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A CURIOUS PACKAGE
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THE RAIN WAS COMING. At this point, it was not a matter of if, but when. Savara gazed out at the cobblestone streets, letting her eyes follow as far as the roads would lead and out to the ocean beyond. The palms danced in the breeze, along with the occasional stray paper and leaf. The salty air hung densely in her lungs. It had a tingle to it that rattled her bones.
Not a grey cloud in sight, and yet, Savara thought as her eyes bobbed in tune with the boats on the sea, there’s going to be a storm. Her feet carried her automatically to Skully’s, a small hole in the wall at the edge of town that served a decent coffee and better cookies, and which she and Jasper frequented almost every other day.
Their favourite café was scarcely populated at these hours. Schools had not officially let out and work had just resumed. Savara rested her hand on the glass, fogging it beneath her palm, and peered through the window. As expected, save for two others, the place was empty. Jasper had walked ahead, but she lingered, watching as her handprint disappeared. Normally, she wouldn’t have worried about the fogged glass—or have stopped to check the window—but the same shifting feeling from earlier nagged at her again. She stared at her palm, fixating on a tingling sensation where it had touched the glass.
“Are you coming?” Jasper called, holding the door open for her, book she’d found weighing down the satchel on his shoulder.
Savara looked back at the disappearing fog on the glass. The feeling—whatever it was—had subsided. She turned to Jasper and nodded, wondering if it hadn’t all been in her head.
The warmth, the smell, their seats, a bell. Everything in its place in this tiny little café. Jasper went to order as she saved the table. Outside, a man walking his dog crossed her line of sight. Her eyes were drawn to the creature, and its eyes to her. She watched it pause mid-stride to take her in. The brutish, impatient man yanked at the dog’s collar. She raised a hand to her neck as though she too were being tugged at, but her hand met only skin.
“Something wrong?” asked Jasper, attempting to make himself known. He slumped himself back into the uncomfortable booth chair in front of her.
“What?” Savara replied, snapping back to reality. Her eyes fell on the plate and widened. She let the scent saunter up her nostrils as her mouth began to salivate.
“Your neck,” he pointed out as he munched down on a cookie. “Does it hurt?”
“No.” She figured there was no use explaining what had happened. She couldn’t.
It wasn’t the first time Savara had “over-empathised” with someone or something, that strong emotions from others were reflected in her. She enjoyed it when it started, back on the cusp of seventeen, and the incidents were few and far between. Back then, it was happiness, and almost always Jasper’s happiness. Anytime he felt wildly happy, she noticed his emotions trickling over to her, tingling her skin, lightening her heart as though they were her own. Since then, she’d started feeling it in animals, and the range of emotions grew too. Sadnesses, anxieties, and fears that were not her own crawled under her skin, afflicting her as they did the people around her. At first, she believed it was only paranoia, but one incident proved it was more.
A man gently caressing his wife’s cheek, only to slap her a few moments later would be cause for outrage in any case, but when Savara heard the sweet nothings in her ear, felt the heated palm on her own cheek, and tasted the blood in her mouth, she could hardly believe she had only watched the incident. Being unable to explain it, it remained yet another secret of hers, forcing her to invent all manner of excuses for her sudden outbursts.
“Mosquito,” she lied.
“How odd,” he chomped again. “Can’t imagine why. It’s the dry season.”
“The rain is coming.”
“Sav. I don’t think we are seeing the same skies.”
“Trust me,” she said, unsure of how she knew it, but she was certain. “It’s coming.”
“Yeah, alright. Five dollars says it doesn’t rain ‘til next month.” He laughed, his usual optimism adding an extra bronzing to his sun-marked skin. “Hey, you aren’t still mad about what your uncle said this morning?”
“No... I mean, I’m not mad. I just feel like I need some time alone to figure things out.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Life...” Savara gazed out the window to hide her confusion. “I had that dream again,” she said, attempting to change the subject.
“The one where the dinosaur uncovers you?” Jasper replied in a successful attempt at making her chuckle. “No? Alright, just me then.” He laughed along with her. “Seriously, Sav. What’s going on? You know you can tell me anything.”
“I know,” she sighed, thinking of how best to explain her dilemma without sounding ridiculous. “Do you ever get the feeling you don’t entirely know yourself?”
Jasper brushed a stray curl from in front of her eyes and behind her ear. “I don’t think anyone really knows themselves, Sav.”
“You don’t get it, Jasper. I’ve felt like this for as long as I can remember, like a part of me is missing and I need to find it or else...” She trailed off, unwilling to speak the words that made her heart wince. I’ll never be whole.
Jasper fixed his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Life doesn’t come with meaning, Sav. You have to make it meaningful.”
“That’s all well and good for you to say, Jasper. You’re on track to becoming a world-renowned archaeologist. You know what you’re supposed to do, and you’re good at it. I’m nothing, nobody special... just me. I can hardly even remember my childhood.”
“Sav, I think you’re being a little too hard on yourself. Nobody really knows what they’re supposed to do. We react to the world around us and hope for the best.” He reached over to take her hand. “I only became an archaeologist because my parents were an archaeologist and an anthropologist. Not really any wiggle room there.”
“So, you never felt...” Savara thought of the whispering book in Jasper’s bag, the strange dream that had been haunting her for the past month, and today’s off-kilter feeling. A word appeared on her tongue, one that did little to temper her nerves and rather raised goosebumps on her arms. “...called?” she said, her voice, barely a whisper. “To go somewhere you’ve never been? To do something you don’t fully understand?”
Jasper sighed. “Is that why you want to leave?”
Savara felt sadness trickle from his hand to hers. Ignoring the gentle smile on his face, she knew the comment had hurt him. “I don’t know.” She pulled her hand away from his, but she couldn’t unfeel his sadness. “I don’t feel I belong here anymore.”
Jasper was good with her. Even if he didn’t understand what she was going through, he always made the effort to support her. She could always count on him to prop her up when she needed it or balance out her wilder ideas and impulses.
“Whatever you need, just know I’ll be there for you.”
“Savara?” The cheery, heavily accented voice startled them both. The waitress stood beside their booth, holding a package wrapped in brown paper and twine. “You are Savara, sì?”
Savara looked from the package to the woman sceptically. “Yes...”
“This is for you.” The waitress smiled and rested the box on their table.
“What is it?” Jasper asked.
“It was left for you.” The waitress glanced around the café confusedly before returning to them. “It has your name,” she added, as if that were the answer to all their questions.
“Thank you?”
“Prego.” The waitress, content with her good deed, smiled again and returned to her counter.
“Strange,” said Jasper, glaring down at the package as he munched on a cookie.
“Very,” Savara replied, turning it over in her hand.
“Part of your calling?”
“Not quite.”
“Well, in that case, what is... Vi-san-thee?” Jasper asked, the sound garbled by the chunks between his teeth.
The charged word rolled over her skin. “What?”
A plate crashed somewhere in the back. The hanging bell chimed over the closing door. Up above, thunder boomed. The cotton-candy clouds were quickly replaced by menacing grey ones.
Savara looked up as a streak of sheet lightning rolled through the darkened skies. Her heart began to race.
“Looks like I owe you five dollars,” Jasper said, reaching into an empty wallet before blushing. “Or... dinner at Mauro’s after I get my next paycheck?”
“You’re ridiculous,” she said, her lips parting into a warm smile.
“But seriously... Visanthe? It’s written on the side, real small,” he remarked, sending crumbs from his lips to the table as he spoke.
She turned the package over, and to her surprise, he was right. Written tightly into one of the corners were the words, Mendia Square, Idune, Visanthe, in sparkling silver that, like the pages of the book, looked too wet to touch but didn’t smudge under her touch. She passed her fingers over the word but recoiled as a strange pulse flowed from them to her palms. Static electricity, she figured, though was not entirely convinced. Her eyes glazed over as her fingers danced lazily over a scar on her middle finger.
“I think it’s a place...” Savara didn’t elaborate. She couldn’t. As much as she wanted to, she didn’t know how or why she knew of it in the first place. The word had stirred something in her mind like the remnant of a dream. It tasted of metal and cold, and like a witch’s spell, it brought her mind back to a place of fantasy.
Elegant marble floors. Laughter bubbled like the sparkling champagne flowing from the fountain before her. Glittering ball gowns, twirling like Russian tops. And flames that took on lives of their own. Courtiers, jesters, dragons...
She reasoned must have come from a story. One of those childish wishes she had abandoned when she found out that the world no longer held mystery and magic. She shook her head, casting away the strange sensation.
They both glared down at the curious little box wrapped neatly in brown paper. The twine holding it together seemed to be calling for it to be opened, but neither moved to do so.
“Are you going to open it?” Jasper asked finally, shovelling another cookie into his mouth.
“I don’t know...” Savara ran her fingers over the coarse wrapping. There it was again. A low thrum of power. She found herself tugging at the twine, wondering what secret the mysterious box held, all the while not convinced that it should be opened. She shifted in her seat, finally deciding to wait as she gazed at the length of glass again, watching as the first few droplets clung to their spot on the window like little clear frogs on a see-through wall.
“They say quite the storm is coming,” said the heavily accented voice from before.
The waitress’ return startled her once more. Savara felt more on-edge than usual, and had no good explanation for it, other than the change in weather.
“So they say,” Jasper said with his lackadaisical smile.
“We close up early, just in case,” added the waitress. “I can get you anything else?”
“Just the bill, thanks.”
“Are you sure you’re okay, Sav?” Jasper asked.
“Yeah...” she replied, though her fingers had once again begun to dance around the base of her middle finger.
When the waitress returned this time, she seemed more curious than before. Her eyes scrutinised the package a little too carefully. Savara pulled it in close and handed her the money.
The woman blinked and smiled, as though having forgotten her curiosity. “Please to tell your uncle that Shari says hi,” she said as she retreated to the bar.
“...I will,” Savara replied hesitantly. In the many years she’d lived here, she’d never once seen her uncle set foot in this place.
The sky grew dark. Some of the droplets had even taken to racing down the glass. Still, the swollen clouds seemed to be holding back their full force. Savara reckoned it was a good idea to leave now before they decided to burst.
The damp air howled through the streets, whisking flowers off branches while the palm leaves rustled in chorus. The frigid wind licked her cheeks and tousled her hair. Savara pulled her coat tightly, but it wasn’t enough to stop the chill from seeping into her bones. Jasper’s warm lips had turned blue, looking as though he could use something hot to drink when they got back to the house.
She shoved the package into her coat pocket to keep it from getting wet, but more importantly, to stop the thoughts of opening it from nagging at her. If she believed in signs, like the ones in her many story books, she might have thought its mysterious arrival meant something.
But she was already too grown for that kind of nonsense.
The pair picked up the pace, noticing more dark clouds on the horizon.
