Zirconia was standing in an empty hallway under a brass lamp. Killian was next to her. She leaned against the art deco wallpaper. Her pointy toed snakeskin pumps dug into the plush carpet. Her arms were crossed over her empire-waisted turquoise chiffon gown, and the gold bangles on her wrists reflected the dim light.
Down the hall, a rectangle of light promised frivolity and gaiety. Other dinner guests were laughing, eating, and drinking as they sat around circular tables set with silver flatware and blood red tablecloths. Lobster claws crackled as some of the guests crunched into the exoskeleton with rubber-handled clamps. The sounds of champagne flutes clinking and wine corks popping beckoned them to rejoin the party.
Another woman dressed in a black mermaid gown, her hair swept into a fancy updo and held in place by a pearl clasp, sashayed out of the ladies' room. The woman passed by Zirconia and headed back to the charity dinner.
Probably more eager to get her hands on some business cards and the caviar than to reach her hands out for the starving kids in the developing world, Zirconia smirked to herself.
She waited for the woman to disappear back inside the dining room before speaking.
"Everything good?" she asked.
Killian stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Yeah, that little Ned pulled through, according to the guy he reports to."
"He has the balls after all," she sneered.
"Oh, yeah. Really freaked that dude out. It's the freshies that are the most creative sometimes."
"Do you think he'll actually follow through?"
"What other choice does he have? That's been the rule for generations."
"Hmm..." She tilted her head up and pursed her glossy lips. "I don't think he's the type to stick it out until the end."
"Why not?"
"I think he's the type to try to wheedle his way out of things, I think he isn't that cold-blooded."
"He's followed protocol so far," he argued.
"Yes, but so far, nothing serious has been thrown at him," she pointed out.
A man walked towards them, in a beeline for the marked mahogany door across the hallway. Zirconia grabbed her boyfriend's arm and spun him around to face her. She pretended to dust invisible intruders off the shoulders and lapels of his immaculate, dry-cleaned virgin wool suit. She adjusted the silk handkerchief—turquoise, to match her dress—that was sticking out of the front chest pocket in a crisply folded triangle.
The man entered the restroom, and she returned to her original position, pushing Killian back against the wall with her.
"Think about his track record when things turned serious," she said. "Think about why he's recruiting in the first place. He's not the type to stick a sticky situation out."
"Then why the h—— did you have me go through all this trouble?" his eyes flashed icicles in the warm lamplight. "If you never thought things would work out."
She laughed once. Her golden dangly earrings trembled. "I never said things wouldn't work out. You shouldn't doubt me."
The man exited the room across them. The mahogany door swung shut. Zirconia leaned into Killian's neck. She whispered into his ear while the man made his way back to the party.
"Not everyone is as docile as your pet snake," she said.
"This whole situation is getting on my nerves," he growled in a low voice.
She settled again with her back to the wall. "Always keep your cool, Killian," she warned him. "Don't forget that the show must go on."
"The show," he grumbled, "has been going on for a d—— long time already."
"And it must if you want ours to keep going on. Now, though, we must give them another push."
"You think there haven't been enough pushes yet?"
"We need to make sure that scum doesn't back down."
He nodded in agreement. "Otherwise, we'll have two more problems to worry about."
"Problems?" she said archly. "There will be no more problems. Who caused the problems to begin with? You tell me." She pointed an accusatory finger at him.
He pinched the skin between his thick eyebrows and rubbed them in fatigue. "It was one bad job. One."
"Yes, and it happened in my house because you weren't careful about your traditions."
"I didn't know she had——"
She cut him off, "But, as you still want to excel in college, and I don't want my family's name dragged through the mud before elections, I——" she emphasized the word, "——am making sure there will be no more problems."
"You don't think this will make things worse?" he asked.
"Absolutely not," she replied. "You said that other kid—what was his name?"
"Joey Kiplinger."
"Yes, Joey agreed to host this time."
He scoffed, "Thinking it was such a big honor."
"They always do—because our reputation is our most valuable asset. So, no more errors from our end."
"I'll invite him."
"Yes, and he'll probably bring her to show off like all the lovestruck freshies. You said last time, she won?"
"Wicked good, as he said," Killian popped the knuckles in his hands.
"That figures. Not a problem."
"How?" He turned to look at her.
"Keep the same set-up as last time," she instructed him, "except make sure that they sit her two seats to the left."
"Two seats to the left?"
She smiled, one thin, glossy curve. "She's not the only one who knows how to play that game. And..." she continued, "before you leave, bring some of that."
"Are you saying to..."
"Yes, because clearly," she rolled her eyes, "he isn't going to go through with things.
"So, we'll have to?"
"For the record, we didn't, because you know how to handle that, right?" she purred.
"Yes," he replied grimly.
"Good, then it's settled. After this, the fun can begin." She narrowed her eyes. "And this time, make sure she's unarmed."
"Of course," Killian muttered. "Had to shell out extra for that guy she stabbed with a wine bottle opener."
"Not just that," Zirconia clarified. "The other stuff, too. Remember, no repeats."
After a minute of silence, she pulled at Killian's sleeve. "Come on, let's go back. If we're excused for any longer, they might think we've ditched the dinner."
She led him down the hallway towards the bustling and good-cheer-brimming dinner party, her stilettos striking vicious pits into the carpet, and the gauzy green-blue train of her dress fluttering behind her.
~ ~ ~
I woke up at 5:32 am. Really shocking for me. More than six hours of sleep—for once.
I paced around my room and decided to try my hand at one of the new surface area problems. I sat down at my desk and attempted to rotate the shape around the x-axis in my mind so I could visualize the solid, but nothing was staying in place. The Cartesian plane kept rising and falling like a gridded lung, and the curve blinked out of sight.
Pretty soon, the regular square grids of the neat and tidy Cartesian surface started warping and bending, convulsing as if a caustic acid had been dropped on them. I watched the plane become hollowed out with irregular holes where the uniform squares had used to be. Some of the gridlines squiggled and ran away while the holes kept growing. I observed in distraction as the light blue ink of the grid paper darkened and mutated into the rusted brown of a windswept desert.
I found myself staring at a network of red sandstone arches that glowed in the vermillion, late-afternoon light. Then, the sun descended, and the tangle of weather-worn arches was lit on fire. They danced in a chaotic symphony of reds, oranges, and golds.
I closed my eyes. Had all that really happened? It was almost too amazing to believe. The desert had been beautiful and strange, a portal I hadn't before seen. And the storm—in a dry land where it hardly ever rained. And the dome overhead, shielding me from the deluge and the scars of electric lightning. And the idyllic feeling that imbued every fiber of my being—the feeling that I was safe.
Time is a funny thing. It sometimes gets stretched like a rubber band or crumpled like a sheet of paper, but it never snaps nor becomes creased. I had run so far that I had almost lost sight of the beginning. I wanted to run across the sand, straight into the scarlet disk staring at me. I wanted to run because I knew time was short, and the sun would soon set, and the stars would come out, but there was one constellation that I wouldn't be able to see unless I travelled halfway around the world, a dwarf in space compared to the thousand light-years xe had come before the mission had gone wrong.
Time does no one any favors.
I was going to turn fifteen, and xe was going to leave. I didn't know when, but very soon—at all rates, eventually.
I was walking down the hallway in my white blouse and navy chinos, my mind saturated with thoughts, when I heard someone snicker and mutter, "Watch where you're going, freak!"
The next thing I knew, the prankster flung a boiling cup of coffee at me. Hoots and laughter scampered away, and I screamed. The hot liquid burned my skin. More passersby stopped to titter and point.
I had both fists balled into white-knuckled clumps. Tears pricked my eyes, but I fought them back, thinking that if I could survive the sear on my skin, I could survive the sear behind my eyes.
A teacher walked out and asked, "What's going on?" in that half-menacing, don't-you-dare-try-anything-funny-mister tone.
One of the girls near me pointed at the empty coffee cup on the floor and said, "Aurora spilled her coffee on herself, Ms. Eisenbrut."
"No, I was——" I was going to say attacked, but she cut me off with a single outstretched finger. It was tipped with a devilishly long and pointed gel nail.
"Aurora!" she snapped. "Clean this mess up! And stop blocking the hallway!"
The discipline of modern education. Blame the victim, believe the prosecutor, and let the criminals walk free. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? That's right, I'd proven myself guilty on the very first day, the moment I walked through the doors, because I wasn't one of them and never would be.
"The rest of you!" Ms. Eisenbrut and her witches' nails wheeled on the remaining onlookers, "Get to class!"
My shirt was ruined, my skin felt sticky, and I was on the verge of crying. But I reminded myself as I trudged to the bathroom to get paper towels for the mess someone else had created that the school's canned cats don't cry.
Because they were already dead.
While I was being dissected alive.
~ ~ ~
I dragged my feet to the Calc room doorway like Eeyore back from a stint in Dante's Ninth Circle. It didn't surprise me when Xanexa stopped working on xyr newest drawing and observed, "Someone threw coffee on you."
I saw down next to xyr without replying. You didn't need to have any mysterious abilities to put two and two together in that situation. I wasn't that big of a klutz, and besides, I wasn't bougie enough to have morning coffee.
Xe sighed and put down xyr sketchbook. I saw a partially completed picture of two fish swimming around each other like an aquatic version of the yin-yang symbol.
"People are predators," xe said, resting the back of xyr hand on my forearm while still lightly gripping the silver pencil between xyr fingers. "They go after the ones they think are weak."
I felt the back of xyr glove against my skin. It was barely touching, like the pressure of a monarch butterfly's wings.
"I wish," I groaned, "that I were indestructible, like you."
"Nothing is truly indestructible, and strength is different from indestructibility."
"Don't they usually go together?"
"You think lots of things go together when they don't, in reality."
After a pause, xe asked, "Do you know why oil separates from water?"
"Something about their relative densities," I said, regurgitating my Physics lessons from middle school.
"Yes, but more importantly because the unctuous grease can't mix with something as pure as water. If they don't mix in nature, you shouldn't let them mix in your heart."
"Isn't it symbolic—that the oil rises to the top while the water stays submerged beneath?"
"So?" xe said snidely. "Icebergs do most of their damage underwater. Strength comes from a place you cannot see."
I silently wished that all the troublemakers harassing me had taken a whirl on the Titanic.
"Besides," xe went on, "you should be happy because it'll be your birthday soon."
Leave it to xyr to know everything I hadn't told xyr. Maybe xe had lied, and xe really could read minds.
"What's so great about getting older?" I asked, jaded.
"This weekend," xe said with a conniving smile, "you're coming somewhere with me."
Despite the sorry condition of my clothes and my mind, I broke out into a wide grin. Another road-trip with the amazing artist who spoke in timeless mysteries. Yeah, that'd be pretty neat.
~ ~ ~
Hands covered my eyes. I was stumbling forward, blind. My heart pounded, and breath tickled the back of my neck. Footfalls behind me echoed mine. I didn't know where we were except that it was somewhere close to home because we'd walked like this for some time, like I was the taken girl in some mob movie. I wasn't scared, though, because it was my birthday, and I had agreed to this.
"Are we there yet?" I sounded like a whiny brat.
But you would, too, if you had walked blindly for the past ten minutes after being spun around three times.
"Almost. Hang on, Ari," came the reply.
My feet landed on stubby grass. Wait, I think I know where we are...
"We're here. I wanted to give you a surprise."
The fingers left my eyes, and I looked around. It was dusk. We were in the park, and directly in front of me—suspended in mid-air—was a wicker basket. It was levitating above the ground with the help of a platoon of multi-colored helium balloons tied to its braided handle.
"Happy birthday, Ari!" Claren exclaimed, beaming.
I walked up the basket and peered inside. There, nestled in a bed of fake grass, was a package wrapped in silver paper printed with gold stars. It looked like a book.
When I picked the package up, the basket began to slowly drift upwards. I reached out with one hand and grabbed the basket before it could fly away. I shifted it and the bobbing balloons to one arm so I could have both of my hands free to examine the package.
I flipped it over and looked for a tab I could slide a finger under. I didn't like to make a mess when unwrapping things. After a few seconds, I found it, and I carefully lifted up the tape and unfolded the wrapping paper. The present was, indeed, as I had expected, a book.
A sticky note on the front wished me a FANTASTIC FIFTEEN in Claren's slanting handwriting. I peeled the note off and saw that the book held a collection of miscellaneous poetry. I smiled. When I was done exploring the Poles, as he put it, I'd start exploring this.
Claren threw his arms around me from behind, startling me. I hadn't heard him sneak up on me. I rocked forward slightly from the impact and turned my head halfway around to see him.
"You like it?" he asked, grinning.
"Yes," I said, "it's fantastic. Thanks, Claren."
He laughed and came around in front of me. "I'm glad you like it. So, do you feel different now that you're fifteen? Wiser?"
I pushed one cheek out with my tongue and thought for a few seconds. "Not really. I'm still waiting for that epiphany moment to hit when I'll be like, 'Aha! I know the world!'"
"Same," he said, "I've been waiting for that my past fifteen birthdays, and I've been disappointed all fifteen times."
He reached out a hand. I put the book with its wrapping paper back in the basket and laid my hand in his.
"You have no idea how many trials-and-errors I had to make before I finally got that working," he said, nodding at the basket that I pulled along behind me while we promenaded around the park.
"You probably could've saved yourself some trouble if you'd done some calculations beforehand," I recommended, "like the weight of the whole contraption, the amount of lift force in one balloon, then divide for the number of balloons you'd need."
He pshawed. "Nah, I think that'd overcomplicate things."
"I could've run the numbers for you."
He eyed me with a duh expression. "But then where would be the surprise be?"
"I don't usually like the surprises I get...because they're not usually good ones."
"But this was a good one?"
"Yeah, this was a great one."
He smiled like he was up to something and said, "And I've got an even better one."
"Wh——"
Before I had time to finish speaking, he had whirled around to face me, bent down, and locked his lips on mine. I was stunned and breathless, but I went with it because I think that's what you're supposed to do in situations like this, and I closed my eyes. The basket burned on my arm and the hot blood burned my cheeks and the heat of our bodies singed the thin woven threads that separated us, and I thought OH MY GOD—WHAT IS THIS?! I sensed the pressure from his hand on the small of my back and tasted his breath on my tongue and felt the tremors of his heartbeat on top of mine and I saw stars because I had forgotten to breathe, and that's when I yelped and sprang back.
"Sorry," I apologized, trying to catch my wind. "I——"
He laid a hand on my shoulder, and I let him leave it there while I tried to sort out the bickering swarm of crows cawing inside my brain.
"Ari, are you alright?" he asked.
"Yep," I coughed nervously, "I'm fine. I just—I need a minute."
The balloons bobbed up and down like disapproving fishing line sinkers. I felt like my reason was sink—sank—sunk. My mind was in confusion, and my conflicted emotions were a Gordian knot.
"I'm not trying to do anything you don't want," he said, lowering his hand from my shoulder and laying it gently in mine.
"I know, I know," I said hurriedly. "It's not you. You're great—wonderful. I don't know what's going on. I'm a mess."
He looked sad and protective. "No, Ari. Don't say that. That's not true."
A thought popped into my head, and, in my state of wound-up discombobulation, I blurted it out, "I wish people were like bacteria."
"What?" He was taken aback.
"Then, we could do binary fission instead of other stuff."
"The frick is that?"
"Ohmygod—it would be so much easier," I was on autopilot, yammering my head off without paying any heed to what Claren must have been thinking. "And get genetic diversity through horizontal gene transfer by crossing arms."
"Ari, what are you talking about?"
"Then, no one would have to bleed to death."
"Who's bleeding to death?"
"The girl from The Bell Jar."
"Huh?"
Drat. I snapped back to Earth and realized he'd been listening to me blab this whole time.
I tried to laugh it off. "It was gruesome. She ended up in the E.R."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
I didn't know what I wanted to say anymore, so I waved it off and told him that it was inconsequential and the result of stress from school and prepping for state. He looked like he doubted the truth to that, but he didn't press. Thank every deity out there he didn't press because otherwise, I would've had to explain myself to myself before I could explain myself to him.
"One of the reasons why I like you, Ari, is that you're not like any other person," he said while we walked out of the park. Then, he paused and sighed. "But sometimes, that comes back to bite me because I have no clue where your thoughts are going."
TBH—me, too.
We were heading home, and I was trying to be the happy, newly-fifteen birthday girl who'd just gotten a lovely book of poetry from a levitating basket, but my efforts weren't really working.
"Oh," he remembered, "I did want to ask you something."
"Uh huh, shoot." I maintained an indifferent one, like nothing weird had happened.
"There's a party next week..." he began.
"I see," I smirked. "You need another player for a poker game."
He ran a hand through his hair in agitation. "It's not that. It's a welcome for all the new members, and I want you to come as my date."
"This is about that Alpha organization, right?" I guessed.
"Yes," he confirmed.
"I still can't believe you actually made it. Incredible," I shook my head in amazement.
"It'll be fun," he cajoled. "Plus, if people see you and start to take you more seriously, maybe that sh—shot-up garbage at school can stop."
I knew he wanted to say another word besides shot-up, and I knew he was talking about the hooligans with the coffee and nasty notes and obscene voodoo dolls. Although I didn't expect anything to stop just because I put myself out there more, I did believe that other people had no right to control what I did with my life. I wasn't about to let those dimwits take down my self-esteem, so I was going to march into that room and let the school know that they hadn't broken me.
With this resolve, I told him, "Sure, I'll come."
He smiled. "Great, and people are always talking, so they might ask you questions."
"About what?" I wondered.
"About us. Don't take them personally, or seriously, and follow my lead," he said. Then, he gritted his teeth and finished, "so they'll quit talking."
I was preparing to cross the street. I had one foot extended forward beyond the pavement, but Claren suddenly grabbed me from behind and yanked me back. A car tore through the stop sign and peeled around the corner.
I gasped and coughed out exhaust fumes while Claren shook an angry fist at the quickly disappearing car and yelled, "Stop at the stop sign, you idiot!"
The driver, however, was blissfully unaware.
He rubbed my back while I tried to shake off the sinking feeling that I could've been smashed into smithereens. "Are you okay?" he asked me.
I straightened and rolled my shoulders back. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you, Claren, for pulling me back."
After the initial scare wore off, an unsettling aura of déjà vu crept in and seeped insidiously into my chilled bloodstream, spreading like the tentacles of the Standard Oil octopus. The last evening that I had seen Katrina alive, the night after her diving meet, we had been walking back on a street like this. She had been busy chatting about how she was going to make sure that no one would ever mess with us—the girls from the wrong side of the train tracks—at the "right" school in the city. She had already stepped into the intersection to cross, and she wasn't paying attention, so she didn't see the two headlights race out of the darkness.
I, however, did, and I pulled her back just as Claren had pulled me, and the car screeched and roared as it barraged through the stop sign.
"Remember to stop!" she shouted breathlessly as the car sped away.
We stood still on the sidewalk for a while, recovering from the fright. She could've almost died.
Then, she turned to me and said wistfully, "Always remember that, Ari. Remember to stop."
If only I or someone else the next morning could've been at the train tracks, too, and pulled her back in time.
~ ~ ~
We were heading south along US-95. The miles rolled past in a blur of bleached, golden sand. Flat desert stretched to the far edges of the horizon. The sky was clear and equally flat, a blue mirror of the pale-yellow sea beneath. Placid—that was the best fit for the scenery—placid, still, and unchanging.
The sheer size of the two planes enclosing us from above and below made me feel diminutive and small, a speck tumbling around aimlessly. It also filled me with awe—to think that all this land was standing empty and pristine. Footprints and animals tracks would be blown away in the sultry breeze, and though no marks could be indelibly left behind, without a doubt, the unrelenting solar Cyclops saw everything.
I kept my eyes focused on the farthest point on the horizon so I wouldn't feel unwell like last time. We crossed the border into California without fanfare. Nothing in the landscape signaled that we were in a different state. It was the same impassive mask of dusty, straw-colored sand and short desert shrubs, unbroken and unperturbed. The only distinguishing factor was a sign stuck into the side of the road, its face smeared with khaki soot and one corner bent.
"You said you've always wanted to escape," Xanexa commented from the driver's seat. "How is it now, being in a different state?"
My body was zipping across the surface of the Earth at seventy miles per hour, but my spirit was floating, weightless, in space. And though some people might have argued that I was looking at nothing at all, just a blank canvas made of sand and gentle spring heat, I thought that I was seeing everything. It felt like I owned the world because I was ecstatic and amazed and at peace.
"You were right," I finally replied. "Freedom isn't about where you are, but about whether you've set your heart free."
"You all have a strange notion about borders," xe said, the white, mid-morning light shining through xyr side window and throwing xyr features into sharp relief. "Most of them aren't natural, and they only exist as lines you've drawn on maps. Yet, countless wars have been fought and untold numbers of lives sacrificed for the placement of those sketched-out pencil lines."
"People want to know what they own," I said. "Even animals mark their territories."
"But can you truly own any of this?" xe waved one hand across the front in a wide arc, gesturing at the desert surrounding us. "Who can possibly own something that would outlive themselves to the n-th degree? The most you could do is be a steward—a good steward so that new eyes after you can see what you have seen."
We continued driving, and some dull brown hills stretched their arms lazily in the distance. They were short and squat, more of a fold in the sandy fabric than a true sloping peak, and they matched the unvarying landscape in flatness.
We crossed another invisible border into Arizona. Gradually. the shrubs became bushier and looked less dry, and other plants started growing more closely together. Sand was hydrated bit by bit into rough soil, and a couple trees dotted the open range. We flew over a shallow, slow-moving river and entered terrain marked by craggy brown gorges hugging the sides of a snaking, crystal-clear stream.
A small shadow circled in the sky without moving its wings. Then, suddenly, it dived from its high altitude and plummeted into the rocky gorges, a torpedo.
"A peregrine falcon," xe explained, watching the compact form disappear behind a wrinkle of stacked boulders.
It was two hours after we had first left. We got out to walk the rest of the way. Rocks crunched underfoot as we made our way to a section of rocks covered with a threadbare carpet of grass. Two bighorn sheep stared at us. Their tan coats blended into the rugged backdrop, but I could pick out the shadows of their sure and nimble hooved feet as they perched on narrow ledges that only they could see. Curled horns grew from both sides of their heads in the same proportions as the Fibonacci spiral. The sheep hugged the rock walls and trod slowly away.
As we continued walking, the river swirled, picking up sediment and collecting into pools. The gorges widened to make way for the water. Soon, we were wading through marsh grasses, yellow ochre sheaves of bushes and brown reeds. The outcroppings had dropped off to the side as if in fatigue. In some of the stagnant pools, bare trees continued to present their wizened and gnarled arms to the sky. Other trees, still alive, exposed their bulbous roots.
Waterfowl twittered and honked. Insects hummed over the water's surface. Aquatic life darted in and out of the shadows with small splashes. Fluty notes from hiding songbirds trilled in the air. The land was alive, and it was swinging in full organized chaos.
We found a patch of marsh that was bordered by a spongy, gray strip of beach and sat down, close enough to the water's rim that I could have dipped my toes in the water. Long-legged waterbirds stalked another pool nearby, occasionally plunging their reedy, curved beaks into the water to spearfish.
I was drinking in the vibrant thrum of nature, this oasis at the end of more than a hundred miles of desert. Xanexa pulled out xyr sketchbook, and I thought xe was going to start another picture, but xe opened the book to the page containing two fish circling each other. I had seen the picture before, but now it was complete in breathtaking detail. Leaning over, xe skated xyr fingertips along the water's surface and hovered them over the picture.
I startled, not sure why xe would let the water fall onto the page and smear the drawing. "Hey..." I was about to get up and save the two fish from sudden mutilation by hydropower defacement. "What are you doing?"
Xe saw me begin to push myself up, but instead of showing similar worry, xe smiled, looked me dead center in the eyes with an electric blaze, and said, "Happy birthday, my little Pisces."
In the next second, xe skimmed xyr wet fingertips over the drawing and flicked the rest of the water off in the direction of the marsh. My eyes widened as I watched the graphite run off the page in rivulets of variegated gray. The pencil lead fled from the paper, leaving it as clean as a fresh page.
As soon as the streams of graphite left the sketchbook paper, they solidified into the arching bodies of two twin open-mouthed fish, glossy olive green on top with pastel yellow and white bellies. The heads of the fish emerged, then their torsos, and finally their tails. With a single flick, they leapt into the marsh. I put up my arm to shield myself from the splash. A few drops of cool water hit my forearm, and I crept up to the edge of the pool. Just before the fish disappeared into the shadows of the turbid pond, I saw them swim in a circle, like they had in the picture, and then squiggle away.
I stared at my own blurry reflection. "You're a close-up magician," I said in a dazed voice. "You're an artist and a magician. I can't believe——"
"You don't believe what you see?" xe asked me from behind.
I retreated from the water's edge and sank back to seated, resting on my hands. I shook my head. "That's not possible. What I just saw is not possible."
"Believe it, Ari. Believe it when you're with me."
"They really left the page, just like that?"
The sketchbook flopped open on the ground next to me. "Want to check?"
I fanned through the pages. Sure enough, the two fish were gone. Instead of the drawing, there was a blank page.
"And they were real?"
"As real as all the other life in this pond."
"Where did you get them? Have you come here before?" I thought that it must be some sort of switcheroo magic trick.
"No," xe replied with a smile, "I brought them to life."
"Brought them to life?!" I imagined Dr. Frankenstein standing over his creation with a set of buzzing cardiac paddles.
Xe removed the silver scorpion curled xyr ear and twirled it on xyr fingers. It spun, and during the performance, it became a metal pencil. Xe stopped the dizzying merry-go-around and tucked the pencil behind xyr ear, where it bent into an armored scorpion once again.
"I create things," xe said plainly. "Don't you see?"
I thumbed the pages of xyr sketchbook in bafflement. "I'd always thought of pictures only. I didn't know you could—literally."
Xe sighed and looked out over the marsh at the wading birds and waterlogged trees on the other side. "You know that the progression of time in the universe inevitably creates entropy, yeah?"
"Yes, chaos," I said. "Heat. Useless energy." I handed the sketchbook back to xyr.
"No, Ari. Nothing is truly useless. Think about the trees. It is wonderful, no? They breathe in the carbon dioxide that you breathe out and produce the oxygen that you need."
I nodded and shifted my gaze to the boughs of a shivering tree, tousled by the breeze.
"It is miraculous, almost like someone had made it that way, the way that Earthly life recycles energy," xe continued. "We do the same for the universe. We recycle entropy."
"So, you can create something out of nothing?" I asked.
Xe appeared to relish my confusion. "No, we organize chaos—extract the energy that life had once expelled and put it back together again."
"Can you raise people from the dead?"
Xe closed xyr eyes. "Time cannot be rewound. The dead cannot be brought back to the land of the living."
"What's done is done, huh?" I idly kicked a pebble by my feet.
"Time casts a long shadow, and its memory is unyielding."
I remembered one of the pictures I had seen.
"Oh my god!" I jumped up and exclaimed. "You have a picture of me!" The image of myself caught in The Prestige with its continuous cycles of murderous clones rose up in my mind. I brushed it away with difficulty.
Xe laughed and got up, too, unconcerned. "Relax, Ari. We're bound by morals not to recreate people."
"Morals? Is it illegal?" I tried to calm myself down.
"We don't have laws."
"You don't have laws?"
"We don't need them. Plus, a person cannot be recreated. Each and every person is unique."
The clones reached for my face like they were going to pull it off.
"Especially you, Ari," xe said in a soft undertone.
Drat the blasted clones. Paradise. Xe had come from paradise.
"Can everyone do that?" I gestured to the now-still water where the two fish had been. "And draw from memory?"
"No, that's my talent," xe answered. "I am one of our artists, and I create things."
"What else can people do?"
"Lots of things... Some are good at solving problems, engineering cities, and building things. Others teach the next generation. Some have the gift of speech. Some are masters of telling stories..."
"I think you're pretty good at telling stories," I broke in.
Xe smiled wryly. "Stories you can hardly believe."
"I believe them," I protested, "because they feel real even though my brain is screaming at me otherwise."
Xe reached into xyr bag and started pulling out a silken cloth that flowed in a sheet of liquid silver. It pooled on the ground like spilt moonlight. Xe shook it out, and it gleamed, dazzling. I thought that it might be a picnic blanket, but it was too gorgeous to sit on.
Xe flapped the fabric over the marsh and let it flutter gently down on the water's surface. Instead of getting wet or sinking, the four hundred square foot tarp floated on top, rippling with the ruffles that hurried underneath.
"What type of fabric is that?" I asked in astonishment.
"The fabric of the universe," xe replied, stepping onto the silver silk raft, "woven from the remnants of entropy."
Xe turned around and held out a hand. "Come, dance with me."
I froze and rapidly shook my head no. Xe wanted me to walk out on a piece of fabric over a pool that was who-knows how deep—and dance? Heck, would I even be able to breathe? Fear tightened in my throat. I couldn't get on that. I couldn't swim.
A dragonfly buzzed around my ears. I whirled my head around, looking for the path we'd taken, meandering through the overgrowth behind me.
"Ari, there's nothing to be afraid of," xe beckoned. "This is the same fabric that crosses all our seas, the roads that connect disparate cities. Step on. I promise nothing bad will happen to you."
"I—I—" I stammered, "I can't swim." I gasped for air.
"I know you're afraid of the water, but I promise you won't sink."
I was still riveted to my safe one square foot of beachy soil, heart racing.
"Ari, look at me."
I met xyr tranquil, ice-blue eyes with my own, clouded in a haze of anxious worry.
"I won't let anything bad happen to you. Do you believe me?"
Nothing bad will happen. Weirdness is normalcy.
I gulped and nodded slowly.
"Don't look behind you. Everything will still be there when you return." Xe waved xyr outstretched hand, motioning for me to join.
I inhaled deeply and held my breath as I inched forward, step by step. I looked into xyr eyes and at the ring of wetland trees hanging like curtains across the far side of the marsh. I dared not look down for fear that I would freak. I felt rather than saw my feet leave the terrestrial beach and alight on the rippling silver sheet.
I took xyr hand, and an electric current raced through my veins. Both feet landed on the soft silk, and it shifted like a water mattress under my weight. I had a disorienting feeling of the world spinning around me before xe grasped my other hand.
"Breathe," xe whispered, "you're okay."
I let out the air I'd been holding.
I wasn't sinking! The marsh water slipped through, rocking me ever so slightly. How was I not sinking? How was the amazing artist even here, in front of me, showing me this whole new world—this world where I wasn't sinking? It was all too good—too good to be true. I cleared my head.
"Follow me," xe said when I had recovered.
Xe led me one step to the right, then one step back, one step to the left, and one last step to the front, slowly at first, then gradually building up to a faster beat. The silk underneath us yawned with each step, and the water trembled, but we didn't sink. I started smiling in spite of myself and all my previous misgivings, and we waltzed around and around the silver open-air ballroom like there was a string quartet playing.
"You're catching on, yeah?" xe asked, grinning.
"Yeah," I repeated, nodding breathlessly.
"Wait for the music," xe told me.
"What music?" We took a step to the side.
"Ah, I forget you don't always see. This," xe declared. Xe unwound the silver scorpion around xyr ear, brushed my hair back, and wrapped it around mine.
The burning, ice-cold metal touched my skin, and a quiver of electric energy shot into my brain. I gasped because it was like someone had just dropped a Technicolor filter in front of my eyes and a pair of acoustic headphones over my ears. Every sight and sound—everything was magnified in glorious, heavenly intensity.
The sky sparkled like a sapphire. The trees were a shocking shade of veridian and mottled with more tints of yellow and lime than I could properly process. The chorus of insect chants and birdsong swelled to an epic symphony, pulling my heart up with its raging chords and sending it trembling to the sweet melodies. Highlights were sharpened to jewel-like clarity, and shadows had deepened into multi-hued streaks of blue, black, and indigo. Wetland grasses became tassels of auburn and gold, and the waterfowl foraged while awash in glitter like crowned queens. A kaleidoscope of holographic shadows trailed behind the plants and animals.
"Now you see what I see," xe said simply.
We continued to dance on the floating silk platform as Ode to Joy galloped to a powerful crescendo. Sonorous harmonies filled my ears from three-hundred and sixty degrees. Rich, densely woven cascades of music soared to meet the pure sunlight.
I blinked, not believing that colors and sounds could be this pure. "It's absolutely beautiful," I said in amazement.
"Beauty is everywhere if you're willing to see," xe reminded me.
"How is this possible?" I looked around, hungrily devouring the overload of sensations.
"That," xe tilted xyr chin at the hot-and-cold ornament around my ear, "is a part of me."
I floated across the silk in a veil of bliss.
"Happy fifteenth, Ari," xe whispered.
I bit the inside of my lip. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course. What is it?" Circular ripples hummed under our swirling feet.
"Please don't take this wrong way," I begged.
"Not much can bother me, Ari. Have some faith."
I took a breath and exhaled. "H—How old are you?"
"Not even one."
"One?" And yet, xe was wiser than most of the adults I'd met.
"Is that so amazing?" xe said amusedly.
"Uh, uh. That's not possible. You know so much—about so many things."
"It's possible if your home planet orbits slowly," xe replied. "One of our years could take more than a century."
It finally clicked in my brain. "Like Pluto," I grinned.
"A very patient Pluto," xe agreed.
"What about in Earth years?"
"Ah, about eighteen."
"You said you're mortal, right?"
"Time does no one any favors," xe intoned.
"Then...how long can you..."
I didn't say the last word, but xe finished the question for me. "Live? Eighty years, give or take."
"In your years or mine?"
Xe spun me around; the marsh was a densely woven rainbow.
"I'd rather keep Schrödinger's cat alive."
We whirled around and around the dance floor to the celestial music only we could hear, seeing nature unveiled in all its true beauty. It was wonderful and beautiful and altogether strange, and I wished again and again that xe wouldn't have to leave.