The Docks

I was invited to a bonfire out at the docks.  I’d heard rumors of the place; moving dunes swept up by the winds punctuated by wooden boardwalks that ran a length and dropped off over a sea of sand. Sturdy docks, but old and frightening because there was no one alive who knew when there had last been water enough for a boat to load into this side of Tijlis. No one could imagine what else those docks might have been for. But those rumors were nothing compared to the stark desert reality: impossibly wide planks of glossy, petrified wood fitted together into seven boardwalks and seven impossibly high drop offs arranged in an oval around a seemingly endless expanse of shifting sand, all visible at midday or by the light of a full moon. It was as though they were built for giants. They created in us a feeling of fear complemented by one of significance-that who or what had built these had knowledge beyond ours, but it hadn’t saved them from fate or even meaningfully preserved them in the annals of history. They were gone. We were here.

So we started meeting there on black, windless nights. Lighting fires with ancient driftwood we found scattered in the area, under sky so low it hung like the heavy branches of tired trees. We burned it blue and sometimes purple in the dark with the docks silhouettes in the background, a reminder of history’s mysteries, and of our own mortality.

The night I was invited to the bonfire was the night Alan took the dare that no one takes. Was it pride? Too much Frist, the home-brewed sludge we all drank to heighten our awareness of every sharp, glassy grain of sand that shifted beneath our feet and pushed us to the peak of ourselves? Alan smiled and laughed. He could do it, he was sure. It took him more than an hour to “walk the plank.” He held our attention rapt, stopping every few yards to wave and give a thumbs up, even amidst nervous chortles and labored inhalations of dry air that whistled up our nostrils. Just as he made it to the edge of the nearest wooden behemoth, a low moaning wind swept up, carrying sand and blue fire with it, knocking Alan from the dock’s edge. We watched him plummet an unfathomable distance, growing further from us even as he was swallowed by the sand and flame that blew to meet him. We heard him scream, followed by a sound like sand being swallowed. With dry throats, we hit the Jeeps and sped home.

***

We did not look back for Alan. Not even Helene, his sometime girlfriend who was rumored in arch whispers to have made love to him behind a dune and been caught by their friends when it shifted. She simply climbed in behind me, inhumanly fast, and mumbled, “He was there. He was right there.”

Gone was what he was. Gone and irretrievable, said the Sheriff when we rolled back into town. His house was at the edge of the single pass back into the mountains. Our town was called Soel, but we referred to it as the Fishbowl due to the way the mountains rose up in arced walls around it, lush and green so that it filled up with water when it rained. All the houses were built around the edge of the valley, strategically placed on natural hills jutting up as if they would pierce the sky. All together we weren’t more than 5,000 people. Small enough for everyone to know everyone else. Small enough that not many new families found their way into town.

Yet, here was my family. New, unestablished, unwanted even. My sister, brother and I hadn’t grown up wound into the communal Soel tapestry. Worse, even, was that we were beachers—one parent Desert (our father) and the other Water (our mother). Soel was an old town, as old as the docks, maybe. The families here could trace their ancestry back one thousand years. Deserters kept track of the threads of history, but Seafarers like my mother’s clan saw the ebb and flow of life much like the tides; expected, repeating, and fluid.

Five years, we’d been here. Our families tenuous grasp and negligence of blood ties left us little more than wildcards in the eyes of the locals. But five years for children is not the same as five years for adults. Adults are established, and the people of Soel reckoned my parents would never change enough to be true members of the community, no matter the level of their societal contribution. Children, however, are malleable. They can change or be changed, so efforts to reform us were strenuous and ongoing. In the last year, it was clear to me that much of the guard in place against us had eased. My siblings and I could forge a place here—easily if we took our Dedications before the Fire of Life.

***

Sheriff told us to meet him in the pit of the bowl. Alan was gone. He wouldn’t go looking. He would fill the pit with the Fire of Life and celebrate his passing through this realm. “Better to do it right away,” he grunted. He was leaning in through the door of our Jeep, his eyes fixed on Helene who let out a low moan. “Easier for those who loved him to accept it and move on.” Sheriff kept us from growing stagnant. He said just because we lived in a fishbowl didn’t mean we had to stew in the crap of our own histories. No circling the bowl for us. We were to move up, forward, some of us out of the bowl forever. His eyes lingered on me for a moment, and I knew he was wondering if this would be the night I would say the vows.

I clumsily slung an arm around Helene. Sheriff’s eyes narrowed and he pulled back from the window, slapping the side of the Jeep once. Helene was still mumbling, “He was right there.” I knew the scene was replaying in her mind just as it was in mine. She leaned against me as I slipped into the trance that sometimes took hold of me. I’d stopped struggling against these visions, or revisions, I should call them. They were memories that played back fuller than the original experience. I didn’t always want them. I didn’t understand them, but my father said they were part of meditation, and my mother said there was wisdom to be had in exploring the past. That, like the water, the past was ever changing. So I stopped fighting them. They came softly and quickly, bringing me back around a day, a year, a month. This time I was back at the Dunes, watching the wind lift our blue fire. Alan was falling. The fire flew toward him. And the sandy sea between the docks was shifting, sliding up and dipping down in sinuous curves. The fire covered Alan. A hole opened beneath him. He was swallowed. Gone.

Helene, against me, had her hands over her face. My shirt was wet with the tears that dripped through her fingers. “He was right there,” she was still mumbling. “My Alan. My Alan.”

I pulled her closer against me. The loss came off her in waves. I accepted it. She began to sob and shake. I could feel her love for Alan. I could feel her heart breaking as the ripples of his loss turned to waves and crashed against it. I opened myself so her pain could slide into me. I felt the bond I was building manifest a draw between us. I shouldn’t have done it, not without asking first, but her sadness drew me in almost as if this bond between us had already existed. It was too late now—there was no way to remove this bond. All I could do was limit it, expand it later if we agreed or if it was necessary. For now, this bond would ease her loss. I couldn’t be sure that Helene would even recognize our connection. Her grief was fresh and strong, and what I took from her was only enough to let her sobs fade and her sadness harden into a type of resolve I wasn’t able to parse. The Jeep slowed to a stop. I forced myself to disengage from her and wipe away the tears I’d shared. We’d arrived at the pit.

***

I watched Helene with her parents through the celebration. They stood frozen against the heat of the blaze, statues amidst the frenzied dance of loss and life. Her parents each kept a hand on her shoulders. Their concerned gazes wandered periodically from their daughter to one another. I did my best to ignore the emotional chatter the fresh bond was feeding me from Helene’s mind.

My own mother’s voice slid into my ear. “You’ve bonded.”

I tipped my head slightly in a nod, not ready to worry about the implications.

“She won’t know. Don’t tell her.”

I turned to face my mother. There was no need to ask my question. The conflict in her eyes told me everything. I’d assumed bonding was a skill all women could learn, that because it only happened between women it could be done by all women. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered. I reached for the familiar warmth of my mother’s hands.

“I should have,” she said.

We stood with each other in silence, both opening the bond we shared. Her concerns dripped into me one at a time. Mine flooded her. I had yet to develop the control my mother had. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could develop such patience and restraint. My mother had begun teaching me to forge this connection when I was very young, and she was pregnant with my sister. My sister had four years less experience than me, but her emotional control was much stronger.

“Tell me,” my mother began. “Did you think it through?”

I shook my head slowly. The immediate wave of contrition that rolled through my mind to hers made the motion unnecessary.

“Oh, Bria. Always impulsive.”

My father, anything other than oblivious, laid two fingers on the nape of my neck and muttered a familiar Deserter phrase. “The reason will present itself.”

Mother nodded, thoughtful. The fire danced shards of darkness and light over her small features. Her black hair was twisted under her chin. She fingered the ends and considered Father’s words as if hearing them for the first time. She lifted her head and held my eyes. “What happened out there? Show me.”

She’d never asked anything like this of me before. My mouth went round as a fishes. A fish in a fishbowl. How appropriate.

“Bria, under different circumstances . . .”

We were cut off by the call for any who wished to Dedicate themselves in front of the Fire of Life. A hundred pairs of eyes turned toward us. My sister and brother stared into the fire. I dropped my gaze, uncomfortable, but jerked it back up when a surge of determination flooded through my bond with Helene and her thoughts became clear.

“No!” She was going to throw herself into the fire. It wasn’t unheard of, to join the flames that consumed the body of one’s spouse, but this? Without thinking, I opened wide the gates of our bond and let the truth come to me. Helene and Alan were more than promised, they were knotted. She’d lost more than a lover, and if I’d been more experienced with bonding, I would have known it even before I began the process based solely on the strength of her response. I would also have known not to fling open a bond while one member of it was resolving to jump in a fire. She could easily take my life with hers.

But Mother and Jana were with me. They’d felt my panic and taken hold of me, just as I was taking hold of Helene. She’s already taken the first bounding steps toward the fire. A few more and she could leap into its center and burn like Alan. I could see the licking orange flames through her eyes, feel the air against her body. Almost there. I slammed my will against hers. No! I heard. Her or me? It didn’t matter. Helene stopped one step from the fire, her parents already pulling at her with worried fingers. My sister and mother held onto my mind as I tried to wrench it back into my own body.

“What?” I asked before falling into my father’s arms.

“Home,” I heard Mother say. She’d closed herself off to me but I could feel the fear writhing against the edge of her mind. Jana stayed with me, a silent, reassuring wall, until I drifted into sleep, and maybe longer.

***

“Easy there, Little One,” my father said when I opened my eyes. He was seated on the edge of my bed. “You must be more cautious, Bria. Your mother is in the other room tearing herself to pieces.”

“Can I sit up?” I asked. I felt fine, other than the constant throb of my brain against my skull.

He slipped a hand behind my back to ease the transition. “Is it bad?” He touched my forehead. I winced away. “Here.” He cupped my head in his palms and hummed softly. The vibration niggled its way to the center of my headache. I took a deep breath and let the hurt dissolve.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t think of it,” Father said.

“You’ll have to teach me that trick.” I’d been asking him to test my aptitude for what I’d termed The Touch since I was Jana’s age. Jana and Elric had already developed the skill, but if I was able to heal with my hands, the ability hadn’t shown itself yet.

Father sighed. “I think you have enough on your plate right now. I’ll tell your mother you’re up.”

“No need,” I said, pointing behind him. Mother was standing in the doorway squeezing one set of fingertips, then the other.

Father cleared his throat and stood. He took Mother’s small, brown hands in his own. You wouldn’t know that she could nearly match him for strength by the difference between them. Father was tall and lean while Mother was short and slight. Still, she’d been born to haul up fishing nets and tie a sail against the wind. Prior to meeting Mother, Father had been a nomad, breeding the woolly beasts of the desert and riding great, lumbering steeds over dunes much like the ones that had gotten me into this mess.

Tears choked me as Mother sat down next to me. “Stupid,” was all I could get out. I was an idiot. I felt every inch a fool.

Mother was silent for a moment. She kept herself closed off, stroking my hair slowly. “Impulsive, maybe,” she said. “Not stupid.”

“I’m irrevocably bonded with a girl who just lost the boy she was knotted to and now wants to kill herself.”

Mother sucked in a breath. “Knotted? You’re sure?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” I put my face in my hands. They were in bad need of moisturizer. The way my palms scratched my face felt good in a way. It distracted me from Helene’s pain, which was now slamming itself against the wall it was taking all my energy to keep erected. I looked up at Mother. “Why is this so hard?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s like Helene is right here, right beside me, slamming herself against the bond like she wants to get out of her own head and into mine.”

Mother merged with me suddenly. I’d never felt her open up as quickly. I concentrated on breathing evenly as she probed the weakening wall in my head. Her presence shifted inside me, traveling out along the bond to Helene. She was scouring every inch of the rope that tied us together. “Pfft.” She withdrew and closed herself to me again. “Jana!”

My sister poked her head into the doorway.

“Can you show Bria how to strengthen her defenses on this bond? Helene is coming here.”

“What?” I nearly shouted as Jana nodded. “Here? There’s no way I can keep this up face to face-“

“You have to,” Mother said sharply. “Jana will show you how to reinforce that block so you can keep some energy for yourself. You have to learn this quickly, Bria. She’ll be here soon, and if you don’t stay strong, Helene will find a way inside her head.”

Jana was taking my hands in hers, her green eyes fastened on my gray ones. “I’ll help you, Bria,” she said, but I couldn’t be sure. I never learned quickly. Not as quickly as Jana. “I know some tricks,” she told me. “And I won’t leave you.”

I realized that Jana was open to me now. She’d never even shut herself when I was asleep. As far as sisters go, I knew I couldn’t ask for a better one. Even though bonding had gotten me into trouble, I was grateful for it. I didn’t know any other teen sisters who were as closely attuned to one another as Jana and I. She was more than family. She was more than a friend. She was a facet of myself. I’d bonded to her at birth, and our bond was echoed and strengthened by the bonds we both held to our mother. Neither of us could hurt without the other feeling it. Neither of us could be happy without the other sharing it. Some might find this way of living to be lacking in privacy, but there was an immense joy in it that outweighed any disadvantages. We knew when to come to each other’s aid, pass on feelings of warmth, or leave each other in peace. It was hard to overstep when you understood on an instinctual level the needs of the person you were in potential conflict with.

“Like this,” Jana was saying, and I watched her turn the weave I’d used for my wall on its side and lay it on top of my weave. “You can repeat this,” she said. “Or you can stack on different weaves.” She added a weave that looked like a thousand knots, then turned it and laid it down again. “When you’re done, tie it off. That way you don’t have to hold the ends.” She showed me how to make the tie. Her weaves disappeared. “You do it.”

I closed my eyes and focused myself at creating a duplicate of the wall I’d built. I wasn’t a quick learner, but the constantly increasing strength of Helene’s emotions really made me run the gamut. I started the knots.

“No. Open your eyes.”

Jana was in my face, holding my cheeks between her hands. “You don’t have time to make 2,000 knots. Think of the pattern and tie 1,000 at once.”

Of course. I closed my eyes and thought of the pattern. I tied one hundred knots.

“No,” Jana said, and my weave disappeared. “Bigger.”

I set my teeth and tried again. Ten times one hundred. I dropped the weave onto my wall. Helene’s presence was muted. “Wow.”

“Turn it,” Jana told me. “Stay focused. Do it again.”

I duplicated the thousand.

“Good. Now you need to seal it off.”

“Seal it. Right. Show me again.”

Jana repeated the tie. It disappeared and I started my own. I got it after maybe five tries.

“Let it go.” Jana, always calm. Always sure.

I held the end of the tie.

“Bria, drop it or it won’t do you any good. Don’t be scared. It will stay.” Her hands were squeezing mine. She showed me how to drop the tie. “Breathe and let it go.”

“No time like the present.” I let the tie go. It didn’t unravel, but my mind did. Jana caught my jumble of emotions. She smiled.

“You did it!”

I smiled, too. “It feels good. How do you figure this stuff out?”

Jana shrugged, embarrassed by my awe.

For a moment, I was able just to look at her. She was very nearly a reflection of my mother; her hair long and wavy, flung back behind her shoulders. Her green eyes neither large or small, but unnerving. She was slight, but strong. Quiet, intense, and adept at any skill that ran latent in any member of our family, young or old, immediate or distant. I wondered how many more skills she would uncover before maturity. As it was, she was only thirteen. How could I not be awed by her?

“You have your own gifts,” she said quietly.

I grinned at her, my own wavy hair falling in my face as I shifted on the bed. “Do you know what they are?”

Jana gaped until I laughed to show her I wasn’t serious. Not this time. But we neither got much relief because there was a knock at the door and we both knew who it was.

I hopped off the bed and smoothed my hair and clothes.

“Don’t do anything unexpected,” my brother said when I passed him on the way to the door. I glanced at him over my shoulder and frowned. He shrugged and made himself scarce.

Deep breath. Deep, slow breath. I opened the door.

***

How could I let this happen? I looked around at the shifting sands, drifting eerily without the wind to move them. Helene stood next to me, her eyes narrowed in the moonlight. “There’s something out here,” she said. She took a sideways step toward me. Our shoulders touched. I shivered with the effort of keeping the wall between us. It wasn’t easy. What Helene was feeling was the raw wound of a lost spouse. She’d been tied to Alan, that much I was knew. She’d told me as much on the doorstep.

“Will I always feel this way?” was what she greeted me with as soon as I opened the door. “Will it hurt like this forever?”

“Helene-“ I began, but how do you continue? Her face was blotched and red. Her eyelashes twinkled wet under the porchlight. “Do you want to come in?”

“No,” she said, smoothing her hair down absently. “I don’t know why I came here. I just-“ She trailed off.

I knew why she was at my door in the middle of the same night Alan had died. I’d been with her when he was swallowed up by that great nothing we were staring into right now. I had opened myself to her, foolishly, impulsively, to ease her grief on the ride back to Soel. She was bonded to me know, a piece of my mind the way I would be a piece of hers, if it were possible for her to learn bonding. My mother seemed to think it would be impossible for Helene to recognize and reciprocate the bond the way she and my sister could. Maybe she was right.

But Helene had looked at me in a way that would have touched my heart even if she hadn’t been bonded mind to my mind. “Come with me. I know we haven’t been friends, but I feel like I can trust you with this.” She’d leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Sheriff’s with Alan’s family. My parents think I’m asleep. I came out the window.” She’d cocked her head to the Jeep in the drive. “My dad’s.”

“Sure,” I’d said, grabbed my jacket from the hook on the back of the door, and disappeared without a word to my own family. I could feel Jana with me though. My sister was listening, ready to help if I needed her.

***

We were already into the canteen of Frist I kept snapped inside my coat. Helene held it in front of her, turning the round container to let the firelight illuminate the odd inscription. “What does it say?” she asked.

I looked at the words, curved and pointed in the Brazic script of Deserters. “And always come home to Me,” I whispered.

She sipped Frist from the spout and handed it back to me. “Thank you. It’s helping.”

We returned to staring silently at the moving sea of sand beyond the docks. Our fire burned green at our feet.

I felt the Frist igniting my energy. The cobwebs were clearing. The night unrolled backward. I let the trance overtake me.

There was Alan, spewed up from the sand. Up to the docks, waving, walking backward, pausing now and again to rest. We were all there, the Middles and Uppers of Soel high school. Me, my first time in the dunes, watching the fire uneasily. The fire disappearing into the sand. The Uppers removing the driftwood back to where they found it.

In my trance, I split myself. My father had taught me this; to exist in one plane but investigate another. Time reversed. The fire was lit. I looked at myself, then past myself to the docks, and past the docks to the waterless seabed. Was there something there? Was Helene right? On the way back to Soel, second vision had shown me something sinuous with a jaw that unhinged to swallow Alan whole. I searched the sands.

There, twinkling in the seabed. Two stars. Not stars. Eyes. Locked with mine. I stood rigid, gasping against the trance, against Helene who was shaking me and crying, “Bria, where are you? Don’t leave me here. I need you! Bria, come back!”

The eyes came toward me. Dunes rose and fell like waves as a beast found her way out of a waterless grave. How long have you been here, Strange Creature? You, I wanted to tell her. You are beautiful. But what are you? How long have you been waiting underneath the sand? What have you been waiting for? And why do you stir now?

“Alan!” Helene was screaming. “ALAN!”

I broke free of my trance and found her running toward the docks. What was she doing?

“Helene! Come back!”

“ALAN!” she shrieked into the deathly still night.

I followed her, pulling my knees high as I knew to keep traction as I ran in the sand. “Helene, he can’t be here. Come back!” I pushed hard to catch her. She was moving at speeds I didn’t know were possible on shifting ground. Sharp grains of sand found their way into my throat. It burned. I panted. “Stop, Helene! Wait for me!”

I lost sight of her when she ducked behind a newly formed dune. I continued running as I had been, parallel to the nearest dock. “Helene?”

“Alan!” I heard. Her voice was muted by distance.

I unraveled the wall I’d built to protect myself from her. I threw my conscious outside my own body until I found hers. Helene hadn’t bonded me in return. That left what we shared incomplete. The symmetry of a bond was what gave it stability. Should I lose my mother or sister, some piece of them would always remain with me through the bond they had created. I wasn’t certain, but if Helene were lost forever in the dunes, I would be lost too. Eventually my shield would weaken, and if she were alive and crazy, my mind would be lost to hers. If she were dead, the absence would suck me into its void. So I slammed my mind into her body and led myself to where she cried over a long piece of driftwood.

Putting my body back on was like rolling on a bed of cactus.  My mouth was dry and my throat burned. The shift hurt, and it took me a moment to regain my senses. When my vision cleared, I stumbled toward Helene. My hands found her shoulders. “Come on,” I told her.

She stood up and I gasped, my brain scrambling to make sense of what my eyes were seeing. It wasn’t driftwood Helene was crying over. It was Alan’s body, perfectly petrified.

***

When my eyes had searched back over the dunes, I’d thought it impossible we’d find the Jeep again. The sun was pushing up at the darkness, but the Jeep was nowhere in sight. I stood holding onto Helene’s shoulders, still trembling from my out of body experience combined with the horror of finding Alan after all. I dismissed the thought that all this time, our bonfires had been built from human bodies.

“We’re taking him with us,” Helene said.

I wanted to argue that this was his grave, but Alan was whole if not lifelike in his petrified state. Glossy, tinted purple, slick as glass. His hair was parted to one side as if it had never been out of place, despite a screaming, flailing fall into the unknown. His face was peaceful. Happy, almost. I bent to look closer. Helene’s back shifted and blocked my view. I tried to make sense of the rush of emotion she was trying to hide. She was recomposing the expression on her face. Possessive. She was filled with fire and hate. I stepped backward.

“Of course we’ll take him with us. I’m just trying to figure out how.”

As if something were listening, the sand began to rise beneath us. Helene threw her arms around Alan, trying to find purchase so he wouldn’t slide from her grip. I threw my arms around her. We rode the shifting dunes back toward our fire. I could see it burning, a small dot in the lightening distance, and there was Helene’s Jeep.

“What’s happening?” she shouted.

“I don’t know.”

The motion stopped near our fire, some sand snuffing it out. Helene cradled Alan’s head. I turned to watch dunes ripple in and out of existence until whatever had carried us was back home in the seabed. I wanted to shout after it. “What are you?” Maybe, “Thank you, but why?” Why had it given us Alan, delivered us and him back to the Jeep? I saw the twin stars again in my mind. The glow was controlled and furious. I felt the mystery calling to me, calling through me. I was certain I was necessary for some goal, but I felt intermediary. “What do you want?” I was shouting.

“I want to go home! Let’s just go, Bria. Thank you for coming with me. I don’t want you to tell me what happened out there. There was . . . something.” She shivered. “Something you did. I know that. But whatever you did, I know you weren’t trying to hurt me.” She shivered again, making me aware of the physical pain she was feeling. It had been hidden until now.

Wait, what was she saying? Helene knew about our bond, but she wasn’t sure what it was. She wanted me to explain, but first-

“ . . . home,” she was saying. “Can you drive us? Bria?”

I took the keys. We’d have to make time to get there before daylight. And there was Sheriff to get past.

We loaded Alan in the car, flat on his back, stretched out as he was. We had to tip the front seat down. Helene sat in the back, her hand over one of his.

“Are you in there, Alan?” she was saying. “It’s almost like you’re in there. I know it’s silly, but, are you?”

I saw her hand play over his face. She trailed her fingertips over his throat, the love plain on her face and fractured heart. When her tears began to fall, I kept my eyes on the road. I needed to focus. I gripped the steering wheel, reweaving the shield as I blinked rapidly against tears of my own.

***

Elric’s eyes were on me when I came through the door. He said nothing. My younger brother generally kept to himself unless it was necessary to speak. In his opinion, our family shared too much, even though he was bonded to no one. His lack of ties to us must have presented it’s own difficulties, but if Elric were to be believed, and I didn’t know any reason why he shouldn’t be, the freedom was a fact he appreciated.

To be honest, though, I often found him unsettling. He preferred silence and darkness to the rest of our shared energy and light. My father wasn’t bonded to Jana and I, but he was knotted to my mother, and that tie was a cousin to the bonding women could share. My mother said knotting had been developed by women to bind men closer to their families—so they could feel the joys of pregnancy and connect with their offspring at birth. Knotting had grown instantly popular despite the risks associated with it; suicide when a spouse was lost, instability when a spouse was physically or mentally unwell, inability to untie the knot when a couple was ill matched, forced knotting, and so on. But there had been advances in the way the knot was tied, and couples today had a modicum of power over how the knot would be constructed. It was rumored the knot could be severed without death, but the risks of that outweighed the benefits. It was better to reform than loose your strings.

“Is she with you?” Elric asked.

I nodded. “And Alan.”

Elric went from seated to his feet instantly. “What?” The word was a hissed whisper. I frowned.

Mother appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were glossy black marbles. “Bring him in.”

***

I heard Helene’s voice from the next room. “I just had to get out. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” She paused. Her parents had discovered she was gone. They’d called the sheriff and combed the town, not considering either of the two places Helene had been: my house and the Docks. My dad got the call just after we’d arrived back, Alan’s petrified body in tow. The town was being put on alert. One citizen dead, another missing. This meant Helene and Alan’s secret pairing would be confirmed within hours, but there wasn’t time for her to think about that.

“Mom, I know.” Frustration rippled through her. I moved to the doorway, figuring if I was going to listen in, I might as well be up-front about it. She glanced at me briefly. “No, Bria and I have never been particularly close.” She glanced at me again, brow furrowed. “No, I don’t really know why I came here.” There was more silence as Helene turned her eyes over the wood-paneled room and it’s contents. She toyed with the straight black cord of our old-style phone. The room was furnished with antiques—heirlooms passed from one generation of women in my family to the next, as well as a few odds and ends from my father’s desert days. Helene stared at the skin and fur of a woolly beast beneath her bare feet. “Listen. I just needed to get away. This is all so hard. I wanted to be somewhere that didn’t remind me-“ She choked, but pulled herself back together. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But I need some time. You can understand that, right?”

I caught the scent of a family secret. Had Helene’s mother been knotted before? It was unusual to make a second tie if you’d lost or ended the first one. The process was so painful most couldn’t bear to repeat it.

Helene’s eyes jumped to me as if she followed my thoughts. I frowned and stepped away from the doorway. Soon I would have to tell her about the bond. I’d already taken over her body twice. Even if she didn’t have the aptitude to bond on her own, she must know something unusual was going on between us. What other reason would there be for her to seek the town’s most introverted daughter of its least-loved family out to share her intensely personal grief with?

I went to find my mother, my slippered feet scuffing over out hardwood floors. The inside of our entire house was wood with the exception of the ceilings. This often frustrated me. There was no way I could punch a hole through wood, and now was one of those times when I’d really like to make a hole in something.

What had I gotten myself into? Why hadn’t I already figured out that bonding was largely hereditary? I was certain my sister had figured it out. Elric seemed to have some quiet knowledge, but with him you could never tell. He had this silent, piercing presence. My mother remarked once that he was highly attuned. When I asked her what it meant, she’d frowned and shaken her head. “Nothing to worry about,” she’d said. I wouldn’t have worried if she’d put it any other way, but I felt the echo of the word in her mind and knew she was concerned.

Elric cleared his throat. My head snapped up and I met his eyes.

“So . . .” he said.

I chewed my lower lip.

“Any thoughts on what’s next?” His voice was lowered. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like he wanted to tell me something without anyone else hearing. Unusual. Elric and I had never been that close. He was much closer with Jana, but then everyone was. She was a magnet for affection due to her empathic nature.

I pulled the door shut behind me and sat next to Elric on one of the floor cushions my mother had scattered about the receiving room. “I have no idea,” I told my brother. “We found a body out there. No one ever comes back from the Docks.”

Elric leaned against my shoulder the way he used to when he was a little boy. “Bri-Bri,” he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“So what is it, Elric?” I asked, grinning at him. “You’ve got something happening in that too-big head of yours.” I thumped his skull lightly.

“You got me, Big Sis,” he smiled, but the teasing look fell away. “This whole thing is ringing some bells for me. You know how Dad gives me full access to his library?”

I hadn’t known that. Dad kept what we were allowed to read limited when we were younger, and I’d never been interested enough to ask for full access. I was still working on the chronicles Dad kept accessible for us to worry about what was inaccessible. Then again, I was neither as curious or as gifted a reader as Elric was. We’d discovered some years back that Elric’s brain was a sponge for written words and languages. It was like he scanned it all in and filed it. All he had to do was pull up the file he wanted to review and the information was there.

“Well,” Elric continued. “I remembered reading about stone men.”

“Stone men?”
“And women. Stone people, I guess. Or people who were once alive and were frozen in death.”

“Frozen in death?” I had an idea of where he was headed.

“Not cold. These people were described as smooth, rock-hard, and could only be destroyed by fire.”

Elric had just struck the gut of my fear. “You can burn them?”

“You could.” Elric gave me a measured look that left him looking much older than twelve and much taller than he truly was. “Oh.” He got what I was thinking. “Indestructible otherwise, though. Meaning they don’t chip or wear. They were like stone, all in one piece.” I was still gaping at him. He offered, “You wouldn’t mistake them for driftwood.”

Breath spilled out of me. “Okay. Right.”

Elric nodded.

“Was this in a History chronicle?” I recomposed myself, slipping an arm around him. I felt cold and he was warm.

“No. It was actually in one of the Stories.”

I mulled that over. It was well known that the Stories stemmed from fact, but they were so convoluted and so old, it was impossible to know which parts were truth versus fiction until the truth hit you in the face. Was that what was happening here? Alan’s stone-like corpse was now propped up like a statue in our basement. It was unreal and disturbing. Could the Stories explain his physical remains?

“That’s not all,” Elric added.

“What else is there?”

“The Elemental Beast.” His voice was pitched just above a whisper. “I’ve read all the Stories, and every mention of the stone people coincides—“

“You’ve read ALL the Stories?” There were said to be one thousand known Stories. Where had he gotten them all? Did Dad have them all tucked away in our house? Had he uncovered any of the hidden Stories lost to the ages? With Elric, it was entirely possible.

Elric let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen, Bria. Dad has most of them. You can access plenty in the public sphere or get them Viral.”

“Viral? Elric, what have you been doing?” I pulled away from him so I could see his face.

“Relax, Big Sis. I haven’t been Viral. But plenty of people have and they’ve recorded the information they found in the Lines. You don’t have to go Viral to get Viral.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. Elric was vicious when he was irritated. “Wait.” The other words he said clicked in my head. “What was that about an Elemental Beast?”

“You know,” he told me. “The Elemental Beast.”

I blinked at him.

“You don’t know.” Elric rolled his eyes and took on the tone of an exasperated adult talking to a very stupid child. “The Elemental Beast is one that has power over the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.”

I blinked at him again, very much feeling like a stupid child.

“Um, okay. So, what I’ve come across implies that the beast can live in earth or water, takes to air and breathes fire.”

Before I could articulate the myriad thoughts crashing around in my head, a door opened and a tearful Helene came into the room. “Can I . .  . talk to you?” She sounded as though she didn’t truly want to engage me in conversation.

“On the porch?” I asked. “Back porch?”

“That sounds good.” She cast a weary glance at Elric. “Hello.”

“Hi,” he said, then looked at me. “I can find those chronicles for you.”

“That would be great! You know where they are?”

He tapped his head.

“Right.”

***

Elric pinched the ancient Java chip between his fingers. So many times he’d considered this—going Viral. He’d weighed the pros—unlimited universal access—to the cons—the universe had access to you which left you open to infection. He’d spend hours and joules on it, and he thought he knew how to construct the perfect firewall. The problem was, he couldn’t do it himself. He’d need Jana for that, and possibly a whole network of like-minded Empaths, if any others like his middle sister existed, which he doubted. Jana was something special, and that was all the more reason he hadn’t asked her to make—no, be—his firewall. Jana was too important. He couldn’t risk her. Not unless there was no other way.

The cubic chip was so small he could hide it under the edge of his fingernail, which he did when Jana knocked her timid knock. No, not timid. Considerate. Careful. She knew he was deep in thought and struggling with something huge. Elric had no way to turn off his emotional broadcast. Jana would have registered his frustration from across the globe, even if she hadn’t bonded him.

“What’s up, El?” she asked. “You told her.”

“I need more information,” Elric said. His voice was low and harsh. He’d accessed every word stored in his head and hadn’t found what he was looking for. There was something missing. He’d never found anything to be missing, but there was the ghost of knowledge, some small fact he’d brushed up against in life and he couldn’t find that memory or even that memory’s ghost.

“The database?” Jana smiled and ruffled his dark hair. No matter what he did, it stood up off his head, falling in curls here and there, sticking out straight other places. Their mother joked that there was too much packed into his skull and his hair was revolting.

Elric grimaced. The database. His brain. That’s what Jana called it.

“Sorry, El.”

“No. It’s not that.” He was taken aback for a moment by Jana’s misinterpretation of his irritation. “The information must have been here.” He squeezed his boy-sized forehead with a man’s hand. “I can’t be remembering what I never knew.”

Jana frowned with concern. “You never forget anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying, but I can’t remember this.”

They sat in silence, Jana looking at Elric, Elric looking at his hands and thinking about the chip under his fingernail.

“Give it to me,” Jana said.

He stared up at her in surprise.

“The chip. Viral won’t help. I’ll give it back if you need it.”

Elric’s mouth dropped open. “You’d support me gaining Access?”

“You’d only do it if you had to. I know you. You always think through a problem from all sides.”

“If I have to—“ Elric began, but cut himself off. There was no reason to tell her about his plan for a firewall. There could be another way.

“If you have to,” she echoed. He could see the sadness on her face. He felt it for her, but not with her. How many times had he wished he could return her bond? She was his sister and his best friend. Possibly the only person in this world who could understand what it was like to be him; brilliant and unique and silently trapped in himself for fear others would see him as a star to pin their hopes on until he one day went supernova with all the worlds watching.

Jana slipped her hand into his while the thoughts rolled around in his head. He squeezed back when she did. His brow furrowed. “What did you say? Earlier.” She remained silent as he slipped into his own head and replayed their conversation. “That’s it! I’m looking at it the wrong way.”

Jana’s smile filled her eyes as he jumped away from her with a “thanks, Sis!” and headed for their father’s library. “It’s in the Stories,” he shouted over his shoulder. “More than one.”

***

The green couch was soft under Jana. She let it hold her, let her weight fall down through it until she felt as though she were floating. Her feet rested lightly on the floor, barely brushing the long, wooden planks. It was warm here, in this room. It was warm and the air was heavy with age and the dusty sighs of a hundred bodies that had dwelled here and passed on. This creaky, swaying house was brimming with the echoes of life and the clangs and squeals of the living. Her family breathed around her, separated by stairs and doors and walls, but Jana could hear them all. She listened, letting her mind drift from consciousness to consciousness, kissing lightly the aura of her mother whose mind turned to meet hers.

Bria was on the back porch with Helene considering the sunrise. Helene. Jana hovered in the recesses of Helene’s loss, seeking access, a door into the suffering so that she could ease it without bonding the way her sister had. Jana knew the paths her mother had wished existed. She did not know why these doors were open to her when they were closed to her mother’s deep experience, but she knew that, just as her mother could never refuse to walk them, walk them Jana must. Here was a way in to Helene’s heart, and Jana had the key.

She began by making an apology to Helene’s spirit, aware that she was entering the inner sanctum without permission. When the spirit lashed at her, Jana whispered prayers for peace and an end to suffering. She called on the Creator, trusting in His aid, and began to patch the raw holes that dotted Helene inside and, even as they were repaired, seemed to break apart and bleed anew. Jana worked this way tirelessly as Helene and Bria spoke words that wormed through the air between them.

***

The ceremony to be tied had been small. Just Helene, Alan, and Helene’s parents. Alan’s parents hadn’t wanted to be involved. They disapproved of young marriages and, although by some miracle most of Soel hadn’t realized it, they had skipped town shortly after the knot was in place saying Alan was a man now. He had chosen his lot. Alan would have liked to offer Helene a life outside the Fishbowl—she knew that—but his parents had effectively bound them to this place just as surely as his heart was bound to hers.

Helene wasn’t bothered. She enjoyed going through the motions of teenage life with her peers. She loved the thrill of sneaking away with Alan in the dunes where they would love each other quickly and quietly. She loved the feeling that the earth moved with them, the sand coiling around them in a protective wall. There was a certainty in that circular cutout of open sky. Infinity stretched above them, and they would lay on their backs to count the stars or argue over which were satellites and which were organic explosions.

The night they’d been caught in the deep embrace, Alan had given her a smooth circle pendant. At its center was a hollow that gave it the look of a ring, but Alan had looped a strap of hide through it so she could wear it near her heart.

“Did you make this?” she had asked, wondering when he would have found the time or the curious stone it was carved from.

“No,” he’d said. There was a secret. A place further into the dunes, beneath one of the docks that he wasn’t to show her. Someday. It would get them out of the Fishbowl—across the seas, even. They would be able to choose whatever life they wanted. “What do you think of life in the stars, Helene?” She loved to hear him talk of being one among them.

Helene clutched the pendant and stared out her bedroom window into the sky. Another sunrise. Another day to add to the count without Alan. It was strange that she felt healed in a way, despite the ever-present sadness. She wondered at herself, the guilt growing daily, that she was recovering so easily from losing the love of her life. The burden of the knowledge of terrible. A betrayal. Helene pressed the pendant against her heart, her nails biting into bare skin. If she couldn’t cry for him or die for him, she could bleed.

***

“I was doing it for both of you!” Jana was yelling. Bria gaped at her even though she had provoked this. Bria had been trying to get a rise out of Jana. She was just so angry with her sister. So stretched to the limit due to the strain Jana was causing on her bond with Helene.

Bria had been yelling, but she dropped her voice to a reasonable level. “What I don’t understand is why you think you can tinker with a person’s healing process. What you did—patching Helene up without her knowledge or permission—you cut her off from something important. You separated her from the pain she needs to feel. For her own resolution. You know? And now she’s . . . She’s . . .”

Bria watched fat tears roll down her sister’s cheeks. Jana’s face was red. Bria watched with her mouth open, unable to gauge how her sister was feeling because Jana had blocked the bond. Jana folded her arms over her stomach, and the block failed. Her feelings rushed into Bria. There were footsteps. Their mother burst into the room, looking back and forth between them.

“I didn’t mean to . . . I didn’t know she would . . .” Jana was blubbering as their mother looked back and forth between them. Bria stared stupidly.

Finally, their mother snapped, “Sit down!” Bria sat. Jana sat. Their mother sank onto the couch between them and wrapped her arms around both saying, “Shh. Shh. Shh.”

Bria put her face in her palms and discovered she was crying. “Jana,” she began, unsure of what to say now that she knew what her sister was experiencing. Bria shifted and began to rebuild the wall between them. “Don’t,” Bria said. “Don’t do that. I don’t want you to block me out. I love our bond. If you’d keep it open with me—“
“And me,” their mother cut in. “Keep it open Jana. Don’t hide from us.”

Bria continued, “It’s just, well, you should’ve told me what you were doing. You should have checked with Helene. I don’t know how you did what you did. Can you undo it?”

Jana’s shoulders shook. “I’m not sure that would help,” she said from between her hands.

“Can you undo it just a little bit? Helene needs to connect with this pain.”

“Do you know what you’re asking? You’re asking me to go inside a person and break them. To tear them inside. Hurt their spirit. I can’t! I can’t do that!”

Bria rose to her feet and reached for her sister, but Jana stumbled away. Elric was waiting for her in the doorway, looking from face to face to discover why he had been pulled here. Elric, who couldn’t reciprocate a bond had felt the nauseating guilt Jana had let loose and come to investigate.

“Stay,” he said when Bria moved to follow.

“But you don’t even—“
“Stay,” he said again, holding up a large hand. “She needs some space.”

Bria sat with her mother as Elric went after Jana. Space. That was something Elric could give her. They were connected, but Elric’s inability to return the bond afforded privacy. Sure enough, Bria felt sadness wash through Jana, and relief. She bit down on her own jealousy that she couldn’t provide that kinship to her sister, but here was her mother beside her, and here were her mother’s arms.

“Tell me,” she was saying, so Bria did.

***

Would I have taken this path if I had known where it would lead me? Here is the road, stretched out in front of me. I know it winds and twists. It’s twisted me around already. But it is so long, it stretches for miles in front of my eyes. Out over the horizon it goes, and only when I get there do I see what curves I’ve followed. Hundreds of loops. I’ve gone away and back again only to be led away. Paths parallel to paths. I could brush my own shoulder in this lasting twilight. I’d be lost. Am I lost? Lost in the ages.

***

Bria’s pounding heart woke her. There were eyes in her room looking down at her. They winked green like wicked stars, burning into her. Her room was an oven, but she didn’t move from under her blankets. “What do you want from me?” she asked.

The eyes watched her, a blackness in them opening until they nearly disappeared. Hot air covered her in gusts. She breathed in until all the cold was forced out of her body. It was a crazy idea, but the warmth had given it to her. Was this just an illusion of safety? She closed her eyes, opened them again. The eyes were lit green.

“Can you speak to me?” Bria whispered. The words slipped past her lips and it was almost as though she could see them streaking sky blue trails up to ears hidden by darkness, but there was no answer.

The eyes blinked and disappeared. The shell of warmth evaporated. Bria heard Jana shrieking outside her door. Her sister’s voice slammed into her mind along with her mother’s. “Bria! Bria?”

Bria pulled her door open. It wasn’t locked, but her family collapsed through, along with Helene. Elric rushed straight to her window. It was closed.

“What?” Bria asked, unable to make sense of the terror on the faces she was greeted with.

“You were gone!” her mother yelled. “Gone!” She swept Bria into her arms and held her.

“I was here the whole time,” Bria said, but hugged her mother back because she needed it.
“It wasn’t even like you were dead,” Helene said. “You were just gone.”

“Were you practicing your weaves?” Jana asked, even though she was certain it had been something else. She stood with Elric at the window, her eyes flitting to the sky outside.

“No.” And Bria didn’t say anymore even though she could sense the lingering heat in the room and her father stood in her doorway with tears in his eyes. She met his eyes for a moment. He wiped the tears away. “The reason will present itself,” he said, but it was more of a question.

Bria nodded.

***

When they’d all left—all but Helene who’d insisted on staying close to Bria to be certain she wouldn’t disappear again—Bria collapsed on her bed and stared out the window.

“You can tell me,” Helene said. “We’re in this together.”

Bria met Helene’s gray eyes.

“About the tie, I mean. I know you’re tied to me somehow. You could at least tell me why you did it. I mean, we were never even friends.”

Bria gave a half-smile. “True. We weren’t really friends, but I’ve never truly had friends here outside my sister.”

“Why is that? Is it just because you won’t take your Dedication?”

Bria shrugged. “Maybe. Old town, new people. You probably know as well as anyone. Would we be talking now if we didn’t share this bond?”

They both shifted under the weight of her question.

After a pause, Helene said, “So, there is a bond.”

Bria bit at her upper lip as she considered how to answer the question. “You know there is, but it’s not the same thing as being knotted. It’s a bond only women can share, and not all women can reciprocate it.”

“Can I reciprocate it?”

“I don’t know. You noticed that I was cut off from you.” There was another awkward silence. “Well, do you feel my feelings?”

“What?” Helene had been sitting calmly in a desk chair, but she jumped to her feet. “You feel my feelings?”

Bria experienced Helene’s shock and embarrassment, and flushed red with her as she crossed her arms over her chest. Bria quickly wove a shield between them.

“I didn’t ask you to!”

“I know, and I never should have bonded you without asking you first. It was impulsive and crazy, but you were so sad after Alan… And then you tried to jump into the fire and almost took me with you. And then in the Dunes.” Bria stared into her hands. “I’m sorry.”

When she could finally look up, Helene was standing right in front of her with her hands wrapped over her own face. Tears leaked between her fingers. “I can kill you, too?” she squeaked.

“What do you mean ‘me, too?’”

“It’s just that Alan wouldn’t have taken that dare. And this means you know about the …”

Words tumbled out between them. In the end, they sat shoulder to shoulder on the bed, gazes fixed to the opposing wall, Helene trying to listen to Bria who had taken down the weave between them.

“Do you think I can learn this?” Helene whispered.

“I think you have to be born with the talent, but there’s only one way to find out.” Bria called up her most striking memories one after another and Helene guessed happy or sad.

***

Jana had pushed her bed against the wall in her room and now sat huddled in a corner. She wrapped her blankets around her head and shoulders leaving only a space for the fresh air touch her nose above her lip. It was quiet in here. Peaceful.

She sighed and shuffled deeper into her comforter. Two walls held her as she tried to turn her mind off. On the other side of one wall, Bria was broadcasting her feelings, flipping them on and off like a light switch. Helene sat with Bria, trying desperately to open her mind. They could have asked Jana to take a peek inside Helene and see if she had the spark necessary to light that fire. They could have included Jana in the exercise if they’d wanted. They hadn’t thought of her. And that was okay. What Jana desperately wanted was for everyone to sleep. Night was her one escape from the world. The truth was, she couldn’t close her own eyes until Bria was out for the night. They were too closely bonded.

It frightened her that something existed out there that could effectively sever her ties to everyone she loved. When the shadow, as she thought of it, had passed over Bria, she’d first felt a sense of intense relief. Bria had winked out and Jana had begun to slip into deep sleep, but then she’d started awake again because the absence she felt was like echoes in a void. She’d called out for Bria, “Where are you?” Just an empty echo. Infinite space followed by waves of panic from her mother.

Bria’s door had been sealed. Not locked. Not even fully closed. Just immovable. No sound coming through. No light. Jana had pounded and screamed with the rest of her family. How long had it gone on? Long enough for Helene to drive her Jeep across the Fishbowl and burst through the front door. And now she was here, to stay it seemed, in her sister’s room filling a place that Jana had always had to herself, and Jana couldn’t sort it. That was it. She couldn’t sort her own feelings.

The air in the cocoon she’d formed had grown stale. She widened the gap in front of her face and felt new, cool air come in. It snaked through the gap carrying a startling desire. This thing—presence, whatever it was—it could mute the myriad voices that crashed into her most intimate recesses, even when she clothed herself in shields. Jana brought her head and shoulders out of the blankets as an idea washed over her. She wondered, could she call it to her, this elemental beast, if that’s what it was? Would it want her? Would it listen? Or would she find herself petrified and stored in, however lovingly, in an attic—an eternity in the Fishbowl.

***

These were curious creatures. Not like the ones We have seen before. We were here long ago, before these straggly sticks had minds they bent or tied together. We were here all along. They knew Us then. They loved Us. We took care of each other.

Oh, it has been a long sleep. We’ve woken, each of us, refreshed but uncertain. Why have we woken? How did people gain the powers they now possess. Perhaps We have slept too long. If so, We our sorry. We apologize with great humility. Please don’t punish Us. Like them, We are forgetful.

***

“Hey, watch it!” Elric was in a foul mood. He still couldn’t uncover the answer to the question he’d been asking himself for the last month. It was crazy. He wouldn’t have posed the question—couldn’t have posed the question—if he didn’t already have the answer stored away somewhere in his mind. It was really about combining bits and pieces of Chronicles. He knew that. He had a formula for this sort of thing. So why was that answer still tucked away?

Jana reached out to him again. “Stop, I said!” He was tired of this, her prodding his mind. She had her own agenda. Big Sister Number Two was pulling the same tricks on him as Big Sister Number One was pulling on Helene. Poor Helene, except for some reason she wanted to have her brain prodded by Bria.

Okay, okay, Elric did want this. He wanted to be able to connect back with Jana the way she was connected with him. But did it have to happen now? His plate was so full…

“Elric, you have to focus!”

By the Creator, he could feel the frustration rolling off her. “Just stop already,” he said. “You’re so irritated you’re making my stomach hurt. It won’t work, alright?” He leaned his back against his sister’s. I’m never gonna get it. I’m just not like you.”

“What?” she said.
God, it felt like she was punching his brain. “Enough! And this is NOT funny. Why are you smiling like that? It hurts, what you’re doing.”

This time the intrusion was more of a massage. He sighed and relaxed into it. His head was aching, but Jana soothed all that. The house was quiet around them. Elric shifted his bare feet against the wooden floor. It sighed all the way into the earth, and the walls whispered. There were words he could listen to when he closed his eyes. There was a slip of a smile, Jana’s face with a smug expression. He stared at it, eyes closed. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he said softly. Her back shifted against his. Elric straightened up. His eyes popped open. He looked at the wall in front of him. He looked at Jana inside his head. “What?”

Jana jumped up so fast Elric fell backward into the space where she had been. She didn’t say anything but he heard the words just the same. “We did it!”

To himself, to her, to anyone listening Elric was shouting and, yes, crying. Those were happy tears on his face. “I can hear you! I can hear you! I can hear you!”

Later, after the clamor had died down, the family and Helene sat around the dining table and toasted Elric’s awakening.

“Who knew it was possible?” his father said.

“It hasn’t been heard of in ages!”
“I’d not even read about it except in the Fables. I thought it was all pointless…”

“Amazing is what it is.”

And there were Bria and Helene, smiling back casting sad glances at each other because it seemed that Helene was deaf to the bond she shared with Bria. Still, if Elric’s mind could be opened, didn’t there remain hope?

***
In the desert, the sky spread out to blanket the earth. Each star was a dart on the quilt of night. Bria had snuck out here alone. Jana, in the excitement over Elric’s awakening, had a blind spot to Bria. Bria expanded it with a weave she had stumbled over when trying to shield herself from Elric’s overjoyed prying. He now returned Bria’s bond too. While it was beautiful to feel so close to him, to understand him in a way she never could before, it was overwhelming. She was already sharing her mind with so many, except Helene, and she wanted Helene open to her. Helene needed to know someone cared for her, even though her knotted was a statue in a basement. A statue shuffled from room to room.

Perhaps it was foolish to be out here alone. No, it was absolutely foolish to be in the Dunes at night, alone. Utterly insane. Especially after the visit she’d had two weeks back. But here she was, seeking comfort and certainty. And solitude.

She lay back in the sand. It slipped down the neck of her shirt. She didn’t care. “Love,” she said, and she didn’t know why. “Alone,” she whispered to herself. Then she sat up and thought of when the Docks had led to water, and whether there was a beast of the elements that dozed in the sand.

“Are you there?” She surprised herself by shouting. She lowered her voice.“If you are, you don’t need me to yell.” She walked along, dragging trails in the dirt. There was no breeze tonight. All was still. Suddenly, she was sure she was missed. “Better get back,” she mumbled to the air. To the beast if it was listening. At her Jeep, she mumbled over her shoulder, “I’d love to see you again.” She felt stupid for saying it, and shrugged.  “If there’s a way, let me know and I’ll be back.”

The sand shifted behind her. She turned slowly, unsure what to expect. Nothing. An empty desert. A twinkling night sky. She asked the air, “Are you there? Is there . . .  anything you need?”

A breeze played with the sand. Little dunes formed and blew away. Larger dunes lifted and shifted toward her, serpent-like. She was afraid. She was not afraid.

Afterward, she realized she’d been holding her breath. “Water,” she whispered as she blew it out. And where better to find water than a flooded fishbowl? She climbed into her Jeep laughing because the thought was so ridiculous.

***

I knew I’d read about it somewhere: a man who could return the Woman’s Bond. It was a few days after the connection came alive to me—and, oh, how alive I feel now!—that the memory resurfaced. Really, it sort of niggled. I couldn’t shake the certainty that what I was doing should still be impossible. That this awakening wasn’t meant for me. Could I be good enough for this?

After Jana shielded herself and retreated, the niggle became a nag. The nag became a shout. The shout was persistent. So I shielded myself. It turns out I can do anything Jana can do. I threw up a wall a mile thick and I dove into the Chronicles. They say I was there for nearly a week. I refused to open myself to them. They brought me food, which I ate. And drinks and a blanket, but how can I know if I slept when it seems to me that I was never awake?

It can’t be true, but what I remember is that I read all of it. Every Chronicle. Even the lost ones I’ve recovered and no other soul knows about. And somewhere in the pile of history and wisdom, I found what I was looking for. The Story went like this:

“When Sons knew their own hearts, they knew also the hearts of those paired to them. But through the Ages, Sons lost themselves. It happened gradually, but the Daughters noticed. Such is their nature. The Daughters lost themselves, too, but they were able to rebuild the internal world. They rebuilt it without Sons. Sons were too far gone. But there will come a Son who will see again the inside. He will see again when a Daughter who needs him reaches for him. And the Daughter who reaches him will be etched of Power and one removed from Glory.”

The words were written in the old style called Prophecy. It is said the knowledge is always there for us, if only we know how to look for it. It is also said that some things are hidden from us, and there is no use looking. I have always looked even though I know what I will find are more questions. The question now is, am I the Son who will wake? Further, have other Sons awoken? Am I one in a trend from a Prophecy that just hit its mark?

If this Story is mine, then Jana is the Daughter who is “etched of Power and one removed from Glory.” What does that mean?

***

Jana couldn’t influence anymore. She was losing her grip. Elric had so grown in strength that she felt overshadowed. While he wasn’t as adept with weaves as she was–he didn’t have a delicate touch and tended to crash right through barriers he’d just constructed–his power was frightening. He had to try not to read everyone’s thoughts, and not just those at the surface. Jana had only noticed roiling emotions in the sublevels of her families conscious after Elric had inadvertently routed them out. She was tired. She was more than tired. She was fading with exhaustion because she spent all of every day and much of every night trying to train and contain Elric so that he would accidentally destroy someone’s mind.

Jana dropped herself into her favorite cushion on the couch. There was so much more to focus on. The Fire would be lit tomorrow. They couldn’t Dedicate themselves. No one in her family could have stood for it even if they hadn’t learned that to Dedicate meant to be tied to a source that was not holy. The Fire of Life was a construct of man. It held truths, but they were borrowed from an ancient faith that was long since perverted. The tie was proof of that perversion. There should be no compulsion in religion. The Creator desired worship given freely and intelligently, not blindly. How she wept when she learned of the ties.

Right now Elric was deep in discussion of some passage of the Chronicles with their father. There must be some mention of how to lift the bonds. Jana had no doubt that it could be done. She also held the conviction that the ties should never have been made. Still, she wasn’t sure that lifting the curtain on an entire community and by surprise was the best method. Just as they should have been given a choice to be tied in accordance with their Dedication, they should be given the option of being untied.

Jana fell into the couch clutching her head. It was screaming. Her hair was on fire. The town was on fire. Her neighbors were running from the Fishbowl. They hurled objects at one another, turned their Jeeps into weapons and ran each other down. There was a dam in the caves. The miners knew about it. There was a blast, then the water came. There was no way to stop it. Jana saw the people swept away. She heard their cries and felt their pain. Her head would split apart. She tried to shout, but her voice was lost in the sweep of wings. It’s dangerous, said a familiar voice, when the people lose their faith. Come away from here, Child of Man. Well have you served. Jana felt herself lifted away from the water and terror and pain. Below her, girls who might have been her friends fought the water for their lives. We will live again. We will all live again. They chose their way. Do not mourn them.

“No!” Jana was screaming. They didn’t choose this. I did this to them!”

The voice was calm as she was lifted higher. Do not worry, Child. You have a different fate. Do not grieve for them. All will be forgiven.

Jana’s throat burned when she swallowed. Her lips were chapped and split. The air– The air was so dry. She licked her lips and winced. What had happened? Jana opened her eyes expecting the lights of her living room ceiling to blind her. Instead she found darkness. “Elric?” she whispered.

***

When there was no answer, she pushed herself upright. Sand. It slipped between her fingers and under her nails. She stood and dusted herself off. “How did I get here?” she asked the air.

You’ve Seen.

Jana threw herself on her face in the sand. Elric had been looking in the wrong place all along. This wasn’t from the Chronicles. It was from the Book. “There are some who will see and some who will not see. To those who see, My Signs will be everywhere, and there is a greater fate for them, and We shall reward them.” Jana cried until the sand caked on her face. She was grateful and humbled. She sobbed, “Why me?”

There was no answer. She held the answer in her heart. The answer was her heart. Jana was imperfect. She made mistakes, but her intentions were pure. Jana hugged herself as she trembled. She was awed but terrified. “What I saw,” she began.

A possibility.

“It was horrible!”

It is necessary.

“But it doesn’t have to happen?” Jana sat back on her knees, searching the darkness for the source of the voice.

I only know it can happen.

Jana let the silence blanket her. Her heart slowed. The stars were visible. She was near the docks, but there was no moon tonight to reveal them. She had no bearings. She cast around with her mind to comfort herself. Instead she was unsettled by a distinct lack of presence. One she had felt before. “I’m afraid,” she said. The words caught in her throat and she began crying again.

Why does she cry? Jana heard, but it was not directed at her. She felt something move closer. She is such a small thing, and We have never understood her importance but We do as We are told. The Master made us and He is Goodness.

“Can you show yourself?” Jana asked.

There was a snort in response.

“I don’t mean to offend you.”

I do not offend. I am surprised. Before you existed there were many who could not see Us. We were many and We will be many again. For centuries of your time it was wished that We be not seen. You, small creature, are ready to lift the veil?

Her body was cold in the frigid desert air. “It’s just that I cannot feel you. I can hear you, but I still feel  . . .” she searched for the right word, “. . .unsatisfied.”

There was another snort. You ask for evidence of my existence.

“Yes.”

There was one who asked before you and he was labeled a doubter and traitor.

“But there were others who sought proof and were rewarded with the most beautiful knowledge.”

We will see what knowledge you find beautiful.

There was a blast of fire in the sky that warmed the air. It lingered like a thick blanket of stars that lit the night. Jana turned and let her eyes wander the creature there. “Truly, you are a most beautiful creation,” she said. The creature preened, spreading her wings and tossing her head as a pony does. She stretched her neck so that Jana could admire her natural armor. “You’re skin is made of jewels,” Jana breathed. And there were the mammoth feet–four of them–each with golden claws. There was the crest along her back that looked of amethyst. The creature turned to reveal the backs of her wings which were black and crusted with large and small diamonds. Spread, they were a reflection of the night sky. “Are you a dragon?” Jana whispered.

The creature laughed. I am much more than that, but “dragon” is suitable. It has been one of my names, and it is still spoken with reverence. I have another name, Mother, and you will call me that as well.

Jana fell back to her knees. Her body was numb. It had been so long since she slept. Perhaps this was all a dream. If so, she hoped to remember it in the morning.

You will remember, the dragon said. Now I will replace you in your chamber where you will rest.

***

This time it was Jana who disappeared. I stood pounding on her door with the rest of my family, with Helene standing in the background wringing her hands and wondering if she should call out for my sister or just let it be. It wasn’t that the two didn’t like each other. Or maybe it was. It was hard to tell because, these days, Jana had made herself impenetrable. Impenetrable, but still present. Now she was gone. Just, whoosh, and no more Jana. I was scared. My fists hurt from banging on the door. My throat was sore with shouting. All at once we stopped. Jana was back. Her door opened. There she was, asleep in bed. Mother shook her, but Jana didn’t stir.

“Whatever happened,” Mother said, “we won’t be getting any answers until morning.”

Helene, behind me, was like a big question mark. “Yeah, me too,” I said to her. Like Jana and Elric, Helene had grown more silent these last two weeks. Everyone around me seemed to be disappearing.

I stumped off to my room. I wanted to break something, but I put a lid on that feeling quick. Mom and Dad didn’t need to come sniffing around to ask what was wrong. Or even worse–I ran the risk of Elric popping out of the library  and showing up in my room with that look on his face. He had this look like he could see through you. Who knew? Maybe he could. Maybe he’d also develop super strength in addition to his super brain powers. I shrugged and huddled on my bed. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to sit and stew in my jealousy. That’s what it was–I was jealous of Jana because now she had inside access to the one thing I’d been able to call mine in this whole mess. Now she had been called by the Elemental Beast and no doubt handed a task greater than mine. Oh Creator! Maybe she’d been given my task because I hadn’t made any progress in completing it. And then there was Elric . . .

“What’s going on with you?”

Speak of the devil. Elric was standing in my doorway with his hands on his hips. He cast a glance at Helene who’d tried to make herself inconspicuous in a corner. “I’ll just go,” Helene said, and excused herself to the basement to sit with her petrified soulmate.

“Nothing’s going on,” I said defensively. I put the edge of a nail between my teeth and bit down.

“Hey, I’m still your brother,” Elric said. He came to the bed and sat down beside me. “You know I’m here for you. It’s not just me and the books. If you need me . . .” He trailed off and we looked at each other.

I wanted to open up to him and say everything that was inside. He waited. My lips parted but nothing came out. There was only one thing in my mind. I needed to flood the Fishbowl. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know if it could be done. But I knew it had to be done. And, it occurred to me, I knew someone who would know if it had ever been done. “Elric,” I began, “what do you know about the  history of Soel?”

He shifted and kind of went inside his head the way he always did when he was hunting down your answer. I wondered what it was like in there. I wondered if there was any way our link could let me see that labyrinth. “Are we talking cultural? Political? Geographic? It’s an interesting place. It’s only been inhabited for the last four hundred years or so.”

“I’m wondering about flooding.”

Elric gaped at me for a second. “Bria, why would you ask me about that?”

I stared back, opening and closing my mouth like a fish. I couldn’t explain. He would think I’d gone crazy. He’d tell the family

“We must have gone over that at least fifty times in school. I know my memory is unusual, but we live here. It seems like you’d at least be interested in the unique, and obvious, by the way, features of the place you live!”

“Uh. I, uh.”

“The dam,” he prompted me, his hand out like a platter with the knowledge on it just for the taking.

“Oh. Oh!” It clicked, what he was saying t`o me. “Right. The dam.” We took a field trip to it every year. In fact, I’d just been there before the night I was invited to the Docks. There was enough water to supply the town’s drinking needs, but not enough to flood the Fishbowl. We were living in a drought. The earth was dry, the lakes were shrunk, and the bark flaked off the trees like burnt skin. The drought had been going on since we moved here. Maybe before we moved here. “Elric,” I knew what I wanted to ask him. “Do you know what caused the drought?”

He eyeballed me as though I’d sprouted a horn. “Changing weather patterns?” He dripped with sarcasm.

“But do you know how to change them back? You know–how to get the water back?”

Elric said the words slowly. “What is it you want to do, Big Sis?”

I blinked at him stupidly. “I just thought, you know, it’s called the Fishbowl. But it’s never been a fishbowl while we’ve been here. I kinda wanted to see what that looked like before we have to go.”

“You’re strange,” he said after a lengthy silence. I knew he’d scanned my thoughts, but I’d learned a few things too these last few days, and one was how to bury surface thoughts beneath the surface. Anything burning on my mind I could now camouflage, and I was certain Elric had swept right over the fact that I wanted–no, desperately needed–to flood the Fishbowl. And not just up to the hilltops. I needed to flood it so heavily the water would wash the life out and clean Soel completely. “I suppose you would start by creating a diversion to bring water here from the Tijlis. That would refill the dam reservoir. With a few good rains, this place cold flood easily. Of course, you’d have to break the dam to get the water into Soel, but that’s pretty simple too. You could just nab some of the explosives from the mine . . .” He was casting about in my head again.

“Stop that!” I shouted. We both jumped at the sound of my voice. “Do you have any idea how rude that is? It’s incredibly insensitive to dig around inside other people’s minds just because you can. Don’t you understand that our ability to think thoughts silently, to not voice them, is a facet of privacy?”

It was Elric’s turn to stare at me dumbly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It just seems so natural. It’s like looking with my eyes.”

I shrugged away the jealousy that ate at me. “Well, you’re supposed to keep those down as well. Privacy. Modesty. Humility. Why don’t you take the time to look those up in the Stories. They’re more than themes. They’re important life skills.” I resisted the urge to slam a door as I left my own room. Anyway, I had the information I needed to set things in motion. Now I could return to the Dunes and call to the beast. But first, as always, I had to deal with Helene.

***

Jana slept, Elric read and Bria trekked through the sand. She’d been aiming for the Docks, but found herself turned around. “Are you here?” she cried into the night. There was no sweep of wings or might breath or the folding up of her mind into the cataclysmic expanse of the beast. “I have information.” Her words rang hollow between sand and sky. Her feet began to rub painfully with each step. She stopped. She was lost.

It had been a weak move and she knew it. Bria kicked at the sand but it only filtered between her toes. How had it been for Jana? This place held the memory of her sister. Perhaps Bria had been replaced.

No. Your role is unchanged in this future.

Bria sat on a hill of sand. “I need your help to fill the dam.” The words were small against the infinity of stars.

Of course, came the beast’s reply.

“The people of my town will force us out at the next full moon.” The tears came. She hadn’t known it until now, but Soel was home to her. She didn’t want to leave the Fishbowl.

When the time comes, you will bring your family to the sands and call for me. Call me by name.

“What is your name?”

Ask your sister. She will remember it.

“There is so much I want to know.” Bria knew she wouldn’t find the beast, but she searched the skies and the dunes and rose and fell around her like waves.

You may ask.

“I’m not sure where to begin.”

The silence stretched until Bria thought the beast  had gone, but a great wind swept the ground like a sigh. She had to squeeze her eyes shut and cover them with her arms to keep the tiny grains out. When she’d brushed the sand from her hair and eyelashes, she blinked and opened her eyes. Night was gone. The dunes were gone. She was on a beach under the sun. There was a lake, and around it seven docks. At the end of each dock sat a young man or woman. The water bubbled in the middle of the lake. Steam rose. The people slid from the edges of their docks into the water. Bria waited. No one resurfaced.

She ran to the water’s edge. It was deep and clear. She could see each of the men and women each swimming toward one of seven glowing orbs. In the center of the lake was a bed of jewels with eyes that watched in every direction at once. “What is this?” Bria whispered.

Her reflection spoke back to her. “It is the beginning.”

She didn’t remember the drive back, but she knew that she had made it. She put on the parking brake of the Jeep and climbed out onto the drive where she sat wondering what beginning she had been shown. No matter how many times she reviewed it in her mind, it was always the same: one of the young women swimming toward an orb was Jana.

***

The morning came with birds singing, plungeberry muffins, and a knock at the front door. It was Sheriff checking in.

He wanted to know, “Have you made a decision yet?”

There was no answer for him except the one he was already certain of. The town knew they would not Dedicate. He left with a frown on his face and one eye squinted to let them know he was watching.

At the table, Elric had little to offer in the way of breaking a bond. Jana surprised everyone by saying she dreamt how to unweave a tie. But there was no way to know if it would work.

No one wanted to volunteer their mind to uncertain science. After an agitated silence in which everyone picked at their breakfast, Helene’s voice was heard. “Try it with me,” she said. The members of the Awlid family turned their eyes on her. It was Bria who tentatively asked, “Which bond?”

Again, there was silence, this time broken by Salome. “Your bond, Bria. It was unsolicited.”

Bria bowed her head. Of course, but the process would be painful. It could also be relieving, although she tried to keep herself from thinking it. She knew Helene was sharing the thought. She hadn’t needed to ask which bond Helene was considering because she was screaming it at the whole table. She just didn’t know it. Bria had asked for show, to protect Helene because Helene was also screaming in her mind what she thought of herself for suggesting the bond’s dissolution, and none of those were positive recriminations.

First, however, was the matter of packing. It had to be done in secret and with Helene’s help because, also in a dream, Bria had been lent a plan for the ease of their Expulsion two weeks hence.

***

Looking back, there was no clear sign of where they had gone wrong. Trying to locate the first failure was like trying to recover the first snowflake by disassembling a snowball. The body of what they had wrought was riddled with disease. Still, Bria thought, as she leaned on Loden’s shoulder, it was most likely the breaking of her bond with Helene. With that unweaving came the first signs that Elric’s grip on reality was slackening. It had been such a small sign, but they all saw it. There was no way they couldn’t have known the indirect loss of a bond would weaken his mental structure, but it had. And now, here they were, searching for answers in Elric’s mind. Answers he should have been ready and able to offer them with his customary pensive expressions.

“Is it working?” Loden whispered in her ear. His breath smelled of smoked tea. The coarse beginnings of his facial hair brushed against her cheek and she blushed.

Bria would have lifted her body away from his, but Jana’s link to her had sapped her energy. The result was that she needed Loden’s support to stay upright, no matter how distracting his proximity. Since they’d found each other in the dunes, they had shared an unshakeable draw. They spent every night talking or circling round trying to stay as near each other as possible. It hurt to be without him. She wanted to bond him. No, she wanted to be tied to Loden. He slipped a hand around her and pulled her closer to him. She knew it was because the sand had shifted beneath her and carried her away, but she wished for more. Bria sighed and tried to clear her mind. She needed to stay focused for her sister.

Jana was deep inside Elric’s mind. Bria was her link to the outside world. They’d lost Elric when Soel flooded. Their father was caught in the waters. Mother said he was still alive. A fish in the bowl swimming circles, maybe, but alive. He was in there with Helene and the population of Soel that hadn’t migrated when the bonds to the Fire of Life had been dissolved. Jana’s unweaving dream had been accurate. She’d undone Helene and Bria’s bond swiftly. The pain was nothing like what Bria had been expecting. It was far, far worse. And so it had been for the unsuspecting citizens of Soel when they’d gathered at the Fire of Life to Expel Bria’s family. The Awlids were formally escorted from the town when they’d refused to Dedicate themselves. Helene re-swore her oath, knowing the new bond would never take place, and knowing her original bond would be broken as well. Sure enough, when the weaves appeared, Bria, Jana and Elric were watching for them, as was their mother. They each played a part in unraveling the strands, severing previous bonds from their source which was, as they’d suspected, located within the Fire itself. Rather, it was located in the lighting ceremony, an ancient ritual that facilitated the bond through the oaths taken in front of the fire. After all these years, those oaths remained intact.

“Come out,” was the echo of Jana’s call. Bria stretched herself in response. She felt her mother’s mind caress hers like fingers through her hair. Their mother would hold on to them. They would not be lost in Elric’s labyrinth. His mind was shifting mazes of information, snaking paths between each fragment of knowledge and the others it intersected with. For two days, Jana had been searching for Elric in this jungle, but all she’d caught were shadows, never Elric himself.

“You need to come out.” Bria’s tongue was parchment. “We need to recover.” She knew Jana was crying although she couldn’t see her sister. Mother had tucked Jana into Loden’s furs as soon as he’d offered them. Then she’d climbed in beside Jana to lend her warmth. Jana’s body was cold and shivering with the shock of being separated from her mind. Bria knew the feeling.

Slowly, Jana withdrew. She called to Elric at every step of the process, but he wasn’t listening. Bria watched the pile of blankets tremble. She longed to be inside it now that she could let go of the active weaves that fastened her to Jana. He couldn’t hear her thoughts, but Loden pulled a blanket from the pile. He lifted Bria’s trembling body onto his legs and wrapped the blanket around them both. Bria shook so hard she thought her neck would break. In time, she grew warm against Loden. Gently, he tucked her in with her sister and left them in his tent. The girls slept. Thanks to the dragon, they were not disturbed by dreams.

***

Like Vareth, Alina, and Hafsa, Loden had been called to the Docks. He’d come from his own far corner of the world, bid onward at every stage by a voice he didn’t know and could not ignore. When it spoke to him, there was no one else. He did not exist. At times, he felt himself protected in its shadow. Others, he feared for his sanity and life. But he marched continuously toward the goal set for him. He might have fought the calling, but like those who had arrived shortly after him, and like the Awlid family, he had nowhere else to be. He came alone. His family had been imprisoned or slaughtered. Tor Vin no longer welcomed him. He could not name it Home.

It was amazing to sit round a blue fire, one in a group of outcasts with a mystery mission. Mother had not revealed her plans for them, but she would when the water had come. Now she protected them and calmed them with the beauty of her majestic body. Jana had called her “dragon,” but Loden recognized that she was far older than those mythic beasts. Mother was not a dragon, nor was she of this world. His own mother’s people had known a lore believed forgotten, perhaps even foreign to Elric the Wise, that spoke of injeel who served as messengers from the Creator and ushers to the new era. It was said that men who served the injeel well were granted a rebirth out of the  mortal fold.

And then there was Bria. Finding her had started his heart drumming again. Loden’s family was ripped from him, degraded, murdered, used and cast aside for fifteen of his 21 years. After the loss of his younger brother, Loden was done feeling. He disconnected the way Elric had. But Bria–Bria brought it all back in a flash. She was young, yes, but the trials her family faced as well as her own calling by Mother had hardened her. Her face, the green in her eyes, her lips in an “O” of surprise when they were brought together in the desert. Each had seen the other appear in a fog of sand. They reached out, she with her mind, him with a hand, to know if the other was real. Since, Loden had burned with every feeling he should have felt. Bria pulled him through. Though she was careful not to touch his mind, she was a ready support. So, when Elric hid inside himself, Loden was ready to step forward. More than ready. He would have tied himself to her given the chance, but it wasn’t necessary, and he did not have the ability to determine whether Bria would favor his proposal or not.

It was difficult not to smooth her hair or touch the tip of her nose as she leaned against him. When he’d dared breath in her scent, Salome had said, “There is a better way.” He understood. There was a proper path to courtship. Salome had not said whether she would approve. It was for Bria to decide, and to do so she must know of his intentions. However, Bria had not heard the exchange. She didn’t know of his feelings. She had been so respectful of his mind. In talking with her, Loden learned that she had impulsively bonded not long ago. That bond had been dissolved. Bria told him she should never have left herself so open. She came from a family of Empaths. If she was open to anyone’s emotions, she didn’t think clearly. That was why she’d bonded Helene; she’d been trying to ease the pain not just for Helene, but for herself. The result was pain that still coursed through her body due to the bond’s dissolution. Bria had never listened to his thoughts. She couldn’t know how he felt about her.

The powerful hum of sweeping wings woke Loden from his reverie. Mother was back. She had brought them all water. Loden stood, searching for Mother against the silent night sky. He would meet Mother when she landed and gather water for Bria and Jana. He would tell her of Elric’s containment. Mother surely knew already. She was privy to a knowledge outside time. But Loden would ask for her help. Then he would wait outside his tent for Bria to wake so he could ask her for something as well.

Around him the dunes danced in and out of shapes. Often they were whispers of people he had known, manifestations of all he had left behind in the flat, spring city. Tor Vin was built on a plateau. The buildings were round and flat with sloped sides. You entered and exited from the roof. Simply walk up the walls between the windows, or use a windowsill as a step. The town was dusty, the buildings made of hardened mud and straw that they painted with a glaze to keep from wearing away too quickly. The insides of the buildings were walled with logs, and there was a stout electric stove smack in the center of the open home. The wealthy ringed their houses together into a wreath, all touching but separate, and the enclosed circle of land was a common garden.

Loden’s family had let a house like that until their landlord put together his mother’s face with a band of travelers that came through searching for temporary work. The travelers recognized her mother as one of their own and , alarmed at her presence in the midst of historical enemy, offered her safe passage. She declined. She said the people here were her friends and they would see past a textbook hate. His mother was a woman who listened to her heart. She loved her place, the people, her family. She believed in the good inside everyone. But Loden had learned there was another side; one that gained strength much more quickly than that gentle building of contentment. He  understood the tilt of eyes toward his sisters on market day. But they were all lost before he could sway his mother. “Stay,” she’d said. “We will turn them with kindness. They are our friends. They’ll remember it in the end.”

Whether friendship was remembered, Loden did not know. What he did know was the look of terror in his sisters’ eyes when they were sold, and the purple of his father’s face when he was hanged. And he knew the loneliness of travel because only he had made it out alone. He also knew the kindling of hope, because there was Bria, pulling back the flap to leave the tent. He approached her, holding out a cup of water. When she paused, he closed his eyes to open himself from the inside out. He knew she was an Empath. Even closed off, she would hear the words of his heart.