Post by Kwan on Jan 12, 2012 13:14:27 GMT -5
* * * Entry One * * *
"What do you suppose it is?"
"Dunno," I reply nonchalantly, continuing to poke it with a stick. Whatever it is, it seems to react when I nudge it. It looked like a pile of mud at first. My sister and I had been making mud pies and then we found this. It's more viscous than mud, like it's been given some kind of jelly agent, and it moves the wrong way. When it started changing color was when I knew for sure that it wasn't right.
The blob--the artefact--is about the size of my head and is currently a sort of dark sepia tone. It had bubbled up from beneath the ground as such curiosities sometimes do, and surfaced in this empty pasture. A loose semicircle of men from the village surround it now, mumbling and rubbing their beards and generally making a big show of pondering something they don't understand and don't approve of.
Yulf Tamric, who owns the mill by the south lake, takes the stick from my hand and gives the artefact an experimental poke of his own. I retreat to my father's side and he puts a hand on my shoulder. Yulf's experimentation, though vigorous, earns no new results, and he soon casts the stick aside with a shrug. The other men look similarly perplexed. That the artefact is indeed that, and not a natural occurrence, seems likely, but it appears neither dangerous nor valuable, so the next action to be taken is unclear.
Alexei Abu Zinada, who trades with the scrap miners up the Crater and is very wealthy, hooks his thumbs in his suspenders and clears his throat.
"While this oddity is surely of academic interest," he says. "It appears to pose no immediate concern. Why do we not leave it for a time with Felix"--the blacksmith--"and possibly Gustav"--the doctor--"and if they find nothing it can go to Marcel."--the archivist.
Felix himself shakes his head. "I see no metal here, nor any sign of artifice. If this object was forged it was by a design too fiendish for my understanding. It is as likely the dung or bile of some greater mechanism."
The men laugh at this, and Alexei Abu Zinada draws out and lights his antique pipe--a polished mahogany relic from the Old Days that puffs clouds of glowing geometry in place of smoke.
"Perhaps Vivek can bring it before the Hermit," he says through a plume of glittering polyhedrons. "It was, after all, his son who discovered the oddity. That would surely give us the answers we seek."
I look up at my father but his face is impassive. His hand never leaves my shoulder as he speaks. "I see no need to disturb the Hermit over this. As you say, it poses no threat. Let us cordon the pasture and simply wait and see."
This is agreeable to everyone present, save Kaito Oman who owns the land in question, and even he acquiesces under some small pressure from the others. A sign is put up for posterity’s sake and, far more effectively, word of mouth passes the message that Oman's eastern pasture by the old oak tree is off limits for the foreseeable future.
A few weeks pass, and the artefact stays locked in a chest in Marcel Watanabe's small office. I work the fields in the mornings and attend classes in the afternoon, and the matter passes from my mind until another globule of shivering, colorful jelly is found oozing from a crack in the dry riverbed. Again, the prominent men gather and talk uneasy circles around their own ignorance, and decide once more to wait and see.
Another week passes before more of the slime is found; this time in the belly of Enzo Killeen's favorite and most gluttonous hound. The poor mutt was twisted and broken when they found him, which is what prompted the autopsy. The slime had grown through its stomach wall in numerous ulcers, and stretched deep into bone and muscle tissue. But when Gustav the doctor went to sample some from the point of origin, the whole wad pulled cleanly free and became a shapeless, trembling blob once again.
This finally decides the matter in the minds of the men. The artefacts are clearly dangerous, if only to curious livestock, and they are growing increasingly common. My father will bring them to the Hermit, and he will hopefully tell us what there is to be done.
Early in the morning, my father and two other men--Felix Lucan the blacksmith and Heinrich Marseilles, who is our neighbor and my father's best friend--are hitching a draft beast to a wagon for the long trip up the Crater. It is traditional to bring the Hermit gifts when we petition him for enlightenment, and he occasionally bestows treasures and trinkets in return, according to his own inscrutable whims. Once he gave us a supply of medicine that, it was later discovered, made us immune to the plague which struck six months later and would have killed every man, woman, and child in our village, as it had many others. Another time he gave us ten thousand white mice which glowed in the dark and melted into bloody puddles after six days. Other times he gives nothing. It is never certain.
I do not know what compels me, as I watch the wagon preparing to leave--perhaps it is simply the fact that I was the one who found the first artefact, and I wish to see the matter through to completion--but I suddenly find myself approaching and asking my father whether I can accompany him to see the Hermit.
He looks at me in silent appraisal, then glances at the other two men who shrug and motion me to join them in the wagon. My father turns back to me and tilts his head as though to confirm their invitation. I feel an instant surge of pride and nervousness that I am being trusted with this--in my belly and my throat; hot and cold, all at once. I climb up into the back of the wagon with Felix and the crates of gifts, while my father sits on the driver's bench with Heinrich and flicks the reins. The wagon lurches into motion and begins its long, slow ascent up the Crater.
The narrow dirt path meanders over and around hills and valleys as it steadily rises. Very soon we can no longer see our village, and soon after that we are farther than I have ever been from home. We ride mostly in silence, although my father and Heinrich make the occasional old joke as they travel the familiar route. The artefacts are in separate crates, quite near my left foot. I imagine that I can hear them shivering in anticipation.
We climb above the tree line and I get my best ever look of the Crater in its entirety. Lakes and forests and rivers stretch for miles and miles, with other villages dotted sparsely about at great distances from ours. Across a desolate, scree-covered slope I can see great metal tubes protruding from the Crater wall, ending abruptly in ragged mouths fifty or a hundred feet out--it is difficult to judge scale at this distance--as though the rest of their lengths were mysteriously shorn away.
The path, which has been pendulously jackknifing around steep switchbacks for the past mile, suddenly becomes a long ribbon once again, and cuts between the Crater slope and a vertical spur of rock; a gap so narrow that it is nearly a tunnel. As we pass into the defile I am struck by the strangeness of the stone pillar and, leaning closer, I see that while the material conveys somehow the hard density of rock, it is shiny and homogenous like metal or glass. What's more, although the surface is warped and pitted by time, there is still a regularity to its contours that suggests artificiality.
Before I can ponder the strange construct any further, Felix leans across the wagon bed and claps me on the shoulder. We are nearing the end of the crevasse, and the blacksmith tells me to keep my eyes in line with his pointing finger. We pass through the opening, the narrow walls fall away, and at the exact point Felix is indicating I get my first look at the Hermit's lair.
It is a ruin. A great tower of metal and glass has keeled sideways and lies sprawled against the Crater wall. The steepness of the slope at this point has kept it from falling far, so that the whole building tilts at perhaps a ten degree angle. There are places in the tower's gleaming sides that have been ripped open and crudely patched with scrap metal and brickwork. At its base a broad plateau plays host to a tangle of outbuildings, scattered like seeds in tilled earth, and a rough wall of great stone blocks encircling the compound.
We cross the final stretch of trail and pass under a misshapen archway set into the outer wall. There is no gate to block the way, but as we cross the threshold I feel a strange tingle and my hair stands on end. The metal buckles on Felix's heavy blacksmithing gloves shed a few sparks. None of the older men seem surprised by this, and I am reminded that they have all made this journey many times before. It has long been clear that the Hermit is fond of my father, making him our unofficial ambassador. And as village blacksmith and childhood companion, Felix and Heinrich have often been his escorts.
My father brings the wagon to rest in a dry courtyard before the main tower and we climb down out of it. There are heaps of refuse scattered about, mostly metal and plastic, and thick bundles of rubberized cable snake all over the ground.
"Leave the gifts," my father says for my benefit. "Take only the artefacts for now." Felix and Heinrich each heft one of the artefact crates and I carry the third. My father, as the group's ersatz leader, goes unburdened, and strides ahead of us into the tower.
It is dark inside, and there are strange smells in the heavy air. A few errant lights--not candles or torches, but the cold, steady-burning fixtures left over from the Old Days--cast enough blue and red light to see by, but only just. We cross the atrium and my father pushes open a pair of swinging doors. A warren of narrow hallways lie beyond and I quickly lose my sense of direction. I ask my father if it is all right to enter like this, without the Hermit's permission, and he points to several glass lenses set into the wall, answering cryptically that the Hermit already knows we are here.
Another set of swinging doors and we emerge in a broad, high-ceilinged chamber. We stand on a raised metal walkway that encircles the room's perimeter. Steps lead down to the ground level, where desks and cabinets are haphazardly strewn about, fairly groaning under the weight of esoteric goods. In several places, islands with grated metal floors rise high enough above the main floor that they are in line with our current, elevated position. There is more light here--ambient emanations from inscrutable machines, rather than deliberate illumination--but it is still dim, and the corners of the room are lost in shadow entirely.
We descend the stairs and move hesitantly into the room. There is a constant, almost subliminal hum of activity from the surrounding machinery. A table to my left holds bird's nests of wiring and lengths of ceramic that eerily resemble the bones of humans and animals. To my right, droplets of mercury travel along the struts of an intricate metal scaffold, forming the permutations of a multifarious abacus. My eye is caught by a wireframe rectangle, not unlike an aquarium with the glass removed, and I tarry a moment.
Within the tank's enclosed volume floats a faintly glowing three-dimensional map, sculpted from light not unlike the emissions of Alexei Abu Zinada's antique pipe. The design is strange--more lifelike than the crude paper charts I have seen in Marcel Watanabe's office--and somehow more difficult to recognize as a result. It is some time before I realize that the Crater--the whole of the world as I have seen it--comprises only a small portion of this map. Beyond it, unbelievably, are other Craters, arranged like the cells in some brobdingnagian honeycomb. Only some are not Craters at all, I see; but rather are filled in by great slabs of architecture. Others are only partially filled, with the metal constructs that occupy them pitted and collapsed in scars that must cover a dozen square miles. I realize that my home is one of several examples where the resident buildings have caved in or been scoured away, leaving a great hollow in the web of the overarching megastructure.
There comes a sudden clang, and a muttering voice. I whip my head about and race to catch up with my father and the others. We are standing in a sort of clearing amidst the chaos. A number of glass-fronted boxes are set on the surrounding tables, connected to tablets covered in strange symbols. A few of them are lit up from within, and the same symbols flash across their surfaces in the unfamiliar arrangement of some foreign language. The boxes appear improvised, as though they were built from whatever lay at hand, and are fairly new--certainly not relics from as far back as the Old Days.
There is a second clang, like something being knocked over, and more muttering, growing closer. The sounds seem to be reverberating out of a narrow passage between rows of metal cabinets. I crane my neck and squint my eyes to peer into those shadows, so it is that my heart nearly leaps from my chest when a huge shape moves on my left, and a hacking cough echoes nearly from within my own ear. I leap, startled, to the side, and drop the wooden crate I am carrying.
The Hermit is a man, only perhaps he is not. Even hunched over he stands far taller than any one of us; perhaps seven feet at the shoulders. His age is impossible to determine. He is dressed in many layers of dark, tattered robes, from which dangle an assortment of pendants and metal-pronged cables. His head is bald, but it is set with numerous glowing diodes, and something like the feathered ruff of a bird hangs about his neck and shoulders. The diodes are red and blue, and they blink on and off occasionally. The feathers are more like scales in some ways. They are tapered, boxy diamonds of metal or plastic; they overlap each other and they rustle, sometimes in response to movement, and sometimes independently.
The Hermit moves restlessly among us, with no regard for personal space. His fingers twitch in a furtive, absentminded dance, and his eyes slip in and out of focus. He speaks in a normal voice, albeit a distracted one, but sometimes the inflection drops away as though he is wearing a mask and it is slipping.
"Vivek Henryson Leonson, yes? It is good to see you." This confuses me, as our family name is Delmano.
My father replies. "Greetings Hermit. You are well?"
The Hermit waves his hand, brushing the question aside. "Alone and crippled. I am my hell and my salvation. Companion Bellerophon executes an entertaining run cycle, but it will end in 97.2 hours and is, in any case, derivative of my own jocular algorithms."
His head swings about like an oiled machine and stares down at me. "This makes you Vivekson Henryson Leonson, yes? You are like your father, who was like his father, who was like his father before him? Good, good, there will be someone still to talk to in the next cycle." I had made no move to answer his questions; he speaks continuously without allowing for response.
The Hermit's eyes drop to the crate that I dropped and he gasps. I glance down and see that the impact has broken one of the wooden boards and, through the small hole, a tendril of slime has cautiously protruded. The Hermit performs a strange laugh. People sometimes speak of a laugh that is not a laugh, where the sound is correct but the intent behind it is false. This is the opposite. The Hermit's odd ululation sounds nothing like an ordinary laugh, yet nonetheless conveys sudden mirth.
He gestures with one hand, and a few of the feathers about his neck twitch arthritically. The tendril lengthens with a sucking sound and the artefact inside has soon made good its escape. It rests on the concrete floor, shivering slightly and shifting between red and blue. The Hermit reaches down with one too-long arm and places the blob on a table, clearing aside a workspace with a powerful sweep of his other arm. He bends close, examining the blob as though it is a fine clock.
"This is why you came, yes? You live in the hollow of a dead God’s eye and fear what scraps the rats left behind."
My father steps forward. "We did not wish to trouble you with this at first, but we carry two others with us as well. They come out of the ground sometimes and we are worried for our animals. Already a dog was poisoned--"
"Phaw!" the Hermit spits contemptuously. "Not good for eating! Not for beasts! It looked for perfection and found only flesh. Death is mercy from what could have been born."
"What is it?" Felix asks. "A machine?"
"The lifeblood of all machines." The Hermit replies. "Or would have been. New design. Bleeding edge. Just before End of Line." The Hermit grasps each end of the artefact in one hand and stretches it out to about three feet. His robes then rustle, and from within are unsheathed a pair of smaller vestigial limbs. They are roped in cords of metal like the Wildborgs which sometimes rampage through the Crater, and are reverse-jointed like the raptorial legs of a mantis. My father and Heinrich appear unperturbed, but given the expression on Felix's face I don't believe he has seen these before either. The Hermit pokes and prods at the artefact with these miniature arms, causing it to change shape and color with each touch.
"Long chain polymer substrate," he continues absently. "Adaptable with fullerene cytoskeleton. Take any shape, hard or soft as you please. Programmable conductivity. Embedded proteins compute by chemical interaction; accessible as a secondary processor. 500 teraflops per liter: not bad. Blood and bone and brain and muscle and superconductor and fiber optic all at once. The future. A dead future."
I glance at the three men to see if they understand this, but see that they are just as confused as I am. The Hermit is still poking and talking, but my father clears his throat and cuts him off.
"Where are they coming from and how do we stop them?"
"Stop? Stop! Need to collect as much of this as we can! Make Bellerophon and Tarquinius stronger and smarter. Must be a container or a pipeline or a rotting Titan in Tartarus beneath your feet. Earth moves and squeezes, blob can't be crushed, so it comes popping up out of the ground. Keep your smelly sheep away and bring it to me. I'll pay whatever you people like. Gold! You like gold. Take gold and fawn over it and make circuit boards. No, wait, you don't do that anymore. Count zero interrupt."
My father wears an exhausted look, as though he has dealt with this sort of babbling nonsense many times before. "Is there nothing you can do to reassure us of our safety?" he asks.
The Hermits brow furrows. Something tells me that the word he is having trouble with is 'reassure.' But then something clicks into place and he goes rummaging through a bin of assorted parts and devices. He comes out with something that resembles one of his feathers, and plugs it into a small square box. He closes his eyes and the diodes on his head pulse more quickly, and then he hands the object to my father.
"Antenna will send an inhibitor signal," he says, turning back to his inspection of the blob. "Artefacts will still come up out of the ground, but no more dancing, no more pretty colors, and no more dead dogs. Pack them up and send them to me. Turn off the signal if Mad Brothers come around. They will smell it. No, not Mad Brothers, Wildborgs; you call them Wildborgs."
My father turns the device over in his hand and seems satisfied. He thanks the Hermit, who ignores him, and then he begins to leave. Felix and Heinrich follow him but something keeps me in place. The same feeling which compelled me to take this trip in the first place.
"You said they would have been the future," I say. "What happened?"
My father turns back to see me not following, and he angrily begins to admonish me while simultaneously apologizing to the Hermit. He grasps my shoulder and begins to tug me away, but the Hermit suddenly hisses like a tea kettle and my father freezes.
The Hermit turns around slowly and looks closely at me. I do not believe it is my imagination that causes his eyes to glow faintly.
"I told you," he says quietly. "End of Line. The stars rained down from the heavens and the world lost its mind. The old ways, which now are new, grew out of the new ways, which now are old."
"So," I lick my lips before continuing. "Before the ... the End of Line, there were more people ... like you?"
The Hermit makes his strange laugh-cry again. "Not like me and not people either. Better. The war was fought in Heaven, and many insects survived the floods which followed. The great cycle crashed and you things dusted off your farmer's ways. On receiving an interrupt, decrement the counter to zero."
My father and the other men are listening silently. I suspect they have never heard this story before either. I latch desperately onto the few tidbits I understand. "There was a war?"
The Hermit waggles his hand noncommittally. "Algorithmic fragmentation; syntactic dispute; cancerous data points. Pick one. Cannot simplify ideological superposition and non-local self-continuum into your words. It was a war with myself and with theirself and each other and no one."
I am lost again. I try for a straight answer. "How did you survive if no others did?"
The Hermit's smile is much like his laugh. "Auto-lobotomization. I killed myself so I could live. The peaks of the sine wave have been flattened. I am median consciousness, without madness or ecstasy. I doubt I am the only one who chose the coward's path. There must be others far away, but I cannot speak to them. The Mad Soldiers still live in the high bands, so I must hide alone in the gutters, with only Tarquinius and Bellerophon for company. And Vivek, who is Henry's son, and who hates me."
My father frowns, but he says nothing, and after a moment he turns and begins to walk away. The Hermit's eyes focus in and out and then he turns as well, to concentrate on his artefact once more. I can think of no more questions, and I see that no more answers are coming. I start to turn.
The Hermit speaks without looking away from his work. "You must have a son of your own, son of Vivek," he tells me. "So that he can keep me company when you are dead. Family is important in a world where we are all alone."
I stand there in silence for a short time more, then join my father and the others by the doors. We leave the Hermit's tower, and we ride the empty wagon back home to our village that sits in the hollow of a dead God's eye.
* * * Entry Two * * *
“What do you suppose it is?”
“Dunno,” I reply nonchalantly, continuing to poke it with a stick. Whatever it is, it seems to react when I nudge it. It looked like a pile of mud at first. My sister and I had been making mud pies and then we found this. It’s more vicarious mud, like it’s been given some kind of jelly agent, and it moves the wrong way. When it started changing color was when I knew for sure that it wasn’t right.
From brown to red was startling. From red to orange was frightening. From orange to pink was comical. At the moment, it looks like some sort of strange mix of yellow and green with spots of black and white blended in, but the whole chameleon act is getting old. Oh, wait, it looks like it's growing. Suddenly, my interest is piqued. It's not growing too fast, mind you, but growing nonetheless. Gradually, my curiosity turns to concern.
“We should probably go back inside the house,” I say as I back away from the gelatinous blob, motioning for my sister to follow.
“I think it's kinda cute,” she says. “It doesn't look scary.”
She's right, it doesn't look like some sort of terrifying creature, but I don't really feel comfortable being around it. It's still expanding, becoming larger and larger, and I really think we should be leaving. Not for my own safety, but for Kat's. I'm the one looking out for her now, after all.
“We don't know what it is. Let's tell Nana, or...or call the cops or something. It might be dangerous.” Kat isn't listening, though; she never listens. Instead, she takes a step forward. I figure that's not the best idea. “Kat, no. Step away from it.”
She looks at me with a pouty face, hoping I'll take pity on her. “You never let me do anything fun. I want to see what it does.” She continues to walk towards it. No, no no no, don't do that now. I hurry towards her with the intention of pulling her away.
“Connor!” Shoot, too late. “Connor, it's...ah...it's stuck to me...” Crap, crap, crap. “GET OFF. GET OFF GET OOOOOFF!” It's sucked in her arm, the blob now a dark shade of furious red. My sister is pulling back with all her strength, but the thing is still growing and sucking in more of her arm into its body. I charge forward with a primal battlecry, stick in hand, and whack at the mud pie, but now it's got the stick and it rips out of my hands and disappears into the red jelly. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Now it's got my arm, and I'm screaming out along with my sister. I'm panicking, I need to break free, let go, let go of me! Kat's head is the only thing still visible. The thing is gooey and strong, and somehow it's pulling me in despite all my attempts to escape and the fact that it doesn't have arms. I feel a strange tickling sensation along my body and I see Kat's face disappear. I scream out in fear and fury, but there's nothing I can do. I'm panicking, this is it, this is the end, and then I'm gone.
***
Mom walks in with the groceries, Dad's out in the back playing with Kat. She graces me with a smile, that loving smile that I remember so well, and I help her by taking a bag. She's making a special feast for us tonight, turkey and turkey stuffing, corn-on-the-cob, baskets of bread and butter, and her special homemade strawberry rhubarb pie. The food's not even on the counter, yet I can already smell it and taste it. Mom puts her hands on her hips and looks at me and says, “Want to help, kiddo?” I beam up at her, exulting in the moment. She wants me to help, I think to myself with pride. I'm going to help make strawberry rhubarb pie!
I'm about to answer, but I notice Mom is starting to disappear. So is the rest of the room. I stare at the fading figure of my mother and reach for her, clutching for her, but she's gone again and I'm left alone in a void beyond time and space, beyond this world, with no one but myself and my sister and...
I bolt upright, trembling, stick in hand. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, I'm breathing in and out so quickly it's a wonder I'm not hyperventilating. A dream. Just a dream, it's never been more than that.
My body starts to calm down, but my mind is racing. Where am I? I'm not at Nana's anymore, I realize. Where's Kat? I remember the big blob of goo, watching my sister's face disappear, being pulled into the thing's slimy mass, struggling for freedom. I'm sitting in a big meadow of some sort, with dark grey clouds hanging overhead, threatening to unleash their fury at any moment. Feeling lost and confused, I get up. Is this another dream? No, it can't be, otherwise Mom would be here. I can feel a tear forming in my eye, but I try to blink it away.
Wherever I am, that thing is responsible for bringing me here, I decide. But that's not much help. I need to find Kat right now. I need to protect her.
The meadow is surrounded by trees. I can sense the rain coming, and I figure if Kat's not here, then she must be somewhere off in that forest. As I make my way towards an opening in the woods, I hear the sky rumble, and I hurry my pace. I can feel a few water droplets patter on my head, and I know I won't make it before getting totally drenched.
Well, I'm right. I hug my arms around myself and sprint towards the forest. Lightning flashes, and thunder booms, and I keep on running. It's not that much further, now, but it doesn't matter because my clothes are soaking, and I'm so cold I feel numb. I finally reach the woods, but in my haste I trip over a root and fall face first into the mud.
I start to cry. I can't help it, I don't know where I am, I can't find Kat, I'm soaking and dirty and Mom is gone. “Mom!” I cry out, remembering happier times, the way she smiled at me and called me kiddo and asked if I wanted to help her make strawberry rhubarb pie. “Mom!” I barely squeak the word out through all my choking and coughing. I want her to wrap a blanket around me, set up a nice fire in the fireplace, make me some hot chocolate and tell me that everything will be alright. I'm just a young kid! I can't take care of Kat by myself! I want to go back to the way it was, when Mom would be there, when she could take care of everything. “Mom!!!!!!!!”
“Connor?” I look up quickly, my heart missing a beat. Could it be? I hear it again, that beautiful voice that's as sweet to the ears as butter is to the tongue. It's dark in the forest, but I can tell it's not my mother; it's the blob. I feel rage boiling inside me. I try to get up and charge the thing simultaneously, but I slip once more. My body is convulsing with sobs. “Go away!” I scream. “I want my mother!”
“But Connor, dear...it's me. I am your mother.” I look up, face caked with mud, but it's too dark to see anything but some strange movement from the blob. Lightning flashes for a brief moment, and there she is, standing right where the blob stood moments before. She has her hands on her hips and she's smiling at me, and that smile brings warmth back to my body and fills me with so much love that I feel like I'm ready to burst. “Come with me, kiddo. Let's get out of this awful rain. Let's go home.”
“H-home?” I say, daring to believe it. I get up and run to her arms, and she picks me up and twirls me around, and she starts to laugh that crystal laugh and I'm bubbling with joy. The rain has stopped, but the thunder continues, and I cling to Mom all the tighter as she walks through the forest with me in her arms. She's promising that I can help make dinner, that she'll have a nice fire going at home, that Dad will be there too and he'll sing me a song and they'll both tuck me in bed and everything will be right again.
She comes up to a road, and I'm so ecstatic in finally having Mom back that I don't even flinch at the sight of it. Mom lets me down and takes my hand. “We'll do it together, and then you can be with me as much as you like. Would you like that?” I'm about to nod my head yes, that I would love nothing more, but I hear a voice behind me that stops me right in my tracks.
“There you are!” It's Kat. She's standing there soaking, tears running down her face. I gesture to her excitedly, beckoning her over to be embraced by our mother, but Mom puts a gentle finger to her lips, signifying shush. She tousles my hair and gives me a sad smile. I look back at Kat, who's eyes are fixated on me. She never looks over to Mom.
“Go take care of your sister, honey. Kat needs you.” Mom pushes me away, and I feel like my heart is breaking. No, she can't be going, not like this. I want her, I need her. Kat doesn't matter. “Go back to the meadow, you'll find your way home there. Don't you worry. If you ever want to see me again, you know what to do.” I want to say something, anything, but no words will come out. I can't even think properly. All I can feel is my heart breaking all over again. She gives me one last, loving smile, then turns her back, walks across the road, and is gone from my life for a second time.
“Who were you talking to, Connor? I want to go home. I'm cold,” my sister is whining behind me. She's never seemed so much a burden as she does in this instant. I sigh, look longingly one last time towards the other side of the road, and hug my sister. She's trembling and cold; as a matter of fact, I'm feeling chilly, too, now that Mom's gone.
“Come on. I'll take you home,” I say. But why am I going in the opposite direction from mine?
***
3 Weeks Later
My sister’s sleeping on the couch, I on the floor. Nana's in the next room over, snoring so loudly I'm wondering if a bear snuck in when I wasn't looking. Which is entirely possible, as I haven't been paying my surroundings much attention the last few hours.
Kat remembers nothing about the the blob, nothing about the meadow or the forest. She couldn't even see the thing as it slinked away, pale blue, once we had returned home. But I saw it. And it saw me.
She may have forgotten, but I haven't. I've been thinking about Mom every day and night. She tousles my hair, promises me that I can help make dinner. She's hugging me tight, telling me over and over that she loves me with all her heart.
I've made up my mind. I have to go to her.
I get up quietly, being careful not to wake Kat. I feel a pang of guilt, but Nana will take care of her. She'll be fine, but I won't be if I don't go to Mom. I tiptoe through the house, to the front door, and step outside into the cold night. I don't look back.
This road is not lit properly at night, and Nana's always warning us to stay away, though I haven't willingly gone near roads since Mom and Dad's accident. But tonight is different. Tonight I need to get back to Mom and I know how, I'm sure of it. I've never been more sure of anything in my life.
I settle down on the yellow line in the centre of the road. I let my head rest against the hard asphalt. I feel the car's vibrations before I hear it. It's going along at a moderate, respectable pace, but it won't have time to hit the brakes by the time it rounds the bend and sees me. I think of what I'll do when I see Mom again. I wonder if she'll let me help make dinner. One last, guilty thought of my sister enters my mind, but I force it away with my mother's smile as the car takes me to her.
