CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
If the ghosts or Val can tell how quiet our flight back was, they don’t show it. They’re bustling around Everest the second we land, and I take the first opportunity to slip away in the chaos.
I’m reorganizing my trunk in my tent when I hear a soft cough at the door.
“I wanted to see if you were alright,” Ender says, adjusting his glasses. “You left so quickly.”
I wave him inside. Everest wouldn’t have told anyone about his offer, and I’m not sure how much I’m ready to share when I’ve barely begun processing it myself. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t going to be fun conversation.”
He shrugs. “We like you even when you aren’t, you know?
Besides, it’s not like the energy here has been as fun lately.
We mostly pelted Everest with questions about the garden and the clock vines.
He told us it was horribly painful and that he was sure he wouldn’t make it down.
Cyrus was summoned away on some godly business.
Then we talked to Valentin more about how she’s feeling before the big trip home. ”
There’s a question there that sweet, loving Ender would never ask outright, but I’ve known him long enough to see it written in bold print. Everest may not have to tell him anything about our conversation, but Ender’s perceptive enough to know what’s on my mind.
I try to feign ignorance. “Anything for pity with that man. As I’m sure you all expect, he’s exaggerating greatly. It looked uncomfortable, but he barely groaned. How’s Valentin feeling?”
“Excited. Eager to see her family again. She was describing her kid to Beam, said they’d be best friends. I was just listening.”
I pause halfway through restacking my sweaters.
Ender and I have talked at length about this, how the both of us feel invisible in busier settings, our natures drawing us back when most people come forward.
We’ve all known each other so long that it’s usually not as much of an issue, but he gets quiet with people he doesn’t know as well.
“Ender, you know Beam is your best friend, right?”
“Sure,” he grumbles, not meeting my eye.
He gets like this sometimes, caged inside an overactive mind that’s constantly telling him things that aren’t true.
It hurts to watch, especially when I recall how I was at fourteen, caught between wanting more and less from myself, second-guessing the person I was in the hopes of who I wanted to be.
Ender’s caught in the currents of teenhood, and even when he has better days, I witness how hard he has to work to hold the pieces of himself together.
When I first arrived at the fair, it was Ender who broke through the walls of my apprehension.
He was a kindred spirit, a soulful boy with home in his eyes, filled with more nostalgia than any child should be able to hold within themselves.
That’s how we grew closer, exchanging tales of our past lives.
It’s why he’s the only one who knows about my work with Quill.
“You know, in between returning all of the artifacts and preparing to take Valentin back, I’ve been wondering if it could work with us as well,” I say casually, trying and failing to read his expression.
“I know we don’t have an object from your timeline, but we could still try.
I know we can’t bring you back to life, but maybe it would be nice to pay a visit? ”
Ender slowly spins in place, staring at the ground. “I don’t know if I want to.”
It’s not what I was expecting. Some anxiety about the proposal, yes, knowing Ender and his inclination towards forecasting paths forward and overthinking every single detail, but not such a staunch refusal.
“But you miss it so much,” I say, frowning. “We could see your family, your friends. Of course, if that’s too difficult, I understand. I thought that’s why you’ve been distant, because you’re considering the possibilities our current situation could offer.”
He’s been so down recently, and I’ve pinned it on Valentin’s arrival, on all the talk of family and home.
On the imminent sense of my own trip away, the unspoken sentiment that’s so clearly on everyone’s minds.
It’s because it’s what I’ve been thinking, but it’s clear from his body language, hunched shoulders, and a hint of confusion that I’ve missed a step here.
“I’m not the one who’s been distant,” Ender says incredulously.
“You’re the one who’s been avoiding us ever since we found out where Val came from.
And it feels like we’re losing you; you talk to us less and less every day.
That’s why I’ve been sad. That’s why Beam’s been sad, but we don’t want to add to your sadness with ours. ”
I don’t know what to say. Ender continues, “Missing home is different from wanting to go back. They’ve moved on without me. And I’ve moved on without them. But I know it’s different for you.”
“I’ve never hidden what I wanted from any of you,” I tell Ender, trying not to get defensive. “Especially not from you.”
“I know that,” Ender says. “And I’ve supported you through everything with Quill, kept your secrets on every trip.
I’ll support you if you go back, because I get it.
Maybe in the past, I would do the same. If I were alive…
who knows? But I don’t have that option.
I don’t want to go back just to be invisible. ”
“But…” I prompt him.
“But if we only have limited time left together, I want you to be here,” he says quietly. “I know this is what you do, shut everyone out when you’re upset, but the clock’s winding down, Ryka.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “I haven’t shut any of you out in centuries.”
“You also haven’t let us all the way in,” Ender says, in that soft wise way of his that cuts me to the core. “And that’s okay. And I know you have your own family that you’re waiting to go back to, but–”
“You’re family too, Ender,” I say hoarsely.
I’m struggling to find the words to encapsulate what I’m feeling – a confusing mix of guilt and anguish.
Have I really been so far removed from them all?
If so, it’s only because the fork ahead feels more terrifying than ever, the kind of dream that you’ve waited so long for, the weight of expectations on it feels incalculably heavy.
“I know that,” he says. The candles that hover behind him flicker, illuminating his frame like a faded movie reel. “I wish you did too.”
As he floats away, I wonder when he started growing up faster than me.
I can’t sleep that night. I toss and turn, torn between my conversation with Ender, Everest’s offer, and the reckoning of what tomorrow brings now that he’s up on his feet again. The next day we finish returning all the artifacts, and the only thing left is Valentin.
In the evening, everyone gathers at the archives, and I shun the pathetic, cowardly human in me who wants to remain in bed and join them there to discuss our fate.
It’s a small group: Beam, Ender, Everest, Valentin, Keshav, and Geneva.
Cyrus must not have returned from his obligations.
They’re mid-conversation when I enter, and all I catch is Valentin animatedly talking about her sun-soaked apartment in San Francisco.
The mood immediately dwindles into something far more somber when they see me.
Well, no point in delaying the inevitable.
“I’m going to go with Valentin, but I think it’s best everyone else stays behind,” I say, bracing for protests. I’m met with worse.
Silence.
“Will you be coming back?” Geneva asks after several seconds of wrestling with the quiet. For once, I’m thankful for her directness. There’s only so long I can hide in my tent, shuffling through the thoughts in my head. They deserve better from me.
“I don’t think so,” I tell them honestly. “I want to see my mom, if possible…”
I’ve never had to make a trip like this, one with a purpose to explore, to see people and places either in greeting or farewell. I don’t know if it’s possible with the string I normally borrow from Everest, or what it’ll look like if I let go.
Everest meets my eyes. I owe him a separate conversation about his offer.
“I can make sure you have enough time,” he says. I nod appreciatively, then pull away, unable to look at him any longer. It feels like my intestines are twisted into tight knots.
“Will it be safe for you to go on your own?” Ender asks. “Maybe one of us should come along, just to make sure you still have access to the timeline.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I reply.
“Returning Valentin will be the last piece of the puzzle, and I don’t know what its repercussions may be.
There could be a seismic shift in the carousel; it may be safer for you all to stay here.
It could be even more disruptive if I choose to stay behind as well. ”
More silence. None of them are looking at me. “My mom is sick. My dad died a few years ago in Val’s timeline. She’s by herself. If it weren’t for that…I don’t know what I’d do. But I can’t turn away from her. Not after everything she’s done for me.”
“We understand,” Keshav murmurs. Geneva looks like she’s physically biting her tongue.
“I don’t,” Beam says. “You decided this now? One day before? So we barely have time to say goodbye?”
Silence is a concrete presence in the archives. Everyone shifts uncomfortably, including Quill, who’s stopped flipping her pages in pretense of conducting additional research. Cillian emerges from a shelf and levies an accusatory meow at me.
My chest is cavernous, echoing with questions I can’t answer.
Ender steals a non-surreptitious glance at me. “Don’t do that B. Can’t you see this is hard for her, too?”
“You can say goodbye here,” Valentin offers.
Beam whirls towards her. “I don’t want to say goodbye.”
There isn’t enough oxygen in this place. I want to run outside, swaddle myself in the kind of chilling clarity that only winter at the fair can bring. I’ve had nearly five hundred years in this place, with these people; so why does it feel like it wasn’t enough?