Lux Earth Wars
“What were you thinking!”
He stopped eating and his wide, set apart eyes grew even larger and for the first time I noticed how green they were.
“I could ask the same of you,” Anches said quietly and took another bite.
“What do you mean?”
“How did she get here?”
“I did not invite her to come with me.”
“Neither did I. Look, she’s involved in this, too, Althea. She asked if she could come with me and I figured another person looking around and bringing back information was helpful. We could operate as a team. And now she knows some things about my world and maybe she’ll go back to her world and figure something out from there. It may turn out to be important.”
“Everything happens for a reason, is that it? How philosophical.”
“I have a question for you, Althea. Something that’s been bothering me. How does Kali know this language?”
“What language?”
“The language we’re speaking right now. I don’t even know what it’s called. Lingua franca, I guess. It’s the language we all somehow speak here at the Library. Is it the language you grew up with?”
“Yes.”
“Same here. How does Kali know it?”
“That’s a very good question. As far as I know, English and a smattering of high school French are Kali’s only languages.”
“It may be another property of the Library.”
“What do you mean?”
“Communication. The Library may control the mode of communication for all within. We think we’re having a conversation in a language, but are we? Or are we just thinking and understanding?”
“I’m speaking out loud.”
“Are you?”
I thought about it and realized I wasn’t sure. The language I grew up with, that my father and mother spoke, did it have a name? Not one I’d ever heard before. Had we ever studied it?
Did I speak those thoughts out loud to Anches or did he just know what I was thinking? Were any of my thoughts private in the Library?
We ate in what we believed to be silence, but neither of us was sure. Both of us were thinking about ways to test this idea that we were conversing in thought. Were some thoughts “out loud” while others were private? Did it work that way?
Days and days of research in the Library stretched in front of me. I wondered what Anches would do next. Would he return right away through the portal he already built or would he build a new one that would bring him to the world at a different place and point in time? If he planned to build a new portal, I wanted to help him make it.
Did he hear me think that?
I watched Anches chew his food, so neatly and methodically. He knew I was looking at him, but didn’t look my way. He was deep in thought, thoughts I couldn’t hear.
“Here’s an out loud thought,” I thought/said.
“Ah,” thought/said Anches, “you’ve got it, I think. Some thoughts are private and some thoughts are shared. It’s up to the person which is which. If you don’t want to be heard, you’re not heard.”
“Something like that. So, I was wondering…”
“Yes, you can help me build the portal. There’s another place that I dream about that I’d like to explore next.”
“You heard me think that?”
“Yes. You wanted me to hear it.”
“Why didn’t you answer right away?”
“Because I enjoyed that you were wondering if I could hear you.”
There was something so soft about Anches’ face as he smiled while picking out his next bite.
We spent the next several days working on the portal. Anches was in charge of the design and I handled the execution.
“You’re very good at this, you know, Althea. This takes me so much longer.”
“My father taught me.”
“Your father. What’s he like?”
“Kind, patient. And funny. What about your parents?”
“My mother is a net maker. It’s quite a skill like colored glass building, but very rough on the hands. She taught me how to do it, but I wasn’t very good, so she sent me here to figure out my vocation.”
“Have you figured it out?
He flickered a look at me and seemed embarrassed. “No.”
“This rabbit hole gets curiouser and curiouser all the time, Anches. Well, there you are. The portal is complete.”
“And that means it’s time for me to go.”
“One more dinner?”
“Tempting, but I’d like to get to it.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Stay safe.”
Anches brushed his hand along the side of my face and it gave me chills. He started to lean toward me and put his hand behind my neck and I could see what was coming and pulled back.
“What are you doing?!”
“What do you mean?”
“You were about to kiss me!”
“You wanted me to kiss you!”
“I did not! Now you’re reading into my thoughts. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Because of how you feel about me.”
“Anches! I’m a grown woman!”
“Not really.”
“You’re infuriating! Go, just go!”
“Fine. I’ll go and have my own lifetime and kiss a lot of people and then I’ll be ready for you when I get back.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. See you after the next life, Althea.”
After looking at me a last time with a hopeful smile, Anches turned and stepped into the portal and I was alone.
He wasn’t wrong. What had come over me that I wanted him to kiss me? It must have been working together each day and he did have a handsome face, soft and round with a smile that erupted in dimples at the sides. There was something warm and safe about his face.
I thought of Oliver and felt immediately guilty. His face was bony and sharp, cool, like chiseled china. Oliver was the man I loved and raised a family with on Earth and I wasn’t able to be with him now. The other me, that older split self, had that privilege. How fortunate she was and how lonely I was to be little more than a child again with adolescent crushes.
I returned to my cell of a room and the next day, I found Guardian twining his way around the inner halls of the Library.
“Do you know where we are, the Library, within the universe?” I asked.
Guardian stared at me. I hadn’t greeted him and I could see in his eyes that he was a little put off, but I didn’t care. I just wanted answers.
“No,” he confessed simply.
“You don’t know very much, do you? You come across in such a condescending way, like you know everything, yet you know nothing.”
“Now, take care with your accusations. You have not been trustworthy, suddenly disappearing, saying one thing and doing another. It is most frustrating.”
“Yes, it is frustrating. It’s frustrating to have no idea what’s going on. And now that I’ve been relegated to study what’s in the Library, take me to the sections on Earth, Mars, and Smort.”
“Smort?”
“Yes, Smort. I know there must be a section on Smort. It’s the world Anches goes to.”
“Oh, no, no, that’s not called Smort. It’s called Lux, meaning light, because it is always lit by its three suns.”
“Yes, that’s the place. I need to learn everything I can about it.”
“Well, there is quite a bit about Lux, especially during the Lux Earth Wars.”
“Lux Earth Wars?!”
“Lux Earth Wars.”
“Show me.”
Next: Tenerife
This is the seventeenth part in a series of stories. Following are the previous installments starting with the first:
1. The Library
2. Listen, Move, Hide, Repeat
3. A Necessary State of Alarm
4. Anches
5. A Question in Colored Glass
6. How a Lifetime Friendship Began
7. In the World I Created
8. To Make Things Right Again
9. Escape from the Library
10. Pintor’s World
11. Vincente
12. What I Didn’t See Coming
13. First Person Binary
14. Closing the Loop
15. Finding Kali
16. Escape from Smort