The Second Wave (31 page)

“She is addressing him in the highest form of
praise.” It was hard to follow the woman’s words; she spoke fast
and in an old dialect Elizabeth was just barely familiar with, “The
names she calls him are unfamiliar to me; at least I suppose those
are his names. Now she is introducing us.”

“Should we say something?” Mandy whispered.
None of them had lowered their guns.

“I don’t think he can hear us,” Carl said.
“He looks quite dead.”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t think he’s
dead. He’s probably just caught in one of those time pockets Dr.
Wagner-Reyes keeps talking about.”

“What do you do now?” Elizabeth asked. She
was met with three quizzical glances. The protectors hadn’t planned
that far ahead. After a while, the local woman was now cleaning the
chamber as if the others weren’t there, Carl softly spoke, “There
must be a way to make contact.”

“How long do you think he’s been here?” Mandy
asked, without expecting an answer. “All alone in the darkness.
Poor kid.”

“I never thought I’d say this,” mumbled
Emily. “But perhaps it would help if Eugenia was here. She is,
after all, the other planet’s equivalent of…him.”

With calm deliberation, undisturbed by her
visitors, the woman swept the floor with a crude broom, carefully
avoiding the area inside the circle of stones where the boy
stood.

“You said you think that Earth’s climate has
everything to do with the fact that the planet thinks we’re
deliberately abandoning it,” Elizabeth said. She, too, spoke softly
now, so as not to disturb the holy atmosphere in the room. Emily
nodded.

“You left out the bit where Earth is actually
an animal rather than a planet.” Carl helpfully pointed out.

Ignoring his statement, Elizabeth went on.
“Then maybe we don’t even need to establish contact, as much as
just let him know we’re not going to abandon him.”

“How are we going to do that?” asked Mandy.
“We can’t simply walk up to him and strike up a conversation.”

But none of them could come up with a
satisfying solution.

* * * *

Summer dreaded giving John the news. He sat
on a stool he had drawn up next to the hospital bed in which
Eugenia lay like she had five years ago: unresponsive and limp. Her
eyes were closed, she was drifting in and out of consciousness
these days. The skin pale against the white sheets, the beautiful
curls dull and unkempt. Seeing her like this made Summer forget all
the grief she had felt towards her or even John. He was in and out
of it himself in a way. Sometimes he didn’t even acknowledge when
someone walked into the room or talked to him. He just sat there
and kept watching her, his chest rising and falling in time with
Eugenia’s.

She pondered the best way to break the news
to him that the woman in the bed before him was dying, but failed
to come up with anything remotely adequate. Eugenia’s organs, tests
had shown, were shutting down one after the other. They were not
used to function independently, as the planet had probably nurtured
her. Now her body was not equipped to sustain itself. Add to that
the stress of being all alone Eugenia so frequently spoke about—her
physical form was withering away like a bouquet of forgotten
flowers. If Summer wasn’t certain that leaving Alternearth would
instantly kill her, she’d suggest taking her to a hospital on
Earth, where they were better equipped and maybe could come up with
a solution. Although somehow she doubted that. Eugenia was not of
this world, and neither was her illness. After careful
consideration and many sleepless nights, Summer believed what John
had told them that day at Mayor Rochester’s; that Eugenia was
connected with the creature on whose skin they lived. Perhaps they
had been connected for so long that being apart was killing her. It
decidedly wasn’t doing the planet any good, if the heat wave was
anything to go by. The consequences for mankind if both of them
died were gruesome.

“You’re telling me.” Timothy’s voice
interrupted her morose soliloquy. He had sneaked up on her and was
standing close now. His eyes followed her gaze through the panelled
window into the hospital room.

“How is she doing?” he asked.

“Dying,” was her simple reply.

“I thought so.”

Without her having to ask for it, he wrapped
his arms around her from behind and pulled her into a tight
embrace. He always knew when to do that, she momentarily mused.

“Word got back from Emily and the others,” he
told her after a spell of silence. “They found a boy in a temple.
Looks like he’s kind of like Earth’s version of Eugenia.”

“What did they do?”

Timothy gave a hum. “There wasn’t much they
could do in the first place. In the end they wrote a message out of
pebbles. Emily thinks this way it will be visible long enough for
him to read it, even though time on the outside moves much faster
for the guy.”

“What message?”

“Didn’t ask. But you know what?!” Without
waiting for her to inquire further he continued, “The storms have
passed.”

She half turned in his embrace to look at
him, just to make sure he wasn’t joking. “They did?”

“Yeah. Weather forecast for Earth: blue skies
all around. Except Egypt where it’s snowing like crazy this time of
the year.” He chuckled. “Sally was pretty bummed.”

Summer covered her boyfriend’s hands with
hers and said, finally at ease with her decision. “The answer is
yes, Timothy. I want to marry you.”

The timing wasn’t right for blissful
declarations of love, or kisses that expressed the very same thing.
So they just stood like that for a while, content in each other’s
presence. Until Summer whispered, “I have to tell him,” and Timothy
released her. He didn’t go with her into the hospital room, but he
waited outside; and when Summer came back, all red eyes and pale
cheeks, he took her home and held her as she relived what had
happened to her sister so long ago.

The next day a storm hit. For two weeks the
villagers had suffered in the damp, heavy air, and finally the
storm clouds over the sea found a breeze that carried them to the
settlement. At first just rain, then hail, then rain again. It
didn’t get light in the morning, the clouds just looked more
luminous during the day than during the night.

Peter stood in the doorway to number
twenty-three, relishing the cool air. From a distance he heard an
uproar coming from the stables; the hounds were howling again.
Their behavior had been random in the last weeks, even before the
heat. He saw Tyson rush to the hospital, no doubt to alert John,
who spent his time there now. Something must be seriously wrong
then, Peter decided. But when the boy emerged a few minutes later,
John wasn’t with him.

For a moment he felt himself tense. His body,
out of habit, prepared itself to go and look after the man he had
so hopelessly fallen in love with all these years ago. In moments
like these he forgot all about himself, or the fact that by now he
had made a promise to someone else. Someone he loved, too, if
differently. Today, for the first time, he hesitated. Today, for
the first time, he thought about Luke and the silent patience in
his eyes whenever Peter made time to spend with John.

“Enough,” he quietly spoke into the rain. It
was time he closed this chapter of his life, or perhaps the whole
volume; put it aside, set it on a shelf, one with a door that could
be locked, and then—he lost himself in the metaphor for a moment
and needed a minute to find his way back again. Close this chapter
and start living the next one fully, he finally settled on. He
considered himself lucky to have shared his life twice with a man
like John. But he was with someone else now, someone he did love
more than his own life. It was time he committed to that. Peter
closed the door.

He found his husband on the sofa, deep in
thoughts. When asked what was occupying his mind, Luke replied with
a question, “What do you think the time pockets truly are?”

“Well, Luke, my love, a random unrelated time
event, or R.U.T.E. as it is more commonly called, is a—”

But Luke interrupted him with a wave of his
hand, “That’s not what I meant, Peter. Put aside the rational
explanation of something like that. What could be the true meaning
of them? Why do they exist?”

“I quite believe I can not possibly answer
this question, although it is a deeply interesting one. Why
indeed?”

Luke absentmindedly patted the cushion on his
right, inviting Peter to sit with him. When he was seated, Luke sat
up straight, as if the better to think like that, and said, posture
and voice slightly excited, “Well, if you bear with me for a moment
and not just dismiss my idea; but could it be that the time pockets
are a self defence mechanism? A means of protection. A lot of
animals can do quite marvellous things to protect themselves, why
not this one?”

Peter pondered this theory. “Taking into
consideration that the planet we walk upon is in actuality a giant,
sentient creature floating through the universe…then I do think
everything is possible.”

“I thought so, too.” Luke’s smile vanished
when his eyes flickered to the wall clock. It was past the time for
Peter’s usual trip to see John at the hospital. He shot his husband
a quizzical glance. Peter leaned over to cup his face. “I chose
you,” he promised.

The smile on Luke’s lips reappeared.

“Luke, would you do me the immense honor to
go to the greenery with me and check on your tomatoes?” Peter asked
with an air of festivity.

Luke laughed, “I thought you’d never
ask.”

They hadn’t been to the greenery together in
a while. The tomatoes were growing like crazy these days.

* * * *

One planet thrived and one was dying; just
like it had been before, only know the sides were reversed. Like a
set of parallel lines that meet in infinity just to switch tracks,
the planets’ roles were suddenly reversed.

The boy finally made it out of the cupboard,
although the man he had become in the meantime didn’t realize it at
first. It happened while he was sitting next to a hospital bed,
watching a dying woman, hoping, praying, willing her to survive.
When a new wave of spasms shuddered her unconscious form he cradled
her in his arms, but to no avail: her body convulsed, her breath
hitched and then she sagged against him like a rag doll with its
strings cut off.

He held her as long as the night lasted. Dawn
found the two of them an entangled bundle—one devoid of all life,
one all but holding his breath, as if that might bring her back
somehow. The doctor came and tried to pry her from his arms, but he
would let no one touch her. He clasped to her body like it was a
vital part of his own. Perhaps it was. In his desperate attempt to
leave nothing untried, one last hope blossomed before his mind’s
eye. He took her in his arms then and walked out of the room. Out
of the hospital. Out of the village, into the forest, to a place
only the two of them knew. A long forgotten temple that was really
a tomb in the middle of the forest. One miracle had already
occurred there, and if John kid himself earnestly enough, he almost
believed it could happen one more time.

It was quiet around them. Neither animals nor
plants moved, as if they felt the loss of their Goddess, as if they
were preparing to die with her soon. It was noon when he reached
the temple, but it could have been anytime, the sun hid behind
thick, gray clouds; ashamed to be witness to the scene that
unfolded beneath her. Softly, lovingly he knelt on the ground in
the middle of the tumbled down stones and laid the woman down on
the naked earth. She looked like she belonged there.

John knelt beside Eugenia, unsure if he could
ever get up again, or if he should just stay here, lie down and
wait until he too was no more. For he saw no point in existing
without her. The path of his life lead him here, this was where it
ended; there was nowhere else to run to. So he covered her hands
with his, bowed his head so their foreheads touched, closed his
eyes and began, much to his own surprise, to pray.

The change was barely susceptible at first.
He wondered how long he had been hearing it already. Voices filling
his mind. Soft and distant, but growing louder, more chaotic.
Hundreds of them, all at once, randomly zipping in and out of his
head. The cacophony was unbearable—and yet there was more and more
with every heartbeat. The voices were but one facet of a whole
orchestra of sounds and feelings that swept through his entire
body. He felt everything. More than that—he
was
everything.
Everything and everyone at once. He was every tree that stretched
its branches towards the sun; every droplet of water that rushed
through the streams; every root that slumbered in the soil. He
heard the buzz of every insect, the growl of every hound, the hopes
of every person in the village. He heard children run around with
bare feet, so fast it was impossible to keep up. He heard the
gurgle the sea makes when the wind softly tugs at its surface; the
low hiss of a flower opening its petals in the sunlight; the wet
smack of a ripe fruit falling to the ground.

Everything happened at once.

It took a while until he was able to bring at
least some order into it all. He sorted the sounds, the noises and
the voices; separated his own feelings from those around him. Only
when he had done that did he notice something else. Underlying
everything there was a steady, deep hum; not unlike the beating of
a heart. One long pulse, followed by two short ones. He felt it
rather than heard it as it reverberated through his bones; old and
content, slow and satisfied. A soft gasp escaped his lips when he
realized what it must be—the heartbeat of the creature who slept
beneath the planet’s surface.