The Remembering

Steve Cash The Remembering

For Chloe, Colin, Zoe, and Scout

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank the true believers: Cody and Allison, Star and Mike, Sydney, Linda, and John. I also want to thank Betsy Mitchell for every question and suggestion. She was my “other” voice and she was always right. Lastly, I want to thank Tom and Frances Bissell. Inside their hearts and souls, I know they are Meq.

THE MEQ

Aitor Zezen (B. 426 BC) / Itzia (B. 311 BC)

begat

Yaldi Zezen (B. 172 AD)

Yaldi Zezen / Xamurra (B. 201 BC)

begat

ZIANNO ZEZEN (B. 1869 AD)

Umla-Meq (B. 1005 BC)

Opari (B. 1310 BC)

Sister — Eder-Meq (B. 998 BC)

Sister — Deza (B. 1313 BC)

Geaxi Bikis (B. 51 BC)

Trumoi-Meq (B. 1117 BC)

Unai Txori (B. 217 BC)

Usoa Ijitu (B. 412 BC)

Baju Gastelu (B. 299 BC)

Nova Gastelu (B. 1894 AD)

Xanti Otso — the Fleur-du-Mal (B. 356 BC)

Mother — Hilargi (B. 897 BC)

Father — Unknown

Uncle — Zeru-Meq (B. 901 BC)

Ray Ytuarte (B. 1783 AD)

Susheela the Ninth (B. 3061 BC)

Sister — Zuriaa (B. 1790 AD)

Mother — Ikerne (B. Unknown)

Previously, in The Meq and Time Dancers:

From the introduction of the electric lightbulb to the supernatural light from an exploding nuclear bomb, Zianno Zezen, or Z, has been witness to these events, and yet he remains in the body of a twelve-year-old boy. His human friends and family are changing, aging, and dying. But Z is not human. He is something else, something older. In his heart and mind, now more than ever, he knows what it means to be Meq, living inside Time and history, to be part of it, and still be outside of it — a stranger, a seeker … a survivor.

In Book One, The Meq, Zianno’s adventure of self-discovery led him to understand the significance of the Stone of Dreams. The ancient black rock with its mystical hypnotic power over all other animate beings was passed down to him from his father, and his father’s father, and so on, going back millennia to the Time of Ice. Four more Stones are known to exist: the Stone of Silence, now carried by Nova Gastelu; the Stone of Will, carried for the last two thousand years by Geaxi Bikis; the Stone of Memory, carried for nearly three thousand years by Umla-Meq, also known as Sailor; and the Stone of Blood, carried even longer by Z’s one true love and Ameq, Opari. As Sailor once told Z, the carriers of these Stones must endure, and it is essential that all five Stones are present at the Gogorati — the Remembering. Why? No one knows for certain, but the Meq have always speculated that the Stones have something to do with their origins, and possibly their future. At the end of Book Two, Time Dancers, very few Meq are left alive, and it is possible, nay probable, that Z’s friend and mentor, Sailor, has been incinerated by the nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. The Fleur-du-Mal, the cruel Meq assassin and nemesis of Z and the others, is alive and well, and it is known that he has captured and imprisoned Susheela the Ninth, the Ethiopian Meq whose existence was once thought to be only a rumor. She has been alive for five thousand and six years and is by far the oldest among them. The Fleur-du-Mal is sadistic and completely unpredictable. What will he do next?

It is late 1945, World War II is over and the Cold War has just begun. The Meq and their secrets, powers, and “abilities” will be sought by the Soviets and the Americans. The Remembering is just on the horizon, less than seventy years away. Since the Time of Ice the Meq have always believed they know the when … but they still do not know the where. The mystery must be solved in time, and Zianno may be the only one who can solve the ancient riddle.

BOOK THREE

PART I

Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

— Albert Einstein

1. Labezomorro (Cockroach)

When the people are gone, when the trees are dead, when the animals are dead, when the sky is poisoned,