After another few weeks of futility, I visit the Reflecting Pool yet again. While staring at the image of Tela in the water, I notice a subtle change. I rack my brains trying to recall if the difference in the image was there the last time I went to the Pool, but I can’t remember if it was or wasn’t. The sky behind Tela is absent of the barrier to the Infinite Expanse.
I drop to my knees in the center of the Pool and close my eyes. If she’s not near the Expanse, she could be anywhere in forty billion square miles of Barrens. Even with Maya, it would take years to cover that much land.
Emotionally and physically depleted, I return to the Delta. When I enter our habitat, Aven is in her room and Sash is seated at the main table. As I put my things away, I decide that I need to tell Sash what I saw in the Pool—or didn’t see, to be more accurate.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” I say. “I went to the Pool again.”
Sash rises to her feet. “Chase,” she says quietly, “you can’t go on this way.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you could see what you look like, you’d know you need a break. You’re pale and thin. You’re so consumed by searching for Tela that there’s no room left for anything else. Ever since Aven’s birthday, you don’t spend time with Aven or me. Even when you’re here, you aren’t mentally present.”
“I can’t just give up,” I say.
Sash shakes her head. “I’m not telling you to give up, but this can’t be your entire life. I’ll continue to help as much as I can, but you also have to accept that she didn’t want to return. We may never find her.”
“Daddy,” Aven calls to me from the doorway to her room.
“Not now, Aven!” I bark without looking at her.
Sash takes two steps towards me. Her cheeks flush red with anger. “Do you see what I mean? You rarely see Aven and then you ignore her when you do.”
Lowering my eyes to the floor, I don’t say anything. The truth in her words hits me as hard anything I’ve ever felt in my life. Over the six weeks since Aven’s birthday, I’ve ignored everything but the search for Tela, including Sash and my daughter.
“Look at me!” Sash orders.
I raise my face to her. Sash’s face is still red and her hands are clenched in fists, but her eyes are watery and red.
“Did something else happen in the Barrens? Did you fall in love with Tela?”
“Of course not,” I answer. “She’s my friend.”
“Then tell me what this is, Chase. Why are you so obsessed with finding her?”
Trying to verbalize in my mind why the search Tela has completely absorbed me, I stare at her for a few seconds before speaking again. “You know how much guilt I’ve felt about leaving my family on Earth. Even though I’ve come to terms with it, I still feel like I abandoned them. I never want to abandon anyone that I care about again. I can’t live with myself if I do.
“Apart from you and Aven, Tela’s the closest I have to family here. She’s like a sister to me. But when she needed me the most, I let her down. I explained to you before why I should have been able to control the wild sap. I just didn’t figure it out soon enough. I feel like I abandoned her. It’s my fault she’s still out there.”
Sash shakes her head. “But now you’re abandoning Aven and me. You have to forgive yourself. It’s not your fault that she chose to stay there.”
“It is,” I reply. “If I’d done the right thing, she never would have been out there on her own.”
“Do you feel like finding her will make up for leaving your family on Earth?” she asks.
“Something like that.”
“Daddy,” Aven says.
I turn to her and speak in a soft voice. “What is it, baby girl?”
She holds up a large sheet of canvas in her hands. As she spreads it out in front of her, I realize that it’s my map of Krymzyn. Gripping one corner with an outstretched hand and squeezing the top seam between her chin and chest, she uses her free hand to point to a spot in the Barrens north of the Desert.
“Tela here,” Aven says.
I walk across the room and kneel in front of her. “That’s where Tela is?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she answers. “Tela here.”
“How do you know?”
“Chees tell me,” she says.
“The trees told you where Tela is?” I ask, confused by her explanation.
“Tela here, Daddy,” she confirms. “Chees tell me.”
I turn my head to Sash. “What do you think this means?”
Sash steps across the room, crouches between Aven and me, and looks me straight in the eyes. “It means first thing on the morrow, you and I are taking Maya north of the Desert.”
Chapter 33
With her child perched in one arm and a spear in the hand of the other, the woman climbs to the top of a hill. She stops on a rounded crest and looks out over the flat land in front of her. Far in the distance, three figures of light glide in her direction, the blurs of steel transports behind two.
Near the base of the hill the woman stands on, all three shapes of light begin to slow. As their particles separate from imperceptible rays around them, pale bodies gradually take shape. The female on point, a former Traveler of the Delta, is flawless in her separation from the beams. She effortlessly transitions to her sprint while yelling words of guidance to the other two.
The two male Murkovin learning to travel with transports are awkward as they exit the light. Hesitant and cautious while reducing their speed, they eventually detach from the beams
