My nostrils caught the scent of fresh gloon fruit growing in the nearest fields, stretching as far as the eye could see.
My heart raced at the sight of it.
It was my parents’ favorite fruit to grow.
It could be temperamental and took great loving care to nurture it correctly.
We walked between the long winding rows of trees, each leading to the farmhouse that would sit at the center, still too distant to make out.
A figure stepped from the foliage to our right.
He was thin and stocky, with a straw hat perched on his head.
He wasn’t facing us, but a single gloon tree.
He reached up for the fruit, inspected it with a keen eye, plucked a single piece, and placed it in his mouth.
A pair of narrow black horns protruded from either side of his straw hat.
Could it be? I wondered. Could this be my dad?
No, far too small for it to be him.
But Qyah did shrink with age.
But grow taller…?
That was unlikely.
I cleared my throat.
“Excuse me.”
Startled, the figure spun around.
The fruit dribbled over his lips and ran down his shirt.
He coughed and sputtered, some of the fruit having gone down the wrong way.
Ava rushed over and slapped him on the back.
He waved his hand and righted himself.
“Sorry. That was quite a shock.”
He wasn’t my mother or my father.
My hopes shrank until I noticed something about his close-set eyes.
His horns identified him as a Qyah, but it was his small eyes and sharp cheekbones that clued me in to his familial line…
“You’re not related to Fram, are you?”
He was one of my father’s friends from Qyah’an’ ka, the one who had taken a shine to Ava at my fifth birthday party.
“Yes, he’s my father.”
I knew it.
“Are they still here?” I said.
Maybe they would know what happened to my parents.
He peered between me and Ava and a spark of recognition lit his eyes.
“Are you Kayal, by any chance? And you must be Ava?”
We shared a look and wide grins spread across our faces.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s us.”
The guy’s eyes widened as he raced toward me.
He bowed to me and then Ava.
“I’ve heard so much about you! I never thought I would get to see you in person! It’s thanks to you I’m even alive! Without your warning, my father never would have met my mother! He never would have escaped from Qyah’an’ka!”
“Wait. Slow down. How did your father escape?”
The young Qyah took a deep breath.
“When the Shadow came, my father thought he was doomed. There was no chance of escape, not until your parents came around to the neighbors and picked them up in their ship. They carried as many of us as they could fit on board.”
“They saved you all?”
“My father and the other Qyah neighbors. When Dad arrived on this planet, he bumped into a lady who would later become my mom, and the rest, they say, is history.”
It was a lot to take in.
“Did anyone else escape?”
“Not if they didn’t ride in your parents’ ship. No one else had a ship with the same technology as your father. They brought them to this planet. They worked hard and finally managed to make a success of this farm.”
The single question on my mind, the one I was afraid to learn the answer to, burst from Ava’s lips.
“Are they still alive?” she said. “His parents. Pana and Yoath. Are they still here?”
The Qyah peered between us before he opened his mouth and responded.
We walked the entire length of a gloon fruit row toward the farmhouse at its center.
Other fruit and vegetables bloomed in the fields—much of it unknown to me, presumably species native to this planet.
The sunlight glinted off the white facade of the farmhouse and made it shimmer.
It was only when we drew up to the outside yard, when the sun arched around the tip of a mountain, that I saw the house in all its glory.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
It was identical to my parents’ farmhouse back home.
It’d been rebuilt brick by brick.
The colors were of a different hue as the materials mined from the soil were not the same as those on Qyah’an’ka, but there was no denying the striking familiarity of the traditional Qyah building design.
I approached the front entrance and paused to survey the front step.
After just twenty years, the indentation was much smaller than the original one back home.
A new step to carve new journeys.
For twenty years I had assumed my parents perished in that war, had been sent to a distant mine on the far reaches of the Shadow Empire, and would have died long ago after a lifetime of back-breaking labor.
“Come on.”
Ava extended her hand.
I took it.
I would follow her anywhere.
I stepped inside without having to duck my head.
The doorways had been built larger, able to take an entire Qyah at full standing height.
No one needed to show us where to go.
I knew every nook and cranny like the back of my hand.
I came to a stop, my emotions powerful and overwhelming.
I could hardly breathe.
“It’s all right,” Ava whispered. “I’m here.”
She led me into the kitchen.
The area was huge—something my mother had only dreamed about having back home.
The furniture was freshly sawn and shaped and I could smell the agent used to keep it from decaying too rapidly.
But none of that grabbed my attention.
It was the person standing at the stove.
She stood before a cluster of bubbling pots and pans, humming a tune to herself.
She wore a new cardigan, stretched around the hem by the groping hands of other children.
She came to a stop, sensing eyes on her.
She turned slowly and peered over her shoulder.
“Well, it’s about time you two showed up!”
She wiped her hands on her apron and rushed toward us at a surprising speed considering her age.
She reached up and pulled my head down to hers.
She peered into my eyes, beamed like a schoolgirl, and kissed me on the cheeks.
“I knew you would come.”
“I thought you didn’t want to know about
