The Second Wave Read online

  The other cities sent out warriors to destroy Itzmál, to kill Prince Canék, and to return the princess to her father and her betrothed.

  The White Flower rekindled the flame in the Black Serpent’s heart, but it was too late to save the holy city of Itzmál. For fear of it being destroyed, the prince gathered his people and their belongings. They took the books of darkness, the holy statues and the writings in the temples, and they left their land. Many days they wandered, lead by the White Princess and the White Prince, whose love shone brighter than the sun’s and the moon’s light combined.

  They reached a hidden spot at a lake and built a new city, much smaller. They lived at one with the nature that surrounded them and called this place Petén. Here, Prince Canék felt the black scales fall off his soul and golden feathers grew on his back. And here, the Golden Serpent of the Sky and the White Flower forever cast their light on the Itzá, but the holy city Itzmál was slain like an animal, torched and destroyed. It died alone. It was forgotten, and so was the legend of Zamná.

  Like the city, so the golden era of the Itzá came to an end when the time came. The Golden Serpent flew back into the sky to vanish each nightfall and resurrect every morning. The White Flower stayed on the ground, where it blossoms and dies with the tide of the seasons. Until one day when no one will remember them anymore, and they die one last, final time.

  * * * *

  “Like I said, it is a sad story,” John ended. It was hot under the blanket. Eugenia’s skin burned under his lips, a sure sign that the fever had flared up again.

  “Is not,” she whispered. “You just have to see what it is truly about.”

  He wanted to ask her what it was truly about, but all he got out of her was more useless rambling and then finally deep, labored breaths.

  * * * *

  Chapter 40: The Eternal Riddle of the Falling Tree

  Seen from space, Alternearth looked just like Earth. The landmasses were differently distributed, but the ratio of land to water was about the same. Alternearth was just as blue as Earth was.

  Seen from space, the galaxy in one reality looked exactly like the one in the other. The planets were the same, the distant star constellations were almost interchangeable.

  But where one planet offered beautiful landscapes, thriving flora, and a wholesome environment, the other was in its final throes: barren lands, poisonous air, little vegetation. It was dying, a sinking ship that needed to be abandoned. If it was an animal, the owner would have long brought it to the vet to be put down and taken out of its misery.

  Among the group of hopeful first wave settlers was a young cook named Victoria Rochester, newly married, heavily pregnant. She was neither exceedingly bright, she left school when her mother died in a car accident, nor particularly pretty, her left eye was considerably bigger than the right one, a condition she had inherited from her father. Because of that she was made fun of by other people sometimes—which was one of the reasons she decided to leave Earth for the advertised better life in another reality. Her husband, Jacob, was a small-time crook who got by by pretending to be a caterer, so the decision to leave it all behind and start anew was not a hard one to make for either of them.

  They were among the first to sign up and, using Victoria’s father’s influence, were sure to make it onto the first list. Asking for this favor was the first real contact she made with her family since she had left both the school and the city for a dubious culinary training in Sicily; Heathcliff Rochester was eager to help. In his book, he rather knew his only child in a safe environment as far away from the organized crime of southern Italy as possible.

  Neither Victoria nor Jacob had any idea of what would await them on Alternearth. The amount of work that still needed to be put in to finish the colony. The agora meetings where everyone had the same right to speak, listen, and vote. The trust people had for each other.

  Of course they used this to their own advantage. They lied and cheated their way to lesser working hours, more benefits, and free drugs they then sold, all the while successfully pretending to be loving and caring neighbours. Everything changed when the twins were born. It was long after the wormhole had forever closed on them, or so it seemed. Jack and James grew up to be polite, honest boys, and Victoria had to admit to herself that her husband was neither and had never been.

  It took a couple of months for her to realize that, to acknowledge that she was entirely to blame for it. If she hadn’t blamed her father for her mother’s death, she wouldn’t have run off and straight into the arms of the first handsome, seemingly wonderful crook she encountered, who offered her the world on a silver platter—she didn’t mind at the time that it was stolen.

  Not long before the twins’ birthday, a group of explorers found a hollow in one of the hills the settlers called the Northern Range. They came back one night from their excursion and gave a long, detailed account at the agora of their encounter: a cave in which time flew by faster than it did anywhere else. They had tested their theory with various pieces of fruit and roots, and described to the others how they witnessed them wither and shrivel in front of their eyes.

  It was Victoria’s luck that Jacob was rarely present at the meetings. At first she wasn’t sure what to make of this new information, but as she walked home from the agora that night, a plan presented itself to her. A solution to her misery. Because deep inside she knew she could never leave Jacob. Not just because she loved him despite himself more than anything in the world, but also because he would never let her go. On more than one occasion had she witnessed how brutal her husband could be, a facet of him that scared her whenever she spared a thought about it. If she wanted to rid herself and their children of him, she had the perfect chance now. All she had to do was act quickly.

  The next day she took him hiking. Jack and James were at school. She excused herself from work, saying she was coming down with a fever. She told Jacob about a cave the explorers found in the hill. A cave filled with gold. Jacob wasn’t quite sure what they were supposed to do with a bunch of gold on a planet with no currency, but much to Victoria’s relief he came up with an answer by himself.

  “We harvest the gold for ourselves,” he explained for what felt to Victoria like the thirtieth time, “and then simply introduce it as currency! It’s genius, Vic, I’ll just open up a bank! We’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams!” Jacob laughed animatedly. The more he repeated his plan to himself, the better he liked it.

  The sun was rapidly climbing to its highest spot, its rays warming the grass underneath their feet. They marched through a wide spot of grassland behind the corn fields, and were now slowly reaching the foot of the range. The rich vegetation cleared away, giving way to moss and lichen-covered rock.

  The cave should be somewhere near, but Victoria led Jacob up the hill and towards the cliff. She was running on automatic now, the plan just playing out the way she had designed it last night, completely detached from any emotions. As soon as she consciously thought about it, she felt she couldn’t go through with it—not even Jacob deserved what she was about to do to him, even if he was a crook and a thief and a liar and a violent man.

  “How much farther is it?” he asked, still in a good mood. When he smiled like this she remembered all the good times they had had, all the times he had smiled at her and told her how beautiful she was. Jacob was the only man who ever said that to her. Except for her father, who didn’t really count; parents were supposed to say things like that.

  Her voice almost broke when she replied, “Just up that hill I think,” and pointed into the direction she needed him to go. Only a little farther. And quickly, before she would change her mind after all. Wasn’t an “I love you” every now and then worth ten beatings? Didn’t the occasional perfect moment make up for all the shouted arguments? Victoria shook off the last sentiments and rushed after her husband. No it wasn’t, she decided. It was not worth it.

  Jacob stood on top of the hill when she reached him. Her inner battle wit
h herself had slowed her down significantly. He stretched out his arms, indicating the completely cave free surroundings, a dark, shadowy silhouette against the bright sunshine. As if the Gods were presenting Victoria with a glimpse into his blackened soul.

  “Where is it?” he asked, the smile gone, a frown taking its place. “Did you even listen to the directions properly?”

  “It’s a bit down there.” She hoped her voice didn’t betray her, it sounded feeble and deceiving to her own ears.

  “Where?”

  “Over the cliff. Just beneath the ledge.”

  And then everything happened so fast that every second forever burnt itself into her memory: Jacob stepped right to the edge of the cliff. He bent down ever so slightly to verify this information. And Victoria charged. She simply ran into him; he never even noticed. For a split second, she thought she wasn’t able to stop anymore. She’d plunge down with him. But she stopped in time. Stopped to watch him fall and hit the ground with a thud. He was too surprised to scream, or maybe she was so preoccupied with her raging emotions that she didn’t hear him. It was like nothing had happened. No sound. No crime.

  He wasn’t dead, of course; merely knocked out, with probably a broken leg and arm. The hill was not that high. She might never have gone through with it, had she been certain the fall would kill him. She was not a murderer. Quickly she clambered downhill again, then dragged her husband’s unconscious body to the entrance of the cave. All the while praying to whoever might hear her that the explorers were right and the cave was really magically making things age.

  At the entrance of the only hollow she found, she stopped for a heartbeat. Still deciding whether she should go through with it. But before she could change her mind again, she knelt down beside him, whispered a heartfelt, “I truly do love you, Jacob,” into his ear, then gave the body a push so it rolled into the cave.

  It took almost an hour. Jacob awoke in the meantime, albeit briefly. She never left the side of the cave. She watched him age and die, and somehow it made her feel like she didn’t really kill him. Like a good wife she stayed with him until the end, until death did them part indeed. Then she watched the flesh on his bones decay, to make sure he was never coming back and to carry this image with her for the rest of her life, as a self inflicted punishment for what she had done.

  Jacob simply disappeared that day. Victoria Rochester and her two sons went on with their lives. She even found a wonderful man one day, who cared for her in all the right ways; her sons grew up to become kind, strong men, with families of their own. In the end all was well, and the only memory that tainted Victoria’s newfound happiness faded into nothingness with time.

  Heath Rochester never knew any of this. The last thing he heard about Victoria were the news about the due date of the delivery he didn’t get to witness anymore. As much as he searched and researched in all the years he spent on Alternearth, he never found a single trace of his only daughter. There was the mysterious subway station. There were a dozen or so small caverns in the mountain regions with markings. There even was a temple on a tiny island in the ocean they discovered. But no news of the first wave settlers.

  Some insisted they had been abducted by aliens. Some mused they had moved underground and stayed out of sight for reasons unknown. Perhaps the harbingers or other wild creatures had slaughtered all of them. Or perhaps the entire first wave colony had got caught in one of the random unrelated time events. The common assumption, though, and the one theory Rochester thought sounded plausible enough, was that somehow they had all died.

  The question that kept him from sleeping peacefully at night was: if a whole colony of people died with no one around to watch it happen—surely there should be bones somewhere.

  * * * *

  Chapter 41: Elizabeth’s Lament

  The flat of Elizabeth Burke was in a building right in the middle of the pedestrian precinct in Rome. Set between a boutique and a veterinarian, hers was the apartment directly above a small Chinese takeaway. It was always busy in that part of the city, especially because the restaurant was open around the clock, therefore serving as a popular meeting place for those who dreaded going home for the night.

  She didn’t recognize the place at first, so little time had passed here. When Elizabeth opened the door and stepped into the neatly furnished hallway, she almost choked on her breath. Everything was exactly how she had left it when she had gone to work on the birthday that was five years in her past, but little over ten hours here. The mail on the elegant chest of drawers was the same she had brought in that morning. It piled up neatly next to the designer bowl where she kept her keys. In the light of dawn that streamed in through the window on the other end of the hall, the metal keys glistened as if they were but figments of a strange dream.

  She had almost forgotten the sound her feet made on her carpet. She listened to it intently on her way through the next door that lead her into the kitchen and to a tired looking woman sitting at the breakfast table.

  “Apple!” The words all but fell out of her mouth.

  The woman, tall and elegant, stylishly dressed and carefully made up, turned her head. Hazel eyes smiled at Elizabeth. “There you are, love. Happy late Birthday! I wanted to wait for you, but you’re late.” She indicated the set table and the crumbs on her plate apologetically.

  Somewhere in her head Elizabeth found the memory that fitted this scenario—before she had left for work, she and Apple had set a breakfast date for the next morning. The next morning that was happening now, but should have happened five years ago. Elizabeth found the strength to repeat her wife’s name once more, before she walked up to her, wide-eyed and relieved. Apple got up and they greeted each other with a short embrace in the middle of the room. A bit too tight on Elizabeth’s part, as if she wasn’t merely back from work, but had returned home after a long, strenuous trip.

  “You look different.” Apple stated. She glanced her over. “Did you change your outfit at work?”

  “I’m not coming from work.”

  “Well, never mind. Sit down. Eat. I must dash, though, I have a client first thing this morning.”

  Elizabeth sat, every movement slow and attentive. She listened to Apple chattering about her client and the case and the general imponderability of being a lawyer and a philanthropist in a world that was mostly populated by unreasonable idiots. Her high heels clicked nervously over the tiled floor all the while, until they faded away on the carpet and vanished out of earshot altogether when the apartment door closed behind them.

  Into the silence that followed Elizabeth allowed herself to breathe. She stared at the chive sprinkled curd cheese on her plate for a long time. Five years ago this had been her favorite meal. No, she decided now, it had never been her favorite, but it was the healthiest meal she could imagine, which had turned it into her favorite; despite the dull taste and the queer texture. No fat, no sugar—staying slim and pretty used to be the big constant in her life.

  The kitchen was more pompous and elegant than Elizabeth recalled; all shiny, made by the best designers she and Apple could afford to buy. It didn’t matter that some of the utensils, which were gathered like exhibits in a museum on cupboard tops and the counter, required too much energy to run and so were useless. They still looked important, it was all that mattered. At least it used to be all that mattered. But viewed from a five-year long distance, Elizabeth hardly remembered why this display of status symbols had once been so important to her.

  After three more minutes that felt like five years of staring down at the curd cheese, Elizabeth got up and went downstairs. To see if the Chinese takeaway had anything decent to eat at this hour.

  Elizabeth rarely set foot in Meister Wang’s Delicatessen, but the cook, who was serving something greasy and unrecognizable to a teenaged customer when she entered the shop, recognized her immediately. He collected the money the kid gave him, then turned his tiny but sturdy frame to the woman who felt more than five years wearier than the world to
day.

  “You! No welcome!” The fat man yelled, exposing more gaps than teeth. “You destroy Wang’s business!”

  The six or so customers turned their heads to see what the sudden commotion was about. It was a small restaurant, with four raggedy tables surrounded by random chairs and stools in all shapes and sizes. The walls were covered with ancient posters and Chinese advertisements, some even displaying the long out-of-use hanzi, the Chinese logograms of old.

  Meister Wang, whose actual name was Bernardo Gazpacho, stood behind a brass and glass counter in all his short, bald splendour; arms akimbo, a grease-spattered shirt askew over a protruding belly, brow furrowed. He disliked Elizabeth; not as an individual, but as a person who had tried to remove his business from this location with any means necessary ever since he had rented the place.

  Elizabeth held up her hands to signal truce. “I am sorry, Mister Gazpacho. I came to eat and to apologize.”

  “I don’t trust you. This is evil scheme of yours, yes?!” He squinted at her and added more low key, “And don’t call me Mister Gazpacho in my own restaurant, please. I am Meister Wang here.”

  As there was no food fight going to happen, or anything similar entertaining, the heads of the customers turned back to their meals one by one. Elizabeth approached the counter. The smell of deep fried things teased her nose and made her stomach growl in approval. How her tastes had changed, she quietly mused for a moment.

  “I apologize for my behavior. It was a long time ago. Believe me, things have changed.”

  “Three weeks not so long. But Meister Wang is forgiving and gentle. He take back restraining order, when you take back official complaint.”

  “Consider the complaint null and void. Now, may I order?”

  Deeply satisfied with this outcome, the pretend Chinese cook nodded generously.

  “Do you have anything sweet?” Elizabeth asked while she scanned the huge lettered menu on the wall.