Shatterskin Page 5

  “Do you want the story Hannah, or are you too busy trying to figure things out?”

  I put my teacup down, folded my legs beneath me, and turned my full attention to Aki. I knew the story was the beginning of understanding. It was what Beru had said to me. It was time to learn who these people were and why they were here. I hoped the story would help me figure it out.

  *******

  “Shall we start with Once Upon A Time? It is how all good stories that may or may not be true begin, isn’t it?” Aki asked.

  I nodded and she began.

  “Once upon a time, a long, long, long time ago, a giant silver serpent twisted and turned its way through the stars. Inside that metal serpent traveled two brothers who had been alive for more years than anyone could count and they were bored. So bored. They thought they knew everything there was to know. There were no more adventures that they hadn’t already done, and there was nothing new to see.

  “The snake had taken them everywhere they wanted to go. The beings inside the metal serpent had seen worlds that had just been born, and worlds that had destroyed themselves time and again. Watching had been fun for a few million years, but the joy of it had faded.

  “They knew that self-destruction was one way to keep from being bored. But self-destruction didn’t appeal to them anymore, either. They had regrown their own civilization too many times to count. Even self-destruction had turned boring.

  “One night while lounging on the observation deck, so bored they could barely lift their drinks to their mouths, the two brothers came up with an idea to amuse themselves. Why not make a world of their own and experiment with it? See what happens when they mess with it?

  “Of course, this was illegal. Even in a civilization as jaded as theirs, there were rules, and this was one. Everyone knew that the law was to let civilizations alone and let them evolve on their own. Destroy themselves—or not. Voyeurism was perfectly fine, and for millenniums this is what they had been doing. But, as I said, they were bored.

  “These two brothers decided that they didn’t care anymore. So what if they were caught? At least being punished wouldn’t be boring.

  “Over the next few years, these brothers hatched their plan. They decided that just one world wasn’t enough. What about two? When finding two identical planets proved difficult, they came up with another idea. What about one planet and two dimensions? That was the perfect scenario. They could compete and decide once and for all which brother was the best brother.

  “By using dimensions instead of different planets, the playing field would be almost equal. It also made it easier for them to check on their experiment. It meant that there would only be one world to visit on the trips through the universes. They just had to return to one planet and then slip between the two dimensions to see how their experiment was going.

  “It took a few more passes through the galaxies to pick the perfect planet. It was a beautiful place. It had everything: oceans, air, lakes, trees, and mountains. It reminded them both of a world that had been destroyed many thousands of years in the past when its star exploded. There were rumors that the explosion had been deliberate, but no one could prove it. The brothers laughed together over the idea that perhaps someone else had been as bored as they were.

  “While they traveled to find the planet, they made up the rules that would govern the people. But first, they needed people. Neither of them wanted to live there. They valued being observers, not participants. To solve their problem, they found volunteers in the prisoners on board. It was a simple choice. Either die or populate a planet. Well, you know what the prisoners chose.

  “The brothers made the experiment as equal as possible. They didn’t want to give either dimension an unfair advantage.

  “They only did a few things differently. They wanted to see if that made a difference. The answer, Hannah, is that those few things turned out to be the pivot points that changed everything.”

  Thirteen

  Aki rose, stretched, and said, “That’s your lesson for today, Hannah. Stretch your mind, instead of your body.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me what the differences were?” I huffed. How could she take me that far, and then not tell me? What if the story was true? Didn’t I need to know?

  “Not today. You spend time thinking about what those differences might be.”

  This time, instead of gliding out of the room, Aki vanished. One moment she was there. The next she wasn’t. What was up with that? People kept disappearing. How did they do it?

  Ziffer, I mumbled to myself. How was I supposed to figure how people vanished along with everything else that was going on. The story was making me feel itchy. What if it was true? Were Earth and Erda the two dimensions she was talking about?

  “No time to ponder that now,” Beru said. She was casually leaning against the door, her eyes dancing with delight.

  “Do you know the story?” I asked her.

  “Of course,” Beru answered, “but I’m not the one who is going to give you the answer. Besides, it’s time for your next class. Let’s see if you can find your way this time. You lead, I’ll follow.”

  I gave Beru the best evil eye look I could muster, but it only made her laugh.

  “Come on, Hannah, feel the walls and doors. They’ll lead the way.”

  Looking at my pouting face, she added, “Seriously, Hannah. You have to be able to do this. You are not going to be very effective if you can’t find your way around.”

  “You mean, feel my way around, don’t you?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Exactly. I’ll wait.”

  Of course, she would wait. Even though I had only known Beru for a few days, I knew she could outlast me in any waiting game. Besides, putting aside my frustration, I knew she was trying to teach me something important. So I reached out and asked to be guided.

  I shut my eyes until Beru said, “Keep your eyes open. Do you think the enemy is going to wait while you stand there with your eyes shut? Do this with your eyes open. Trust the guidance. Your world calls it the force, doesn’t it? Follow that. Pretend that it’s there right in front of you. Imagine how it would feel to be guided. Go, go, go.”

  There was that go, go, go command, again. What is it with this world where everyone is always saying that to me? But I obeyed. I opened my eyes and trusted. And I knew. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew what step to take next.

  I was cautious at first, but soon I was walking at a reasonable pace. A few minutes later, I ended up exactly where I meant to go, the magic room, where Professor Pinhead was waiting for me.

  No that’s not his real name, I made that up. Sounded good to me yesterday, but today something was different inside of me. Today I would listen and hear his real name. Today I would be respectful and learn something.

  Beru reached out and touched the back of my hand. I looked down, and she gave me the sweetest smile. It was the best reward for good thinking I had ever felt. I smiled back and stepped into the room.

  The professor was there, sitting at his desk, but so was someone else. For a moment, I thought it was Johnny. I hoped it was Johnny, and my heart did a little flip-flop. But when he turned, I saw that it wasn’t Johnny after all.

  No one said anything. We stared at each other until the stranger walked over to me where I was standing like an idiot in the doorway.

  Still dumbstruck I continued to stare at him until he said, “Hi, I’m Zeid. I know you’re Hannah. Happy to meet you!”

  Still an idiot, I mumbled, ”Oh wow, you know who I am. Who are you anyway?”

  “Hannah!” Beru hissed.

  “Sorry, that was rude. It’s just I haven’t seen anyone my age here yet. Or sort of my age. Are you my age? Oh, sorry again, so rude again.”

  Zeid just laughed and grabbed me by the elbow
leading me to my desk. “You know if I had just traveled to a new dimension a few days ago and everything was different, I am sure I would be as confused and frustrated as you. More, I bet.

  “I live here. Never dimension traveled, although I think that might be fun. Not going to happen though. They closed the portal after you came through.”

  If there was a mirror in the room, I was sure it would have shown that I turned white. “They closed the portal,” I gasped.

  “Oh ziffer, I’m sorry. Of course, this is upsetting. Were you expecting more people to come with you?”

  I nodded yes, and whispered, “And I thought that I could go home again, someday.”

  Zeid put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “It’s possible, Hannah. Don’t give up hope. In the meantime, I’ll be here training with you.”

  Both Zeid’s words and his hand on my shoulder burned.

  Professor—didn’t know his name yet—humphed, and said, “Open your books, Zeid and Hannah. There is much to be done. We’ll travel to the Riff soon. You need to be ready.”

  Riff? What had I missed? What was a Riff? What did I have to be ready for?

  I looked at Zeid for reassurance. He winked one of his amazing azure eyes at me, and I blushed.

  Which was going to be worse? The Riff or what was happening to me. Honestly, all I could think of at that moment is that I wanted my mom. I wanted to be twelve years old again, snuggling in bed as we told each other about our day. I wanted to go back to sewing secret ladybug appliqués into each others’ clothes.

  I felt a tap on my leg and looked down. Beru was there by my foot. She turned back the seam on the bottom of my leggings and revealed a ladybug appliqué.

  Beru had given me my mom. I would be okay for a little bit longer.

  Fourteen

  Zeid trained with me after that. He was my sparring partner in Gazelle Man’s class where he whipped my butt, too. He didn’t hurt as much when he whacked me as the gazelle did, but he was just as relentless. Yes, he was pretty dang cute, but he proved to me right away that he wasn’t planning to give me any slack just because I hoped we would be friends.

  I did learn people’s names, though. I took to heart Beru’s comment about not caring about the people that helped me. Professor Pinhead was really Professor Link. At least I got the professor part right.

  Gazelle Man was Niko. And of course, I already knew Aki’s name. Since many of the people I met during our training sessions came and went depending on what we were learning, I didn’t get most of their names.

  We spent most of the time in Link’s class learning about how to do various forms of magic. Zeid didn’t need to learn. He knew how. He was increasing his skills, while I was trying to access mine. He loved showing me what Professor Link meant by “be somewhere else.” Zeid was excellent at that, and he could come and go at will. I didn’t get it at all. No matter how hard I tried, I never went anywhere.

  Zeid told me that I was thinking of it as something I had to do, like what I did in the Earth Realm when I did what they call astral projection. In Erda, it didn’t work that way. They allowed magic to work through them.

  The whole idea of what they called magic eluded me. What was magic? Was it what we called in the Earth Realm paranormal powers? I could do those in the Earth Realm, but it seemed as if I was without those skills in Erda.

  The professor kept telling me that everyone could do what was called magic. It was an innate skill that everyone on Erda knew about which in a way made it not magic. It was like breathing. It was part of life. Link said that if you think about it that way, everything is magic.

  In Erda, some people practice using magic and get better at it the same way people practice music while others don’t care to learn more than basic humming skills.

  When I asked him if magic was innate for everyone in the Earth Realm too, he looked away for a moment. When he looked back, his green eyes squinted at me, and a lock of dark hair fell across his forehead as he answered. “Yes. But,” and then turned away.

  That was it? “Yes, but what?” I asked, trying to be polite. I squinted my eyes at him as he had at me. Made no difference. He refused to tell me more.

  At the end of the day, the professor called me to his desk where he sat perched on the edge. “Hannah, this is as hard for me as it is for you. If I tell you everything, if anyone of us tells you everything, you might not discover it for yourself. We can only guide you to where you might find the answers.

  “I can tell you that you, Hannah, that you have the same skills you had before you came here, except on Erda they are much more powerful and expansive. But here you have to find the source of them and bring it into yourself. No one can do that for you. But it’s there, waiting for you.

  “There’s a reason you were asked to come here. We need your skill more than we ever have before.”

  What he said didn’t make any sense. “You asked me to come here? I thought I begged and begged. And if I have those powers, why do I feel so powerless? So ordinary?”

  For the first time, Professor Link smiled. “You did beg, Hannah. You begged, and we asked. The two had to come together. As for not being able to access your powers, it’s because on Earth you didn’t know where those powers came from.

  “You thought nothing about how you acquired them. And if you are honest with yourself, you thought you were slightly better than everyone else because of it.

  “Here, everyone knows where magic comes from. They understand the source. Those of us who want to protect that source honor it. We know it does not come from us. It does not make us superior because we practice it more. In fact, it becomes an obligation to protect those who need protecting.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You want me to stop feeling superior? Check, done. I have never felt so inferior in my life. You want me to learn where magic comes from, and then protect it? That means someone wants to destroy it?”

  Link’s face grew dark as he continued to stare at me with those squinted green eyes. I wondered if the squint was because he couldn’t see well, or he was protecting himself, not allowing me to see something about him.

  “You still feel superior, Hannah and that will get in the way of returning to who you are, and that’s dangerous. Because, yes, a very powerful someone wants to destroy magic for everyone but himself.”

  Link reached into a drawer in his desk and took out a small wooden box and handed it to me. “This was left here for you.”

  Astonished, I took the box from him. It was beautiful. Carved on the lid was a large spreading tree. Bare of leaves, the intricacy of its branches could be seen reaching across the lid. Its root system spread out across the side and wrapped around the entire box. I ran my finger across the carving and realized the box had been carved around the tree. How could that be?

  Opening the box, I found a bracelet embedded with a picture-jasper stone. The veins running through the stone looked like the tree on the box.

  Link took the bracelet out and placed it on my left wrist next to my friendship bracelet from Johnny. It immediately molded itself to my arm.

  I had so many questions. Who left this for me? Why did it feel so familiar? When I looked up to ask, Professor Link was already scooping up his books and papers. He left without saying another word, leaving me still feeling lost but not quite as alone as before.

  “So, Link thought you were ready for it,” Suzanne said.

  I whirled around and found her standing at the door smiling at me. She could have been there all along, or maybe she appeared using the same magic she used when she’d vanish.

  “Come along, Hannah. We’re going into the village for dinner. You’ll be leaving the castle soon, I want you to meet some of the people going with you.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the Riff. It’s as danger
ous to get there as it is to participate. We’ll need more protection.”

  Protection. My stomach cramped at the thought. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t known there was danger. I now knew what that shrieking sound had been in the woods. Besides, I had been isolated in the Castle for weeks. I was pretty sure that had to do with keeping me safe while I trained.

  I hoped my training was enough. I guessed it would have to be.

  I needed more answers, and I thought that our trip to the village would get me some. The bracelet on my wrist was reassuring. I knew that jasper stones represented healing, courage, and wisdom. They are grounded to the energy of the earth. I knew that although I was in a different dimension I was still on the planet earth, and I hoped that the stone would help me find the strength I needed for the mission that was before me.

  Fifteen

  A few days before we left to visit the village of Dalry, we were outside sitting in the grove of trees that grew almost to the Castle wall, when my life in Erda turned upside down.

  Professor Link often took us outside to teach. Sometimes we strolled through the garden where he would point out various plants and insects. I thought it was because he hated being cooped up inside a building, no matter how beautiful, as much as I did. That probably was true, but he was trying to show me something so obvious I missed it. Until one day it clicked.

  He was showing me a connection. How that bird planted trees or that bug made the soil more fertile, or how that group of flowers provided homes and food for everything from insects to people. But he always brought it back to the trees. Time and again the story wove back to how the planet lived because trees provided everything it needed,

  Eventually, dense as I can sometimes be, I realized he was teaching me all about the trees. Everything he showed us, everything I took for granted, happened because the trees had provided for it.