Zoe Thanatos (15 page)

“I know the Stratons prohibited
anyone from speaking our name, effectively forcing us to be forgotten.”

He recognized shades of a memory and
could see the blurry faces of young children playing with a youthful woman wearing
a crown on her head. It was the Elder’s face, younger and fresher but still
filled with beauty. He did recognize her. Time had eroded her physical identity
some but the more he looked, the more she seemed familiar to him.

“You were the Queen the Stratons
killed,” he whispered as the memory came to light.

“The Queen they
thought
they
killed,” she corrected. “And then they went after the rest of my family.”

“Thea,” he whispered. It was
becoming clearer to him now, why he had recognized it when he first heard it.
He saw her younger self again, and the man who was her husband, the King. He
saw his own parents with them, laughing and talking with glee only a short time
before their demise.

He opened the thick cover of the
book and scanned the pages, searching for a clue to prove she was telling the
truth. He stopped on a page that contained a hierarchical graph and a list of
names categorized by generation.

His heart stopped on the title. ‘
Historical
Records and Lineage of the Original Families of Terra: Thanatos, Nero, and
Straton
.’

 “Miss Thanatos?”

A man in a collared work shirt and
slacks stood a few feet away with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the
other, both of which were moving towards her.

“Your signature please?” he asked.

Oh, right
. Her thoughts had
wandered off again and she was left standing with a far off look on her face. She
glanced around the man’s work and nodded appreciatively. The spare bedroom was
transformed into an office, complete with new furniture and littered with
several shopping bags filled with all manner of accessory. The man had
assembled the furniture and set it into place while she was off in the land of
mental distraction. On another such trip, she’d nearly hammered her fingers
into a wall.

She signed and tipped generously
before showing him to the front door and wishing him a good day.  Any and all
conceivable projects she thought to take on, she did. The hardwood floors were
refinished, walls painted, crown molding installed, the kitchen cabinets were
outfitted with new hardware, and light switch faceplates replaced in every room
along with each light fixture and ceiling fan. When one project finished she
started another, every day for three days straight. Before she knew it was
Saturday.

The morning after Evadine and Evan
left, Zoe found herself in an unfamiliar mental space. For the entire morning
and part of the afternoon she kept expecting Evan to show up at any moment.
After all, he had been with her nearly nonstop since they met. Their shared
experiences felt like a relationship that was longer than just two days, and
his absence had a more profound effect on her than she would have liked.

The strangest part was knowing she
had no way to contact him, that she couldn’t just pick up a phone or drive to
his hotel, and the more she thought about it the more dissonant she felt. He
was nowhere to be found in the world, which was the thought that perplexed her
the most. Without his presence to serve as proof of the existence of another
world, her belief began to wane. The idea of Terra made sense when she could
see evidence of it in him, but without him there to ground her newfound
reality, it became nothing more than a supernatural memory.

To occupy her mind she planted the
flowers and shrubs she bought the previous day, and then set to work on the
rest of the house, moving room to room until she had enough projects to last a
lifetime. Her mind wandered off for stretches of time, but less and less she
thought of Evan, and of Terra.

By Friday afternoon as she painted
her living room lily pad green, she decided that the best thing to do was to
not expect Evan at all. It was impossible to know if he would ever return and
she felt that waiting for him would just be pathetic. She had a life before he
ever entered into it and it would continue on after he left.

Zoe returned to the office and set
to work on the shopping bags, placing the new items throughout the room until
it no longer looked empty. Among the new purchases was a framed print of a
Parisian cityscape, the lights reflected on the wet pavement as patrons moved
along with umbrellas covering their heads. It was a clichéd piece of commercial
art but she loved it, and wanted a reminder of the most beautiful city she had
ever visited.

With a wall selected to hang the
piece on, she picked up a nail and hammer and swung. The hammer penetrated and
created a softball-sized hole in the wall.
Fantastic.
She yanked the
hammer from the wall and stared resentfully at the tool and the damaged drywall.
She considered her choices, wondering if she could patch the drywall herself
with some help off the Internet, or if it would be easier just to hire someone.

Something caught her eye; a refracted
ray of light beaming out from the newly created hole. The hammer still in her
hand, she pounded the soft area around the hole, stuck her hand in, and came
into contact with a clean, glassy surface. The item was long and rectangular,
all sides surfaced in the same smooth material.

 She maneuvered her fingers until the
item was secure in her hand and pulled it out from its hiding place in the
wall.  She dropped the hammer to the ground and used her free hand to balance
the weight of the box before bringing it to the desk and setting it down. She
could just make out the faintest sliver of a seam around the perimeter of the
box constituting a lid. With both hands she used her fingers to lift the top
and expelled a curious breath when it opened, the sensation like two magnets
moving apart from each other.

Inside were several rolls of
parchment paper, each tied with a blue leather band and stacked one on top of
the other like logs. She picked up the edge of one scroll and felt the delicacy
of the paper instantly. She slid the binding down the length of the scroll carefully,
not willing to test the efficacy of the paper’s strength. Once relieved, the
scroll unraveled marginally in her hands. With one corner held in her left
hand, she used her right to gently unravel the paper.

An uneven stroke of ink appeared
and grew in size as she unrolled the scroll. It was a map, hand drawn in
precise detail and with obvious care. Several areas were labeled with hand
drawn script, but the letters too small to make out what they said. She
unraveled a second scroll and found what appeared to be a schematic, drawn and labeled
in the same ink and script as the map. 

The third scroll was larger, and
once open revealed a tree filled with names and smaller lines of script beneath
each one in the same delicate writing. She held the scroll closer, willing her
eyes to adjust to the delicate typography. The tree itself was relatively
small, going back only a few generations. She scanned over the names and marveled
at the fine cursive they were scrawled in. Adara, Evangeline and Thea. The
hierarchy continued through Thea and stopped at Zara and…
Zoe
.

She nearly jumped in her seat at
the sight of her name. Of course she knew there were others who shared her name
and spelling, but something about seeing it on the scroll felt a little too
familiar, almost as if it were
her
. Hers was the only name she
recognized.

Several more scrolls sat inside the
glass box waiting to be opened. Just as she reached for a fourth to open the
doorbell rang. She made her way to the front door and mentally calculated the
chances that it was Evan standing on the other side. Could he have come back
already? A brief glance through the peephole dashed her fleeting hope away. She
took deep breath and opened the door.

“Evadine!” she exclaimed, trying not
to sound as if she were disappointed.

“You remembered,” Eva greeted with
a smile.

Zoe looked around Eva on the off
chance that she wasn’t alone. “What brings you by?”

“I need to speak with you. Can I
come in?”

“Of course” She tried not to dwell
on Eva’s physical resemblance to Evan, or to the wave of disappointment that it
wasn’t him on the other side of the door.

For the first time Zoe noticed how
out of the ordinary Eva looked up close. Perhaps it was the way she was dressed
that hinted at her otherworldly provenance. She looked like she had just
stepped foot off the set of a science fiction movie. She didn’t recall Evan
looking so utilitarian, and wondered if Eva had come from Terra directly to her
house.

Zoe sat down on the new couch and
nestled into the cushions. Eva followed suit, sitting a seat cushion away. It
hadn’t been too long since she and Evan sat in a similar way, but for decidedly
different reasons.

“What brings you by?” Zoe asked.
She fought back the desire to immediately ask about Evan.

Eva sighed. “Let me preface this by
acknowledging that what I’m about to say is not only going to be forward, but
also very confusing. That being said, I owe it to my brother to do this.”

Zoe’s brows furrowed over her eyes.
“To Evan? Why? What are you talking about?”

“I want to take you to Terra.”

Zoe’s stomach dropped. “I beg your
pardon?”

“There are some things happening
back home. A book went missing, the King was kidnapped and the Queen is... Well
she’s the Queen.” Maybe to Eva the implication of her words was clear, but to
Zoe they offered no explanation.

 “I’m not following. What book?
What does any of this have to do with Evan? Or with me for that matter?”

“Sorry, let me try to explain it
better.” Eva took a deep breath but looked anything but relaxed. “The book that
was stolen belongs to the Queen and is special. It is a historical record of
great importance that is usually locked up where no one can get it. Except,
someone did get it. That crime alone would have guaranteed a life of lockup,
but to make matters worse, the same people responsible for stealing the book
are holding the King hostage.”

Stolen books? A kidnapped King?
None of it made sense to Zoe. The goings-on of another world’s monarchy didn’t
interest her.

Eva continued. “I can’t say for
sure but I’m willing to bet that they’re up to more than just stealing from the
monarchy. They’ve managed to get their hands on some technology owned
exclusively by the Crown, and who knows what kind of trouble that could cause.”

“What kind of technology?” Zoe
grabbed a lace covered pillow from beside her and hugged it to her chest. Eva
had a come a long way to tell her the story, and she owed it to her to listen.

“It’s complicated,” Eva sighed.
“There really isn’t enough time to get into specifics. To make a long story
short the Queen is having all the gates deprogrammed for Gaia.”

 “What is Gaia?”

“Gaia is here, Earth. It’s what we
call your universe. The gates help us travel safely between universes, but once
they’re deprogrammed we have no way of coming and going. Anyone stuck here
won’t be able to go home, and likewise no one from Terra can go to Gaia.”

Things were getting a big clearer.
“So that means Evan wouldn’t be able to come back here?”

“Exactly. I know he wouldn’t want
that. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know. He was sent with a team of Crown Soldiers
to bring back the King, the book, and those responsible for taking them. By the
time he returns the gates could already be shut down, and then there would be
nothing he could do.”

Zoe shifted uncomfortably in her
seat. “So he doesn’t even know you’re here?” she asked.

Eva shook her head. “I’m certain he
would be here himself if he knew. If he could.”

“Did he say anything about coming
back?” Zoe could barely bring her eyes up to look at Eva as she asked. Her
fingers played absentmindedly with the corners of the pillow, wrapping the soft
fabric around her fingers.

“He doesn’t need to. I know my
brother well enough to know he wouldn’t want the gates to close on his chance
to see you again. His life is very complicated at home and I know that he was
waiting to find a way to come back.”

“Once the gates are deprogrammed
there’s no way to know when they’ll be reprogrammed?”

“No.”

“So it’s possible they may not be
reprogrammed at all?”

“It is.”

“And you’re asking me to go with
you? Without any certainty that
I’ll
be able to come home?”

“I’m asking if you
want
to.”

Zoe could tell from the look in
Eva’s bright blue eyes that even she knew how ridiculous she sounded. She
looked around the room, taking in the sight of every project she had started
and finished or was in the process of completing. A mess of her own creation
was easy enough to fix, but what she was being asked to do was something else
entirely. She was still trying to reacclimatize herself to the life she had
neglected to live. How could she leave when she was only just starting? There
wasn’t enough time in any world to make that kind of decision.

She’d been rescued from one jump
just to make a much bigger one. There wasn’t enough time to figure out what the
right decision was.

“So there’s a possibility that
either he never comes back, or I never come back?” Zoe asked.

“A possibility? Yes. How certain is
that possibility? I have no idea. This could just be the Queen overreacting.
For all we know she’ll have the gates reprogrammed as soon as these residents are
dealt with and everything will go back to normal.” Even she looked like she
didn’t believe that would happen.

“And the worst case scenario?” The
question lingered unanswered in the air between them. What if their Queen
wasn’t overreacting? She knew enough history to know that stealing from those
in power, especially the government or monarchy, was never a crime that went
without punishment. Not to mention the King’s kidnapping; if someone high up in
the government was kidnapped there would likely be no lack of severe punishment.
She would never consider involving herself in the politics of another country
or civilization, and Terra was an entirely new universe of unknown
possibilities. She had no desire to encroach on a potentially unstable
environment.