I needed this tiny, shivering thing with its white and grey eyes and its little nose and flat pink mouth. It was the answer to a question I did not yet have words enough to remember. The answer to something important.
“I do not know who you are, little star,” I said slowly. “And I do not know who I am.” The little star’s eyes got wider and wider as I spoke, like it could not fathom a creature such as me capable of complex speech. I could barely fathom it myself.
The words felt old and new, difficult and true as I spoke them.
“All I know is that I cannot let you go.”
For what it was worth, the little star did not try to go. It merely stood, trembling and staring, its liquid eyes tracking all over my face. Its gaze settled on one side of my face, above my snout, in a place I felt I should have been able to see out of. I released one of my hands from its shoulders, pressing my fingertips into a mangled void. There was a slight twinge of pain, like a wound not quite healed.
I had another eye. Did I lose it?
When? And how?
I let my hand fall from my face in consternation. I’d been so awe-struck, so relieved, at the little bit of light this star had brought back. But already my lack of understanding and memory began to gnaw at me.
I had the nostalgia of this river. The little star. One remaining eye.
And I felt as if I had nothing at all.
“Come with me.”
There was little point in me actually saying the words. The creature in my grip could not have fought me if it tried. It was too small, too weak. It stumbled and cried out as I fastened my right hand around the back of its neck and led it forward towards the water. The water – the water ahead and in my head – had something for me. A key for the blackened box of my mind. If I just got in there, washed myself in it, submerged myself, maybe something would come back to me.
I was not willing to let go of the little star even for a moment, though.
So it had to come too.
The swaying reeds and rushes were even taller than the creature I marched before me. The puffed, fluffy tips of the plants grazed my scales and the bottom of my snout, a tickle so familiar that it practically itched.
The little star did try to fight me in the end. When we reached the sandy bank of the river and water sloshed over its feet, it yelped and careened backwards against me. I held it in place, then with a soft grunt, tossed it up over my shoulder. I didn’t have the focus to fight with the creature. I needed to get into the water, breathe, and remember.
I also needed to maintain constant physical contact with the little star. So this would have to do.
“I just need to get in the water. Stop struggling,” I murmured, wading forward as the little star bucked and wriggled. Its knees crashed against my chest, its hips bucking wildly at my shoulder. I clamped one arm across the backs of the creature’s thighs, then fastened my other hand across its backside, holding it in place as I waded hip-deep into the water.
I stopped when the water reached my waist, staring down the length of the wide river, watching the way the sun disappeared and turned the surface to something silken and hushed. I felt myself frowning, the muscles in my face wracked with tension in response to the answers that I was sure were right there. Right there and just out of reach. This water meant something. The corresponding river raged inside my head, throwing images and words upwards, like the bones of lost ships hurled up to the storming surface.
For a fraction of a second, the river in front of me and inside of me converged.
The sun warms the Bohnebregg river as I wade in up to my waist. I turn back to see someone – a male – in the water with me. Behind him stands the palace on the banks.
“But you aren’t even looking,” the man says. His hair is bone-white, his eyes burning like pale blue fire. His wings, black where mine are green, rustle behind him, lit up by both the drenching sun and the bright blue points of his starmap.
“You aren’t looking for yours either,” I toss back at him easily. It’s a conversation we’ve had countless times before. He’s always been far more reserved and risk-averse than I have.
“I am younger than you,” he counters. “I have more time.”
I grin and thwack the water with my tail, sending a small tsunami crashing towards him. He does not even flinch as the glittering water explodes on his stone-coloured skin.
“Hard to believe you’re the younger one. You sound like some wizened old crone,” I scoff. He’s always been this way. A serious, stoic worrier. I slosh water at him again, more gently this time, trying to get him to ease up, to see that there is more time. There will always be more time.
But his gaze only narrows, his wings twitching with tension.
“You know what will happen,” he says gravely. “You know what will happen if you do not find-”
He vanished.
So did the sun. And the palace.
I whirled, searching for him, but he was gone.
I knew him. I knew him.
What his name was, or who he was to me, I could not say. But I felt I knew him nearly as well as myself. That he was someone important. The place where my left eye used to be ached as I tried to keep the image of him fastened in my mind. My chest heaved, my breath catching in my throat. I clung to the only thing I could, the only anchor I had in this river – the Bohnebregg river. My little star.
I clutched at its legs, feeling like if I let go, I would completely cease to exist.
CHAPTER SIX
Suvi
I’d long given up on fighting the alien monster’s hold on me. It was too big, too strong, and wasting my energy was pointless. Instead, as it dragged me into the river and held me on its shoulder, staring intently into the distance, I stilled. I carefully placed my palms flat against the muscled expanse between the creature’s wings, lifting my head and staring through the curtain of my hair to get my bearings.
This landscape was nothing like where we’d just been. There was no sign of the caves or the valley we’d come from. No sign of the ship, either. The sandy soil was a golden beige instead of blue. And all the water. We’d relied completely on our ship’s water supplies because there’d barely been any on the surface of the cave planet, let alone massive rivers like this. We knew from surveys and scans that the entire cave planet had been like that – mostly dry, with the only life forms being fungi and forms of bacteria. I gasped when, straight ahead, some sort of water fowl took off from a nearby bank, wings unfolding in a glittering array.
This isn’t the same planet.
I gulped when that instinctive realization hit me. My rational mind tried to fight against it. I hadn’t made it to the ship, so how the hell could I have ended up on another world entirely? I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to relive the moment when the winged alien had cracked the sky like the shell of an egg and pulled me through it. It hadn’t felt like much of anything at all. It had been like stepping through a door.