Chapter 16
4:40 pm
She woke up abruptly, sitting up suddenly, and her breaths coming out raggedly. She looked over her shoulder at the glowing numbers on the face of her alarm clock; she had definitely been sleeping and the world had continued on without her.
Isabel looked out straight ahead of her, her eyes focusing on the pinstripe pattern of the wallpaper. She was looking for something tangible to hold on to. Her thoughts were racing with possibilities and questions, but mostly, she was thinking that it had been incredibly surreal. She placed her hand over her heart and she wasn’t surprised to feel it pounding like a drumroll under her palm. Waking up like this after a dream like that felt like a jolt to her system.
Then she combed her fingers through her hair, brushing it off of her face. When she did, her hands grazed over the skin there and it felt cool to the touch. The blanket covering her legs though felt thick and weighty so she pushed if off and brought her legs over the side of her bed. The carpet that her feet touched felt like something that could ground her so she pushed her feet down onto it, putting all of her weight into it. She placed her hands on her knees, closed her eyes and tried to piece together what had happened. It was strange; definitely strange, but it wasn’t scary. It had felt comforting, and warm, like it was meant to happen. When she closed her eyes as he instructed, she felt the memories of any other time she had been up there. If she had not had access to them before, her mind was now enriched with it.
She didn’t understand everything that had happened, but she could feel within her heart that it was like she had made peace. It had felt like he had given her a proper goodbye. It wasn’t fair to have to say goodbye at all, but Isabel knew in her heart that some sort of goodbye was better than none at all.
She looked over at the clock again to confirm the hour. It felt time was running out, but she could at least try to get to the bottom of this. Alex wasn’t gone yet.
No, she shook her head stubbornly; she would have felt it. The dream had been like a prequel, and now was the time for action and doing something to fix it. Her mind made up, Isabel put all of her weight into her feet, stood and went over to the door to her bedroom. She hesitated once her hand made contact with the doorknob because she wasn’t sure where her Mother was in the house. She wasn’t in the mood to be coddled at the moment, but she wanted Max to go with her.
Her room was separated from his by the hallway they shared, and she crossed its distance as quietly as she could. When she pushed open the door, she found the room exactly as it had looked that same morning; Max obviously hadn’t been home yet. She took a moment to try to recall the day of the week – Monday. Maybe he was still at work.
Even if he was, she still had to go find Alex. Something wasn’t right. She crept back down the hallway and went back into her room; the window was a better way out of the house.
4:40 pm
Tess held her right hand over the crystal until a small but bright light started glowing under her fingertips. Her left hand was hovered over a page in the book and she was copying what was on there into the crystal itself. In the book’s directions for going home it said that for the Granilith to work, she needed to put coding inside of the crystal. It was like putting a piece of the text into it and it was something for the machine to recognize and read when she inserted the crystal. As she was doing it, moving the text from the book to the hollow of the crystal, she felt it. It moved through her body, traveling from her left hand to her arms to her neck and back out the same way through her right side.
She felt it finish too and when she did she put the crystal down flat on the table. She still held the book in her hands and she sat down again to read the only part that was left. She was impatient and as she had been reading, anything in the book that she needed to do to prepare to go home, she did right away. Now the only part left was the prophecy.
The prophecy was what Alex hadn’t translated properly. He had translated the text into English properly, but without the guide sheet for that portion, the one that could explain some of the intricacies of the language, Tess could not read it. The symbols from her language changed meanings when placed in different context, but when she used the guide sheet, she could read through the book more easily.
The first part she knew well because Nasedo taught it to her. He had been present when they were writing that part. It was tantalizing for a young girl to be filled with the ideas and possibilities of becoming a Queen, but Tess found that the excitement of it hadn’t come easily lately.
She had to scheme and trick to even get this far. She wished the rest of her four square had been welcoming. She wished they weren’t so suspicious and unsure. She could see it in their eyes; they were unsure of what they even wanted. Isabel seemed more than content with where she was, and so did Michael. She could see it in their eyes. She wished they believed in their destiny as much as she did, and most of all, she wished Max had never met Liz. His heart still ached for her no matter what she did. And right then, at that particular moment in time, Tess wished he would give her up. It wasn’t his destiny. The book said his destiny was with her.
She turned the pages to get to that part of the propehcy, the one that was familiar. There were the images, the outlines of her, Max, Isabel and Michael, that she had shown to them when she was trying to explain. It gave background for the impregnation processes, and the health risks they needed to be aware of because of their hybrid status. With a smile, Tess acknowledged that she wouldn’t really need that once she was back on Antar. Nasedo explained she would be full Antarian once she arrived.
She kept turning the pages of the book quickly; there was only one part left that she didn’t know, and she wanted to know it. She wanted to see the Queen’s prophecy. As she went through the book, she found another familiar part – the destiny part. It stated that the royal four’s destiny was to come home.
Tess ran her fingers over the text, sadly. It would have been nice to go home with them, but it wasn’t possible anymore. They made it quite clear that this was their home. It was small ways in which they did, but Tess could feel it.
Michael was happy here. He didn’t show that he was often, but Tess could see his eyes when Maria came into his line of sight.
Max wasn’t over Liz Parker yet, and he never had been. She was the love of his life, and Tess knew that nothing could change that. Isabel was happy, and though the two girls rarely spoke, Tess knew how she felt about Alex.
‘Alex,’ Tess thought, forcing herself to look away from the spot of the book she had zoned out on. She saw him still at the computer, his back to her, and he wasn’t moving. He had become so strange lately, and she had never seen this type of reaction to a warping before.
She pushed the book off her lap and stood. It was getting late, and she needed to leave soon. She could just take the book with her and read it right before she got in, she thought. There was only one part left. The Granilith needed to gear up before she could blast off to home, and she could read it then.
Anything inside of the book would be lost then, she thought with a smile.
The chamber was going to collapse once it released the transport ship, and maybe, she could even leave the book in the chamber...it would be buried under the rubble, and they would never find it. They could be stuck here, just like they really wanted to be.
She walked a few steps forward until she was right behind Alex and she closed her eyes. She just wanted to peek inside. She was curious. And she let it begin. She felt the tingling down in her legs, and the ache in her stomach.
She made a mistake this time though.
The pain of the warp as she was going through it was so much that she opened her eyes for a second, and she thought she saw two Alexes – one descending from out of nowhere and going back inside of the one before her. Before she could confirm her own sight, the picture of the room before her jerked. She forgot to close her eyes and create the room first. She wasn’t supposed to open her eyes and look.
Before You Leave (Teen, CC) Complete
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Dreamerlaure
- Fan Fic Follower
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- Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 5:12 pm
Chapters 17, 18, 19
Chapter 17
4:49 pm
Tess was crouched on the floor in the corner by the sofa, her fingertips cradling the edge of one of its arms. Her back was on the arm, pressed up against it. She was breathing shallow and each time she tried to inhale deeper, her throat felt like it would close up. It felt dry and itchy. She tried to inhale and hold the intake of oxygen in her, but it would always escape quicker than she wanted it to. She stretched her legs out in front of her. Then her foot touched the edge of the book that had fallen open onto the floor.
She glanced at it uncertainly; all she had to do was pick it up and leave. That was it; it was as simple as that. If she did do that, she could go home and no one would ever know that she had done it. Everything she had been setting up the past few months to get Max to give the seal to her was foiled in less than two minutes. She could still go home, but going empty-handed was not a good option.
One over the shoulder glance confirmed it: he was down, and he wasn’t moving. She caught a glimpse of his sneaker and the cuff of his frayed jeans that framed it. Her breath was stuck in her throat again because just seeing it replayed the actions. First there was a bright light, and then it flashed and the room itself convulsed. She felt the buzz of electricity coursing through the air, and the sound of the thud, final and condeming, haunted her five minutes after it happened. It was too real, and as she sat by the side of the couch, it all became broken memories that were rearranged inside of her head until it was just a mass of sounds and lights that made her head spin.
Instead of feeling strong and powerful over what she had done, something else overcame her. On some level, she had realized that she might have to take care of Alex, but she didn’t think it would feel like this. She wasn’t human so what did this wild thumping in her chest suggest and what were the thoughts running through her mind for? Was she supposed to do something? Nasedo hadn't, so why wasn’t she a blank slate too?
She wiped away the tears that were coming to the surface, brushing her shirtsleeves over her eyes, and she gave herself a moment. She needed it, and when the moment was over, the room was still quiet, and Tess was too, but she was quiet in her resolve. There was no turning back now.
Tess reached forward, grabbed the book and tucked it under her arm. She pulled herself up off the floor and turned around all the way. The room was a mess, and it looked as if a tornado had come through, leaving disaster in its wake.
She didn’t hear the steps creak as someone came downstairs, so she was heading to the window when that someone landed on the bottom step and scanned the room. She heard the sharp intake though as someone started crying just as one of her feet was out of the window and the other a few inches up from the desk she had used to hoist herself up. She turned around, surprised to hear anything, and brown glittering eyes met hers.
Their eyes locked, and Tess thought anything could happen and that anything was possible, so she tried to think of what she could say. The brown eyes just watched her face, and Tess finally stuttered, “It was an accident.” Isabel glanced around the room and she took in the wreckage Tess, this tiny blonde girl who should be on her side, had caused. And Isabel’s eyes caught sight of Alex as she looked over the entire room, and she didn’t respond to Tess. Instead, she sank to her knees beside him and held his hand, cold as ice, but still distinctly his. Tess watched openmouthed as Isabel just dropped her kept her head bowed, giving him a hug. And she kept her head bowed as she cried and from across the room, Tess could see Isabel’s knuckles turn white from how tightly she was clinging to his shirt.
Tess felt a tear forming in her eye, again, but she didn’t bother wiping it away. She let it fall and she let even more fall as she ran from the house. It wasn’t her fault…she didn’t mean for it to happen…
5:29 pm
Michael shifted in the driver’s seat, and he lifted his right hand to scratch the back of his neck. It was a quiet car ride, and Maria wasn’t even her usual talkative self. She was lost in thought, staring out of the window at the New Mexico landscape that they passed. And Liz was staring a hold in his head from where she sat in the backseat. She was behind Maria, on the passenger’s side, so he couldn’t see her directly, but he could feel she was watching him.
Impatiently, he snapped, “What?”
“Nothing,” she sighed. “I’m just thinking.” Her eyes met his as he looked over the shoulder, but then she lowered her gaze to the skin by the edge of his t-shirt sleeve, to the mark. It was fading away, and Michael was happy that it was because it meant he could ignore it, but Liz felt uneasy to know that he even had it.
Michael looked back at the road, and when he was about to turn around again to snap something else at her, he felt Maria watching him. She was staring at it too, and Michael felt like he was on display.
He let his voice get softer, “What?”
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
Michael hesitated before answering. That didn’t sound too good, and he didn’t want to have this conversation while Liz was in the car. He was about to get to the heart of how he was feeling when she interrupted, “I mean why would it matter if you have this thing that Max has?” she turned around to look at Liz, engaging her in the conversation and she added, “Maybe all of them have it.”
“And by them, you mean Michael, Max, Isabel, and,” Liz paused. It still felt wrong to her to even include anyone else, and the girl who had come from out of nowhere seemingly with an agenda that didn’t make room for Liz wasn’t her pick, but she added softly, “and Tess.”
“Yeah,” Maria continued, and she brought her knee under her, and turned her back to the windshield and her shoulder to Michael. “Maybe it’s like encoded in them.”
They let Maria’s theory linger in the air, and they all considered its truth; what if it were; how much did they know about who they were?
Liz shook her head passionately, “No, it’s Max’s.”
Michael laughed at the insinuation, “Are you saying I couldn’t have it?”
“No, that’s not what I said,” Liz rushed to explicate herself from the sticky situation by adding more certainly, “It’s Max’s.”
Maria saw the familiar spark in her eyes, the Max look, as she had nicknamed it last year. It popped up at the most random places and at the most random times, but the effects were always the same. Liz would be talking about something completely unrelated to Max, and she would get the look on her face. And it happened too whenever she saw Max in front of her, a dreamy glazed look would come into her eyes and Maria, as far or as near might be to them, could see their eyes lock. The dreamy look was back, but this time Liz looked sadder, and Maria knew it was only because of what she had told him that morning.
“How do you know,” she asked quietly. She didn’t want to push or to suggest that Liz was looking for something when there was nothing.
“I know,” Liz said firmly. She looked up to see the uncertainty in Maria’s eyes, and she glanced quickly at Michael before she dropped her voice to a whisper, “I saw it.”
Michael, the guy who had perfected tact, interrupted, “When?”
Liz directed her answer to Maria, and she said, “At the concert.”
“The concert,” Maria repeated, nodding her head.
“During the…” Liz gestured wildly and brought her hands together to show a collision.
“Right. Did you get a flash during it, or after?”
“Huh?” Michael said. He scratched his eyebrow and he waited for them to answer, but they didn’t. He was confused and out of the loop again, and neither girl was coming to his rescue. Maria didn’t even look up and she just went back to finishing her sentences and thoughts with Liz again.
“Maria!” Liz exclaimed, “I’ve told you before, it only happened once.”
“Right,” Maria said sarcastically.
“Maria!”
“You mean to tell me that the night of the blind date, you didn’t take advantage of the situation?”
“Maria, what are you implying?” Liz asked, and she pretended to be aghast by the obvious implication, with a smile on her face as she said it.
“I’m suggesting that maybe you listened to what Max had to say.”
Liz nodded and she coyly said, “Perhaps.”
“Are you guys done?” Michael interrupted again at the first chance he got, when it was finally quiet again.
Maria rolled her eyes and good-naturedly said, “Yes, we’re done.”
“Good. So let’s go over what we know…We know that Max left work early,” he started, and Maria and Liz nodded. They went over to the UFO center right after they found the mark on Michael’s arm to see if Max was around and if he might know what was going on. Brody told them though that Max had left early, saying he had to be home for dinner and that he would make up the extra hour of his shift another day. They weren’t surprised then that his car wasn’t in the back lot of the Convention center because they expected he would have driven home, but all of the lights were off in the Evans home and Mrs. Evans’ car wasn’t in sight.
“We know that the thing that’s on my arm,” and he met Liz’s eyes this time and corrected himself, “this seal, is really Max’s because you…” his voice trailed off, and he looked at Maria and Liz uncertainly. Half of their conversation had flown by him, and he wanted confirmation.
“She saw it in her flashes,” Maria stated plain and simple.
Michael nodded, and he did catch the slight hurt in her voice; it was hard for him to open himself up all the time and give her flashes, and he realized that she felt the isolation of being with someone not of this earth and an even more intense isolation because her experience was so different from Liz’s. He brought his eyes back to the road in front of them and he continued, “And what we still don’t know is why I have it.”
“Right,” Liz said.
They were on their way to Alex’s house to see if maybe Isabel was over there. She hadn’t picked up her phone all afternoon, and Liz had been the one to suggest that they drop by there. She knew Isabel wasn’t speaking to many people lately; she had been in a weird mood for a month, but she could also remember vividly how Isabel had talked about Alex that morning. There was something there, Liz was certain of it, and she wouldn’t doubt that Isabel would go over to see him.
Both girls were thinking though that it would be nice to see Alex anyway. They pulled up into the Whitman driveway just as Lena Whitman was rushing out of the house. Her cheeks were a little red and her eyes were puffy. She wasn’t even dressed properly to leave her house but there she was, doing it anyway. She wore her jacket over a pair of sweatpants, and Michael smirked when he saw the fuzzy slippers on her feet.
“Mrs. Whitman,” the girls chorused.
“How are you, Mrs. Whitman,” Liz asked.
Mrs. Whitman looked up at them and she paused before using her car keys to make the alarm come off. “I have something to tell you,” she said, and once she uttered those famous last words, the prequel to any coming misfortune, she stood before them shakily and clutched Liz’s forearm, “There’s been an accident.”
*
Chapter 18
The night desert air was brisk and biting that night and she could feel it through her leather jacket, her jeans, and shirt. She tried pulling her coat around her tighter but that only helped for a few moments because soon the chill was back again.
Then she was cold again, and the only choice to keep warm was to wrap her arms around her chest. She felt so weak as she walked forward to the rocky hill, but she took a deep breath because she knew she had to continue.
The chamber was buried inside of the mountain, in the belly created by its rock crevices and its inner caverns. The ingenuity of that brought a smile to her lips. It was genius really; the FBI would never have thought to look here when the ship first crashed. They probably had no inkling that the other four sacs they did not possess could be in an inconspicuous location like this; its location carefully guarded the fragile pods during the growing period from any sunlight and potential outsiders.
She shielded her eyes from the sunlight with her hand, placing her palm against her forehead as a visor. It felt more real now that she was here and finally about to enter, but she didn’t want to savor it.
It wasn’t happening like she expected it to. They, or he at least, should all be going back together…That was the arrangement, and she didn’t even want to think about what kind of fate would befall her once she did reach Antar.
How would they react? How would he react, this Khivar she had yet to meet?
She took the first of many steps by planting one foot into one of the niches the rocks made. Once she put it down, she tested her weight by leaning forward.
She had to be perfectly precise about this. She wouldn’t want to fall. Her hands were already grimy from falling, and her jean pants were grass stained and muddy.
Then she tested the strength of the rocks beneath her by rocking back and forth gently. It seemed okay, so she swung her right foot forwards so that it landed firmly onto a flat rock that was a few inches up. Then she crouched down low, placing her hand down onto the cool surface of a jagged rock; that one had been too sharp to try to balance on it, but it was a nice push-off for her next step.
When she first came to Roswell, she had been naïve. Nasedo told her that it was her destiny lay with them, Max, Michael and Isabel. He told her that Max had the capacity to complete her and that Michael and Isabel would balance them out so that they could make a royal four comparable to the one before them by their formidable strength. And she believed him. She had blindly listened to his advice, and for what?
The bloodied handprint on the note under her pillow startled her with its bright daring color. She had pushed her hand under her pillow to fluff it before she closed her eyes. It had been a long day and night, and even then, she mused, she needed to rest after any mind warp. Max had destroyed the bones, and Nasedo was supposedly doing well in Washington and in Roswell posing as Pierce. It had been a surprise then when Max told them he was dead, and she was just beginning to accept it when she found the note:
I’ve left instructions for you on how to prepare for the return home throughout the house; when you need them, you’ll find the letters easily because it will be where you need to look…do not return alone… pact was issued while you were being engineered…Khivar knew what was happening, and he wanted to set terms…this was the only way…he wants all of them…In name, you’ll still be the Queen…all actions he’ll enforce will have your approval, automatically…but, think about what you will be getting back. It’s all worth it, and if you don’t go, or if you warn them what will happen, there’ll be consequences…this is your destiny, to act as a queen.
She was just going to be used. On Antar, Khivar made the arrangement so that she could be the one to return the granilith. They didn’t want to send someone else to come and get it and they would rather trust her before they would trust anyone else.
So, she had to accept it, it was already done. The ominous words that he would do something to her if she didn’t let it fall through had concerned her, but it was trivial at the moment. It was all coming to an end; she was finally going to get to go home. The circumstances were out of her control as were the events that would take place once she arrived, but it didn’t matter as much anymore.
Night had fallen quickly and nothing had happened. She was panting when she broke the corner near her house and she toppled into the backseat of the car, her chest heaving. Her hands were scarred and her jeans were torn from the tumble she took when she edged out of the window, so she rested her hands on the seating and clung to it.
She felt like a fugitive. It wasn’t fair, but still she waited. She wasn’t sure what Isabel was even capable of, and she silently vowed to herself, she didn’t want to stay around and find out how everyone else would react. She wanted to believe that it was just an accident but she wasn’t sure anymore. Hadn’t she known it was coming? She could have … stopped.
But she had to let these thoughts quickly; this wasn’t the time for every reflection because she had to go. She had gotten up, climbed over to the front seat and turned on the engine. She had to go because time was running out even if she wasn’t sure of the consequences.
As she stood before the flat smooth rock, her eyes went down to the floor for the small indentation created by the irregular shape of the rock and the ground below it. There, this was the right spot. She placed her hand over the entrance and waited for the rocks to morph to show her glowing handprint.
It was like a mirror effect. Her hand went over it and then her true handprint showed up. The exisistence of these little things confirmed who she really was.
She waited for the rocks to part and create the opening. Then she stepped through. The chamber hummed softly, casting a soft warm yellow glow out onto the grounds of the chamber, and she felt soothed by it. She eyed the four pods and without thinking much about it, she felt pulled to it and she went to stand before them. She traced her fingertips along the cracked rough membrane; it was dusty and crusty because of the years that had rolled by since they first came out.
But this was where it had all began. She began being here. Still, it was strange. They had all come from the same artificial cookie mold, but why were they able to when she could not? Why could they love and feel and she could not?
Something kept her from it.
They broke out of their pods, together. They all wore the same uniform: sticky, gooey residue that clung to their bodies like a second skin. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t speak or understand each other. They understood that there was something more there, some deeper connection. And, their first impulse was to leave and venture into the world. And she had stayed. Her pod hadn’t broken as easily. Only Max had stayed behind, even if it had been momentary, which she was willing to forgive, but he had hesitated. He was wondering if there was something he could do, if he did have the power to set her free.
She let her arm fall from Max’s pod down to the one on the diagonal from it, her own and she rubbed the pieces of the membrane that were sticking out in between her fingertips; it was so dry.
*
“- never wakes up,” Lena cried. She was holding her face in her hands, crying, and her husband’s hands were cradling her frame in seconds as he rushed to soothe her, “He’ll wake up.”
“How do you know that?” she asked as she turned her face upwards to look at him. She wasn’t as bothered anymore, but she was mistrustful. Appearances were so deceiving lately. She pronounced the words carefully, and she waited for him to answer her.
“I know that because I have faith. Alex will wake up.” He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her tighter.
Liz carefully stepped back with the cup of tea she had gone to get for Mrs. Harding, and leaned against the wall for support. She didn’t realize it was that bad.
Mrs. Harding told them he had only collapsed. They went to the hospital in her car. While she was driving, Liz from where she sat in the front seat noticed the blank expression on her face.
The tension in the car didn’t impact Michael nearly as much as it had Liz or Maria and he asked, uncertainly, “What happened? Is he…” he paused there, and looked over at Maria who was seated beside him in the backseat. He surprised himself when his first impulse when it registered that she was trembling was to reach out and hold her hand, and he was still holding it ten minutes into the car ride. He corrected what had might have been an offensive statement by asking instead, “will he be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Lena said blankly. Her voice sounded so far away and she swallowed hard before she continued. “I got the call while I was at the supermarket. The hospital called, and they said he collapsed. I spoke with his,” and she paused, meeting Michael’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and added, “your friend, Isabel.”
She didn’t notice the “I knew it” look Michael tossed in Liz’s direction. “She said there had been an accident and that the insurance and everything needed to be set up as soon as possible. She said he collapsed suddenly while they were at a friend’s house. It’s not like there’s been any heart trouble in our family, so I just don’t understand...My husband’s out of town this morning, but I called him right after.”
Liz noticed how saying this was her comfort and she nodded. She understood how important it was to have someone by your side during a time like this.
“Is he awake?” Maria asked.
“No,” Lena said, and she gripped the steering wheel even tighter.
Maria felt Michael’s hand tighten around hers. He wasn’t gripping her hand but holding it instead, he was holding her. He might not have been aware what he was doing at the moment, but to Maria it felt like a lot because in his hands she felt love rushing through her. As the weight of Mrs. Harding’s account of the events and the possible consequences sank in, she turned her gaze back to Michael. He saw the tears welling up in her eyes, and he opened up for her, letting her settle into his arms.
The memory of that warmed Liz’s heart. As much as Michael and Maria tried to deny it, they were a great fit. She glanced around the corner again at Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Whitman and she saw that Mr. Whitman was pressing a pen down onto a clipboard.
Expenses, she mused. This was going to be so expensive. It wasn’t just the emergency call that would inflate the price of his stay. Alex wasn’t awake yet, so he would be staying for as long as they figured he needed to. He might be for overnight observation, or maybe even longer, but the thought of him even being here was unnerving.
She walked out of the main waiting room and she made her way back to the other waiting room, the one near Alex’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman might be a while if they were going to be sorting out the insurance policy and all of the added expenses.
Michael and Maria were sitting on one of the plastic benches together. However, they were considerably cool again, Michael on one end and Maria on the other. She didn’t know what else she could have expected from them; Maria wasn’t taking it well so she might only push him away some more, again.
Liz took a seat across from them. Maria’s eyes were fixed on the threads in the carpet, and she was probably playing the game the two girls had liked when they were young; counting the many colors in there. They used that game as an escape, and if Maria was doing it right then, she could tell Maria wasn’t in the mood for speaking.
Liz directed her question at Michael first, “How’s she doing?”
“She hasn’t said anything yet.”
“Still?” Liz asked, confused. “Why? What’s going on with her?”
“I don’t know,” Micahel said.
“She needs to. She was there. She’s the only one who knows what happened.”
“I know,” Michael said, and he smiled faintly, “But she might not tell us until she’s ready. Let’s give her time.” He looked beyond Liz at the tall blonde standing outside of Alex’s room. His eyes flickered back to Liz’s and he said wisely, “He meant a lot to her.”
*
“It looks like he suffered a minor seizure,” the doctor whispered in a hushed tone.
It was three hours later, and Liz was sitting in the waiting room, still, with Isabel beside her, and Maria across from her. Michael had gone out to ge the girls anything they wanted from home. Liz called her parents as soon as she reached the hospital with the news and they had permitted her to stay overnight, if she chose, and they even offered that if she wanted to miss school the following day, they would come in the morning to pay their respects also.
They had a business convention in Albuquerque for the evening though, so any decision she would make would leave the hour she came and went from her house at her discretion. Maria’s mom had cried softly over the phone and she had even offered for Maria to stay without her mentioning it. Then although Isabel still hadn’t spoken yet, Liz could only assume that everything was okay with Mrs. Evans too because she had asked Michael to go and get her a change of clothes.
Now the doctor was relaying the results of the tests they had administered so far. He was only speaking with the Whitmans, but they were still in the waiting room, luckily. It was a slow late night and it was hard not to eavesdrop. Liz cared about what happened too, but she knew it might be inappropriate if she were standing there getting the news along with the Whitmans.
“We ran an EEG test, and it looks like he had a seizure.”
“A seizure,” Mrs. Whitman echoed. She felt it again, that far away feeling that had been taking over lately every time just one more thing was added to the mix. Her husband grasped her arm and held it gently; she was so fragile lately.
“But there isn’t a history of seizures in our family.”
“Really?” the doctor asked. “Well, sometimes these things happen. There are measures we can take to prevent anything like this happening again or even, more often,” he added briskly when he noticed a shimmer of hope shining in their eyes. He needed them to understand that miracles just couldn’t happen in five hours.
“So, he’ll be prescribed an anti-seizure medication….it’s nothing major….have to take it daily for a couple of…and we’ll monitor it with this…”
Liz wasn’t listening anymore. All of her attention was focused on Isabel. She was finally speaking. Liz stared at her intently, because her voice had been so soft, she had missed it.
“What?”
“I told him,” she said quietly. “I told him everything.”
*
She came into the inner chamber on her hands and knees, crawling through her own pod. She was going out of this world the same way she had come in.
She took the crystal out of her jeans pocket and walked over to the wall. She put her hands up against it and brought it along the sides until she could feel the buzz of the machine under her hand. The granilith was powered by cords that ran deep into the earth and it fed on carbon and magnesium.
The crystal disappeared into the wall once it made contact. The walls of the chamber sucked it in. As soon as her fingertips lost contact with the crystal, she heard:
“Going somewhere?”
Chapter 19
Tess whipped her head around at the sound of the voice and her eyes darted from the walls of the chamber to the transport, but she couldn’t see anything right away. She was about to call out when she heard the rocks at the entrance of the cave snap shut, scratching the floor of the cave as they moved violently.
The sound rang through the cave, bouncing off of its walls, and she shivered at the sudden darkness it left in its wake. Then the moonlight from the desert sky wasn’t coming in anymore so the cave outside of the chamber was completely immersed in darkness, and where she was, near the countdown and the transport had an eerie glow. Her eyes adjusted to the lighting the transport gave off, which was right now the only thing keeping her from being in the darkness too. It pulsed, fading in and out.
She kept her eyes trained to the back of the pod she had come through, waiting for someone to appear. Instead, she was rewarded with silence from that end, and the humming of the granilith beside her. It was gearing up, and on the wall, she could see the four white lights blinking. Once there was only one light left, the transport would automatically lock, preventing anyone from leaving or entering it.
“Who’s there?” she demanded. She tried to look around again, but the darkness of the chamber was not helping. Whoever was here certainly had the advantage.
She didn’t seem him step out from behind her, but she did feel the impact of a blast against her shoulder. It rushed right through her, hitting each part of her arm, making it sore and ache. Then, it was like a second wave of energy rushed into her, this time more malevolent and furious, and that’s what pushed her and propelled her forward. It knocked her off of her feet and hurled her at the wall with as much ease as someone would throw a ball.
Her back smacked into the left side of the cave first and heard a dull crack when she collided. She tried moving her legs, but a shooting pain that started by her hips ran straight down her legs. Her hand couldn’t move either, and her head was threatening to fall forward and down towards her chest.
So, she straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. She raised her head so it could fall against the wall for support, and she stayed there. Then she heard footsteps, echoing all around her. She stared at the hazy blur, at the figure who was stepping into her view. The lines that were there instead of his arms and the five faces where there should have been one in front of her slowly converged, and defeatedly, she croaked, “Max?”
Then, it got dark.
*
“You told him?” Liz repeated. She frowned. Isabel wasn’t being direct, and Liz was having a hard time even connecting with her today on any level. She remembered their conversation in the hallway earlier and that there had been a moment where Isabel had found it easy to open up.
She waited but Isabel didn’t answer. She was starting to cry, so Liz placed her hand down on her forearm. “Isabel,” she soothed. “You can tell me.” She tried to toss the curiosity that was bubbling inside of her and focused on getting some facts straight instead, “Alex? Did you tell Alex?” The blond shook her head gently, and Liz tried again, “What did you tell him?”
“No, I told him,” she swiped at the tear that was falling down her cheek and looked over at Liz, finally. Her eyes were large and swollen and her cheeks were flushed with crying. Liz could only have described her as impeccable and stunning in the weeks before, so this was a surprise. The look in Isabel’s eyes though, the haunting look and the despair scared her, and she frowned.
Then it all clicked and her eyes widened in understanding. “You told Max?”
Isabel nodded and tore her eyes away from Liz. She could hear the fear in her voice and this time she held Liz’s hand, “He hung up before I could tell him everything. He was so angry.”
“Where is he now?” Liz asked tentatively. “Why would he be angry? Alex just had a seizure. It couldn’t have been prevented.” She shook her head, “What could he have done?”
“No,” Isabel said angrily, tears spilling onto her cheeks and she hiccupped as a sob broke free. “No, Tess did this,” and she looked back at Liz.
“Tess?” Liz repeated, a bitterness creeping into her voice she had never had before.
From where Maria was sitting, she exclaimed incredulously, “Tess?” Isabel nodded her head once, and it confirmed it for both of the girls. Maria stared at her, and she stuttered, “What? How’s that possible? Why?”
Isabel sighed wearily and she took a deep breath, “I was looking for him for most of the afternoon, and when I dropped by his house, there wasn’t anyone there. I was going by the other side of town, to go by the record store,” she explianed and she looked up at Maria, who nodded. Alex started to frequent the record store on Tenth Street on the other side of town and he was almost always there when not at the Crashdown. It was a recent development but it had never struck Isabel as odd until she drove by it, “The strange thing is it doesn’t exist.”
“What?” Liz said perplexed. “What do you mean? He goes there all the time.”
“Exactly,” Isabel noddded, “or so I thought. 51 Tenth Street is in a development complex.”
“A development complex?” Maria questioned. “But, there aren’t any in that area except Crescent, which is new anyway. Maybe he meant another record store?”
Liz interrupted, “No. He’s shown me the phone book ad for it before.”
“Ok,” Maria said, her voice trailing off, “So why would he lie to us?”
“No, the better question is, why would he want us to think he goes there? Why does he need an explanation for where he goes?”
“Yeah,” Isabel’s eyes were less red and she sat up. They were getting somewhere, and she continued, “That’s what I was thinking. And while I was there, I drove around the complex a little bit more. Do you know who lives there?”
It clicked for Liz and Maria at the same time, and they stared. Isabel continued, “I was passing by her house, or what I thought used to be her house, and I felt a pull.”
“A pull?” Maria asked. “That’s weird.”
“Was it a malevolent pull, like something dangerous?” Liz asked. She was trying to wrap her mind around it.
“No,” Isabel paused, and she closed her eyes.
“It was gentle, and familiar, and it was more like it was a pull that was meant for me,” she snapped out of her reverie, and said, “I didn’t know what it was, but I felt like I had to find out.”
Liz nodded, “What happened though?”
“I don’t know…exactly.”
Maria stared at her, “What? I thought you said Tess did it?”
“She did,” Isabel confirmed, “but something else happened. As soon as I came through the door, I felt this charge of energy all around me, and the room was spinning.”
“That’s strange. Was it hard walking?” Liz asked, trying to picture it properly.
“No,” Isabel said thoughtfully. “It was like I was an anchor. I kept going but everything wasn’t what it seemed. I finally made it to the stairs, which I thought would just lead to the garage. When I got downstairs, I saw her leaving, and Alex,” she paused and wiped at the tears that were coming again, “he was on the floor.”
Maria stared at her open mouthed, “Why didn’t you do something,” she stuttered.
“It was Alex. It wouldn’t have been fair to his memory to do what I wanted to. She saw me, and she said it was an accident. I let her go.”
Isabel’s last words hung in the air and understanding, Liz and Maria reached out to hug her. That moment was probably the most heartfelt Isabel had had all day, and she continued to cry, touched at the response.
When they pulled away, Isabel smiled lightly, “Thank you.”
“What are friends for?” Maria asked gently.
Isabel nodded, “For times like these.”
Liz hesitated before getting back to the only unresolved question, and she asked, “So where’s Max?”
*
Tess blinked her eyes open. That was close. She felt as if she had been about to slip away. That was really close. Resting her eyes then had given her the extra boost to…she looked up, the boy before her becoming clearer the longer she was conscious again.
“Max,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He was reading the book, and he closed it shut when her raspy voice broke into his concentration. Now he looked down at her angrily.
“Was that the plan? Lie to everyone and go back home to hand Khivar all three of our heads on a platter?”
“No, that’s not –”
“And you weren’t going to tell us either? There was this big elaborate plan to get us back home and you weren’t going to say anything about it to us? Were those lies that you told us? Were those false memories, because it looks as if you won’t stop at anything to get what you want,” his eyes darkened as he finished, and Tess visibly paled at those words.
“Alex?”
He stared at her pointedly.
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. Tears were brimming in her eyes as she tried to sit up. She did make it, somehow, but she looked so red with embarassment the thought momentarily went through Max’s mind that maybe there was more to this. One thing he had learned over the past two years was that there was always more to a story; there were two sides to everything, but he kept his face blank as he listened to her excuse:
“It was an accident; I never meant for it to happen.”
Max didn’t give an inch though, and he watched as she crumbled before his very eyes. She came undone right there; all of the barriers she had built to shut everyone out and to protect the lies she fed to surive fell away. Her eyes were filled with a desperacy when he had only seen longing in them before; longing for him, for a family, for a return home. Inwardly, he was startled by the change, but he still had one more question for her.
“It just happened,” she rattled on. “I could feel myself getting out of control, like I couldn’t handle it and then it…it went too far. I didn’t even see what was happening, and everything just spun out of control. It was an accident,” she insisted.
“It’s the wrong kind of accident,” Max said. His tone of voice was condeming, and stubborn so she knew she had to change her tactic.
She was on her knees because sitting back on the floor put more pressure on her lower back, and sitting on her heels added unnecessary stress. She decided that she needed to level with him, so she pushed her feet down onto the floor, planting them unsteadily as she stood. “I know that,” she muttered, and Max noticed the downcast turn of her eyes. At least she’s humble, he acknowledged, but then she looked back up at him and he could just tell that she wanted something else.
“I was going to go home,” she said, a smile coming onto her face. She pointed at the book. “He did the translation; he finished it. You’re holding the complete directions for us to get home in your hands.”
“And look at the price,” he reminded her.
She took one step towards him at the same time Max raised his arm, and she stopped. “You’ve destroyed so much, Tess. It’s not just an accident. If it were that simple so many lives wouldn’t have been ruined in the process.”
“Is he…”
“No,” he said, but his eyes never left hers as he said it and she felt like he was looking right through her for a reaction, any reaction.
She didn’t wipe her tears away or start crying again, and she quietly said, “That’s good.”
A few seconds elapsed and Max waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. She didn’t apologize any further or divulge what she would do next. “There’s always consequences, Tess.”
“I know that, too,” she said.
Max looked up at the wall behind him, where Tess was looking and he looked back at her, “There’s only one left.”
She nodded and her eyes met his.
Then he asked the unspoken, the one question that could alter all of their lives if she did or didn’t, “Are you going?”
“Do I have a choice?” she muttered self-depracatingly. It felt like she didn’t. If she left, she would be remembered for who she was at the very moment she turned away from Isabel – a coward, a villain for disrupting everything. If she stayed, they would never look at her the same. Her thoughts changed for a second as she realized that them looking at her the same wasn’t necessarily a good thing either because hadn’t everything they knew about her been built upon lies in the first place. Neither had any real benefit from where she stood. Max interpreted her silence for her uncertainty of how to tell him she wanted to go.
“I’m going to wait twenty minutes outside. If you want to go,” he looked over his shoulder at the countdown, “You can go. I’ll tell them that you went and that I couldn’t get here in time. And if you want to stay, come outside and I’ll drive you to the bus depot so you can go wherever you want. If you choose to go that way, just know that you would be cutting off all contact from us. You’ve done so much damage already.”
Tess stared at him; he was being so straightforward with her options but she had to ask, “You’re not going to –”
“You’ve done enough damage and undeserving or not, I don’t have the heart to.”
With that, Max walked around her and left. Her back was to him as he walked away, and his back was to her also. Max didn’t look back until he was outside sitting on the hood of his jeep ninety feet away.
When he did, he only looked back because he was curious. Which lie would he have to tell his sister when he got back? Then he wondered how best to let her down gently. She was going to find out…he felt he made the right choice, but that didn’t mean that Isabel, Michael, Maria or Alex would understand. And possibly, Liz might not either.
He had the book in his hands, and he flipped it open for lack of something else to do. He reached the last page of the original prophecy, where he had left off right before Tess woke up, jarring him back to reality. It was interesting to see the past unveil itself in this book just by reading the prophecy. They had had so many expectations and hopes for them; Max the next great ruler, Isabel, a fair and just princess, Michael, a trustworthy second, and Tess, a supportive wife. Every great ruler needed a support system like these four had had in the past life, but whenever Max did close his eyes and imagine himself in any capacity as a ruler, or a man, it was always Liz by his side. But, thanks to everything that had been happening lately, it didn’t look like that would work out well either?
He turned the last page he had read and he came to one that was written with an entirely different brush stroke. At first he skimmed over the content, but it was words like, “seal,” “unprecented,” and “three” that yanked his attention fully so that he became absorbed in the translation.
4:49 pm
Tess was crouched on the floor in the corner by the sofa, her fingertips cradling the edge of one of its arms. Her back was on the arm, pressed up against it. She was breathing shallow and each time she tried to inhale deeper, her throat felt like it would close up. It felt dry and itchy. She tried to inhale and hold the intake of oxygen in her, but it would always escape quicker than she wanted it to. She stretched her legs out in front of her. Then her foot touched the edge of the book that had fallen open onto the floor.
She glanced at it uncertainly; all she had to do was pick it up and leave. That was it; it was as simple as that. If she did do that, she could go home and no one would ever know that she had done it. Everything she had been setting up the past few months to get Max to give the seal to her was foiled in less than two minutes. She could still go home, but going empty-handed was not a good option.
One over the shoulder glance confirmed it: he was down, and he wasn’t moving. She caught a glimpse of his sneaker and the cuff of his frayed jeans that framed it. Her breath was stuck in her throat again because just seeing it replayed the actions. First there was a bright light, and then it flashed and the room itself convulsed. She felt the buzz of electricity coursing through the air, and the sound of the thud, final and condeming, haunted her five minutes after it happened. It was too real, and as she sat by the side of the couch, it all became broken memories that were rearranged inside of her head until it was just a mass of sounds and lights that made her head spin.
Instead of feeling strong and powerful over what she had done, something else overcame her. On some level, she had realized that she might have to take care of Alex, but she didn’t think it would feel like this. She wasn’t human so what did this wild thumping in her chest suggest and what were the thoughts running through her mind for? Was she supposed to do something? Nasedo hadn't, so why wasn’t she a blank slate too?
She wiped away the tears that were coming to the surface, brushing her shirtsleeves over her eyes, and she gave herself a moment. She needed it, and when the moment was over, the room was still quiet, and Tess was too, but she was quiet in her resolve. There was no turning back now.
Tess reached forward, grabbed the book and tucked it under her arm. She pulled herself up off the floor and turned around all the way. The room was a mess, and it looked as if a tornado had come through, leaving disaster in its wake.
She didn’t hear the steps creak as someone came downstairs, so she was heading to the window when that someone landed on the bottom step and scanned the room. She heard the sharp intake though as someone started crying just as one of her feet was out of the window and the other a few inches up from the desk she had used to hoist herself up. She turned around, surprised to hear anything, and brown glittering eyes met hers.
Their eyes locked, and Tess thought anything could happen and that anything was possible, so she tried to think of what she could say. The brown eyes just watched her face, and Tess finally stuttered, “It was an accident.” Isabel glanced around the room and she took in the wreckage Tess, this tiny blonde girl who should be on her side, had caused. And Isabel’s eyes caught sight of Alex as she looked over the entire room, and she didn’t respond to Tess. Instead, she sank to her knees beside him and held his hand, cold as ice, but still distinctly his. Tess watched openmouthed as Isabel just dropped her kept her head bowed, giving him a hug. And she kept her head bowed as she cried and from across the room, Tess could see Isabel’s knuckles turn white from how tightly she was clinging to his shirt.
Tess felt a tear forming in her eye, again, but she didn’t bother wiping it away. She let it fall and she let even more fall as she ran from the house. It wasn’t her fault…she didn’t mean for it to happen…
5:29 pm
Michael shifted in the driver’s seat, and he lifted his right hand to scratch the back of his neck. It was a quiet car ride, and Maria wasn’t even her usual talkative self. She was lost in thought, staring out of the window at the New Mexico landscape that they passed. And Liz was staring a hold in his head from where she sat in the backseat. She was behind Maria, on the passenger’s side, so he couldn’t see her directly, but he could feel she was watching him.
Impatiently, he snapped, “What?”
“Nothing,” she sighed. “I’m just thinking.” Her eyes met his as he looked over the shoulder, but then she lowered her gaze to the skin by the edge of his t-shirt sleeve, to the mark. It was fading away, and Michael was happy that it was because it meant he could ignore it, but Liz felt uneasy to know that he even had it.
Michael looked back at the road, and when he was about to turn around again to snap something else at her, he felt Maria watching him. She was staring at it too, and Michael felt like he was on display.
He let his voice get softer, “What?”
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
Michael hesitated before answering. That didn’t sound too good, and he didn’t want to have this conversation while Liz was in the car. He was about to get to the heart of how he was feeling when she interrupted, “I mean why would it matter if you have this thing that Max has?” she turned around to look at Liz, engaging her in the conversation and she added, “Maybe all of them have it.”
“And by them, you mean Michael, Max, Isabel, and,” Liz paused. It still felt wrong to her to even include anyone else, and the girl who had come from out of nowhere seemingly with an agenda that didn’t make room for Liz wasn’t her pick, but she added softly, “and Tess.”
“Yeah,” Maria continued, and she brought her knee under her, and turned her back to the windshield and her shoulder to Michael. “Maybe it’s like encoded in them.”
They let Maria’s theory linger in the air, and they all considered its truth; what if it were; how much did they know about who they were?
Liz shook her head passionately, “No, it’s Max’s.”
Michael laughed at the insinuation, “Are you saying I couldn’t have it?”
“No, that’s not what I said,” Liz rushed to explicate herself from the sticky situation by adding more certainly, “It’s Max’s.”
Maria saw the familiar spark in her eyes, the Max look, as she had nicknamed it last year. It popped up at the most random places and at the most random times, but the effects were always the same. Liz would be talking about something completely unrelated to Max, and she would get the look on her face. And it happened too whenever she saw Max in front of her, a dreamy glazed look would come into her eyes and Maria, as far or as near might be to them, could see their eyes lock. The dreamy look was back, but this time Liz looked sadder, and Maria knew it was only because of what she had told him that morning.
“How do you know,” she asked quietly. She didn’t want to push or to suggest that Liz was looking for something when there was nothing.
“I know,” Liz said firmly. She looked up to see the uncertainty in Maria’s eyes, and she glanced quickly at Michael before she dropped her voice to a whisper, “I saw it.”
Michael, the guy who had perfected tact, interrupted, “When?”
Liz directed her answer to Maria, and she said, “At the concert.”
“The concert,” Maria repeated, nodding her head.
“During the…” Liz gestured wildly and brought her hands together to show a collision.
“Right. Did you get a flash during it, or after?”
“Huh?” Michael said. He scratched his eyebrow and he waited for them to answer, but they didn’t. He was confused and out of the loop again, and neither girl was coming to his rescue. Maria didn’t even look up and she just went back to finishing her sentences and thoughts with Liz again.
“Maria!” Liz exclaimed, “I’ve told you before, it only happened once.”
“Right,” Maria said sarcastically.
“Maria!”
“You mean to tell me that the night of the blind date, you didn’t take advantage of the situation?”
“Maria, what are you implying?” Liz asked, and she pretended to be aghast by the obvious implication, with a smile on her face as she said it.
“I’m suggesting that maybe you listened to what Max had to say.”
Liz nodded and she coyly said, “Perhaps.”
“Are you guys done?” Michael interrupted again at the first chance he got, when it was finally quiet again.
Maria rolled her eyes and good-naturedly said, “Yes, we’re done.”
“Good. So let’s go over what we know…We know that Max left work early,” he started, and Maria and Liz nodded. They went over to the UFO center right after they found the mark on Michael’s arm to see if Max was around and if he might know what was going on. Brody told them though that Max had left early, saying he had to be home for dinner and that he would make up the extra hour of his shift another day. They weren’t surprised then that his car wasn’t in the back lot of the Convention center because they expected he would have driven home, but all of the lights were off in the Evans home and Mrs. Evans’ car wasn’t in sight.
“We know that the thing that’s on my arm,” and he met Liz’s eyes this time and corrected himself, “this seal, is really Max’s because you…” his voice trailed off, and he looked at Maria and Liz uncertainly. Half of their conversation had flown by him, and he wanted confirmation.
“She saw it in her flashes,” Maria stated plain and simple.
Michael nodded, and he did catch the slight hurt in her voice; it was hard for him to open himself up all the time and give her flashes, and he realized that she felt the isolation of being with someone not of this earth and an even more intense isolation because her experience was so different from Liz’s. He brought his eyes back to the road in front of them and he continued, “And what we still don’t know is why I have it.”
“Right,” Liz said.
They were on their way to Alex’s house to see if maybe Isabel was over there. She hadn’t picked up her phone all afternoon, and Liz had been the one to suggest that they drop by there. She knew Isabel wasn’t speaking to many people lately; she had been in a weird mood for a month, but she could also remember vividly how Isabel had talked about Alex that morning. There was something there, Liz was certain of it, and she wouldn’t doubt that Isabel would go over to see him.
Both girls were thinking though that it would be nice to see Alex anyway. They pulled up into the Whitman driveway just as Lena Whitman was rushing out of the house. Her cheeks were a little red and her eyes were puffy. She wasn’t even dressed properly to leave her house but there she was, doing it anyway. She wore her jacket over a pair of sweatpants, and Michael smirked when he saw the fuzzy slippers on her feet.
“Mrs. Whitman,” the girls chorused.
“How are you, Mrs. Whitman,” Liz asked.
Mrs. Whitman looked up at them and she paused before using her car keys to make the alarm come off. “I have something to tell you,” she said, and once she uttered those famous last words, the prequel to any coming misfortune, she stood before them shakily and clutched Liz’s forearm, “There’s been an accident.”
*
Chapter 18
The night desert air was brisk and biting that night and she could feel it through her leather jacket, her jeans, and shirt. She tried pulling her coat around her tighter but that only helped for a few moments because soon the chill was back again.
Then she was cold again, and the only choice to keep warm was to wrap her arms around her chest. She felt so weak as she walked forward to the rocky hill, but she took a deep breath because she knew she had to continue.
The chamber was buried inside of the mountain, in the belly created by its rock crevices and its inner caverns. The ingenuity of that brought a smile to her lips. It was genius really; the FBI would never have thought to look here when the ship first crashed. They probably had no inkling that the other four sacs they did not possess could be in an inconspicuous location like this; its location carefully guarded the fragile pods during the growing period from any sunlight and potential outsiders.
She shielded her eyes from the sunlight with her hand, placing her palm against her forehead as a visor. It felt more real now that she was here and finally about to enter, but she didn’t want to savor it.
It wasn’t happening like she expected it to. They, or he at least, should all be going back together…That was the arrangement, and she didn’t even want to think about what kind of fate would befall her once she did reach Antar.
How would they react? How would he react, this Khivar she had yet to meet?
She took the first of many steps by planting one foot into one of the niches the rocks made. Once she put it down, she tested her weight by leaning forward.
She had to be perfectly precise about this. She wouldn’t want to fall. Her hands were already grimy from falling, and her jean pants were grass stained and muddy.
Then she tested the strength of the rocks beneath her by rocking back and forth gently. It seemed okay, so she swung her right foot forwards so that it landed firmly onto a flat rock that was a few inches up. Then she crouched down low, placing her hand down onto the cool surface of a jagged rock; that one had been too sharp to try to balance on it, but it was a nice push-off for her next step.
When she first came to Roswell, she had been naïve. Nasedo told her that it was her destiny lay with them, Max, Michael and Isabel. He told her that Max had the capacity to complete her and that Michael and Isabel would balance them out so that they could make a royal four comparable to the one before them by their formidable strength. And she believed him. She had blindly listened to his advice, and for what?
The bloodied handprint on the note under her pillow startled her with its bright daring color. She had pushed her hand under her pillow to fluff it before she closed her eyes. It had been a long day and night, and even then, she mused, she needed to rest after any mind warp. Max had destroyed the bones, and Nasedo was supposedly doing well in Washington and in Roswell posing as Pierce. It had been a surprise then when Max told them he was dead, and she was just beginning to accept it when she found the note:
I’ve left instructions for you on how to prepare for the return home throughout the house; when you need them, you’ll find the letters easily because it will be where you need to look…do not return alone… pact was issued while you were being engineered…Khivar knew what was happening, and he wanted to set terms…this was the only way…he wants all of them…In name, you’ll still be the Queen…all actions he’ll enforce will have your approval, automatically…but, think about what you will be getting back. It’s all worth it, and if you don’t go, or if you warn them what will happen, there’ll be consequences…this is your destiny, to act as a queen.
She was just going to be used. On Antar, Khivar made the arrangement so that she could be the one to return the granilith. They didn’t want to send someone else to come and get it and they would rather trust her before they would trust anyone else.
So, she had to accept it, it was already done. The ominous words that he would do something to her if she didn’t let it fall through had concerned her, but it was trivial at the moment. It was all coming to an end; she was finally going to get to go home. The circumstances were out of her control as were the events that would take place once she arrived, but it didn’t matter as much anymore.
Night had fallen quickly and nothing had happened. She was panting when she broke the corner near her house and she toppled into the backseat of the car, her chest heaving. Her hands were scarred and her jeans were torn from the tumble she took when she edged out of the window, so she rested her hands on the seating and clung to it.
She felt like a fugitive. It wasn’t fair, but still she waited. She wasn’t sure what Isabel was even capable of, and she silently vowed to herself, she didn’t want to stay around and find out how everyone else would react. She wanted to believe that it was just an accident but she wasn’t sure anymore. Hadn’t she known it was coming? She could have … stopped.
But she had to let these thoughts quickly; this wasn’t the time for every reflection because she had to go. She had gotten up, climbed over to the front seat and turned on the engine. She had to go because time was running out even if she wasn’t sure of the consequences.
As she stood before the flat smooth rock, her eyes went down to the floor for the small indentation created by the irregular shape of the rock and the ground below it. There, this was the right spot. She placed her hand over the entrance and waited for the rocks to morph to show her glowing handprint.
It was like a mirror effect. Her hand went over it and then her true handprint showed up. The exisistence of these little things confirmed who she really was.
She waited for the rocks to part and create the opening. Then she stepped through. The chamber hummed softly, casting a soft warm yellow glow out onto the grounds of the chamber, and she felt soothed by it. She eyed the four pods and without thinking much about it, she felt pulled to it and she went to stand before them. She traced her fingertips along the cracked rough membrane; it was dusty and crusty because of the years that had rolled by since they first came out.
But this was where it had all began. She began being here. Still, it was strange. They had all come from the same artificial cookie mold, but why were they able to when she could not? Why could they love and feel and she could not?
Something kept her from it.
They broke out of their pods, together. They all wore the same uniform: sticky, gooey residue that clung to their bodies like a second skin. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t speak or understand each other. They understood that there was something more there, some deeper connection. And, their first impulse was to leave and venture into the world. And she had stayed. Her pod hadn’t broken as easily. Only Max had stayed behind, even if it had been momentary, which she was willing to forgive, but he had hesitated. He was wondering if there was something he could do, if he did have the power to set her free.
She let her arm fall from Max’s pod down to the one on the diagonal from it, her own and she rubbed the pieces of the membrane that were sticking out in between her fingertips; it was so dry.
*
“- never wakes up,” Lena cried. She was holding her face in her hands, crying, and her husband’s hands were cradling her frame in seconds as he rushed to soothe her, “He’ll wake up.”
“How do you know that?” she asked as she turned her face upwards to look at him. She wasn’t as bothered anymore, but she was mistrustful. Appearances were so deceiving lately. She pronounced the words carefully, and she waited for him to answer her.
“I know that because I have faith. Alex will wake up.” He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her tighter.
Liz carefully stepped back with the cup of tea she had gone to get for Mrs. Harding, and leaned against the wall for support. She didn’t realize it was that bad.
Mrs. Harding told them he had only collapsed. They went to the hospital in her car. While she was driving, Liz from where she sat in the front seat noticed the blank expression on her face.
The tension in the car didn’t impact Michael nearly as much as it had Liz or Maria and he asked, uncertainly, “What happened? Is he…” he paused there, and looked over at Maria who was seated beside him in the backseat. He surprised himself when his first impulse when it registered that she was trembling was to reach out and hold her hand, and he was still holding it ten minutes into the car ride. He corrected what had might have been an offensive statement by asking instead, “will he be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Lena said blankly. Her voice sounded so far away and she swallowed hard before she continued. “I got the call while I was at the supermarket. The hospital called, and they said he collapsed. I spoke with his,” and she paused, meeting Michael’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and added, “your friend, Isabel.”
She didn’t notice the “I knew it” look Michael tossed in Liz’s direction. “She said there had been an accident and that the insurance and everything needed to be set up as soon as possible. She said he collapsed suddenly while they were at a friend’s house. It’s not like there’s been any heart trouble in our family, so I just don’t understand...My husband’s out of town this morning, but I called him right after.”
Liz noticed how saying this was her comfort and she nodded. She understood how important it was to have someone by your side during a time like this.
“Is he awake?” Maria asked.
“No,” Lena said, and she gripped the steering wheel even tighter.
Maria felt Michael’s hand tighten around hers. He wasn’t gripping her hand but holding it instead, he was holding her. He might not have been aware what he was doing at the moment, but to Maria it felt like a lot because in his hands she felt love rushing through her. As the weight of Mrs. Harding’s account of the events and the possible consequences sank in, she turned her gaze back to Michael. He saw the tears welling up in her eyes, and he opened up for her, letting her settle into his arms.
The memory of that warmed Liz’s heart. As much as Michael and Maria tried to deny it, they were a great fit. She glanced around the corner again at Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Whitman and she saw that Mr. Whitman was pressing a pen down onto a clipboard.
Expenses, she mused. This was going to be so expensive. It wasn’t just the emergency call that would inflate the price of his stay. Alex wasn’t awake yet, so he would be staying for as long as they figured he needed to. He might be for overnight observation, or maybe even longer, but the thought of him even being here was unnerving.
She walked out of the main waiting room and she made her way back to the other waiting room, the one near Alex’s room. Mr. and Mrs. Whitman might be a while if they were going to be sorting out the insurance policy and all of the added expenses.
Michael and Maria were sitting on one of the plastic benches together. However, they were considerably cool again, Michael on one end and Maria on the other. She didn’t know what else she could have expected from them; Maria wasn’t taking it well so she might only push him away some more, again.
Liz took a seat across from them. Maria’s eyes were fixed on the threads in the carpet, and she was probably playing the game the two girls had liked when they were young; counting the many colors in there. They used that game as an escape, and if Maria was doing it right then, she could tell Maria wasn’t in the mood for speaking.
Liz directed her question at Michael first, “How’s she doing?”
“She hasn’t said anything yet.”
“Still?” Liz asked, confused. “Why? What’s going on with her?”
“I don’t know,” Micahel said.
“She needs to. She was there. She’s the only one who knows what happened.”
“I know,” Michael said, and he smiled faintly, “But she might not tell us until she’s ready. Let’s give her time.” He looked beyond Liz at the tall blonde standing outside of Alex’s room. His eyes flickered back to Liz’s and he said wisely, “He meant a lot to her.”
*
“It looks like he suffered a minor seizure,” the doctor whispered in a hushed tone.
It was three hours later, and Liz was sitting in the waiting room, still, with Isabel beside her, and Maria across from her. Michael had gone out to ge the girls anything they wanted from home. Liz called her parents as soon as she reached the hospital with the news and they had permitted her to stay overnight, if she chose, and they even offered that if she wanted to miss school the following day, they would come in the morning to pay their respects also.
They had a business convention in Albuquerque for the evening though, so any decision she would make would leave the hour she came and went from her house at her discretion. Maria’s mom had cried softly over the phone and she had even offered for Maria to stay without her mentioning it. Then although Isabel still hadn’t spoken yet, Liz could only assume that everything was okay with Mrs. Evans too because she had asked Michael to go and get her a change of clothes.
Now the doctor was relaying the results of the tests they had administered so far. He was only speaking with the Whitmans, but they were still in the waiting room, luckily. It was a slow late night and it was hard not to eavesdrop. Liz cared about what happened too, but she knew it might be inappropriate if she were standing there getting the news along with the Whitmans.
“We ran an EEG test, and it looks like he had a seizure.”
“A seizure,” Mrs. Whitman echoed. She felt it again, that far away feeling that had been taking over lately every time just one more thing was added to the mix. Her husband grasped her arm and held it gently; she was so fragile lately.
“But there isn’t a history of seizures in our family.”
“Really?” the doctor asked. “Well, sometimes these things happen. There are measures we can take to prevent anything like this happening again or even, more often,” he added briskly when he noticed a shimmer of hope shining in their eyes. He needed them to understand that miracles just couldn’t happen in five hours.
“So, he’ll be prescribed an anti-seizure medication….it’s nothing major….have to take it daily for a couple of…and we’ll monitor it with this…”
Liz wasn’t listening anymore. All of her attention was focused on Isabel. She was finally speaking. Liz stared at her intently, because her voice had been so soft, she had missed it.
“What?”
“I told him,” she said quietly. “I told him everything.”
*
She came into the inner chamber on her hands and knees, crawling through her own pod. She was going out of this world the same way she had come in.
She took the crystal out of her jeans pocket and walked over to the wall. She put her hands up against it and brought it along the sides until she could feel the buzz of the machine under her hand. The granilith was powered by cords that ran deep into the earth and it fed on carbon and magnesium.
The crystal disappeared into the wall once it made contact. The walls of the chamber sucked it in. As soon as her fingertips lost contact with the crystal, she heard:
“Going somewhere?”
Chapter 19
Tess whipped her head around at the sound of the voice and her eyes darted from the walls of the chamber to the transport, but she couldn’t see anything right away. She was about to call out when she heard the rocks at the entrance of the cave snap shut, scratching the floor of the cave as they moved violently.
The sound rang through the cave, bouncing off of its walls, and she shivered at the sudden darkness it left in its wake. Then the moonlight from the desert sky wasn’t coming in anymore so the cave outside of the chamber was completely immersed in darkness, and where she was, near the countdown and the transport had an eerie glow. Her eyes adjusted to the lighting the transport gave off, which was right now the only thing keeping her from being in the darkness too. It pulsed, fading in and out.
She kept her eyes trained to the back of the pod she had come through, waiting for someone to appear. Instead, she was rewarded with silence from that end, and the humming of the granilith beside her. It was gearing up, and on the wall, she could see the four white lights blinking. Once there was only one light left, the transport would automatically lock, preventing anyone from leaving or entering it.
“Who’s there?” she demanded. She tried to look around again, but the darkness of the chamber was not helping. Whoever was here certainly had the advantage.
She didn’t seem him step out from behind her, but she did feel the impact of a blast against her shoulder. It rushed right through her, hitting each part of her arm, making it sore and ache. Then, it was like a second wave of energy rushed into her, this time more malevolent and furious, and that’s what pushed her and propelled her forward. It knocked her off of her feet and hurled her at the wall with as much ease as someone would throw a ball.
Her back smacked into the left side of the cave first and heard a dull crack when she collided. She tried moving her legs, but a shooting pain that started by her hips ran straight down her legs. Her hand couldn’t move either, and her head was threatening to fall forward and down towards her chest.
So, she straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. She raised her head so it could fall against the wall for support, and she stayed there. Then she heard footsteps, echoing all around her. She stared at the hazy blur, at the figure who was stepping into her view. The lines that were there instead of his arms and the five faces where there should have been one in front of her slowly converged, and defeatedly, she croaked, “Max?”
Then, it got dark.
*
“You told him?” Liz repeated. She frowned. Isabel wasn’t being direct, and Liz was having a hard time even connecting with her today on any level. She remembered their conversation in the hallway earlier and that there had been a moment where Isabel had found it easy to open up.
She waited but Isabel didn’t answer. She was starting to cry, so Liz placed her hand down on her forearm. “Isabel,” she soothed. “You can tell me.” She tried to toss the curiosity that was bubbling inside of her and focused on getting some facts straight instead, “Alex? Did you tell Alex?” The blond shook her head gently, and Liz tried again, “What did you tell him?”
“No, I told him,” she swiped at the tear that was falling down her cheek and looked over at Liz, finally. Her eyes were large and swollen and her cheeks were flushed with crying. Liz could only have described her as impeccable and stunning in the weeks before, so this was a surprise. The look in Isabel’s eyes though, the haunting look and the despair scared her, and she frowned.
Then it all clicked and her eyes widened in understanding. “You told Max?”
Isabel nodded and tore her eyes away from Liz. She could hear the fear in her voice and this time she held Liz’s hand, “He hung up before I could tell him everything. He was so angry.”
“Where is he now?” Liz asked tentatively. “Why would he be angry? Alex just had a seizure. It couldn’t have been prevented.” She shook her head, “What could he have done?”
“No,” Isabel said angrily, tears spilling onto her cheeks and she hiccupped as a sob broke free. “No, Tess did this,” and she looked back at Liz.
“Tess?” Liz repeated, a bitterness creeping into her voice she had never had before.
From where Maria was sitting, she exclaimed incredulously, “Tess?” Isabel nodded her head once, and it confirmed it for both of the girls. Maria stared at her, and she stuttered, “What? How’s that possible? Why?”
Isabel sighed wearily and she took a deep breath, “I was looking for him for most of the afternoon, and when I dropped by his house, there wasn’t anyone there. I was going by the other side of town, to go by the record store,” she explianed and she looked up at Maria, who nodded. Alex started to frequent the record store on Tenth Street on the other side of town and he was almost always there when not at the Crashdown. It was a recent development but it had never struck Isabel as odd until she drove by it, “The strange thing is it doesn’t exist.”
“What?” Liz said perplexed. “What do you mean? He goes there all the time.”
“Exactly,” Isabel noddded, “or so I thought. 51 Tenth Street is in a development complex.”
“A development complex?” Maria questioned. “But, there aren’t any in that area except Crescent, which is new anyway. Maybe he meant another record store?”
Liz interrupted, “No. He’s shown me the phone book ad for it before.”
“Ok,” Maria said, her voice trailing off, “So why would he lie to us?”
“No, the better question is, why would he want us to think he goes there? Why does he need an explanation for where he goes?”
“Yeah,” Isabel’s eyes were less red and she sat up. They were getting somewhere, and she continued, “That’s what I was thinking. And while I was there, I drove around the complex a little bit more. Do you know who lives there?”
It clicked for Liz and Maria at the same time, and they stared. Isabel continued, “I was passing by her house, or what I thought used to be her house, and I felt a pull.”
“A pull?” Maria asked. “That’s weird.”
“Was it a malevolent pull, like something dangerous?” Liz asked. She was trying to wrap her mind around it.
“No,” Isabel paused, and she closed her eyes.
“It was gentle, and familiar, and it was more like it was a pull that was meant for me,” she snapped out of her reverie, and said, “I didn’t know what it was, but I felt like I had to find out.”
Liz nodded, “What happened though?”
“I don’t know…exactly.”
Maria stared at her, “What? I thought you said Tess did it?”
“She did,” Isabel confirmed, “but something else happened. As soon as I came through the door, I felt this charge of energy all around me, and the room was spinning.”
“That’s strange. Was it hard walking?” Liz asked, trying to picture it properly.
“No,” Isabel said thoughtfully. “It was like I was an anchor. I kept going but everything wasn’t what it seemed. I finally made it to the stairs, which I thought would just lead to the garage. When I got downstairs, I saw her leaving, and Alex,” she paused and wiped at the tears that were coming again, “he was on the floor.”
Maria stared at her open mouthed, “Why didn’t you do something,” she stuttered.
“It was Alex. It wouldn’t have been fair to his memory to do what I wanted to. She saw me, and she said it was an accident. I let her go.”
Isabel’s last words hung in the air and understanding, Liz and Maria reached out to hug her. That moment was probably the most heartfelt Isabel had had all day, and she continued to cry, touched at the response.
When they pulled away, Isabel smiled lightly, “Thank you.”
“What are friends for?” Maria asked gently.
Isabel nodded, “For times like these.”
Liz hesitated before getting back to the only unresolved question, and she asked, “So where’s Max?”
*
Tess blinked her eyes open. That was close. She felt as if she had been about to slip away. That was really close. Resting her eyes then had given her the extra boost to…she looked up, the boy before her becoming clearer the longer she was conscious again.
“Max,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He was reading the book, and he closed it shut when her raspy voice broke into his concentration. Now he looked down at her angrily.
“Was that the plan? Lie to everyone and go back home to hand Khivar all three of our heads on a platter?”
“No, that’s not –”
“And you weren’t going to tell us either? There was this big elaborate plan to get us back home and you weren’t going to say anything about it to us? Were those lies that you told us? Were those false memories, because it looks as if you won’t stop at anything to get what you want,” his eyes darkened as he finished, and Tess visibly paled at those words.
“Alex?”
He stared at her pointedly.
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. Tears were brimming in her eyes as she tried to sit up. She did make it, somehow, but she looked so red with embarassment the thought momentarily went through Max’s mind that maybe there was more to this. One thing he had learned over the past two years was that there was always more to a story; there were two sides to everything, but he kept his face blank as he listened to her excuse:
“It was an accident; I never meant for it to happen.”
Max didn’t give an inch though, and he watched as she crumbled before his very eyes. She came undone right there; all of the barriers she had built to shut everyone out and to protect the lies she fed to surive fell away. Her eyes were filled with a desperacy when he had only seen longing in them before; longing for him, for a family, for a return home. Inwardly, he was startled by the change, but he still had one more question for her.
“It just happened,” she rattled on. “I could feel myself getting out of control, like I couldn’t handle it and then it…it went too far. I didn’t even see what was happening, and everything just spun out of control. It was an accident,” she insisted.
“It’s the wrong kind of accident,” Max said. His tone of voice was condeming, and stubborn so she knew she had to change her tactic.
She was on her knees because sitting back on the floor put more pressure on her lower back, and sitting on her heels added unnecessary stress. She decided that she needed to level with him, so she pushed her feet down onto the floor, planting them unsteadily as she stood. “I know that,” she muttered, and Max noticed the downcast turn of her eyes. At least she’s humble, he acknowledged, but then she looked back up at him and he could just tell that she wanted something else.
“I was going to go home,” she said, a smile coming onto her face. She pointed at the book. “He did the translation; he finished it. You’re holding the complete directions for us to get home in your hands.”
“And look at the price,” he reminded her.
She took one step towards him at the same time Max raised his arm, and she stopped. “You’ve destroyed so much, Tess. It’s not just an accident. If it were that simple so many lives wouldn’t have been ruined in the process.”
“Is he…”
“No,” he said, but his eyes never left hers as he said it and she felt like he was looking right through her for a reaction, any reaction.
She didn’t wipe her tears away or start crying again, and she quietly said, “That’s good.”
A few seconds elapsed and Max waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t. She didn’t apologize any further or divulge what she would do next. “There’s always consequences, Tess.”
“I know that, too,” she said.
Max looked up at the wall behind him, where Tess was looking and he looked back at her, “There’s only one left.”
She nodded and her eyes met his.
Then he asked the unspoken, the one question that could alter all of their lives if she did or didn’t, “Are you going?”
“Do I have a choice?” she muttered self-depracatingly. It felt like she didn’t. If she left, she would be remembered for who she was at the very moment she turned away from Isabel – a coward, a villain for disrupting everything. If she stayed, they would never look at her the same. Her thoughts changed for a second as she realized that them looking at her the same wasn’t necessarily a good thing either because hadn’t everything they knew about her been built upon lies in the first place. Neither had any real benefit from where she stood. Max interpreted her silence for her uncertainty of how to tell him she wanted to go.
“I’m going to wait twenty minutes outside. If you want to go,” he looked over his shoulder at the countdown, “You can go. I’ll tell them that you went and that I couldn’t get here in time. And if you want to stay, come outside and I’ll drive you to the bus depot so you can go wherever you want. If you choose to go that way, just know that you would be cutting off all contact from us. You’ve done so much damage already.”
Tess stared at him; he was being so straightforward with her options but she had to ask, “You’re not going to –”
“You’ve done enough damage and undeserving or not, I don’t have the heart to.”
With that, Max walked around her and left. Her back was to him as he walked away, and his back was to her also. Max didn’t look back until he was outside sitting on the hood of his jeep ninety feet away.
When he did, he only looked back because he was curious. Which lie would he have to tell his sister when he got back? Then he wondered how best to let her down gently. She was going to find out…he felt he made the right choice, but that didn’t mean that Isabel, Michael, Maria or Alex would understand. And possibly, Liz might not either.
He had the book in his hands, and he flipped it open for lack of something else to do. He reached the last page of the original prophecy, where he had left off right before Tess woke up, jarring him back to reality. It was interesting to see the past unveil itself in this book just by reading the prophecy. They had had so many expectations and hopes for them; Max the next great ruler, Isabel, a fair and just princess, Michael, a trustworthy second, and Tess, a supportive wife. Every great ruler needed a support system like these four had had in the past life, but whenever Max did close his eyes and imagine himself in any capacity as a ruler, or a man, it was always Liz by his side. But, thanks to everything that had been happening lately, it didn’t look like that would work out well either?
He turned the last page he had read and he came to one that was written with an entirely different brush stroke. At first he skimmed over the content, but it was words like, “seal,” “unprecented,” and “three” that yanked his attention fully so that he became absorbed in the translation.
-
Dreamerlaure
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Chapter 20
Chapter 20
She stretched her legs out on two of the chairs and lay her head down on the third. She closed her eyes, rested her left hand by her cheek, and her right arm drooped and her fingertips touched the floor as she tumbled into a dream. Her breaths became more steady as she let every care go free.
She was standing in the corner this time, watching another Maria stir. She looked older and much wiser. Were those fine lines on her forehead? Were her cheeks swollen and her chest too? As she sat up, Maria saw the bump beneath her chest, and she watched her, knowingly. She looked happy. Her hair was blonde, still, and it came down to her shoulders. Her eyes held a night and a day in them; they were dulled by sleep and perhaps good dreams.
She looked at the door and smiled as she watched the man come into the room with her breakfast. His back was to the visiting Maria, but even so, she could tell that all of his attention was on the vision before him. Their eyes brightened just by looking at each other, she noticed.
He set the food tray down on the night table and he turned to her and leaned forward. She tilted her head up and kissed him softly, and they broke apart, reluctantly. He put his hand on the bump and rubbed it softly, and said something to her. Then she put her hand on his chest, and said something back to him.
Sound didn’t carry over to her in this dream, and although she was on the outside, she caught the sensation. She saw the love in Michael’s eyes as he looked at her carefully, perhaps in awe that he had her or maybe he wanted to remember every day for it looked they were so in love that each day was a new one. She could feel the love this future young woman had for him in return; it was in her gaze, her touch, and her smile. She looked so happy.
She could have easily been jealous of the beautiful things that were happening in this Maria’s life, but instead her own heart was filled with longing.
As she was dreaming of this future with Michael, he was just arriving back at the hospital. He carried their clothes that they had asked for and he had even snuck some “forbidden foods” into the hospital. He couldn’t wait to see the expression on Alex’s face when he woke up to an ice cold bottle of Coca-Cola.
If he woke up, Michael reminded himself. It still wasn’t a sure deal yet. Max was nowhere to be found still and if he didn’t show up soon, Alex might be left in the care of some mildly competent but naïve doctors. They needed him to heal him right away, but when he had spoken to Liz and Maria two hours before, neither girl had any clue where he might be. Isabel hadn’t been speaking when he left, so she didn’t contribute. He was in the dark about Max’s whereabouts, and like Maria, Isabel, and Liz, he was also in the dark about the negotiation Max had made with Tess. No one had heard from him.
Michael looked around the waiting room as he entered, and at first he didn’t see anyone. It was quiet in the waiting room. Callers weren’t phoning in because of how late the hour was and the nurses who had crowded the reception desk were far from many now. In fact, as he came in, the last one there was just leaving, holding a manilla envelope as she entered a room with ‘Private’ on its door.
The one thing he had taken an intense dislike to when he first got to the hospital were the plastic chairs. They were so cold and uninviting, but when he saw Maria curled up in the corner on three chairs, it looked much better. He walked over to her and he sat on the chair where her head was, gently bringing her head onto his knee for better support. She sighed contentedly when he moved her, but other than that she didn’t stir. Then he stroked her hair and just rested his hand on her forehead; she felt so soft.
She felt him, and even though she was sleeping, to her it felt like the start of something familiar. Her dreams were starting to materialize. Life might become even more interesting. Then she slipped back into another dream that held another snapshot of a happy life, one that was quickly becoming true.
*
“There’s a time for everything, but that time has passed and the sun has long set. I have been told that you will not be reading this during my own time, so I hope my words may speak for my absence. Many years, as they will call it on your planet, will have elapsed, and when you hold this and read my words, I will be long gone, and the world will have changed on its own. It really is your time though. Here, I can mark time with the setting of the moons and sun. They pass quickly and the only acknowledgement of the changes is a slight pause in the negotiations; they cannot decide how to settle so they argue instead, rest and come back fresh-faced in the morning for more. As they plan to control this world and take it over, they are unaware that a new future has been set into motion. You were remade and born again, just as I’ve intended you, your sister, and your second to be. I know that they know that you would be remade, and looking back I was wrongly counselled by a foe to include a fourth. She will betray you and lead you on with thoughts that should possess clarity; if you look closely, you’ll see what she wants. There is a pre-made arrangement concerning her, you, your sister, and your second that involves your death so she may rule. There is even a transference of the seal so that she may be in the Royal lineage unofficially. Though they have chartered a destiny to include a fourth and have cloaked it as such, destiny happens in other ways. I have granted you a new chance, and it may be an unusual one, but it’s yours; it’s for you to charter and shape. For the three of you, I hope you will find all that you are looking for and more. That, my son, is the only destiny I wish for you.
Max held the book in his hands carefully as he read and absorbed the enormity of his mother’s note. Did this mean that everything he had been told was a lie? Some of it had to be partly true, he reminded himself; there was proof that he was an alien all around him, and if the tangible wasn’t enough, the trials of the last two years confirmed it too. Ever since he saved Liz, everything had changed, indefinitely. He had gone from a sheltered life with only Michael and Isabel as his confidants to this. Here he was waiting for someone who had done more than enough damage than good in the short time he had known her. He had didn’t even have Liz in his life, that’s how unrecognizable things were. How he wished he could go back to the simplicity of last year.
He wanted to just go to the Crashdown and sit, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He wanted to make Michael ticked off that he was being dragged there and Isabel frustrated that he was still watching her. He wanted to rest easy at night without the weight of everything he had done throughout the day to be crashing down on his shoulders. It would be nice if he could do all of those things, but here he was.
He reread the last sentence, but still he didn’t let it impact him. He had to wait because otherwise that would leave everything up to her, which he couldn’t let happen. He pushed the Destiny book under one of the chairs in his jeep and he stood by the hood, leaning against the frame. He should have checked the time for it was well past the allotted fifteen he had offered her, but he didn’t. The possibility that this might all be over was still swimming in his mind…It would be so nice if he could again…it would be so nice if he could do anything without the weight of that destiny on his shoulders. He was starting to like the one his mother offered him more and more, but it was getting there that was proving to be tricky.
Max finally looked back at the cave, and he saw the mountain that covered the pod chamber and the Granilith shake. He stood abruptly and stared; he hadn’t seen anything so violent in a long time.
*
Isabel and Liz were sitting in the hallway in one of the pairs of chairs the hospital had out. Maybe they thought placing them all over would encourage people to feel more at home, but when Liz looked around at the hallway, the emptiness of every other chair made the hospital feel cold. Isabel was resting too, as Maria had been when she left her in the waiting room.
“I’ll go with Isabel,” Liz had said when she saw Maria bend over, tired and exhausted. She looked spent, and Liz nudged her gently, “You can sleep here for a while.”
“Yeah. I’ll try.”
“Okay,” Liz said and she only glanced over her shoulder as she rounded the corner to see Maria settling into the waiting room chairs. For now, she could be content with knowing that at least someone was resting. The day was already too long, and it felt like every minute was filled with waiting and getting nothing in return. She found Isabel on one of the chairs and her eyes were focused on the wall. Liz sat down beside her, and trying to initiate contact with her, “So what did he say?”
Isabel sighed, “He just said I’ll take care of it.” She saw concern on Liz’s face, so she reassured her, “He didn’t sound angry, but he had that tone, like everything could be okay.” Her eyes were on the floor now, and Liz could see the tears right at the surface. “He said he’ll take care of it,” Isabel repeated, more for herself this time than for Liz.
“I hope so.”
*
The light pulsed twice and the countdown from twenty to ten began. Precisely when the countdown reached ten, the glass to the transport and the rest of the ship would be inpenetrable. She had thirty seconds left, but she didn’t know it. She thought everything was set into motion already and that nothing could go wrong. She was confident that her plan was going to fall through smoothly.
She was already inside of the ship, so nothing could go wrong.
From where she was, inside of the slender glass tube, she had a perfect view of the countdown. She watched nine’s fade into zeros’ until the last set of numbers popped up. Then she heard the rumble of the engine buzzing under her feet, and she heard the nuts and bolts of the ship click as soon as the number ten came into view. It must be automatic, she thought, and she closed her eyes, impatiently.
She felt the air get cooler, but she didn’t think much of it; she thought it was all a part of the journey. She did open her eyes when she felt the air getting suctioned away from the top and back to the bottom; the air wasn’t even rising up to her, and she silently reminded her self to take quick shallow breaths to make it last. At least she knew that much, she thought, and the satisfaction that she could survive a second longer was only weighed out by her panic less six seconds later when all of the air had been suctioned out. It was like being trapped and Tess responded accordingly.
She frantically banged her fists against the glass of the tube that she was in, but it didn’t give. Instead the glass echoed back into the tube the sound of her efforts. She couldn’t keep it up very long though, and then she slumped against the glass of the tube. She gasped and choked, but it wasn’t her lucky day. No air came back inside of the Granilith, and she was just stuck.
A minute later when the rocks rattled and the mountain shook to allow the passage of an alien ship, Tess had passed out. The ship burst out of the mountain forcefully and then it glided upwards to the sky.
Max was standing, and when he saw the tip of the ship coming out, he pushed his hands down over his ears. It was loud and the ground that he was standing on shook too. He tore his eyes away from the rocket for a second as he bent down low to the floor. The final sound that he heard before the silence of the desert night returned was so loud and thunderous that it sounded explosive. He looked up when the sound had seemably been resolved and the peace of the night restored. When Max looked up, he saw the scattered bits of the ship in the sky, and the night sky wasn’t black or blue but a bright fiery red. And even the stars hid.
*
She slipped in the last quarter into the vending machine for the last cup of coffee of the night. She remembered from the last time she was here at Roswell Memorial two years ago for her grandmother that coffee went quickly. It was one of those things that people could comfort themselves with during times like these, and right now, it was all Liz had.
She had peeked into the waiting room on her way to the vending machines and she saw Maria and Michael holding each other in their sleep. It was so easy then for them to find safety in each other’s arms.
She took a sip of the coffee before she decided it wasn’t what she wanted and she threw the cup out. Then Liz sighed out loud in her frustraiton and she tucked a few strands of her hair behind her ear. It was a nervous habit, but she wasn’t feeling very strong right now so maybe there wasn’t a need to put up a front that she was. She saw Max at the end of the hallway and she waited for him to come to her. He did, and she knew he would because it was all in his eyes that he wanted nothing else than to come. She never broke eye contact with him as he came forward, and when he was in front of her, she reached out impulsively to touch the cut on his cheek.
This time he didn’t shrink back from her touch. When she touched it lightly, she felt give in as the weight of his face sank into her palm. She could feel everything he was feeling, and he felt her doubt, confusion, and sadness as if it were his own. Then Liz stepped closer to him, her hand not leaving his cheek as she did, and instead she put her other around him. And in the embrace of the other they both found the answers and the comfort they needed. They were only questionning if the other was okay, and if it had been vocalized, the answer would have ran that I’m okay because I’m holding you. When Max saw her in the hallway, he knew that it really was that simple; he could have chosen Liz Parker all along.
*
He woke up first. First he saw the bright white ceiling over him, and its pristine color blinded him. He tried to shift, but his body felt so heavy. He decided maybe he could do one thing at a time. He tried to move his arm and though he felt himself pushing the little energy he had into his hand, Alex knew the difference between moving and not moving, and he definitely had a case of the latter. He tried turning his head as carefully as he could to look at the monitor that was beeping softly. The numbers that scrolled across the screen of the went by too quickly to even try to read it, but at least he recognized the steady up and down of his pulse on the screen.
Then he closed his eyes warily even though he didn’t want to. He wanted to fight to keep awake, but as the seconds since he’d woken up passed, his fatigue increased. He decided to do a little test before he would allow himself to rest, so he wriggled his toes, and luckily, all ten moved. Then he bounced one of his knees, his right knee, and sure enough that moved too. He opened his eyes then, right before he was about to move his left knee and he saw her blonde hair fanned out on his hospital bed. She was sitting in a chair by him, but she had brought the chair as close as possible. Her legs were tucked underneath her, and she had probably just lay her head down for what she thought would only be a minute.
Her hair was just within the reach of his fingertips and he didn’t hesitate. For the first time from outside of a really vivid dream, he could touch her. He fingered the strands, marveling how familiar it all was. It probably wasn’t just a dream, he thought to himself. It had been odd; he felt like himself and then he wouldn’t. It was hard to remember what the last few months had even held because everything was so blurry. Maybe she really was there, maybe Isabel had been a part of a really good dream. Maybe she had been a part of one of his escapes because what he could remember at seven thirty in the morning five months after the mind-warping had begun and eight hours after it had stopped was the dreams.
So he didn’t need to check his leg because all the proof he needed that he was alive and more than okay came only seconds after he started touching her: Isabel woke up, and looked up at him.
“Hey.”
She stretched her legs out on two of the chairs and lay her head down on the third. She closed her eyes, rested her left hand by her cheek, and her right arm drooped and her fingertips touched the floor as she tumbled into a dream. Her breaths became more steady as she let every care go free.
She was standing in the corner this time, watching another Maria stir. She looked older and much wiser. Were those fine lines on her forehead? Were her cheeks swollen and her chest too? As she sat up, Maria saw the bump beneath her chest, and she watched her, knowingly. She looked happy. Her hair was blonde, still, and it came down to her shoulders. Her eyes held a night and a day in them; they were dulled by sleep and perhaps good dreams.
She looked at the door and smiled as she watched the man come into the room with her breakfast. His back was to the visiting Maria, but even so, she could tell that all of his attention was on the vision before him. Their eyes brightened just by looking at each other, she noticed.
He set the food tray down on the night table and he turned to her and leaned forward. She tilted her head up and kissed him softly, and they broke apart, reluctantly. He put his hand on the bump and rubbed it softly, and said something to her. Then she put her hand on his chest, and said something back to him.
Sound didn’t carry over to her in this dream, and although she was on the outside, she caught the sensation. She saw the love in Michael’s eyes as he looked at her carefully, perhaps in awe that he had her or maybe he wanted to remember every day for it looked they were so in love that each day was a new one. She could feel the love this future young woman had for him in return; it was in her gaze, her touch, and her smile. She looked so happy.
She could have easily been jealous of the beautiful things that were happening in this Maria’s life, but instead her own heart was filled with longing.
As she was dreaming of this future with Michael, he was just arriving back at the hospital. He carried their clothes that they had asked for and he had even snuck some “forbidden foods” into the hospital. He couldn’t wait to see the expression on Alex’s face when he woke up to an ice cold bottle of Coca-Cola.
If he woke up, Michael reminded himself. It still wasn’t a sure deal yet. Max was nowhere to be found still and if he didn’t show up soon, Alex might be left in the care of some mildly competent but naïve doctors. They needed him to heal him right away, but when he had spoken to Liz and Maria two hours before, neither girl had any clue where he might be. Isabel hadn’t been speaking when he left, so she didn’t contribute. He was in the dark about Max’s whereabouts, and like Maria, Isabel, and Liz, he was also in the dark about the negotiation Max had made with Tess. No one had heard from him.
Michael looked around the waiting room as he entered, and at first he didn’t see anyone. It was quiet in the waiting room. Callers weren’t phoning in because of how late the hour was and the nurses who had crowded the reception desk were far from many now. In fact, as he came in, the last one there was just leaving, holding a manilla envelope as she entered a room with ‘Private’ on its door.
The one thing he had taken an intense dislike to when he first got to the hospital were the plastic chairs. They were so cold and uninviting, but when he saw Maria curled up in the corner on three chairs, it looked much better. He walked over to her and he sat on the chair where her head was, gently bringing her head onto his knee for better support. She sighed contentedly when he moved her, but other than that she didn’t stir. Then he stroked her hair and just rested his hand on her forehead; she felt so soft.
She felt him, and even though she was sleeping, to her it felt like the start of something familiar. Her dreams were starting to materialize. Life might become even more interesting. Then she slipped back into another dream that held another snapshot of a happy life, one that was quickly becoming true.
*
“There’s a time for everything, but that time has passed and the sun has long set. I have been told that you will not be reading this during my own time, so I hope my words may speak for my absence. Many years, as they will call it on your planet, will have elapsed, and when you hold this and read my words, I will be long gone, and the world will have changed on its own. It really is your time though. Here, I can mark time with the setting of the moons and sun. They pass quickly and the only acknowledgement of the changes is a slight pause in the negotiations; they cannot decide how to settle so they argue instead, rest and come back fresh-faced in the morning for more. As they plan to control this world and take it over, they are unaware that a new future has been set into motion. You were remade and born again, just as I’ve intended you, your sister, and your second to be. I know that they know that you would be remade, and looking back I was wrongly counselled by a foe to include a fourth. She will betray you and lead you on with thoughts that should possess clarity; if you look closely, you’ll see what she wants. There is a pre-made arrangement concerning her, you, your sister, and your second that involves your death so she may rule. There is even a transference of the seal so that she may be in the Royal lineage unofficially. Though they have chartered a destiny to include a fourth and have cloaked it as such, destiny happens in other ways. I have granted you a new chance, and it may be an unusual one, but it’s yours; it’s for you to charter and shape. For the three of you, I hope you will find all that you are looking for and more. That, my son, is the only destiny I wish for you.
Max held the book in his hands carefully as he read and absorbed the enormity of his mother’s note. Did this mean that everything he had been told was a lie? Some of it had to be partly true, he reminded himself; there was proof that he was an alien all around him, and if the tangible wasn’t enough, the trials of the last two years confirmed it too. Ever since he saved Liz, everything had changed, indefinitely. He had gone from a sheltered life with only Michael and Isabel as his confidants to this. Here he was waiting for someone who had done more than enough damage than good in the short time he had known her. He had didn’t even have Liz in his life, that’s how unrecognizable things were. How he wished he could go back to the simplicity of last year.
He wanted to just go to the Crashdown and sit, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He wanted to make Michael ticked off that he was being dragged there and Isabel frustrated that he was still watching her. He wanted to rest easy at night without the weight of everything he had done throughout the day to be crashing down on his shoulders. It would be nice if he could do all of those things, but here he was.
He reread the last sentence, but still he didn’t let it impact him. He had to wait because otherwise that would leave everything up to her, which he couldn’t let happen. He pushed the Destiny book under one of the chairs in his jeep and he stood by the hood, leaning against the frame. He should have checked the time for it was well past the allotted fifteen he had offered her, but he didn’t. The possibility that this might all be over was still swimming in his mind…It would be so nice if he could again…it would be so nice if he could do anything without the weight of that destiny on his shoulders. He was starting to like the one his mother offered him more and more, but it was getting there that was proving to be tricky.
Max finally looked back at the cave, and he saw the mountain that covered the pod chamber and the Granilith shake. He stood abruptly and stared; he hadn’t seen anything so violent in a long time.
*
Isabel and Liz were sitting in the hallway in one of the pairs of chairs the hospital had out. Maybe they thought placing them all over would encourage people to feel more at home, but when Liz looked around at the hallway, the emptiness of every other chair made the hospital feel cold. Isabel was resting too, as Maria had been when she left her in the waiting room.
“I’ll go with Isabel,” Liz had said when she saw Maria bend over, tired and exhausted. She looked spent, and Liz nudged her gently, “You can sleep here for a while.”
“Yeah. I’ll try.”
“Okay,” Liz said and she only glanced over her shoulder as she rounded the corner to see Maria settling into the waiting room chairs. For now, she could be content with knowing that at least someone was resting. The day was already too long, and it felt like every minute was filled with waiting and getting nothing in return. She found Isabel on one of the chairs and her eyes were focused on the wall. Liz sat down beside her, and trying to initiate contact with her, “So what did he say?”
Isabel sighed, “He just said I’ll take care of it.” She saw concern on Liz’s face, so she reassured her, “He didn’t sound angry, but he had that tone, like everything could be okay.” Her eyes were on the floor now, and Liz could see the tears right at the surface. “He said he’ll take care of it,” Isabel repeated, more for herself this time than for Liz.
“I hope so.”
*
The light pulsed twice and the countdown from twenty to ten began. Precisely when the countdown reached ten, the glass to the transport and the rest of the ship would be inpenetrable. She had thirty seconds left, but she didn’t know it. She thought everything was set into motion already and that nothing could go wrong. She was confident that her plan was going to fall through smoothly.
She was already inside of the ship, so nothing could go wrong.
From where she was, inside of the slender glass tube, she had a perfect view of the countdown. She watched nine’s fade into zeros’ until the last set of numbers popped up. Then she heard the rumble of the engine buzzing under her feet, and she heard the nuts and bolts of the ship click as soon as the number ten came into view. It must be automatic, she thought, and she closed her eyes, impatiently.
She felt the air get cooler, but she didn’t think much of it; she thought it was all a part of the journey. She did open her eyes when she felt the air getting suctioned away from the top and back to the bottom; the air wasn’t even rising up to her, and she silently reminded her self to take quick shallow breaths to make it last. At least she knew that much, she thought, and the satisfaction that she could survive a second longer was only weighed out by her panic less six seconds later when all of the air had been suctioned out. It was like being trapped and Tess responded accordingly.
She frantically banged her fists against the glass of the tube that she was in, but it didn’t give. Instead the glass echoed back into the tube the sound of her efforts. She couldn’t keep it up very long though, and then she slumped against the glass of the tube. She gasped and choked, but it wasn’t her lucky day. No air came back inside of the Granilith, and she was just stuck.
A minute later when the rocks rattled and the mountain shook to allow the passage of an alien ship, Tess had passed out. The ship burst out of the mountain forcefully and then it glided upwards to the sky.
Max was standing, and when he saw the tip of the ship coming out, he pushed his hands down over his ears. It was loud and the ground that he was standing on shook too. He tore his eyes away from the rocket for a second as he bent down low to the floor. The final sound that he heard before the silence of the desert night returned was so loud and thunderous that it sounded explosive. He looked up when the sound had seemably been resolved and the peace of the night restored. When Max looked up, he saw the scattered bits of the ship in the sky, and the night sky wasn’t black or blue but a bright fiery red. And even the stars hid.
*
She slipped in the last quarter into the vending machine for the last cup of coffee of the night. She remembered from the last time she was here at Roswell Memorial two years ago for her grandmother that coffee went quickly. It was one of those things that people could comfort themselves with during times like these, and right now, it was all Liz had.
She had peeked into the waiting room on her way to the vending machines and she saw Maria and Michael holding each other in their sleep. It was so easy then for them to find safety in each other’s arms.
She took a sip of the coffee before she decided it wasn’t what she wanted and she threw the cup out. Then Liz sighed out loud in her frustraiton and she tucked a few strands of her hair behind her ear. It was a nervous habit, but she wasn’t feeling very strong right now so maybe there wasn’t a need to put up a front that she was. She saw Max at the end of the hallway and she waited for him to come to her. He did, and she knew he would because it was all in his eyes that he wanted nothing else than to come. She never broke eye contact with him as he came forward, and when he was in front of her, she reached out impulsively to touch the cut on his cheek.
This time he didn’t shrink back from her touch. When she touched it lightly, she felt give in as the weight of his face sank into her palm. She could feel everything he was feeling, and he felt her doubt, confusion, and sadness as if it were his own. Then Liz stepped closer to him, her hand not leaving his cheek as she did, and instead she put her other around him. And in the embrace of the other they both found the answers and the comfort they needed. They were only questionning if the other was okay, and if it had been vocalized, the answer would have ran that I’m okay because I’m holding you. When Max saw her in the hallway, he knew that it really was that simple; he could have chosen Liz Parker all along.
*
He woke up first. First he saw the bright white ceiling over him, and its pristine color blinded him. He tried to shift, but his body felt so heavy. He decided maybe he could do one thing at a time. He tried to move his arm and though he felt himself pushing the little energy he had into his hand, Alex knew the difference between moving and not moving, and he definitely had a case of the latter. He tried turning his head as carefully as he could to look at the monitor that was beeping softly. The numbers that scrolled across the screen of the went by too quickly to even try to read it, but at least he recognized the steady up and down of his pulse on the screen.
Then he closed his eyes warily even though he didn’t want to. He wanted to fight to keep awake, but as the seconds since he’d woken up passed, his fatigue increased. He decided to do a little test before he would allow himself to rest, so he wriggled his toes, and luckily, all ten moved. Then he bounced one of his knees, his right knee, and sure enough that moved too. He opened his eyes then, right before he was about to move his left knee and he saw her blonde hair fanned out on his hospital bed. She was sitting in a chair by him, but she had brought the chair as close as possible. Her legs were tucked underneath her, and she had probably just lay her head down for what she thought would only be a minute.
Her hair was just within the reach of his fingertips and he didn’t hesitate. For the first time from outside of a really vivid dream, he could touch her. He fingered the strands, marveling how familiar it all was. It probably wasn’t just a dream, he thought to himself. It had been odd; he felt like himself and then he wouldn’t. It was hard to remember what the last few months had even held because everything was so blurry. Maybe she really was there, maybe Isabel had been a part of a really good dream. Maybe she had been a part of one of his escapes because what he could remember at seven thirty in the morning five months after the mind-warping had begun and eight hours after it had stopped was the dreams.
So he didn’t need to check his leg because all the proof he needed that he was alive and more than okay came only seconds after he started touching her: Isabel woke up, and looked up at him.
“Hey.”