Chapter Twenty-two
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On the Banks of the River
Night had passed, and the sun rose bleakly on New York City.
“Wow.” Orphenn chastised himself. “I sat here, all night, pitying myself.” He shook his head, gazing at the vodka bottle, and realizing its contents weren’t so appealing anymore. He clicked his tongue in disdain. “Time for a little walk.” He decided, and heaved himself up.
He couldn’t say how long he’d walked, but after only a few minutes, he’d gone back to pitying himself.
Everything he saw, everything he heard, reminded him of all that he’d lost. It weighed him down, but he kept walking, with a limp, as if each thought was an anvil carried on his shoulders.
He passed a white cat on the street that looked at him with curious mismatched eyes. Blue and brown like Celina’s had been. He walked through a public planetarium with an exhibit on supernovas, like the one the Day Star had been named after. He hobbled by a pawn shop with large selections of blades and firearms, like Sven’s armory. Each flickering shadow reminded him of Cinder, every motorcycle that went growling by.
Every little reminder broke off a little bit more of him, until, much like the night before-or a few nights before, he couldn’t be sure-he felt utterly hollow.
He walked on, for days, or for weeks, he couldn’t tell, as the sky was infinitely gray, and he couldn’t differentiate day from night.
He fell into a fathomless depression.
Only boredom kept his legs moving, though he didn’t really see the things he walked past anymore, his eyes sightless, body purposeless.
The days blurred together and time meant nothing.
Though he did at one moment come across an electronics shop, a dozen televisions of different sizes showing the same news cast.
“…Entire Earth’s water supply has become polluted…” Said the monotone anchorman, as a side screen displayed film images of rivers and lakes all over the world, the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Great Lakes, the English Channel, the Dead Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, all gone soupy brown, every ocean gone completely black.
“…All beaches and national parks closed down…”
Orphenn realized curiously that no one was on the streets. No traffic, no voices, no aircraft overhead, not even birds.
New York City was silent.
Or it might have been New York City, or somewhere else. He had no idea where he really was.
His body felt weak.
Little did he know, his true body lay right under his sister’s nose.
Cinder was aghast to realize the state of the River, though she made no shout to release her dismay, for fear of being heard by the others. She didn’t want to worry them even more.
Anxiously she glanced over her shoulder at the White Heron’s camp to ensure no one was watching her. When she was confirmed she squirmed closer to the water until the tips of her long black hair almost kissed the surface.
The water was a sickly gray, and no longer sparkled with secret warmth, no natural luster-it looked cloudy, stormy, ill.
Cinder reached her hand into the water and held it there in sympathy, as if reaching into a baby’s cradle, like the River’s pain was her own.
Her fingers curled in the diseased water, tightened into a fist. She could feel Aleida was close to dying. Her fist shook.
She leapt up and ran to the camp.
“The River is tainted.” She announced as she broke into the tent.
“What?” Came the unanimous reply.
Jeremiah reasoned, “That could mean anything. It could be the omen that predicts the Apocalypse. Or it could be a simple pollution problem.”
“Has it ever turned black before?” Cinder countered.
“We’re all gonna die.” Xeila said plainly.
Sven scolded her for her skepticism. “Poppet, you don’t know that.”
“We’re part of a war. Odds are, we’re gonna die.”
“Oh, shut up Xeila. Don’t you think we know that?” Cinder snapped, tensions rising. “Aleida….She could be trying to tell us something. What if…She’s warning us?”
No answer. Even Sven was skeptical now.
“We all know this planet is alive. We know it’s more than just a hunk of rock. What if her essence is tainted because of something that we…Aren’t seeing?”
All of them in their anxiety were oblivious to the fact that Orphenn’s body lay only a few yards downriver, hidden by undergrowth, twitching at intervals as if he walked through a convincing nightmare.
Hours passed and no answers came. The River’s sickness, Orphenn’s well-being, Celina’s whereabouts; all remained a mystery.
Celina regretted wearing her formal robes, but was unwilling to discard them.
She slipped in and out of the shadows, a stow away in the almost pitch dark of the Ardaran ship’s cargo hold.
Like an instinct arisen in her chest, she knew her sister was close. She hoped against all hope that Ardara’s own end of the triplets’ link was clouded. If she sensed Celina or saw her coming, it was all over. She could only pray that Ardara was too absorbed in her own disastrous plotting to make room for anything else.
So as the engine roared, and the craft lifted off, she swiftly made for the door to the main hold. Her coronet glinting and eyes luminous in the dismal light, she wished her heartbeat would calm.
Not knowing who or what would be waiting on the other side, she firmly pressed the release key.
It was maddening, to sit there, not knowing. Clueless, they sat around the campfire, hoping the blaze could clear their heads. They each felt it like an agonizing itch at the back of their skulls, excruciatingly out of reach. Nothing passed between them but the crackle of the flames.
Attempting to lighten the atmosphere, Eynochia suggested, “Why don’t we tell stories?”
Xeila gazed doubtfully at her sister. “Like what?” She mocked. “Like the time Eynochia fell on her face in front of a cute guy?”
“Hey!” she defended. “You’re just as clumsy! Or need we be reminded of the day Xeila ‘accidentally’ spilled custard all over her ex-best friend?”
Xeila smiled. “I was framed!”
Laughter erupted from the group, apart from Cinder, who only smiled wearily.
More bouts of laughter, and then Xeila turned to Jeremiah and bumped his shoulder. “Maybe you should tell them what happened after.”
“Oh, but you tell it so much better.” He declined.
“Sure, sure enough.” She agreed, eager to share.
She told a tale of heartbreaking split-up, and how Jeremiah helped her recover.
“I was all bawlin’ and cryin’ and feeling bad for myself, when this big lurpy oaf comes up to me-and he was a skinny little thing back then before that First War-and,” she gesticulated, imitating a low bow, and holding out her hand, “he says, ‘excuse me Miss, I believe you dropped this.’ And he had a flower in his hand, and he stuck it in my hair.” She grinned, remembering, settling back in her chair around the fire. “How old were we then, like ten or eleven? I don’t know. Well, years later, he proposed to me with that same line. But with our pendant instead of a flower.”
Jeremiah twined his fingers in hers and for the first time Cinder noticed the matching pendants around their necks.
Oh yes, she recalled, Aleidian courtship differed slightly from Earth traditions. Instead of purchased rings, couples showed engagement with pendants, inlaid with the birthstones of both, in Jeremiah and Xeila’s case a topaz and an emerald. In a wedding ceremony, the counterparts are exchanged for pendants of pure and glistening white crystal, or diamond for the more wealthy, white being the color of eternity. The pendants are presented by the father of the groom. The original pendants were always kept safe and cherished.
At length, Sven asked, “Have I ever told you about my brother?”
Xeila and Eynochia both straightened subconsciously, keen to hear of the mysterious uncle they knew so little about.
“I never knew you had a brother.” Cinder confessed sullenly.
“He died before you could ever meet him.”
“What gifts did he have?”
“My only brother, Ira, was much more powerful than me. Think of it kinda like Cira and Celina. Celina is somewhat telepathic-psychic, but not nearly as powerful as Cira. That’s a lot like me compared to my brother.
“I can summon weapons, and I’m able to reach into other’s memories, and even shield their minds. In exchange, I can’t remember jack squat. I swear I have the worst memory on the planet.
“Anyhow. Ira was much stronger. He’d always loved music, he was always singin.’ But when he was mutated, he was able to control others with his voice. Make them walk for him. Do his will. Just by singin’ a song.” The others were amazed by this, and their eyes widened as they listened even more attentively to the best story teller Aleida ever knew. “And not only that. He could protect the minds of others, like I can. The thing is though, my Mind Shield is only as strong as the mind it protects.” He jabbed his finger at them all around the circle, narrowing his eyes. “Which is why all of you better keep your heads screwed on right. I can’t protect you if you lose your marbles.
“Back to the point. Ira had the same ability. But his Mind Shield always stays strong, impenetrable. Even after death. Thanks to him, no one can read my mind, not even if I go ‘round the bend, not even from the grave.”
“Remarkable.” Breathed Jeremiah, awestruck, hazel and lavender eyes gleaming.
“And even more remarkable,” Sven added, far from finished, “he had the memory of a Goddang elephant!”
“Heh, you would find that remarkable,” Xeila teased.
“I’m not even jokin’! There he was like twenty-five, and he’s ranting about how he hated the way his diaper used to rash! I remembered it, bein’ I was probably nine or ten, but he’d only been a baby!
“And he could always prove me wrong that way too, when we would argue. Even before the First War, he was special. He remembered everything. He could tell you what color socks Mama wore at her wedding.”
“Why is that so important?” Eynochia queried.
Sven then produced from his white trench coat pocket a small tome, held together with ribbon. It was a photo book. To make his point he flipped to a certain photo and held it up for them to see. It was old and faded, wrinkled at the edges.
In the picture was a couple, obviously a wedding photo. Eight-year-old Sven stood at his father’s knee. The mother’s socks were green. But her belly was bulbous. Pregnant.
The group was struck to silence, all their pairs of eyes sending to him a glowing spectrum of amazement.
Satisfied, Sven replaced the photo book and continued. “Uh-huh,” he sighed, “he could tell you what the air smelled like on a Saturday morning when he walked one-hundred-seventy-five steps to his friend Mallabella’s house that looked like a gingerbread house from a certain angle and if the grass was cut and how green it was and if it was cloudy and what position the sun was at in the sky and what he ate that day even though that day was five years ago and he was two years old at the time.”
He took a deep recovery breath.
“….Wow.” Was the only response.
He chuckled. “Tell me about it.” Then a quiet moment passed and he added, “Oriana just loved him. After the war started, he had taken on a young ward. Little blondie. I was quite fond of the kid, but he was so withdrawn…I never learned his name. The boy’s family had been killed in an Ardaran attack, and my brother took him in. I never got to see either of them, since we were in separate squadrons. I never saw him after he was mutated so I don’t know what gifts he has. I know his eyes had been green. I don’t reckon you two remember much of them, bein’ so young as you were.” He looked to his daughters, who both shook their heads. “It was Orio that told me Ira had been killed. She was there. Cira had confronted your squad herself. Your mother had told you to go to the main chambers to hide.
“Cira wanted Ira’s power. She’d given my brother a choice. To join her or die. You can guess which one he chose.” Sven looked into the fire, reminiscently. “Then his boy went missing. I expect he died too. It was a year after that that my wife died.
“So…Now it’s just me and my girls.”
He gave a sad smile to his daughters.
“That’s not true.” Countered Jeremiah, as certain as if it were set in stone. “You will always have us.”
Cinder nodded her approval, and the night was ended in smiles.
Just before dawn, Eynochia stirred.
She tossed and turned on her cot, and finally she elected to visit the River.
She perhaps was the one who felt Orphenn’s absence the most. She could no longer deny her feelings for him as she exited the tent and trod across the grass in the dying moonlight.
She felt no resentment towards Cinder, she knew she had only wished to save her brother from Ardara. Still, she couldn’t help but feel cheated somehow. Like he was stolen from her.
Now Eynochia remembered the campfire hours earlier, and thought of Ira, and his ward. How she wished she could have known them. Then she thought of her mother.
Sven had once told her that Oriana was…pure. In heart, in soul, in everything. He said that was probably why her hair had gone white when she mutated, and why Xeila’s and her own locks were the same.
You’re like her, her father always said. You’re like her.
To Eynochia’s surprise, Cinder had beaten her to the River, sitting solemnly on the banks.
“Is it…Really tainted?” The canine Enma asked feebly.
Cinder looked back, her eyes luminous in the pre-dawn light, and then turned away.
“See for yourself.”
Eynochia stepped timidly closer, and what she saw made her heart hurt, more than it already ached.
The very essence of this same River flowed through her veins, the veins of every Enma. It was part of her, and she was part of it, as were them all. It hurt her to see the River’s pain.
Now she kneeled in the grass and did as Cinder had done before, curling her fingers in the raw, gray water, feeling its exhausted current, her throat tightening with its anguish, the misery she felt for it.
I really am pure, aren’t I? She thought. To feel this way about something so predictable as a river. I am pure.
As soon as she realized this, she also realized that this River was anything but predictable.