Chapter 2 – Discovery

I stared at the coin, racking my brain for some hint of a memory. I had this strange certainty that I’d seen it in my mom’s room. First I checked her jewelry boxes, then the bookshelf and the tidy drawers of her nightstand. No luck. Maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe I was going crazy. I sighed and turned to the wall photos, making my usual pilgrimage around the room before leaving. I could never go into Mom’s bedroom without visiting all the different pictures. It always hurt, and sometimes I avoided her room for just that reason.

My first stop was the photo of Dad bending over me just after my birth. I always loved the look on his face, so caring. The same picture was in my baby album, but there Dad had captioned the photo in his small, careful hand: Iell egledhruir. He’d never told me what it meant. I think he expected me to figure out, or maybe he just disappeared before he got a chance to explain. I’d always guessed it was something from one of Tolkien’s languages, which my dad supposedly knew better than almost anyone. But that was all I had. Just one more mystery in my life. I was so tired of mysteries with no clues and no answers.

I moved on to a photo of the whole family the day we’d gotten our dog Jas, we kids laying in the grass with the puppy, Dad standing by the old magnolia. And there again, the shimmer behind his left shoulder.

I gazed at the shimmer for a few moments, then went back to my baby picture. Suddenly I bent forward, studying the picture more closely. That cold shock tore through me again. I held up the coin so it covered its image in the picture, where it hung on a chain around my dad’s neck, slipping out from under his shirt as he bent over my crib. Every stark detail was there, and I had never even noticed.

* * *

“Back already?”

I stopped breathless in the doorway of Mr. Dansy’s shop. I wasn’t even sure why I had run all the way back to the store, or what I wanted to say to Mr. Dansy when I got there. I just stood there, mute and paralyzed, until another customer shouldered out of the store past me, giving me a nasty glare.

“Forgot batteries,” I mumbled, waving at the first thing that caught my eye.

I edged around Mr. Dansy and stared blankly at the battery display. My thoughts careened from one plan to another. Maybe I could threaten him, or try to trick information out of him, or beg and plead. All the while I could feel his wide-eyed terror, like he was expecting some kind of monster to jump out behind me. It got me nervously glancing over my shoulder too.

Mr. Dansy drew up close beside me, dabbing at his forehead with his cuff. “Well, darlin’, you didn’t lose it…did you?”

I jumped in spite of myself.

“It was my father’s, Mr. Dansy!” I turned to face him. “My father’s! Where did you get it? Did he give it to you? Or did you steal it from him? It doesn’t look like the sort of thing there are a lot of, you know.”

“Shh!” Mr. Dansy waved frantically. “‘Course not! That’s why you gots to hush. You do still have it, though? Where’s it at?”

“It was my father’s. Of course I still have it,” I said crossly.

If he was relieved it didn’t show. His face was so pale it looked almost grey, and beads of sweat dribbled down his temples. He kept blotting them away, but they kept reappearing. I stared at him, baffled. What had gotten into him? What had gotten into all of us, for that matter?

“Please, Merelin, keep your voice down!”

“What’s wrong? It’s just—”

The alarm on his face silenced me. He seemed to be listening, alert like a police dog when it hones in on a scent. His eyes roved over the shop, toward the windows, searching. They fixed on something – his whole body tensed. I could literally see the blood drain from his face.

“They’re here,” he whispered. “I should’ve known they’d come. How’d they know? Must’ve followed. Must’ve been watching.” He turned to me so abruptly that I flinched away. “Get out of here now!”

“What? Who?”

“Don’t ask, no time! Hurry, you got to get away safe before they find you, before they find you and take Pyelthan from you!”

He closed his eyes, his lips twitching noiselessly. I took one step back, but that was as far as I could go. Mr. Dansy shook my arm.

“He’s ready. He’ll explain it all. Trust me, darlin’, go!”

I wanted to protest but I just stood there like a lump, staring at him slack-jawed.

“You’ve got to be kidding, right? Go where? I don’t even have a car!” I managed to gasp. “No, wait a second. How well did you know my dad? Do you know where he is? How’d you get his coin? What does this have to do with him?”

“Merelin, go! Go or he and you and all the others will be in danger. Now!”

I didn’t get a chance to ask him anything else. The shop door crashed open with the sharp shattering of glass, but before I could see what happened my vision gave way to a grey blur. I thought I’d fainted, but at the same time I knew I was awake. I didn’t hit the ground – if the ground was there, it was like I fell right through it. I couldn’t move my arms, couldn’t catch myself. Just kept freefalling. Couldn’t feel any direction. Up, down, side to side all gave the same sickening surge in the stomach. Too fast for terror, but it felt unending. Then all was still. I was still. And it was hot.

* * *

The heat registered first, then the light, blindingly bright against my eyelids. I forced open my eyes. Dazzling gold-white and blue stretched as far as I could see, the whole image swimming from the curls of heat that sweltered over the gold. I blinked, focusing on my hand beside my face. Sand cushioned it, sifting between my fingers, hot and coarse.

Sand.

Sand? I scrambled to my feet, dizzy, terrified. My balance gave way, like the world’s gravity had shifted. I steadied myself, concentrating on the wheeling sands and trying to calm the nervous race of my heart. My stomach churned again, blood pounding in my ears. I thought I would be sick.

It’s not possible. But it wasn’t convincing with the sand whipping up into my face. I must have fallen asleep. When or how, it didn’t matter. Or I had fainted. But I had to be dreaming now. There was no way I could be here, in a desert, when a moment before I had been in Mr. Dansy’s shop on Main. The sane voice in the back of my mind said, quite rationally: Close your eyes, count to ten, and open them, and you’ll see you haven’t gone anywhere. I did. I squeezed my eyes shut, counting slowly to ten, trying to ignore the hot buffeting wind and the sting of tiny grains of sand on my cheeks. I counted a few extra seconds to be sure, then nervously opened my eyes.

Nothing had changed.

Where was I? I turned a slow circle, scanning the horizon until I glimpsed a dark shape in the corner of my view. I jolted around stifling a scream. A man stood in front of me – or I assumed he was a man, since the hood of a thin dark cloak shadowed his features too much to tell.

In that first moment of shock, running never even occurred to me. One glance around and there was no way I’d be stupid enough to try. There was nothing but sand as far as I could see.

Nothing but sand, and this strange man at my exact spot as if he’d been expecting me.

But he didn’t pay any attention to me at first. His head canted to the side, like he was staring intently at some spot past my shoulder. He didn’t move at all. Even his hands, poised in front of him, were tense, the veins standing out between the tendons. Was he going to attack me? Was he even aware of me standing there, right there, two feet in front of him?

I glanced over my shoulder but couldn’t see anything interesting. Only the shimmers of heat seemed a little thicker in one particular spot, like a mirage hanging in the air. But even as I stared, the wavering light seeped away. I frowned and turned back, only to find that the man had finally shifted his attention to me.

“Do you have it?”

I jumped. My first thought was one of sheer relief. At least he speaks English. And even if the question was abrupt, he had a nice voice – warm, low, and strangely accented. For a good minute I stared at him. Finally I stuck my hand in my pocket, racking my memory for the name Mr. Dansy had given the coin.

“Pyelthan?”

“Aye, but you should not have spoken that name so readily. You do not know who I am.”

“What difference would that make?” I countered, terror making me bold. “It’s mine.”

“Aye,” he said. I couldn’t tell from his tone if he was more amused or amazed.

“This place can’t be real,” I blurted. “Where is Mr. Dansy? And who are you?”

He hesitated. His head roved from side to side, scanning the horizon, then he brushed back his hood. And I blushed. I couldn’t help it. I’d expected someone much older, or maybe some being that didn’t even resemble a man…but he was fully human, and very young. He looked about Maggie’s age. His hair was the color of the sand, shaggy and a bit of a mess, and his eyes were startling. Flecks of golden light shone against the clear dark of his irises, like the light of stars. I’d never seen anything like it. After a moment I realized I was staring at them and jerked my gaze away. I must have been bright red by then.

“I am Yatol,” he said. “I am sev thyna. I do not know how it would be in your tongue.”

“My tongue?”

“Yes. You have much to learn.” He studied me briefly, while I frowned at the sand, hoping my blush had faded. “You’re younger than I thought.”

My eyes snapped up to his face, flaring with indignation. “I’m almost seventeen.”

Well, not quite. I had a few months to go, but it made me feel older. For some reason right then I wanted to seem older – that was new for me. At the same time a wisp of confusion hovered in my thoughts. I was younger than he thought? What was he expecting? Or who?

He still scrutinized me, his face blank and expressionless. Only I thought he had one brow slightly lifted – skeptical.

“Do you know who I am?” I barely whispered.

The corner of his mouth twitched, then he turned and started walking. When I didn’t move he turned and beckoned to me.

“Yentsi! There is still much danger.”

“Why should I trust you?”

He paused, then came back to me. His gaze shifted past my shoulder again, alert and wary.

“I could say nothing to prove myself,” he said. “They were coming, weren’t they?”

“What?”

He stared at me blandly.

“You mean in Mr. Dansy’s shop? He thought somebody was coming. And someone broke the glass just before…”

I made a face and shrugged. Describing what had happened was totally beyond me. But it made me remember Mr. Dansy’s words, and I studied Yatol in surprise.

“You were the one he was talking about? He said, ‘he is ready.’ Did he mean you?”

“Do you trust him?” Yatol asked, and when I nodded he turned away again. “He will do what he can, but they won’t stop. Yentsi.”

I followed. I didn’t know what else to do, and I was too terrified of the desert – and Yatol’s warning – to stay behind alone. The sand shifted under my feet as I tried to keep up with his long strides. We’d hardly gotten anywhere when my shins started aching. Then my calves. I still felt strange, unbalanced, and it took all my strength to keep pace with him. I couldn’t see anything that looked like a destination, but much as I wanted to ask where we were going, I didn’t dare. At least Yatol seemed to know where he was going. I bent my head and focused on forcing each step.

The heat saturated me, drawing a slick glaze of sweat to my skin, parching my mouth until my tongue felt rough as a cat’s. I decided jeans were the curse of my existence. Thought about Bedouins as I trudged along. Stared absently at the thin fabric of Yatol’s cloak, wondering what it was made of. Dreaded the sunburn I would have later on.

I don’t know how long we walked, but my thoughts had flitted over a thousand random things or more when the light began to fade to a silver-blue twilight. I glanced up, then stumbled a step and stared in surprise. Somehow we’d almost come to the edge of the sand. A narrow expanse of shrubby land like a strange meadow spread in front of us, and beyond rose the dark smudged line of a forest.

The meadow seemed fairly typical, though I didn’t recognize any of the plants. But the trees were completely unreal. Squat and smooth-trunked, they seemed to have skin instead of bark, some pale indescribable color. I couldn’t see any leaves, but the branches divided again and again into a fine spray of tendril-thin beards. Between the trunks laced sad curtains of gossamer and delicate ivy. The whole forest seemed to breathe with the light breeze, tendril-leaves and mossy veils all inhaling and exhaling in time.

I stared at the panorama, and a strange sinking feeling nudged away all the awe and wonder. This wasn’t Earth. It really wasn’t. Oh God, where am I?

Shivering uncontrollably, I forced myself to keep walking. We were tracking through the grass now, and the tough creeping stalks tugged at my feet. Yatol picked his way steadily along a barely visible path, and as I nearly tripped for the third time I wondered how he managed to avoid the creepers. He never slowed down, so I ran to catch up, half-skipping to escape the plants. I was breathless, my throat sore from the sand.

“Where are we going?”

“Yentsi.”

I assumed that meant to follow, so I stayed close as the trees marched toward our path. Almost before I realized it, we were deep in the forest, out of the meadow with its horrible clinging grasses. I laid my hand on the pale skin of a tree and felt it thrill beneath my fingers. Everything in this place seemed so alive, but so melancholy, from the soft swaying of the drooping tree boughs to the strange hostility of the grasses, to the clinging vines that made a labyrinth of the wood. The deeper we forged into the forest, the heavier the darkness grew around us. Only the faintest traces of pale half-light filtered through the lacy canopy overhead, but it seemed like some of the tree skins and grey-green moss reflected a residual radiance. It gave at least enough light for us to see the path – or at least for Yatol to see it. I was too tired to pay attention.

I was staring intently at the ground when Yatol stopped abruptly, and I barely caught myself before I stumbled into him. A veil of gossamer hung in front of us, making a dead-end of our path. Yatol hesitated, listening and scanning the path behind us. From the other side of the curtain I could hear a murmur of voices, and I stared anxiously at Yatol, trying to figure out if I should be afraid. But he seemed more concerned about what was on our side of the veil. Suddenly I found myself following his gaze, surveying the forest behind us nervously. I couldn’t make out anything but the silhouettes of the trees. After a moment Yatol offered me a faint smile that didn’t comfort me.

He parted the curtain and ducked through, holding it back so I could follow. On the other side I straightened up, and staggered back. A company of men stared back at me, all of them silent. Wondering.

My face must have mirrored theirs. I knew them. I don’t know why I felt it, but looking at them I suddenly felt at home.

Yatol strode forward, lifting his hand in a greeting. Then he turned toward me and – I’m sure I didn’t imagine it – stooped in a slight bow. The others said nothing to him, but they exchanged glances and hushed whispers with each other. I wondered what Yatol had indicated with that bow. I wondered what they thought of me.

Yatol touched my arm. I followed him into the camp, winding between clusters of seated men. Open fires heated pots of savory stew, and past them I could just make out haphazard rows of tents. Hanging vessels of flickering flame scattered light over the ground, and here and there I glimpsed half-shadowed figures moving about. Somewhere I thought I caught the faint strains of music from a stringed instrument, maybe like a zither or a kind of strange fiddle. The soft sounds seemed to float down from the tree boughs – ethereal, foreign, haunting.

Yatol walked slowly now, and suddenly I realized that two men stalked silent on either side of me, never looking at me and never saying a word. They were armed. I stared at one of the burnished spears with growing alarm, almost instinctively edging closer to Yatol. We passed a sprawling pavilion, dark and empty, and came to a dazzling row of bright torches that marked the entrance to a large tent. It was made of the same rough leather as the others, but with faded embroidery gleaming halfheartedly in the guttering light. Yatol stopped in the entry to wait for me.

I hesitated. I wanted to ask him where we were, what I was doing there. I wanted to know why I had felt that sudden kinship with the people, why and where this place existed, why nothing I knew before seemed to make sense now. But I could say nothing. I hated that I could say nothing.

The two men halted at the threshold. They didn’t do anything, but somehow I knew they were there to make sure I didn’t try to run away. I glanced once more at the sinister spear before following Yatol inside, wary and alert.

Fire and torches dazzled my eyes after the dusky darkness outside, and I stood a moment blinking in the light. The tent was spacious but poorly furnished, with a meager bedchamber curtained off and a few piles of cushions and furs scattered on the bare earth. A man stood near the fire, robed in deep purple, his head uncovered and feet bare. His hair flowed long and silver-white and his eyes were gold. Except for the weapons and armor laid in array nearby, I might have thought he was a prophet or a priest. He had that look.

“Syarat, khinte yeledin. Ma yensedet pyelnakha!”

Yatol’s voice, warm and resonant in the stillness, startled me out of my thoughts. The man unclasped his hands and let them drop to his sides.

“Ki’pyelnakha yensedet? Ahtva, noharai pyelnakhad ruth Morsta-khailud mamkerim?”

“Tyrsai.”

Yatol went to him and they spoke for some time quietly. I tried to catch their words, but they kept speaking in that strange language that somehow I thought I could almost understand, but not quite. I waited awkwardly. A chill draft crept through the tent flap behind me. It crawled over my skin, and I rubbed my hands violently over my arms.

I’ve never felt so alone, or so scared. Nothing made sense. My thoughts kept flitting back to Mr. Dansy, pale with fear, to the brusque words I had first heard from Yatol. The strange trees of the forest wreathed before my eyes, the pungent fragrance of magnolia blossoms wafted over me. The forest path and the main street of town jostled together in senseless memory. Words tumbled through my mind, and I tried to listen…

Iell egledhruir…khinte yeledin…Pyelthan…

“Daddy? Why are you going?”

“Merelin!”