Chapter 6
After a few days of grieving, the reality of the situation forced Melissa to do as her mother suggested, and begin to learn. She walked back and forth, surveying the multitude of thick, dusty tomes before her, wondering where to begin. She now wore her mother’s sweater, and while she sobbed often as memories flooded forth during the cruel cradle of night, it gave her comfort during the day.
“Why didn’t you tell me where to start?” she said aloud. “I can’t even read the titles of these books, much less hope to absorb what’s inside them.” Suddenly, she stopped before a thin, golden book with an inscription she thought she recognized. It looked to be in her father’s handwriting, and after a few moments, she knew what it said.
Begin here.
She opened it, and found the pages inside were a crisp, unblemished white parchment, on which were handwritten notes.
“First -- it ever you get the chance to possess the Centric Sphere,” said her mother’s voice in her mind, “don’t bring me back. Not under any circumstance. No matter how much you might miss me, I have no desire to overstay my welcome. I made many mistakes in my life, but I had you, and you have redeemed all my failings. To live longer, increases the likelihood I would mess something else up, so let me be. And if you’re smart, you’ll let your father be as well. He was a good man but a fool, and fools should only live once.”
“Secondly, these words are enhanced, which is how you hear my voice inside your head as if I were with you. Others can hone in on the usage of such things, so you need to shield yourself and quick! Do you remember the words I taught you when you were young, to protect your mind from strangers peering in?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good,” was written in the book, as if she was having one last conversation. “It is half of a full shield. Here are the rest. Speak them after you speak the first words.”
Melissa sat back, trying to remember the words properly. She had only used it a few times, but she remembered them because of their lyrical quality.
“Onimaya, y uliana . . . what was the last word?”
“Lissa . . .”
She could hear the Freilux’s voice in her mind, and could feel his presence grow near.
“Onimaya, y uliana . . . Goshi xi Cuulaaga!”
“But I’ve changed, dear one. I only want to help . . .”
“Never, you foul old man,” she said, as her shield grew stronger and the Freilux’s presence faded. “I would never lay with you even if my life depended on it.”
As she read on in the book, she could hear cackling laughter diminish in her mind.
At night, Melissa’s dreams were at once magnificent and terrifying. The city of Imathrin sprawled in her mind, as she flew through it on a wisp of vapor, darting in-between the golden spires she loved. And yet, the image of her mother in that other room haunted her mind, for in it she could see herself looking back.
What?!
She bolted awake as the image resolved in her dream. She knew that a younger version of herself looked back from the shadows, but yet she knew it wasn’t really her. Melissa had led a carefree youth, filled with capricious indulgences of toys and baubles. The girl that looked back from behind her mother was nothing like that. She was serious and focused, with malice behind her eyes. Most certainly she was steeped in great power, and absolutely certain about herself.
I can’t think about who I might have been. I must focus on who I shall become.
She picked up a book -- the first one her mother directed her to read, and sat in one of the wide chairs that faced the main window. It was an exercise in opulence, made of hard redwood gently bowed into an exquisite latticework of arcs and curves that supported two full and firm cushions. She pulled her knees up under the sweater and propped the book up on them, absently thumbing through the pages.
No, I’ve got to read this -- I’ve got to learn! If not, this platform will fall, and I’ll have to take a portal back to my brother.
So she endeavored to read the book, a tome called The Principles of Intermediate Sussa Direction. It was a densely written and dry, full of formulaic prose that she found difficult to decipher. She felt like she was back in school, except none of her friends were around to distract her. A mental key given by Esoica unlocked words as she read, and while she knew she would get used to it, for now it sat on her thoughts like thickest gauze. After only a quarter of a page she found herself gazing longingly out the window on the massive, snow-covered crater, and after a few more lines she had drifted off into a light, lovely sleep.
When she woke, she found the book was still turned to where she left off.
Why isn’t there someone to give me any help? she asked herself, as she put the book face-down on the table. There has always been someone to help me; when my riding lessons got tough, good old Stavi would help me get the hang of things. And when I couldn’t pass my formula studies that nice Gerrlia wrote down all I would need to know. She leaned her head against the cold windowpane. Why didn’t mother write down the formula I would need to stabilize this thing? She knows who I am . . . I just want to go home, but the funny thing is that this is home.
Her mind began playing tricks on her. Every fifteen minutes she would gaze out the window, swearing the cloud bank was higher than it was before, even though her mother said it would be weeks before her small platform would fall. So, after almost two days of restless worrying, and being unable to find anything to distract her, she determinedly plunged into the tome her mother instructed her to learn.
She read about the foundation of sussa and of the ability to reveal a Ribbon of Transit. She learned how Archsussa didn’t exist before the First Apocalypse, and how only those within a certain radius of the crater were endowed with sussa. She learned that as it was passed down from generation to generation it grew stronger; while mothers might have only been able to make a weak warming sphere their daughters were able to construct a small ribbon.
The book took her through dozens of exercises, all of which she followed dutifully but could not successfully execute. The words began to run together the lower the sun fell, until finally she set the book down, only having made it one-third through.
How will I ever read all these books? She sat back, distressed, almost resigned to failure. Bored, she picked up a picture of her mother that sat on the desk. Her mother’s body lay wrapped in two blankets in an outdoor storage shed, and the thought of it made Melissa cringe with emotional pain.
Was it all for me, in the long run? She ran her hands over the picture, and was intrigued by the pose. It had her mother seeming to lean in sympathy, as if there was something or someone next to her. She pulled the picture out of its frame, and discovered it had been ripped to conceal the identity of who she was with.
Melissa got up and hurriedly rummaged through the tabletops and drawers, searching for more images, feeling as if this might be a key to explain her younger, distant self. She found many taken of her and her mother, but none below a certain age. She could find none before she was twelve and no infant pictures at all.
Why? You who were more sentimental than even I, wouldn’t have taken any of them with you when you ran? She stood and surveyed the devastation she had wrought on the tiny room. Paper littered the floor, and drawers sat on their side. She laughed to herself. You’d kill me if you found your room like this. Once more, her eyes were drawn to the wide bookshelves. Somehow, you managed to take all these books with you -- none of these could be bought on the open market. You must have had your journey planned for quite a while. Perhaps you squirreled these out a few at time. She ran her fingers along the weathered spines. These are what were most important to you. They defined you as an Archsussa and you knew they would define me too. We have no need to reread texts -- all that is important stays within our minds, and becomes a part of us. So these are all for me . . . She walked midway down, feeling drawn to one in particular. Her fingers stopped on a thin volume, with a tan spine with a fa
ded inscription. She pulled it out, and suddenly was overwhelmed by the smell of old paper and dust.
This is what I was meant to find. She ran her fingers along the leather cover, noting how there was extreme wear on the corners. This book holds no sussa. This is older than sussa. She turned the book to open it, yet couldn’t make her fingers push open the covers.
“Let your intuition be your guide,” said one of the opening passages in her educational texts. “Your sussa enhances your intuition, and the more you trust it, the more successful you shall be.”
I was meant to find this, and somehow, I know it will all be different when I see what’s inside. She sat with the book in her lap, her expression blank, unsure of how to proceed. I can’t be afraid anymore. Toby won’t come for me, and mother’s gone. I need to face this.
She opened the book, and found a ripped photo stuck in the spine before the first page. She pulled it out, turned it over, and saw the same girl she saw standing next to the younger version of her mother.
This is me . . . yet it is not me.
While appearing to be no more than ten, she could see the girl in the picture possessed the wisdom of an ancient. There was a fire in her eyes that crossed the landscape of time and still burned even though it was in a picture.
Is she . . . me? Am I an idelfada; a copy of this girl who was? Or was she a copy of me?
It was in that moment that clues left throughout her life put themselves together. I always felt like Toby, father -- even my mother, knew of this girl. So many half-finished sentences, so many veiled references to someone of terrible power. She looked down at the picture again. I must be some echo of her. Was Toby going to train me to be like her? She put down the picture, and looked at the books around her. I was made to do something, and once done, to be discarded. I feel it to be true as if it were told me. No one expects me to become powerful like this girl, merely adequate enough to perform some function.
She got to her feet and pulled open the curtains to look down on the crater below. Toby’s camp could just be made out through the thick snow, and it appeared as if his troops were massing for an offensive.
Am I alone in this world? If I am, then I have two choices; die as a pawn, or survive. I need to learn everything in these books, so if and when the times come that they try to make me go away, I can resist them. Only then can I find my own future.
An image of the girl next to her mother of the past came back into her, and finally she understood why her expression disturbed her so.
She had eyes of murder, of matricide. But how could that be, as my mother’s body lies in the next room?