The Second Wave (25 page)

The downfall was written in the books of
darkness, but no mortal can decipher the words the Gods have
written:

The Golden Serpent of Light fell from the
sky; it pulled out its wings, turned black and crawled on the
ground. It was called Canék then, and it became the prince of the
Itzá, who was feared by all.

Such was the time in which the Princess
Sac-Nicté of Mayab was born into, who was more delicate than dew
and more beautiful than a dove. They called her White Flower.

When Prince Canék was seven years old, he
killed a butterfly; when he was twice seven years, he tore a stag.
When he counted three times seven years, he became king of the
Itzá; it was the day he first laid eyes on Sac-Nicté. Her sight
made him weep one day and one night.

The Princess of the Mayab, Sac-Nicté, was
loved by her people and by strangers alike. When she counted five
years of age, she offered a bowl of water to a thirsty traveller;
when she was twice five years old, she fed a hungry dove with corn.
When she was three times five years old, she laid eyes on Prince
Canék and the woman inside her blossomed, and all that was written
was revealed to her in a dream that night.

They met on the square before the great
temple of the Mayapán. Although there were many people about,
nobody saw what was going on. For to the Gods is revealed what
mankind doesn’t understand; they made it so that an invisible arrow
pierced the prince and the princess through the heart, so they knew
they were meant to be together. This Sac-Nicté understood; she
promised herself she would shine her light only on Prince Canék, to
rekindle the flame that had gone out in his heart.

But Sac-Nicté was promised to another. Prince
Canék was invited to their wedding. Three times a messenger came to
Canék’s palace in Itzmál, to ask him to join the wedding. Three
times the prince accepted this invitation. But his eyes were coals
and his heart was burning with desire. He promised he would let no
one else pick the flower he desired for himself.

So he gathered his men, and on the day of the
wedding, when Sac-Nicté was lead to the temple and was about to be
given away to another under the eyes of the people of all great
cities of the Mayab, Prince Canék came down upon her like a raging
tempest. He swept her up in his arms and carried her away.

Not a drop of blood was shed that day, but it
was the darkest hour for all those left behind. It was an act of
war. It was the beginning of the end.

The other cities sent out warriors to destroy
Itzmál, to kill Prince Canék, and to return the princess to her
father and her betrothed.

The White Flower rekindled the flame in the
Black Serpent’s heart, but it was too late to save the holy city of
Itzmál. For fear of it being destroyed, the prince gathered his
people and their belongings. They took the books of darkness, the
holy statues and the writings in the temples, and they left their
land. Many days they wandered, lead by the White Princess and the
White Prince, whose love shone brighter than the sun’s and the
moon’s light combined.

They reached a hidden spot at a lake and
built a new city, much smaller. They lived at one with the nature
that surrounded them and called this place Petén. Here, Prince
Canék felt the black scales fall off his soul and golden feathers
grew on his back. And here, the Golden Serpent of the Sky and the
White Flower forever cast their light on the Itzá, but the holy
city Itzmál was slain like an animal, torched and destroyed. It
died alone. It was forgotten, and so was the legend of Zamná.

Like the city, so the golden era of the Itzá
came to an end when the time came. The Golden Serpent flew back
into the sky to vanish each nightfall and resurrect every morning.
The White Flower stayed on the ground, where it blossoms and dies
with the tide of the seasons. Until one day when no one will
remember them anymore, and they die one last, final time.

* * * *

“Like I said, it is a sad story,” John ended.
It was hot under the blanket. Eugenia’s skin burned under his lips,
a sure sign that the fever had flared up again.

“Is not,” she whispered. “You just have to
see what it is truly about.”

He wanted to ask her what it was truly about,
but all he got out of her was more useless rambling and then
finally deep, labored breaths.

* * * *

Seen from space, Alternearth looked just like
Earth. The landmasses were differently distributed, but the ratio
of land to water was about the same. Alternearth was just as blue
as Earth was.

Seen from space, the galaxy in one reality
looked exactly like the one in the other. The planets were the
same, the distant star constellations were almost
interchangeable.

But where one planet offered beautiful
landscapes, thriving flora, and a wholesome environment, the other
was in its final throes: barren lands, poisonous air, little
vegetation. It was dying, a sinking ship that needed to be
abandoned. If it was an animal, the owner would have long brought
it to the vet to be put down and taken out of its misery.

Among the group of hopeful first wave
settlers was a young cook named Victoria Rochester, newly married,
heavily pregnant. She was neither exceedingly bright, she left
school when her mother died in a car accident, nor particularly
pretty, her left eye was considerably bigger than the right one, a
condition she had inherited from her father. Because of that she
was made fun of by other people sometimes—which was one of the
reasons she decided to leave Earth for the advertised better life
in another reality. Her husband, Jacob, was a small-time crook who
got by by pretending to be a caterer, so the decision to leave it
all behind and start anew was not a hard one to make for either of
them.

They were among the first to sign up and,
using Victoria’s father’s influence, were sure to make it onto the
first list. Asking for this favor was the first real contact she
made with her family since she had left both the school and the
city for a dubious culinary training in Sicily; Heathcliff
Rochester was eager to help. In his book, he rather knew his only
child in a safe environment as far away from the organized crime of
southern Italy as possible.

Neither Victoria nor Jacob had any idea of
what would await them on Alternearth. The amount of work that still
needed to be put in to finish the colony. The agora meetings where
everyone had the same right to speak, listen, and vote. The trust
people had for each other.

Of course they used this to their own
advantage. They lied and cheated their way to lesser working hours,
more benefits, and free drugs they then sold, all the while
successfully pretending to be loving and caring neighbours.
Everything changed when the twins were born. It was long after the
wormhole had forever closed on them, or so it seemed. Jack and
James grew up to be polite, honest boys, and Victoria had to admit
to herself that her husband was neither and had never been.

It took a couple of months for her to realize
that, to acknowledge that she was entirely to blame for it. If she
hadn’t blamed her father for her mother’s death, she wouldn’t have
run off and straight into the arms of the first handsome, seemingly
wonderful crook she encountered, who offered her the world on a
silver platter—she didn’t mind at the time that it was stolen.

Not long before the twins’ birthday, a group
of explorers found a hollow in one of the hills the settlers called
the Northern Range. They came back one night from their excursion
and gave a long, detailed account at the agora of their encounter:
a cave in which time flew by faster than it did anywhere else. They
had tested their theory with various pieces of fruit and roots, and
described to the others how they witnessed them wither and shrivel
in front of their eyes.

It was Victoria’s luck that Jacob was rarely
present at the meetings. At first she wasn’t sure what to make of
this new information, but as she walked home from the agora that
night, a plan presented itself to her. A solution to her misery.
Because deep inside she knew she could never leave Jacob. Not just
because she loved him despite himself more than anything in the
world, but also because he would never let her go. On more than one
occasion had she witnessed how brutal her husband could be, a facet
of him that scared her whenever she spared a thought about it. If
she wanted to rid herself and their children of him, she had the
perfect chance now. All she had to do was act quickly.

The next day she took him hiking. Jack and
James were at school. She excused herself from work, saying she was
coming down with a fever. She told Jacob about a cave the explorers
found in the hill. A cave filled with gold. Jacob wasn’t quite sure
what they were supposed to do with a bunch of gold on a planet with
no currency, but much to Victoria’s relief he came up with an
answer by himself.

“We harvest the gold for ourselves,” he
explained for what felt to Victoria like the thirtieth time, “and
then simply
introduce
it as currency! It’s genius, Vic, I’ll
just open up a bank! We’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams!”
Jacob laughed animatedly. The more he repeated his plan to himself,
the better he liked it.

The sun was rapidly climbing to its highest
spot, its rays warming the grass underneath their feet. They
marched through a wide spot of grassland behind the corn fields,
and were now slowly reaching the foot of the range. The rich
vegetation cleared away, giving way to moss and lichen-covered
rock.

The cave should be somewhere near, but
Victoria led Jacob up the hill and towards the cliff. She was
running on automatic now, the plan just playing out the way she had
designed it last night, completely detached from any emotions. As
soon as she consciously thought about it, she felt she couldn’t go
through with it—not even Jacob deserved what she was about to do to
him, even if he was a crook and a thief and a liar and a violent
man.

“How much farther is it?” he asked, still in
a good mood. When he smiled like this she remembered all the good
times they had had, all the times he had smiled at her and told her
how beautiful she was. Jacob was the only man who ever said that to
her. Except for her father, who didn’t really count; parents were
supposed to say things like that.

Her voice almost broke when she replied,
“Just up that hill I think,” and pointed into the direction she
needed him to go. Only a little farther. And quickly, before she
would change her mind after all. Wasn’t an “I love you” every now
and then worth ten beatings? Didn’t the occasional perfect moment
make up for all the shouted arguments? Victoria shook off the last
sentiments and rushed after her husband. No it wasn’t, she decided.
It was not worth it.

Jacob stood on top of the hill when she
reached him. Her inner battle with herself had slowed her down
significantly. He stretched out his arms, indicating the completely
cave free surroundings, a dark, shadowy silhouette against the
bright sunshine. As if the Gods were presenting Victoria with a
glimpse into his blackened soul.

“Where is it?” he asked, the smile gone, a
frown taking its place. “Did you even listen to the directions
properly?”

“It’s a bit down there.” She hoped her voice
didn’t betray her, it sounded feeble and deceiving to her own
ears.

“Where?”

“Over the cliff. Just beneath the ledge.”

And then everything happened so fast that
every second forever burnt itself into her memory: Jacob stepped
right to the edge of the cliff. He bent down ever so slightly to
verify this information. And Victoria charged. She simply ran into
him; he never even noticed. For a split second, she thought she
wasn’t able to stop anymore. She’d plunge down with him. But she
stopped in time. Stopped to watch him fall and hit the ground with
a thud. He was too surprised to scream, or maybe she was so
preoccupied with her raging emotions that she didn’t hear him. It
was like nothing had happened. No sound. No crime.

He wasn’t dead, of course; merely knocked
out, with probably a broken leg and arm. The hill was not that
high. She might never have gone through with it, had she been
certain the fall would kill him. She was not a murderer. Quickly
she clambered downhill again, then dragged her husband’s
unconscious body to the entrance of the cave. All the while praying
to whoever might hear her that the explorers were right and the
cave was really magically making things age.

At the entrance of the only hollow she found,
she stopped for a heartbeat. Still deciding whether she should go
through with it. But before she could change her mind again, she
knelt down beside him, whispered a heartfelt, “I truly do love you,
Jacob,” into his ear, then gave the body a push so it rolled into
the cave.

It took almost an hour. Jacob awoke in the
meantime, albeit briefly. She never left the side of the cave. She
watched him age and die, and somehow it made her feel like she
didn’t really kill him. Like a good wife she stayed with him until
the end, until death did them part indeed. Then she watched the
flesh on his bones decay, to make sure he was never coming back and
to carry this image with her for the rest of her life, as a self
inflicted punishment for what she had done.

Jacob simply disappeared that day. Victoria
Rochester and her two sons went on with their lives. She even found
a wonderful man one day, who cared for her in all the right ways;
her sons grew up to become kind, strong men, with families of their
own. In the end all was well, and the only memory that tainted
Victoria’s newfound happiness faded into nothingness with time.

Heath Rochester never knew any of this. The
last thing he heard about Victoria were the news about the due date
of the delivery he didn’t get to witness anymore. As much as he
searched and researched in all the years he spent on Alternearth,
he never found a single trace of his only daughter. There was the
mysterious subway station. There were a dozen or so small caverns
in the mountain regions with markings. There even was a temple on a
tiny island in the ocean they discovered. But no news of the first
wave settlers.