We’d traveled back in time and it was a difficult thing to come to terms with.
Most of the time, I thought of it as a kind of simulation and the whole thing might collapse in on us any minute.
But it didn’t.
It was real.
At least he got to see his family and friends again.
I probably never would.
I slept with that sad thought plastered over the forefront of my mind.
I missed my friends and my family.
I missed the comfort of my life and the sense of belonging to someone bigger than myself.
I missed home.
I awoke the following morning and my body felt like it’d been hit by a car.
I groaned as the work from the previous day caught up to me.
One day working like an old mule was one thing, but to have to do it while my body still ached this badly…
I wasn’t sure I could do it.
I rolled out of bed and hastily made it up again.
At least that way it gave some semblance of tidiness.
I took a shower and got dressed.
When I emerged from the barn, the sunlight streamed in gorgeous bands of yellow, so bright it was difficult to make out the storm brushing against the upper atmosphere.
Pana tossed a sheet over a bunch of tables that’d been set up.
They were a mishmash of different shapes and sizes from all the rooms in the farmhouse.
“Can you grab the other end of this sheet, dear?” Pana said.
I grabbed it and together we draped it over the tabletops.
Because they were each a different height and width, it was difficult to keep the sheets even.
Some draped over the tables’ sides and brushed the dusty soil.
Others barely even covered them.
“Let’s tuck it underneath,” Pana said.
She ducked under the tables and I handed my side to her.
She clipped them together with clothes pegs.
We worked along the tables until they were all covered.
Pana clapped off her hands.
“There. That looks better, doesn’t it?”
“What’s it all for?”
“Didn’t Froah tell you? It’s Kayal’s birthday today.”
I blinked in surprise.
Now, why wouldn’t he tell me something like that?
I felt an inexplainable flash of anger at him.
Pana looked me over, shook her head, and clucked her tongue.
“It’s possible it slipped his mind.”
She looked like she believed that about as much as I did.
I sighed, exasperated.
I couldn’t help that I liked him, that I wanted to get to know him better.
After all, we’d been forced into this crazy situation, the least we should do was try to get to know each other a little.
But he was still a stranger to me.
Cold, dark, mysterious.
“Come sit down,” Pana said.
She sat at one of the tables before I could decline her offer.
Speaking about Kayal was bad enough, but having to do it with his mother was even worse.
I did as she asked and took a seat.
“He’s distant, isn’t he?” she said.
I nodded and picked at the skin on my fingers.
Pana reached across the table and took my hands in hers.
“It’s not your fault, child. Many of the Qyah are distant and hard to reach. They’re soulful, somber, and brooding. They can be as emotional as a rock when they want to be.”
“Yoath isn’t.”
“Not now, he’s not. But he carries many of the same traits—especially when he was young. But with time, he opened up to me.”
“What happens when you don’t have much time?”
Pana’s hands froze and she looked deep into my eyes.
Not for the first time, I wondered if she knew more than she was letting on.
Women often had an insight into things on a much deeper level than men.
But surely even she couldn’t have figured out what was going on?
Maybe not, but she could still have a clue.
“Then you need to make the most of the time you have,” she said.
“I’m… not sure I can do that.”
“Then don’t. But don’t complain about him not opening up to you. Sometimes they open up by themselves, given enough time, but when there is no time, you have no choice but to force him to take action.”
I gnawed on my bottom lip.
It was easier to do than say the words dancing across my tongue.
Pana stroked the back of my hand.
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is that’s gnawing at you from the inside. I can tell when a girl has something to say.”
Boy, she was sharp.
I swallowed and prepared my words carefully.
How could I say this to her?
Very carefully, I thought to myself.
“What if he doesn’t like me?”
The corners of Pana’s lips quirked up into a smile.
“That’s what you’re worried about? Child, you have nothing to worry about at all. He does like you. That much is obvious. There isn’t a red-blooded creature on this planet that wouldn’t kill to be with you. And that’s something I know for a fact.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
Still, her advice left me with a sour taste in my mouth.
“Prod him to take action,” she said. “If he doesn’t, he’s a bigger fool than I thought.”
She grinned at me before shoving herself up onto her feet.
“Now, I’d better get in the kitchen. The food isn’t going to cook itself.”
Yoath poked his head out from an upstairs window and hung a string of letters across the front of the farmhouse.
They said:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAYAL!
It was the adult Kayal’s birthday too and I was going to give him a present.
It needed to be something I could put together quickly.
The answer popped into my head.
I chewed on my bottom lip again.
Just because I couldn’t say the words out loud didn’t mean I couldn’t think them.
Me.
I was going to be his gift.
My stomach twisted at the thought he might not accept me.
But I refused to put my life on the line by flying up to the solar storm without letting him know how I felt.
I nodded to myself, turned, and prepared for the day ahead.
It was going to be another eventful one.
The party would begin in the afternoon but first, we had to finish bringing in the harvest.
We did most of it the previous day so today was a lot easier.
It helped
