knew he should marvel at his new ability or wonder how it worked, but he didn’t want to. He could think about it later. For now, he was just grateful.
He heard the door behind him open and close. The heavy footsteps told him it was Critiko. Eloy shifted to his right to make enough room and Critiko sat down with a grunt, the long stairway swaying slightly.
“How is he?” Eloy asked.
“Hard to say,” Critiko said. “But the right medicine is in him. Just a matter of his will now.”
“Do you really think it works that way? That he has a say when he’s this far gone?”
Critiko sighed. “Probably not. But it feels better to think we have some say in the end, I guess.” The words “the end” hung between them for a moment. “But he’s young. I’ve seen older men pull through worse.”
Eloy nodded.
Critiko cleared his throat. “It’s good to see you.”
Eloy looked over and saw the glossy sheen in Critiko’s eyes reflecting the torchlight.
“It’s good to see you too,” Eloy said. “You have no idea.”
“We heard about what happened with Anso and the strangers,” Critiko said. “Everyone did. It’s strange to hear about my own daughter like she’s some kind of story. I kept saying, ‘Now you have half the idea of how great I think she is’ to anyone who told it.” Critiko laughed, a short sound, just two quick bursts. “I thought you would come back after that. I waited. Every day I thought she’d be here, that you’d both be here. But then I heard you went to Oppo. And then we didn’t hear anything. No one did. And the bad thoughts started trickling in.” He cleared his throat again.
Eloy reached over and put an arm over Critiko’s shoulders. “You’re not the only one. I’m sorry.”
Critiko sniffed hard. “Well, you’re here now. I want to hear everything that happened. Including who that boy is in my daughter’s bed.”
“That one’s her story to tell,” Eloy said, pulling his arm back into himself.
“I’ve brought you something.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Critiko reached behind his back and brough
t forward three things: a steaming mug, a flat blade, and a lump of cleaner.
“Oh no,” Eloy said.
“Everything’s all ready for you under the house. You look like a forest creature. I barely recognized you when I came in. Almost clubbed you.” Critiko laughed.
Eloy groaned, taking the cleaner and the blade. “I’ll be back up for that.” He pointed to the steaming mug.
“I’ll keep it nice and warm for you.”
67
The little cuts on his face still stung when Eloy woke up the next morning. He and Timyr slept in Critiko’s house, and Neasa and Critiko stayed with Malatic.
The late morning light came through the little hinge windows. Timyr was gone—out exploring Valia, Eloy guessed.
Waking up indoors, in Valia no less, made him feel like he wasn’t waking to reality. He got up and rinsed his face in a basin of water. The look of his own reflection was still a shock. Who was this man looking back at him? Everything in his features looked so much harder than he remembered. The little lines between his eyes didn’t disappear when he relaxed. Still, seeing himself again was nice. Another reunion.
He picked up a piece of fruit from the table and went out to find the others. He didn’t have to go far. Timyr was sitting on the steps eating his own breakfast.
“Sleep well?” Eloy sat down next to Timyr.
“Better than I have in a while.”
Timyr had experienced the Valia bathing system too, and Eloy found himself coming to terms with his friend’s newly shorn face. With the bushy beard gone, the relation to Midash was impossible to deny. The evidence was in every angle of his jawline, nose, and mouth.
“How did she do out there?” Eloy motioned down to Vivene, her little mouth open in her sleep.
“Wore herself out pretty good. Even helped me make a few friends. Not hard to do here. Valia really is something.”
“It is.” Eloy took a bite of the crimson fruit, and it cracked between his teeth.
“Well, now that you’ve gotten some rest, you want to tell me what happened beyond the rain and how it is exactly you got us here?”
Eloy told him about the room and its contents, but he kept it short. It seemed minuscule in importance, compared to the rest. He tried to remember everything Aerelion had said about why he’d guided Eloy over the sea.
“And would you have made the same choice? To make the trip to find me?” Timyr asked, staring down at the browning core of his breakfast.
Eloy knew what he wanted to say, of course. Without question. But Timyr deserved an honest answer. He had gone with Eloy with so much trust. The same was the very least Timyr deserved.
“I would have,” Eloy said.
He thought he saw Timyr slump down a little bit, the tension between his shoulder blades relaxed.
Eloy sighed, preparing himself for what he had to say next. “Aerelion told me that Midash is alone now.” He waited for the meaning to take hold. It didn’t take long.
Timyr slumped down a little bit more. “It was too much to hope for. Even when you told me she was still alive. It was too much to hope for that she still would be.”
“I saw them all together,” Eloy whispered. “In the end, when Aerelion walked away from me, I saw it for just a moment. They were all there: everyone from the stories. Your parents. They were with him.”
Timyr turned to Eloy, a look on his face that was both touched and tired. “I want to go home,” he whispered.
68
Eloy and Timyr found Neasa, Malatic, Gwyn, and Critiko in Neasa’s house.
“Have you slept?” Eloy asked Neasa.
“Just enough,” she said. “I’ll sleep when he stops.”
“He looks better,” Eloy said. “His color is more . . . I mean, he has some now. That has to be good, right?”
Neasa smirked. “I’m not sure he ever really had much color to begin with, but yes, he’s getting better. What we’re doing is working, I think.”
Eloy was just about to say how glad he was when Malatic started to groan. Neasa dropped down to kneel next to the bed and took Malatic’s hand.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Don’t make fun of me,” Malatic mumbled, barely audible.
Neasa kissed his knuckles and laughed. “I’m sorry. I’ll wait until you’re better.”
“Neas,” Eloy said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to take Timyr home now.”
She looked up at Eloy and then over at Timyr. “Of course.” She gazed down at Malatic, who had fallen back to sleep. “Of course you’d want to be going. You’re probably just as eager to get back there as I was to get back here.” She got up and went to Timyr.
She looked small hugging him, narrow against his broad shoulders.
“Will you come back?” she asked, pulling away to look up at him. “For a proper visit? There’s a lot I want to show you.”
“I would love that,” Timyr said. “Hopefully Mr. Magic will save me from the travel.”
“Any time,” Eloy said. “As long as you promise never to call me that again.”
Timyr shook hands with Gwyn and Critiko and said his goodbyes.
“Ready?” Eloy asked.
“Ready as ever, I guess.” Timyr’s voice sounded shaky.
Eloy put his hand on Timyr’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and thought of Midash’s forest.
69
The sun that filtered through the milky forest haze, shining down on the gently burbling river, was just like Eloy remembered it. The man sitting in the middle of it with his fishing net wasn’t that much different either.
“Do you want me to go talk to him first?” Eloy asked, sensing Timyr’s nervousness.
“Would you?” Timyr whispered. “I don’t want to startle him.”
“Wait here and I’ll call for you.”
Eloy walked out of the woods, toward the stream. As soon as he crossed out of the tree line, Midash was up on his feet and ready for a fight.
Eloy held up his hands. “I may be able to handle myself, but there’s no use fighting the man who taught me most of what I know.”
“Eloy?” Midash asked. And then, a joyful cry: “Eloy!” He bounded through the river to the shore. “How did you get here? I didn’t sense you.” Midash pulled Eloy into a rough and emphatic hug.
“It’s a long story,” Eloy said, “but it’s one you need to hear.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you here. Where’s Corwin? Is that him in the woods?”
“No, Corwin isn’t with me. He hasn’t been for a while.”
“Oh?” Concern swept over Midash’s face.
“Oh, no. He’s fine. He’s with my sister, Francena.”
“You found your sister! That’s great news. I can’t wait to hear about everything that’s happened. I’m so, so glad you’re here.” Midash’s face fell again. “I should tell you my mom is no longer with me. Been a few years now.”
“Midash, I’m so sorry. You know how I felt about your mom. I already knew, if it seems like I’m not more upset than I am.”
“You knew? How?”
“That’s part of the long story. And I promise I’ll tell you all of it, but there’s a part of it that I need to tell you now. Maybe not so much tell as show.” Eloy looked over his shoulder at the forest.
Timyr emerged chest first. He had his shoulders pulled back and his chin tucked. His mouth was a hard line.
Eloy looked back to Midash. If he’d had a moment of confusion, Eloy had missed it. His mouth was pulled up tight too, almost identical to the man approaching him. Midash moved away from Eloy and met Timyr at the pebbled shore of the river. Eloy moved a few strides behind, just enough that he’d be close if anything happened.
The two men were the same height, perfectly aligned to stare each other in the eye.
“I’m not the only one,” Timyr said.
Midash pulled Timyr into a rough hug, and their laughter filled the quiet forest, a song of untethered emotion. They were identical in tone.
Eloy took a few steps backward and turned his attention to the river.
“I can’t believe it,” Midash said.
Eloy turned back to the brothers, now parted, both wiping at their eyes, whether from their laughter that they still didn’t have under control or their reunion. Eloy suspected both.
“I always had a feeling you were out there somewhere,” Midash said. “I would think, ‘If something happened to him, I would know.’ Mom thought so too.”
“I never should have left,” Timyr said. “Not how I did.”
“No,” Midash said. “I suppose not. But that’s long past now. And you being back home is done too. Can’t say there weren’t a few times I wish I’d gone too. One of which was when Eloy asked me. The adventures weren’t for me, I suppose. But I want to hear all about yours,” Midash looked at Eloy. “Both of yours. I’ll cook, and you can tell me all about it.” Midash dipped the net into the river and pulled out two fat fish. In any other river, their sloshing and noise would have made that impossible.
Timyr took his time walking to the house, falling back to look around the forest. When he finally walked up the stairs to the front door, Timyr stood on the threshold for a long time, his hands on the soft wooden doorframe. He inhaled and went inside.
The three men ate and talked through most of the night. Vivene woke up in the early evening and stood in the middle of the table, looking back and forth between Midash and Timyr. Her already wide eyes looked bigger, and her little mouth hung open, making little chirping noises at both men. By the end of the night, she was taking turns jumping from shoulder to shoulder, taking bits of food from all three of them.
Before the sun could fully rise, Eloy walked back through the house he knew so well, a house he never thought he would find himself in again, and went to sleep in the same room he had all those nights before.