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VALCAS’ WORDS reminded me of Edgar and his life spent away from his wife Elizabeth and daughter Shirlyn. I couldn’t picture Edgar appearing before a TSTA Commissioner. He played by the rules, even if he had messed up his family life by inventing a life-extending elixir and getting lost.
Shirlyn, however, had inserted a daily reminder into Romaso’s past. While at the White Tower I’d learned how she’d visited Romaso in seventeenth-century Venice and presented him with a locket, a good-bye gift that included a photograph of her that she’d signed with her name. The gift was a daily reminder, a writing on a physical object that was left in another’s past.
I cringed. “Valcas?”
“Yes?” he said, looking up from the pool of water.
“When I was at the White Tower, your younger self reprimanded Shirlyn for having left a daily reminder in Romaso’s past. But you also told her not to worry about it because the TSTA can’t charge silhouettes. Does that mean she was never charged?”
Valcas shook his head, sadly. “No,” he said. “You’re right about Shirlyn’s silhouette having immunity from breaking TSTA rules.” He frowned. “Her present version wasn’t as fortunate.”
“You mean she’s still alive—that TSTA caught up with her?”
He nodded.
I trembled. Shirlyn was alive when I’d known Edgar? He’d had no idea. I could have helped reunite them before he died, but I hadn’t known she was still alive. I’d been afraid to ask Edgar about her. I was sure that topic would have thrown him into a fit of spaced-out staring.
“What’s wrong, Calla?”
“I assumed Shirlyn was dead—that she and Elizabeth were gone because Edgar had outlived them.”
“No,” said Valcas. “I was present for Shirlyn’s TSTA hearing. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.”
“So what happened” I asked, nudging closer. “Did her family pay the fine?” I’d seen firsthand just how wealthy the Halls were. Edgar’s estate in Folkestone had been massive and luxurious.
“No,” Valcas said. “She chose to be jailed.”
My mouth dropped open.
“She told the Commissioner that she didn’t want to live a life without Romaso, that she was in love and that TSTA rules kept them from being together.”
I had to give Shirlyn credit. She was a pistol when she needed to be. But she was only sixteen years old when she’d left the daily reminder. How long had she been in jail?
I gulped. “How soon after her trip to Venice did the TSTA charge Shirlyn with an infraction?”
Valcas stood up and held out his hand. I accepted, assuming it was time to go for another routine walk through the caves. As we walked away from the pool, Valcas kept his eyes on the ground, seemingly watching each step he set in front of him. He also appeared to be stalling.
“How soon, Valcas?” I asked again, squinting as my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the caves where the light from the exterior of the Fire Falls failed to reach.
“Several weeks.”
I gasped. “Edgar lost Shirlyn to the TSTA’s jail when she was sixteen years old?”
Valcas nodded. “Didn’t you wonder why Edgar was so keenly absorbed in his work?”
“I assumed he wanted to be famous for inventing a tonic that simulated the fountain of youth—the elixir he’d made that extended his life.” I frowned. “You mean he wasn’t only pursuing his life’s work?”
Valcas let out a long, slow breath. “Edgar was never that selfish,” he said.
“Did he use his work to escape from the pain of losing his daughter? Is that how he coped?”
Valcas shrugged. “That could have been part of it. What I suspect and believe is that he wanted to live as long as he could so he could welcome Shirlyn home and spend time with her once she was set free.” He frowned. “He likely forgot what he was doing once he became lost.”
“Oh.” My shoulders crouched forward. I felt low and slightly embarrassed for how I’d judged Edgar’s motivations. I knew from meeting Edgar’s past self that he’d begun his work on the elixir before Shirlyn’s TSTA hearing. Valcas was probably right—Edgar wouldn’t have become obsessed with the invention until after he had a strong purpose for it. “Shirlyn has to be pretty old now, in Earth years, in her early one hundreds, at least.”
Valcas stopped to look into a narrow tunnel at our left. It was really dark in there.
He took my left hand in his right one and pulled me into the tunnel with him. Our clasped hands kept us from separating, but still allowed us to reach out with our free hands to feel along the wall as it grew darker.
“Yes,” answered Valcas. “And she’s still not free. Her sentence doesn’t end for another hundred years.”
“But she’ll never live that long, not without the elixir.”
“Yes, well, TSTA sentences are severe.”
I remained quiet for a few moments while I felt along the tunnel walls. They were cool and smooth. I doubted travelers before us had carved the pathways behind the Fire Falls. It was too dark... and quiet. My hope of finding my father dwindled. Had anyone else lived behind the Falls, they must have found a way out or died trying. Valcas and I didn’t see any decaying bodies or skeletons; but it wasn’t like there were crowds of people waiting in line to jump through a theater curtain made of fire. The inside of the Falls was a prison. Valcas and I were just like Shirlyn. We were all useless prisoners.
“Are you all right?” Valcas asked.
“No,” I said. “Why didn’t Shirlyn choose to seek the lost instead? That way she could have done something to help others.”
Valcas made a noise, a cross between a grunt and a sigh. “Shirlyn didn’t have a high-profile case. She was never offered a mission because she doesn’t have a travel talent.”
“But that’s not fair!” I shouted. Then I gasped, hearing my voice echo through the tunnel, listening as the caves agreed with me—NOT FAIR, Not Fair, not fair. I lifted my hand off the wall and clenched it into a fist.
“That’s discrimination,” I said. “The TSTA could have placed her on a team. She wouldn’t have had to go alone. She may have been able to help Edgar, or at least visit him from time to time so he didn’t get lost... or divorced from Elizabeth.”
Valcas stopped and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I agree,” he said. “But the TSTA is just as unfair to those of us who have travel talents.”
“What do you mean?”
“At your hearing Commissioner Reese gave you two options: pay an exorbitant fine or go on a travel mission. Jail was not an option.”
I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t want jail. I never would have chosen it.”
“That’s not what matters, Calla. Don’t you see—people who have travel talents, and who are unable to pay, are forced to go on dangerous, often deadly, missions—just like the one we’re on now. It’s not a choice, it’s an order and a calling. Although she’s in jail, Shirlyn receives regular meals and has a roof over her head. She’s in no danger of becoming lost. She’s comfortable. And safe.”
Even though I could barely see him in the dark, I turned my head away, not wanting to accept what Valcas was telling me. But I couldn’t ignore the fact that, just like me, the Commissioner hadn’t offered Ivory jail. The other accused persons that I’d watched at the hearing were also forced to choose between two options. They could choose between a fine and a mission, or a fine and jail, never all three. Mom had mentioned all three punishments when she’d contacted me at the White Tower. Was that because she didn’t know whether or not I had a travel talent?
“But why?” I whispered.
“Control,” he said. “The TSTA wants to keep the travel talents under their control, and those that can’t be controlled must be eliminated.”