Taking Control
I’d like to say that I reacted rationally, but anger rose up in me like someone lit a gas burner. I wasn’t angry at Pintor. He was just as much caught in this web as any of us. All my anger focused on the Guardian, the creeping leafy face for everything that was controlling us. I got up and went to the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Pintor. I stopped and looked at him and he could see my rage.
“Look, Althea, I know you’re angry, but there may be a way to fix this. At least Theo thought there was.”
I listened.
“Theo seems to believe this whole thing is his fault. That it was because he discovered the planet Lux. I tend to think that if not him, it would be someone else, but he disagrees with me. He sent me back to ask you to return to Earth at a time before he goes to a place called Tenerife. He said he’s twenty-five when he decides to go. You need to tell him not to.”
“That simple, huh? Is it that easy to change the universe? One person doesn’t go somewhere? This is insanity! I might look like a child, but I’m not a child anymore. I’m tired of being moved around like a pawn. I demand to know what’s really going on!”
I directed the last words toward the corners of the ceiling like there was a hidden camera somewhere. If there was, I didn’t see it. Taking my cue, Pintor looked up, too. In the silence, nothing happened. No one responded.
“What if there isn’t an answer,” Pintor said quietly. “What if this – this, uh, emptiness is all there is.”
“You may be right,” I said. “But we have to operate as if there is something more. If it’s meaningless, we’re lost already.”
“Do you believe we have a creator?”
“Yes. How would we be here otherwise? Nothing comes from nothing. It’s just a matter of whether or not the creator is benevolent or malevolent. I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“What if it’s not either or?”
“Indifferent, you mean? What if the creator just doesn’t really care? I don’t know. Something tells me that’s not true. I just don’t understand it and it’s making me crazy. I don’t have a home anymore. We had our home growing up, but it was just a hollow shell. Earth is more a home to me, but here I study while the earth is passing away, about to be destroyed by the people from Anches’ world. Anches! How could it be? It just doesn’t make any sense. And now, the next “move” is to go see Theo and set his “move” into play. The manipulation is too much. I just can’t stand being in the dark not knowing what’s going on. In the dark, it’s too easy to unknowingly mess it all up. In the dark, it’s too easy to cause the very thing you’re trying to prevent.”
Without speaking, we moved back to the table and sat down. This time, it was Pintor who filled two cups with hot tea and I was the one who drank without really tasting it, burning the tip of my tongue with the first attempt.
“We need to take control. Fight back by making our own plan,” I said once I’d made a successful swallow.
“How, Althea?
“Kali was able to go to Anches’ world. Maybe I could go there, too. There are plenty of glass portals. I could choose the time in the history of Lux.”
Maybe even meet Anches there!
“To what end?”
“To introduce them to the humans of Earth long before contact is made. To fight to change their way of thinking. Become a teacher, I don’t know. To set the stage for the humans of Earth and the humans of Lux to be friends rather than enemies.”
“They won’t accept you because of your skin color.”
“But they’ll accept Anches.”
“But Anches is de- oh, oh, that’s right. So, he’ll lobby for peace?”
“Yes.”
“If that’s the case, then why was he fighting against us?”
“Did he know who you were? The fight was on Mars, right?”
“Yes. Let’s see, he would have likely thought, well, we’d shot down one of their ships. He would have thought we were the aggressors. He might not have known we were human.”
“You shot down one of their ships? Why?”
“Well, it came up on us and it was unknown and there was no response when we attempted to contact and, well, I guess we could have done more, could have waited. We were afraid. Afraid of what might happen.”
“So, no more fear. Agreed?”
“That’s easy to say, Althea, but not so easy to do.”
“We’ll do our best not to act in fear. Okay, so I’ll go to Anches’ world and work on changing the thinking of the people. What could I do that would convince them that I was valuable to them? If I was able to perform magical feats they might deify me. Or would that make me seem a witch? Hmmm, what would give me value?”
“Well, what do the people of Lux value?”
“Light. Visible things. Color.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I can live a lifetime in Lux and learn more just like I did on Earth. I might have to go more than once. Learn first, return and come up with a plan, and then win them over the second time. It will take patience. Meanwhile, you go to Earth.”
“Me? But how?”
“Just use one of my colored glass portals. You can use the one I just made. You can talk with Theo yourself.”
I could see Pintor’s eyes light up at the thought of meeting Theo as a young man.
“And meet your nieces and brother-in-law,” I continued. “Learn more about Earth, which can help us figure out a plan. We’ve been playing this game by the rules of whoever is controlling it. Now, we’ll turn it around. Take control. Play by rules we create. See if we can break the rules.”
“That sounds so dangerous,” Pintor said.
After a restless sleep intended to help us start out well rested, we chose our colored glass carefully. I modified the date on the newspaper in the one for Pintor so that he wouldn’t add to the chaos of two versions of me running around. It was better if he arrived after all of those events that enabled the family to understand what was happening, after Kali had made her own trip to Lux. They would accept who he was that way. I smiled at the thought of Pintor showing up in Carmen’s office. I wondered if he looked a little bit like me as brothers and sisters tend to do. And if so, what features? Our dove-shaped eyes, our thick-lipped smiles, our long necks?
Once Pintor had stepped to Earth, I considered which panel to use for my journey. I wanted to get there before Anches, learn the language, learn the mythology of the people, and be ready to work with him when the time came.
I decided to go to his room to analyze his panels so that I could figure out when in the history of Lux he arrived.
His room. Just as austere as mine. And the table with the cutters and pliers and the black line. I sat down in his chair and picked up the scorer. His scorer. I laid it in the palm of my hand and ran my fingers along the wooden handle where he had gripped. I laughed when I thought about all the trouble Anches said it was for him to make colored glass, how long it took him, and all the trial and error this scorer must have seen. And then tears sprang from my eyes and I was filled with such loss. We were just getting to know each other! Would this work? Would I be able to see him again? I didn’t really know the rules in operation. Would his death mean that he would no longer be part of things in any place or time? I was figuring that I could meet him in Lux, but I didn’t know.
And then I noticed a folded piece of paper on top of a colored glass panel lying on the table beside the bed. I’d never seen a scrap of paper or any kind of writing in the Library. I went over and picked it up.
Don’t worry. I’m not really dead. I made this for you. Step in and come find me. A
In English, no less. And it looked like my handwriting, too. But how?
I felt again the pull of the manipulation that had its way with me no matter how much I fought to take control.
Next: Meeting Fuchsia Putty
This is the twentieth 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
17. Lux Earth Wars
18. Tenerife
19. Pintor’s News