Across Carina (11 page)

A pair of humming birds buzzed by, pausing in front of me before flying behind the weeping willow. The tree stood so expansively that it was impossible to see behind it. I wondered, about it and others like it. Sure, the willows on Earth were smaller, but they all shared the same elegant sorrow, the same unabashed spirit. And I had always admired them for it. But I had also begrudged them, just a little, for possessing the traits that I had wanted—that I still wanted—to find in more humans.

A breeze swept over me, flooding my arms with goose bumps. Getheos wasn’t as warm as The Mango Sun. I was cold, and my legs had started to pale. But I tried not to think about. I was running out of time. The sky was yellow, soft and fading in the golden hour. I needed to find shelter before the moon eclipsed my travels. I marched as steadily as I could through the grass, but it pushed against me in the wind.

Finally, I reached the weeping willow. I couldn’t see an easy way through its branches, and I realized that I’d have to climb it in order to reach the other side of the meadow (I wondered how the chariot had slipped through). I would have walked around the tree, even as wide as it was, but it was flanked by a dense forest. Climbing it seemed safer.

I grabbed the branch lowest to the ground. Immediately, Garrett flashed into my mind. He was in a memory of when we had been kids, when we had used to sneak out of the house after bedtime to climb the trees in the side yard. We had spent hours in those trees, talking and spying on the neighborhood.

What would Garrett think if he saw me now? Would he be disappointed in me for leaving home or proud that I’ve made it this far?

With both hands gripping the branch, I pushed my feet against the trunk and hoisted myself up. The branch was narrow and weak, so I quickly reached for the next closest branch in sight. It was difficult to see with all the leaves draped around me. I climbed for a while from branch to branch in search of one that reached the other side of the meadow.

As I brushed a cord of leaves off my face, I saw a naked branch protruding through the leaves below, seemingly to the other side of the meadow. The only way to get to this branch was to move to the very end of the branch that I was on and jump down.

I rotated slowly on my branch until I was upside down, clinging to it like a spider monkey. I moved along it, to its end, and then let one of my arms fall to see if I could touch the naked branch. It was just out of my reach. As I lifted my arm back up, the rest of my body weakened, and I fell, bouncing off branches and hitting the ground.

I didn’t move right away. I wasn’t seriously injured, but I had bruised my tailbone. And so I lay there, sprawled out, until the sound of water jolted me upright.

Let it be clean water.
My throat was parched.

I forced myself to sit up. There was a path in front of me—straight and wide, comprised of moist, dark brown soil. It was flanked by two gentle streams. Along the banks were calamus and irises and purple-stemmed asters. The trees, many of which were smaller weeping willows, were surrounded by patches of lush grass. Their branches reached for the sky, some curving toward each other, mingling into a canopy. Humming birds buzzed in and out of the trees.

I walked over to one of the streams. It was clear and shallow. I stepped in, and cool water rushed between my toes. Then I cupped my hands in the water and drank. I was so dehydrated that I could feel the first sip course down my esophagus and into my stomach, permeating my entire body. Several drinks later my tailbone was healed.

In awe, I began to wander waist-deep in the water, drinking and looking about. I came across a boy farther down the stream. He looked my age and was kneeling along the bank. He had fiercely dark, curly hair that fell across his forehead, and his skin was bronze. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, exposing the veins in his muscular arms. I couldn’t see much of his face, for he was staring into the water, but he looked human to me.

I moved closer, awakening him from his trance. He looked up and met my gaze with a calm smile. He was beautiful.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” I said, pausing a few feet away. “I’m Jade.”

“Hello, Jade.”

He extended his hand, and I stepped forward to shake it. His eyes were hazel, sprinkled with gold.

“Are you human?” I asked him.

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you not from here?”

I mentally slapped myself, realizing the strangeness of my question. I wasn’t on The Mango Sun anymore—I needed to watch what I said. If this boy found out the truth, then my being on Getheos would probably disturb him as much as it did me. I couldn’t imagine that the natives were used to otherworldly visitors.

I inched back. “Look, I’m not an alien or anything. I—”

“Sure you are,” the boy said. “Aliens are foreign people, and you just said that you’re not from here.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You did. Indirectly.”

He smiled. He was watching me, waiting. I could hardly bear to look at him. He made me nervous in the best way.

“Fine, I’m not from here,” I said. “But if we’re calling me an alien, you should know that I’m a good alien.”

The boy was smiling wider now, trying to suppress a laugh. He didn’t look disturbed. I began to relax.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“My name is Sal,” he said. “And, yes, I’m human. But what possessed you to ask me that? Can’t you tell that I’m human? We look similar enough—only I’m a boy and you’re a girl.”

I giggled. “Is that the only difference between us?”

He didn’t say anything, so I went on.

“I asked because you shook my hand,” I said. “Isn’t that a human gesture? Either way, I’m relieved. Tremendously. I mean, you have no idea. And
I
had no idea that humans lived here, or on any planet other than Earth. I was only told about the gods.”

“Some gods were once human,” he said.

“Really?” I asked.

I looked away, thinking of Charlotte and Eden. “I wonder . . .”

“What was that?”

I looked back at Sal. “Nothing. Sorry. Listen, I’m glad that you don’t seem to be put off by me—you know, with me being an outsider. So I’m going to go out on a limb and see if you can help me. I need to get back to the outside.”

He cocked his head.

“Outside, like space,” I said. “I need to get off this planet as soon as possible.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well don’t we all?”

“What? Why? Wait—are
you
not from here?”

He sighed. “No, I’ve been away from my home planet a long time.”

“Well where are you from?” I asked.

“Earth,” he said simply.

“
You’re
from Earth?
I’m
from Earth.”

“And why did you come here, Jade?”

“Well I didn’t mean to come here. I followed a shadow man . . . thing . . . out of my room.”

Good job, Jade. That didn’t sound creepy at all.

“I see,” Sal said, tracing his fingers in the water. “Then you did mean to come, much as I once did. I regret that day, but this is my home now. It’s not so bad. As you’ve seen, it can be quite charming.”

I looked around. It was charming, indeed, but I still had questions.

“How long have you been away?” I asked.

“Four years,” Sal said, and his gaze drifted back to the water.

I gaped at him. “
Four years?
That’s a long time. What happened? Please, I’m desperate for answers.”

He didn’t respond. I had lost him.

“What in the world are you looking at?” I asked.

“My reflection,” he said.

He sounded far away. There was a pause, and then he laughed.

“I’m not obsessed with myself or anything,” he said. “It’s just that the other day I remembered this story about Narcissus that I read in middle school. Did you ever read any mythology? Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection after seeing it in a pool of water. He actually stared at himself for so long—and he became so enthralled—that he fell into the pool and drowned. Can you believe that?

“I’ve been trying to make sense of how anyone could love themselves that much. And where is the line between love and vanity? I’m just an average guy—I haven’t always liked what I’ve seen in the mirror—and so I came here to look at myself and see if I could feel a fraction of what Narcissus felt. But I’m here, and I don’t feel anything. I’d ask Narcissus about it, but he was turned into a flower. He paid a high price for his love. If it was love.”

I climbed out of the water and knelt on the bank beside Sal. My dress was clinging to me, and I picked at it, hoping it wasn’t sheer. Sal was still staring into the water, so I turned, too, to face our blurry reflections.

“So, you don’t think that you’re beautiful?” I asked shyly.

“Not really,” he said. “I never had many friends in school. You could say that I was teased.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “Can I ask . . .”

“What happened? Why?” he filled in. “It was because of my obsession with mythology. I didn’t wear togas to school or anything, but the stories I read were all that I felt comfortable talking about. I was very shy, so it was difficult for me to talk to people unless I felt that I could add to the conversation.

“At first it was just an interest in the gods, but it was an interest that drove people away. They thought that I was weird and crazy. Outside of my family, I had no one. And all those other people only drove me further into my interest. The stories became an escape. But sometimes even they weren’t enough.

“I wished for a different world, and one night I cried to the gods as if they were real. That’s when the chariot arrived. Like I said, I’ve been here four years now, but my sources say that time runs differently on Earth—faster. I don’t know by how much. It’s possible that my parents are dead now.” He shrugged. “There’s really no way to tell.”

“You seem pretty calm about it,” I said, scowling.

“I don’t know how else to be,” Sal said. “I’m a realist, and I’ve accepted my life here. And you should know that I speak my mind. I spent too many years not doing that.”

“Well
I
haven’t accepted my life here,” I said. “I intend to leave.”

“And how will you do that?” he asked. “Nobody goes back to Earth.”

I ignored him. “What did you mean when you said you cried to the gods as if they were real? What’s here?”

He laughed like he’d never imagined he would have to answer such a question.

“Getheos is where Greek mythology originated from,” he said.

I stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re all here,” he said. “Zeus, Athena, Hermes—the whole lot of them.”

“Are you crazy?” I asked.

“Not in the least. Where do think all those stories came from?”

“I don’t know. Greek storytellers? Bored philosophers?”

“Jade, think about it. You’ve been outside of Earth. You’ve seen other worlds. Where do you think those worlds came from?”

“I don’t know,” I said, even though I kind of did.

“They were made,” Sal answered. “I don’t know who made Earth, but Zeus, Athena, Hermes, and the rest of those gods are the ones who made Getheos. People on Earth know them as the Greek gods, but they’re not Greek. They’re not even from Earth. Nor are they over Earth in any way. They have no jurisdiction there.”

“They’re not from Earth?” I asked. “Then how did their stories get there? You’re contradicting yourself.”

“I’m not,” Sal said. “Their stories were stolen, taken back to Earth.”

“Why—and how—would someone have stolen those stories from an entirely different galaxy? Do you hear yourself right now?”

“I’ve actually thought a lot about that, and I have a theory. I don’t have any evidence for it yet, but I believe that someone, a long time ago, traveled here and actually made it back to Earth. Let’s say it was a man named Will.

“Now I don’t know how Will made it back—maybe things were different then—but I do know that the people on Earth probably wouldn’t have taken well to his grandiose tales of Getheos. So I’m guessing that he, needing some sort of an outlet, took his stories and made people believe that they took place on Earth. It’s doubtful that he would have been able to just keep quiet about everything that he’d been through.”

His grandiose tales.

If I ever made it home, I wondered what I would tell everyone. If they were even alive. There wasn’t much sense in going back if my family was dead.

Sal continued. “You’re going to be here awhile, if not permanently. But I’ll do what I can to help you. You’re the first person from Earth that I’ve come across in four years. There are humans here—they exist on many planets—but I can’t connect with them in the same way. We’ve lived different lives.” He sighed. “Oh, Jade, how did we get here? Why did we leave in those chariots?”

“I didn’t say anything about a chariot,” I said.

“Who else drove you from your room into space?”

I folded my arms, fuming. Sal was spoiling my hopes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not trying to discourage you. Like I said, I’m a realist.

“On that note, I think that you and I should stick together. There are more than just humans here. There are gods and dangerous creatures that walk Getheos.”

I shuddered. I could only imagine.

“You’ll really stay with me?” I asked.

He looked up from the water and into my eyes.

“Yes.”

I began to feel at ease. I was still scared by what Sal had told me, but at least I wouldn’t be scared
and
alone. I was grateful to him for his offer.

Now I just needed to convince him that we could escape. Unless everyone had been lying to me, which was possible. I also hadn’t eliminated the possibility that I was having a giant hallucination.

I wish.

Sal and I walked along the bank as the sun set. Gold dipped into orange, and orange into red.

Sal told me some about his life on Getheos. He said that we were in a small town far from civilization. He didn’t know where the cities were and had never tried to find them. He was content to sleep under trees and in the huts that he stumbled upon. He said that most people were kind—some a little eccentric—but that the gods sometimes got out of hand and caused mayhem in the otherwise peaceful countryside.