TWO HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE: Preview

[Note: This is almost exactly half of the chapter as it's currently written. It's a nice chunk for a preview, but I will be revising the second half tomorrow and posting it. I think I've got three to four hours of work left in order to bring it all together like I want, so including sleep and other life necessities...I think you can expect it in about fifteen hours. ]

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232: Here-to-There XI Preview

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The sound that a single handful of powdered spell ingredients made as it hit the roof of the party pavilion was a quiet one. Just a whisper at Leeter-zis’s feet, and another puff of white dust joined the cloud around the wizard. He stood above them all, his arms writhing through the air while he chanted in a voice not much louder than the fall of that powder. 

And yet Alden, standing between Stuart and Emban in their assigned positions on the outermost ring of participants, had begun to feel that the ingredients struck the roof with the urgency of a commanding shout. And the parts of the chant that were about the journey they’d all shared together sometimes found his ears easily while his body responded to the rhythm of the ingredients striking the roof.

The process hadn’t been smooth at first, but it had grown almost natural by now. Move a chip of wood into his right hand and pass it to Emban while his left was accepting another from Stuart. He brought the new one up to his mouth and said, “Christmas tree”—only two English words among hundreds of Artonan ones that were being spoken at the same time. He breathed in; powder hit the roof. He breathed out, and traded his wood chip for another.

“Wombat.”

The pace and the images he was supposed to call to mind with each word were all that prevented him from relaxing into it fully. That and his fear that his home thoughts were too muddled and not happy enough. These things were his contribution to the concept of home at the heart of the spell. For “wombat” he wanted to think of his stuffed animal sitting on its learning cushion in the corner of his dorm room, but that memory blurred with another one of Wummy surrounded by “Get well soon!” cards when he’d been in the hospital as a child. It wasn’t right.

But the ingredients were hitting the roof again, the dust cloud was thickening, and the chip of wood had to be sent on.

When they’d begun, it had still been dark, but now the dawn was bright enough for Alden to clearly see many of the people standing in the concentric rings that encircled the pavilion. Several of them were still impaired from whatever they’d enjoyed at the party, and any children who were old enough to stand and pass things had been included. Alden took some comfort in that because maybe he wasn’t doing worse than knee-high people who had put the first few chips they were given in their own pockets, or inebriated ones who kept repeating the same few words even though they’d been told to choose as many to represent their homes as possible.

Some of the most obvious words, the ones others had said first, were still stuck in Alden’s head, waiting for him to attach them to a specific thought about what home was. And some gloomy words like “fleeting”or “lost” had to be repeatedly beaten back because this wasn’t the occasion for them.

“Suitcase.”

He winced as that one came out. Wasn’t suitcase the opposite of home? He’d been thinking his wombat was a good choice because the stuffed animal had been with him in multiple residences. He’d wanted to think of something else that had accompanied him like that. So suitcase. He thought of the big blue suitcase being attacked by Other Alden. And rolling along behind him through the halls of Matadero. Matadero? I’m so lost on home I’m including the cube now? 

He had to be the only person in the universe who’d put the demon slaughtering facility anywhere near the word home. But there it was. He had made his bed there look nice before he left his room last time.

Another wood chip.

“Succotash.” A recipe written by the hand of a grandmother he’d never met, turned into a cooking video for Kibby. It had tasted really good. He would make it next Thanksgiving and eat it. Somewhere.

“Bedlam Beldam.” He didn’t think of the quirky superhero herself, but of a silly game he’d played with Boe for a couple of years in which anytime they saw a broom they pretended it belonged to her and tried to make up the funniest reason she might have lost it.

Beside him, Stuart was enjoying the unfair advantage of having a million relatives who all resided with him. But assuming the Artonan was going through homey elements of the siblinghold in order of importance, he did rate some unexpected words high on his list. He mentioned “patient ones” very early, before he’d even named some of his parents, and most of his family members came after sacrifice, husenots, and Murmur.

Although Murmur was considered a family member, and husenots and sacrifice represented the efforts of many family members.  So maybe it was Alden’s own shallow thinking that made him surprised Stuart would list Emban only after he’d acknowledged a room full of rock creatures and the wevvi boiler.

They kept going until Leeter-zis was almost hidden by the powder. Then, just after the sun made its entrance for the day, the wizard’s voice rose, his chant becoming loud, and they stopped.

All of them at once.

Nobody said stop, thought Alden. He’d done it because it was the right thing to do. His breathing had synced up with Stuart’s and Emban’s, and that was right, too. He felt heavy, like he ought to be sinking into the grass, and he realized he wasn’t blinking even though his eyes were dry.

He could blink, or move his feet if he had to. But he was a part of what was happening here, and it was like floating and letting a current carry him.

“This home will recognize you!” Leeter-zis shouted. 

The current was growing stronger quickly. And with the sense he wasn’t supposed to have, Alden could feel something happening. He was resonating with this place and the people here. There was no conscious effort like when he cast a spell alone, but the volume of his self was rising along with everyone else’s. The gremlin seemed curious about what he was up to, but he couldn’t spare it much attention. It was time to thrust the hand holding the piece of wood out in front of him.

Because that was what the ritual wanted.

“This land’s fruit will fill your stomachs. The fruit of your body will fill this land. You will hold those you love between the Mother and the sky here. And everything that a home has been and can be will be yours.”

Every time Leeter-zis said “will,” the effects that Alden was feeling increased sharply. He was rooted to the ground; the piece of wood seemed to want to burrow into his hand.

“Now!” Leeter-zis said. 

On the roof of the pavilion, a ball of dark red flame swallowed the wizard, flashing through the air and heating Alden’s lungs as it consumed the powder. In every hand, the wood chips began to glow. Most of them were like embers just removed from a fireplace. Some were brighter. Stuart actually held a palmful of flame. Alden held…a dim wooden splinter with a flicker on one end.

“The opportunity will pass soon,” Leeter-zis said, suddenly conversational. “Look to your neighbors if they hold less than you. To strengthen one is to strengthen all.”

Alden didn’t completely snap out of the trance until he felt a hand close over his own. Stuart had just covered Alden’s barely glowing wood chip with his palmful of fire. Red flames flickered around their wrists and across their knuckles. It looked alarming, but it didn’t hurt.

Alden only felt warm, dry fingers locked around his. As they brought him out of the place where the end of the spell had taken him, his nerves about getting it wrong all came back.

“Mine barely burned,” he said apologetically. “I was having a hard time, and so many of my home ideas were things I don’t have anymore.”

“You did well enough.” Stuart gestured for Alden to look around to where Ryada and Bithe had their hands clasped in the same way. “You’re not the only one. Just tell me something you think about home, and I’ll hear you. The spell will be strengthened.” 

Alden turned away from the expression on Bithe’s face as he explained something about himself to Ryada and a listening Emban.

Stuart was watching him, waiting to hear him, his fingers tightening around Alden’s.

Home. Okay.

“I’ve had it before, but I don’t think I do now. I’m trying. But home is… I would rather think of it as a place where I can be safe and happy with the people I care about most. But the people I care about are scattered around. And I don’t often feel safe. My aunt’s going to have a new family soon. She already does, really. And it’s a good thing for her, but I’m not going to be more than a distant part of it. And my childhood friend doesn’t want to live on Anesidora. So. I don’t know how… ”

“You do know,” Stuart said, after thinking for a moment. “You know you want a happy place and people you care about. Isn’t that enough? That will be your home one day, even if it doesn’t have every single person you love in it due to circumstance.”

“You’re saying I could just imagine a future one?”

“My father, Aunt Alis, and Uncle Tesen hated much about their first home. When they were our age, I think they would have had trouble with a spell like this, too. But they kept each other and Murmur and built the siblinghold together. And it’s a wonderful home for the people they love. So I think a home you imagine for your future may be more powerful than whatever you’ve had thanks to good or bad fortune before now.”

Something in the future. Something to begin and build up.

“That’s a nice way of looking at it,” said Alden.

It was obvious, even, or it felt like it should have been. But a future home lacked certainty, so he hadn’t felt like he was free to go in that direction as much. 

“While I was <<dispersing>> the liquid blessing through all the houses, I thought of what you said—and Bithe—about the focus of this ritual. And I realized I spoke too casually about home being easy. What’s easy for me was created through the hard effort of my father, my caregivers, and others. So maybe your path toward home is more like his than like mine.”

Not a comparison I was expecting.

“Longing is enough for the spell. Hope. Imagining,” Stuart continued. “Or even one treasured memory given full focus.”

Alden closed his eyes, trying to shut out the sounds around him and commit to one single thought of home in these last few moments of the ritual. He went with “treasured memory” because it was easier to find one quickly than it was to clearly imagine what he would or could build. But he looked at the memory in a different light.

Not just something that happened a long time ago, he thought, recalling the way his dad had laughed when Alden had come out of the house, struggling with the weight of an old punch bowl he’d ferreted out of the very back of the kitchen cabinets. He’d thought it would be a superior vessel for catching a firefly in. His vision of the largest glass container he could find shining like a spotlight in their yard had been too powerful for him to worry about practicalities. It’s something that can happen again, even if it’s a little different.

A single bug blinking under the dome of the bowl, a Diwali firework that left specks of silver light floating around Apex for several minutes, scooping up zansees in a jar at the siblinghold…

Stuart mentioned those, too.

When Alden opened his hand again, his wood chip was glowing as bright as most of the others. He held it higher to show off his success, and Stuart beamed. Bithe was showing his own properly lit piece to Ryada and Emban.

Emban looked touched. Ryada was smiling, but to Alden, it seemed strained. Over the next few minutes while people mingled with friends, hugged family members, and thanked Leeter-zis, the fire faded out and left them all holding darkened bits of wood.

Many of the participants buried theirs around the pavilion. Everyone who wasn’t going to be living around here was supposed to take their piece home, where it would be a kind of charm for them, making their house more harmonious and increasing the fertility of their lands and bodies.

“I can’t bury a fertility increaser at a dorm full of people my age,” Alden said. “What if it works too well?”

Stuart found this legitimate question very funny until Emban asked what he was laughing about. 

“What if Alden’s right, though?” she said. “I know it’s not that strong, and it’s his, not theirs. But what if it does something unexpected in the soil of Earth?”

“That wouldn’t happen…”

They ended up dipping Alden’s wood chip in a waxy coating provided by Leeter-zis, who thought they were being stupid. Alden was to bury it in a pot of dirt within the walls of a house that was his one day.

“The spell was interesting to be a part of,” Alden said as he tucked his latest souvenir into his bag. It was still early morning, but it was already getting hot. Most of the Artonans who weren’t gathered around Leeter-zis were cleaning up the remains of the party or helping Uro-bor and a couple of equally ancient people make a dish called “scrap loaf” that involved every single crumb of uneaten food in the pavilion being diced and added to a batter that would bake in cylindrical pans.

Stuart said it was something people often did after a party, though wizards weren’t usually invited to eat the scrap loaf. He was under the impression that most people who took one home would end up having a bite or two and then composting the rest of it.

Alden would have been tempted to try it if he could and if they were using just the untouched leftovers. But Gorol-bor was merrily taking a sweeper pan full of floor food over to his mother. 

“In Jatonta, I think they make a porridge instead of a loaf,” Stuart said, replying to the bow of a woman passing them with a nod and an upturned palm. “And in…are we leaving? I think we might be leaving. No. Emban looks upset. What…?”

He was looking toward their knight trio. 

Alden and Stuart were at the edge of the open area surrounding the pavilion, standing close to one of the walls of paddle plants that marked the start of the garden. Emban, Ryada, and Bithe had been nearby, accepting farewells and gratitude from anyone who wanted to speak to them one last time, but they were suddenly walking fast to one of the wooden pathways that led out. Alden caught a glimpse of their faces. Bithe’s jaw was quivering, his eyes wide. Emban was tense from head to toe, mouth clenched. One of her hands pressed Bithe’s shoulder, and the other pressed Ryada’s as she steered them onto the path and out of sight. 

And Ryada…she seemed calm.

That calmness made Alden’s breath catch.

What happened? What did she do?

Stuart was already in pursuit. Alden jogged after him.



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Character Notes:

Wummy -- Doesn't have much dialogue, but he's been with us longer than any character but Alden himself. The last gift given to Alden by his parents. Cool marsupial. First stuffed wombat to teleport? He likes to think so. Currently enjoying his position as guardian of the knock-off learning cushion in Alden's room. Has not been invited to sit on the real learning cushion, but it's just a matter of time.