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TO SAY that I had trouble falling asleep that night would qualify as the Understatement of the Year.
The cold, hard ground bit at me through my sleeping bag. I longed for the warmth of the fire outside, but Ivory had insisted that we sleep inside because it was safer. Safer from what? The Uproar could break through the building just as easily as it could attack us unsheltered, outside in the open air.
I turned over onto my stomach, which was grumbling, complaining that it was still mostly empty. The canned tomato soup and baked beans from the TSTA jet’s emergency supply had been good, but there wasn’t much. I’d left most of my share for the boys after noting that Ivory hadn’t eaten anything. I didn’t know whether the TSTA expected us to starve in an emergency situation, or whether they thought we’d get lost before we got hungry.
On top of that, I was so filled with the anticipation of finally getting to meet my father that I couldn’t relax enough to doze. I feared that Ray’s idea would lead to bitter disappointment: either not finding my father or finding him dead. Worse yet, maybe we’d find someone lonely and lost who either would not recognize me or would not want to meet me.
I turned over in the bag again. We were in a Nowhere created according to Ivory’s specifications. How unsafe could it be? It wasn’t like she could prevent me from going outside for a walk or getting a drink of water.
I crawled out of my sleeping bag and wrapped a sweatshirt around me.
Since Ivory and I were staying in the innermost room of the two-roomed cabin, Ray and Valcas were the only ones with access to the front door, which meant that I needed to cross through their room to exit the cabin.
I carefully tiptoed out of my room and into the next one. It was dark, but there was just enough light trickling in through the doorway to see by. I squinted. The front door was cracked open. I could make out that only one of the two sleeping bags in Valcas and Ray’s room was occupied. The other bag hadn’t been unrolled. I assumed that one belonged to Valcas.
Curious, wide-awake and with nothing else to do, I carefully stepped past Ray and ventured outside with the intention of hanging out near the fire pit.
Dry grasses crackled beneath my feet. Drawn to the glow of the fire pit’s dying embers, I knelt down and rubbed my hands above their warmth.
Before long, I felt the presence of someone else. I looked up and saw a shadow, a figure approaching me from the direction of the river.
“Calla?”
Valcas wore his glasses as he walked toward me, but then he took them off when he reached the camp. His hair was wet, presumably from having bathed in the river, and he’d changed into warmer clothing.
“Hey, Valcas,” I said as he squatted down next to me. With only the soft light of the embers to see by, his pale eyes didn’t appear as freakish to me as they had in the past. If anything, the red-orange glow provided color to his irises, where color was lacking.
“If we don’t find him tomorrow,” I whispered, “can you take me to see a past version of him—of my father?”
Valcas shook his head and responded softly. “That wouldn’t do either one of us any good.”
I felt my chin tremble and quickly looked away. “But I thought you said that seeing past versions of others, of silhouettes, could be a healing experience.”
“I’m sorry, Calla. There are many things I would do for you, but I can’t be intentionally responsible for that. I can’t let you, much less help you, become lost.”
I sighed, remembering how easy it was to get caught up in a past world while time slipped by.
Valcas took my cold hands in his and pulled us into a seated position on the ground, nearer the warmth of the fading campfire. “If I could, I would bring silhouettes of him to you, as many as I could find, but I don’t have that talent. Even if I did, I still wouldn’t have the insight to recognize whether or not it was truly helping.”
I nodded and squeezed his hands briefly, to let him know that part of me understood and agreed that what he was saying was true. As I looked into his eerie eyes, I knew that what was real was the present, along with all of its good and bad.
“I owe my life to Plaka,” he said. “He saved me from myself—he taught me how not to get lost.”
I frowned. I felt like he kept telling me the same words, over and over; yet, each time he made me wonder what those words meant. “What exactly happened to you to—?”
Valcas grasped my hands again and pulled me closer. “But, there’s something else. You also saved me.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yes. When I made my promise to Plaka, you gave me a purpose, something real and present.”
Wincing, I scooted back slightly but didn’t pull my hands away. “I had nothing to do with my father’s request. I was just a baby—”
“I’m sure I doubted what I saw captured in the photograph, the daily reminder that no longer exists,” he said. “But when I saw your memories and recordings of your time spent with my younger self at the White Tower, I started to wonder whether something more between us was meant to be, whether it was even possible.” He swallowed. “Did you really feel that way about me?”
The blood drained from my cheeks and then rushed back in again. My head swam with everything that Valcas had just told me, and the meaning behind it—the reason he’d turned red when I told him about recording at the White Tower.
He’d already known I’d learned how to record. The travel glasses told him that—my pair, the original pair altered by Edgar. Valcas had borrowed them from me before leaving TSTA Headquarters, when we’d swapped glasses so he could look up something his current backup pair hadn’t correctly captured. There’d been a malfunction.
My mind raced, searching for the answer to his question that hung over my head as thick as smoke and as just as stifling. He’d seen us together, along with my thoughts and feelings toward green-eyed Valcas, his past self, during and after our last flight at the White Tower.
And I, who was so concerned all of the time about others delving into my private life, had given him the glasses without thinking. I’d been so preoccupied with my own loss and regret—not to mention the recent TSTA hearing and penalty—that I never considered anything like this would happen. I’d just handed them over to Valcas—my private thoughts and feelings—as if they’d meant nothing to me at all.
But they did. Green-eyed Valcas’ words sounded in my ears: Then whichever version of me that is with you will be extraordinarily happy. That version of Valcas was gone, as well as all of his memories of me, and just the thought of it made me sick. The photograph of us, the daily reminder, had been destroyed by the version of Valcas that sat before me—the version who wasn’t just asking me if I’d had feelings for him, but something more. Buried deep inside his question was another one: whether I could feel that way about him again.
I sucked in a deep breath as I prepared my answer. “I couldn’t help being charmed by the way you used to be, before the travel glasses changed you. I didn’t expect to feel that way, but yes, I did. It happened and now it’s over.”
Valcas cringed. When he spoke again, his words sounded choked, as if I’d just punched him in the gut. “Of course, I’ve lost some of my looks. Have I changed much more than the color of my eyes?”
I frowned as I considered this. “Yes. You seemed broken, but not nearly as much as you are now, and there was something more lively and hopeful about you.” Looking down at Valcas’ grip on my hands, I added, “You were also a lot less threatening.”
He let go immediately. “Then I will need to change my disposition as well as my eye color.”
I pulled my sweatshirt around me more tightly and wondered aloud: “I’m not sure which of the two would be easier to fix.”