***
Esmeralda woke with the sun. Next to her, the Ivory Turtle still slumbered, head just barely peeking out of his shell. She got up, stretched, looked around and found Robert standing a few feet away, staring ahead toward the gates of Song.
“She can change size,” Robert said as Esmeralda walked over.
“What?”
“The Mother Turtle. She’s gotten a lot smaller. Look around.”
Esmeralda took in her surroundings again and noticed that she could see through the forest on all sides. Previously this was not nearly possible. She estimated the Mother Turtle was about a third or less of her previous size.
“Huh,” Esmeralda said, “I guess she probably was up to her maximum size for the fight.”
“Yeah,” Robert said. “Were you scared?”
“What do you mean?” Esmeralda asked. “Like during the fighting and stuff?”
“Yeah.” Robert looked away from her. “I kind of feel like I freaked out.”
“Hey.” Esmeralda put her hand on his shoulder. “Everybody was scared. I was terrified. You don’t have to feel…”
“I know. It’s okay.”
Esmeralda moved so that she was facing Robert, staring in his eyes. “Hey, look at what we’ve done in, what, three days? We moved to another dimension, infiltrated an evil palace, I got kidnapped, you fought an evil Phoon monster and saved my life, we found a sacred Turtle and saved it from a huge army, and more besides. Nobody gets to be ashamed here, you know?”
Robert smiled a little. “I guess it has been a big weekend.”
“Yeah,” Esmeralda said, “it really has.”
“I have to admit I’m still trying to think of what to tell my mom and dad. They’re lawyers. You have to have, like, an ironclad story, or they’ll pick it full of holes. I was thinking of telling them I ate some bad cake at your party and ran off in the night having hallucinations. You could say the same thing.”
“I don’t know if that will work,” Esmeralda said.
“Yeah.” Robert smiled ruefully.
“How did you convince them to even let you spend the night at my house Friday? They didn’t want you to at first.”
“Well,” Robert said, “I gave them a presentation, but they didn’t really buy it. Something turned them around last Monday. I’m not really sure what it was.”
“What day is it?” Esmeralda said.
Robert looked thoughtful. “I guess it depends on whether you went back or forward when you came through the sunflower field. Remember? You said you went from night to day in a moment. Well, if you went back, it’s Monday morning. If you went forward, it’s Tuesday.”
“Huh,” Esmeralda said, “either way, we’ve missed school.”
“No.” Robert smiled. “It’s Martin Luther King Day on Monday. Remember?”
“Oh, right,” Esmeralda said.
They rode on into the Shining City. The Mother Turtle continued to contract her size until she was about as large as four elephants going two by two, a width that allowed her to pass through the eastern gates. The sunrise painted its warmth on the various buildings of the City, making all things golden and fine. There was little traffic this early in the day, though they disturbed enough travelers to put the word out that something momentous was happening: a Great Turtle walked through Song.
When they reached Shrine, a crowd was gathered at the gates. Growing still, the crowd stared up, singing a song unknown to Esmeralda and Robert but which seemed to have some deep significance, something like a church hymn.
“What are they singing?” Esmeralda asked Raahi.
Raahi had a broad smile on his face. “An old song, one we only sang in a kind of melancholy fashion, a song written by the grandfathers of our grandfathers. The chorus goes:
The World is ever and always
The dream of those whose tears
Survive a thousand years
Free the great ones shall stay
Until the end of all days.”
“What does it mean?” Esmeralda asked.
Raahi couldn’t stop grinning. “People used to say that it meant that the World was going to come to an end soon. We thought there were no Turtles living outside the prisons of Alavariss. And now we find that there always have been. The Grandfather was sleeping under Song the whole time. The Mother Turtle now returns to the City with her son. The song has a new meaning now.”
Within the courtyard they were greeted by several wide-eyed guards who asked no questions, only waved them by. Upon the Mother Turtle’s entrance, all of the trees in the courtyard began coming in various ways alive, their branches swaying and their leaves changing to all sorts of bright and pleasing colors. The trees on her back followed suit, as if the two groves, the one on the earth and the one rooted in her, were holding an enigmatic conversation. Just inside the gate, under a wide willow tree shining gold, silver, red, stood Dorthea, Pa and Boots the husky. They waved, excitement and awe written all over their faces. Esmeralda called out to the Mother Turtle, and she kindly stopped and sent down several vines to gently lift all three up to ride with them into the courtyard.
The people of the City began pouring in, bringing food and drink, musical instruments, and tents. It was as if the City itself had decided that this was going to be a celebration. No one decreed it; no directives were issued or holidays declared. Everyone seemed to know what to do. In moments, a huge tent was erected in the eastern corner of the courtyard, and the air filled with the scent of good food and the sound of laughter. Many, many drums were brought in, and the courtyard began pulsing with the unison rhythms of multiple players and swirling with hundreds of dancing feet. The Mother Turtle sat in the middle of it all, smiling and trying her best not to step on anyone. Every once in a while, a little child would come inquisitively up to her, and she would send down a couple of vines, gently lifting the child into the air and placing the giggling youngster on her back. Everyone laughed, everyone sang, and, though it must have been hours into the day, it seemed like only half a breath before Raahi tapped Esmeralda on the shoulder and whispered into her ear, “The Counsel has to see us.”
Esmeralda, Robert, Raahi, and Ngare came to the observatory at the tip of Shrine. The Ivory Turtle did not go; no one wanted to separate him from his mother, even for a moment.
“You were attacked,” was the way Speaker Han began the interview.
“Yes,” Raahi said. “Alavariss. We received your message, but not in time to avoid the army. How did Alavariss know to give up the chase for the Phoon?”
“We don’t know,” Speaker Han said simply. “They must have turned around to follow almost directly after reaching the pass through Narlith. They could not have wasted any time battling with the Phoon. We fear there may have been a spy somewhere in the middle of all this, but we haven’t a clue who it could be. Princess Yaris was even accused, not to her face, mind you, but we have no way of knowing how she would have gotten the information out. To our knowledge, she hasn’t had access to any human being outside the Counsel since you brought her here. Also, after speaking to her, I do not believe that she would do anything like that. She would never help her father. So we don’t know. Now, in the battle, was the Emperor injured or killed?”
“We aren’t sure,” Raahi said and then related the details of the Emperor’s defeat.
“Well,” Speaker Han said, thinking, “a wound like that would do away with most, but the Emperor has great, uh, longevity. We can hope.”
“At the least, his army has been nearly obliterated.” Ngare pointed out.
“Yes, wonderfully so,” Speaker Han said. “Esmeralda, how did you make the arrow fly that way? Do you know the Songs of Ko?”
“I don’t know anything about how it happened,” Esmeralda honestly replied. “We were just frightened, and everything was going wrong, and I did something. I don’t know if the song helped at all. It may have just been the Ivory Turtle’s tears, or maybe Robert is just way better at archery than we th
ought before.”
Robert perked up. “I’d like to strike that last possibility from the record.”
“There are fewer answers here than I’d like,” Counselor Han said. “But still, Alavariss has lost a great portion of its military strength and perhaps its leader. There are three Great Turtles in the Shining City as we speak. This is a great day.”
Everyone agreed.
Counselor Han walked over to her spot in the circle of Counselors and picked up a little wooden drum that was sitting there. She brought it and sat it in front of Esmeralda and Robert. “Now, I’m afraid it’s time for you to go home.”
Esmeralda and Robert looked at each other.
“What day is today?” Robert asked.
“Today is Monday for you,” Raahi said, smiling.
“Didn’t miss any school,” Robert said to himself.
“But we can’t go back now!” Esmeralda blurted. “We just, I mean, everything just worked out, sort of. Couldn’t we just wait until the party ends outside?”
Raahi looked expectantly at speaker Han.
She smiled. “There is no way of knowing how long this party will last. If you want, take a little time, say your goodbyes, dance and prepare yourselves to go.”
And so they did. Esmeralda and Robert came down to where the people were, and everywhere they went faces were smiling and cheering them. The air was full of beautiful sounds and life. Raahi helped lead the music, which was incredibly coordinated for the sheer mass of people with drums, flutes, guitars, violins, horns and instruments of all kinds. Robert lost all of his stiff inhibitions and danced hilariously. After a while, Esmeralda noticed one of the high windows of Shrine occupied by a silhouette, much like her own, staring out over the festivities. She managed to break away from the party for a moment to head into the tower and visit Yaris.
“Are you all right?” Esmeralda asked, once in her room.
“This is a really nice place,” Yaris said.
“I like it too.”
Yaris stared out the window. “I heard you were in danger.”
“A little, but it worked out okay.”
“Is my father alive?” Yaris let no emotion into the words.
Esmeralda said, “I don’t think so. If he’s still alive, he’s hurting pretty badly.”
“Hmm.”
Esmeralda tried to lighten up. “Are you going to come down to the party? It’s like the best thing that has ever happened to Song. The whole City is celebrating!”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think they will like me, considering where I come from…or who I come from.”
Esmeralda walked up beside Yaris. In the time since she had last seen her, Yaris had changed into a simple white dress, similar to the one the female Counselors wear. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the tiara was nowhere to be seen. Esmeralda wondered whether Yaris had just thrown it away.
“You don’t have to worry about them accepting you,” Esmeralda said. “No one is going to blame you for who your father is. Besides, I have to leave soon. You can tell everybody you’re me.”
Yaris smiled. “You have to go back to your World?”
“Yeah. But not for a little while. Will you come down?”
Yaris was still tentative. “You want me to?”
Esmeralda grinned.
The party went nonstop through the afternoon and into evening. Esmeralda, Robert and Yaris all danced crazily, taking turns picking up the Ivory Turtle by the front legs and teaching him some dance moves. Yaris, after a while, lost herself to the atmosphere and laughed with her entire body—a sound that she had perhaps never made in honesty before.
As evening fell, they all had supper. Most people just ate food that they brought along for themselves, making little picnics around the courtyard, but Esmeralda, many of the Elite Guard, certain members of the Counsel, and other people who were all happy and friendly but whom Esmeralda didn’t recognize, all ate at an enormous wooden table set under the big, red tent. Robert and Yaris sat on either side of Esmeralda. Dorthea and Pa and Raahi sat opposite her. Boots roamed about in the large space beneath the table, seeking out fallen scraps. The food was exotic and succulent. Esmeralda had never sat at such a fine and well-stocked table in all of her life.
“So,” Pa said, wiping his chin, “I hear you kids had a mighty adventure.”
“Yeah,” Esmeralda said. “It was pretty exciting at times.”
He glanced sideways at Dorthea. “I’m glad you came out of it all right. I don’t rightly understand where you all come from. No one can put it to me in a way I’ll grasp it. But your first visit to Song ought to be a happy one. It ought to end with a celebration like this.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Dorthea said, holding up a glass.
“Here, here!” Raahi said as everyone clanked glasses.
“And I can’t recall a nicer celebration.” Pa’s eyes sparkled as he talked. “We used to have a dance now and then, when all us country folk would hoof into the City one way or another. You remember, Dorthea?”
“Yeah, before Mama passed, you would come in with your guitar and get together with folks.”
“That’s right. People were always having music and talking, making friends. Must be ten years since I’ve been in the City. Far too long.”
“Well,” Esmeralda said. “We’re glad to give you a reason to come back to Song.”
“And I thank you for it.” Pa inclined his head, smiling.
“Will you play some music for us?” Esmeralda said, giving Pa her biggest smile.
“Oh, no. I ain’t played in, I don’t know, forever it seems.”
“Now, Pa, don’t you fib to the girl,” Dorthea said with insincere severity. “You and I live in the same house. I hear you playin’ all the time.”
Pa held a sheepish grin. “You sacrifice your whole life to raise somebody up, and look what you get. Well, sure, I try to play all the time, but I can’t, so…”
“I have a suggestion.” Raahi stood up from the table. “Why don’t we do something as a trio?”
“Uh-huh,” Pa contemplated. “Who’s the third?”
Raahi looked at Esmeralda.
“But I don’t know any songs,” she said.
Pa lifted himself up onto his feet and began walking toward the little stage at the head of the table. He called over his shoulder, “darlin’, I been trying to get music to happen since I was knee-high to a June bug. I don’t know any songs; nobody does. It’s the song that knows you.”
Esmeralda looked at Robert. He shrugged and smiled. She sighed and got up. She went over to the stage, took out her flute and waited. Someone had handed Pa a fine wooden guitar with bright steel strings; he held it with an attentive reverence.
“Well, Raahi,” Pa said, “what are we gonna’ play?”
“You start,” Raahi instructed. “Esmeralda and I will follow you.”
“You know that tune about Darlina Hailith?” Pa asked.
“You start. I’ll figure it out.”
Pa nodded and put his hands to the guitar. The people still assembled at the table took no more food; not a glass was raised nor a word spoken. Everyone was intent on what was to come from the stage. Pa began a low throbbing rhythm, made by fingers on strings, a kind of sound-blanket for a melody to lie upon. Raahi began next, filling the air with winding, shimmering lines of sound. The music was beautiful, bright, but not exuberant, a music that understood that this was a goodbye dinner. They went on for some time; Esmeralda stood on the side of the stage awkwardly, having no idea what she ought to be doing.
It’s all right.
Esmeralda looked across the table and around the tent for the Ivory Turtle. She couldn’t find him.
You can’t make a mistake. You don’t know how. Just play.
Esmeralda put Ko to her lips, trying to imagine a sound that would go both with what Pa was doing and with what Raahi was doing at the same time. She placed her fingers over Love, Art, and Fear, not because that w
as what she was feeling or because that was what she wanted. Ko didn’t work like that. She imagined these three things like lines on a piece of paper. The note that sounded through them was like a point where they all came together. She closed her eyes and began to play. As she did, she felt that what she heard coming from her flute did make a kind of sense with everything else coming from the stage. She concentrated, trying other notes. Some she liked more than others. But always she felt that what she was doing was not wrong; it could not be so. After some time, this impromptu but consistently beautiful music, almost of its own accord, came to an end. Esmeralda opened her eyes and found that the interior of the tent was filled with shimmering light of all colors. The light drifted toward the seated diners in little pockets, and as each piece of light touched the top of a head or a shoulder, it burst into a thousand shards, and each of these danced away into the air.
Everyone stood, erupting into thunderous applause.
Pa looked over at Esmeralda, surprise and delight on his face. “You know a lot more about playing songs than you think, little lady.”
“Thank you,” Esmeralda said.
“Now,” Raahi began with a fading smile, “unfortunately time has really gotten away from us.”
Esmeralda looked up at him. “Time to go?” she asked.
“Time to go.”
The citizens of Song crowded outside the tent and around the Mother Turtle. Here and there throughout the throng, people were holding candles and little torches, pinpricks of illumination in the surrounding night. Esmeralda, Robert, Raahi, Yaris, Dorthea, and the Ivory Turtle climbed up onto the Mother Turtle’s back. Raahi placed the Largo Drum in front of Esmeralda and Robert.
You have to go?
Esmeralda looked down at the Ivory Turtle, his eyes wide and searching. “Yes. I don’t think forever or anything like that. But I do, I do have to go now.”
I will miss you.
Esmeralda felt herself tearing up. “I’ll miss you, too.”
From deep below all of them, the Mother Turtle’s voice vibrated through. “You will return in time. We have begun a new cycle now, a new wheel. I am sad but not melancholy. I will see you again.”
“But,” Esmeralda said, “how will we find our way through the Largo? Who will play for us to lead us?”
“Mother will send you where you need to go,” Raahi said. “And she will keep those of us that must remain from being pulled in by the drum. She is quite powerful.”
With that, Raahi and Dorthea hugged them both quickly. Yaris was next; she awkwardly shook Robert’s hand, but she held Esmeralda in a long, honest embrace. Esmeralda and Robert sat before the drum, took a deep breath and began tapping out the rhythm, still burned in their minds after those long days. Doom tick tak ta doom tick takita. Doom tick tak ta doom tick takita…
15. Home
As they played, the world became ghostly and unreal. Esmeralda looked at Yaris; her head was tilted toward the ground, perhaps to hide tears. Slowly the faces of Dorthea, Raahi, and Yaris became ever more transparent until finally nothing was left. There was only Esmeralda, Robert and a swirling, colorless background. In the distance there was noise, not music, just incoherent noise. This grew in volume, and, as it did so, the world began to grow brighter, and slowly forms emerged: the ground, trees, sky. Esmeralda and Robert came out of the haze and into the hard world. They were just outside Esmeralda’s school in the morning; the sun was low and rising.
Robert looked around. “So, is it Monday or Tuesday?”
“Does it matter?” Esmeralda said.
“I don’t know,” Robert mumbled. “Maybe it doesn’t. I just think that I’ll get, like, a certain amount of punishment from my parents for each day I was missing. You know, like sentencing.”
“Your parents will just be happy you are alive.”
Robert laughed.
They made their way down the street under sunrise. On a school day, the parking lot would already be full of cars, and yellow busses would be lined up. The empty asphalt demonstrated It was still Monday, a holiday.
Esmeralda thought about the idea of school with a new perspective. How had she taken all of that so seriously? In the grand scheme, with evil emperors and ivory turtles and everything, was Stacy Keenan or Mr. Eldredge really that big a deal?
“It’s going to be weird going back to school tomorrow,” Robert said as they walked.
“Yeah.” Esmeralda smiled. “I think it’s going to be a lot better.”
They rounded the corner, Robert looking sharply at all of the streetlamps along Symphony Street, and before long they had come upon Esmeralda’s little house. Happy to be home but incredibly anxious, she stood on the porch and thought about what waited on the other side of the door. Robert fidgeted with his pants, now full of holes and dirt. She could tell he was still trying to work something out to tell his parents.
“You want me to leave?” Robert asked. “It wouldn’t take that long for me to walk home.”
“I don’t think so,” Esmeralda answered, thoughtful. “I’m just not sure how I can use you for evidence.”
“Should we say we were kidnapped? Or that you ran away and then reconsidered?”
“I’m not sure it really matters.”
Esmeralda took a deep breath and reached for the door. Unlocked, it swung wide. They walked into the living room; Esmeralda’s father was seated on the couch, a cup of coffee in his hands. He didn’t rush up to give her a hug; he didn’t have tears in his eyes.
“You’re back,” he said, happy but not ecstatic.
“Hi, Dad,” Esmeralda whispered, confused and uncomfortable. “I know we’ve been gone the whole weekend, and you must have been worried sick about us. But, let me tell you, if you haven’t heard of, like, the phenomenon of…”
“You’re out of creamer.” A familiar voice came from the kitchen.
Esmeralda turned. Nonchalant and smiling, Raahi walked into the living room and plopped himself down on the couch next to her father.
“Black coffee is a chore more than anything,” Raahi observed casually.
Esmeralda and Robert stared, unable to say a word.
“We’ve got to toughen up your tastes. Bitterness can be a source of enjoyment,” Mr. Comstock said and turned to Esmeralda. “Did you have a good trip?”
Esmeralda gawked numbly, blank faced, trying to understand.
“Old friends from college,” Robert said, awe in his voice.
Mr. Chandrasekhar put his coffee to his lips, covering a smile.
“Dad?” Esmeralda said.
Mr. Comstock looked at her for a moment and then turned to her friend. “Robert, your parents will be expecting you to tell them all about being at the three-day moth and butterfly convention put on by the Entomological Society downstate. It was a surprise for Esmeralda’s birthday. Do you know anything about moths?”
“I know something about moths,” Robert intoned.
“Dad?” Esmeralda said, unsure of just about everything. “How well do you know Raahi?”
Raahi grimaced at his coffee. “Quite well, I should think.”
“We go way back,” Mr. Comstock said.
“And do you know about…” Esmeralda looked warily at Raahi and then at her father. “…Song and all that?”
Esmeralda’s father winked, smiling.
“And I think it’s time that our friendship was rekindled in a serious way,” Raahi said. “I also think that in order for you to become an adequate flautist, I am going to have to visit every once in a while to give lessons.”
Mr. Comstock looked with his warm eyes at the still-shocked expressions worn by his daughter and her friend, and he began to laugh in fullness and in honesty and in love. Gaining control, he finally said, “I hope you two had a good time.”
***
About the Author
Mitchell Atkinson III is a writer and musician from Michigan. He is often between places, usually staring out a window and thinking. He can be reached at
[email protected].
Copyright © 2014 by Mitchell Atkinson
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed within are (obviously) fictitious or are used fictitiously.
Unauthorized duplication or distribution is prohibited.
A HedgeFox Book
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