Chapter Two: Oatmeal & a Guest

Ynkeri started awake from a deep sleep and, for a brief and terrifying moment, forgot where she was. Then the rest of the evening’s events rushed back to her and she lay back down, grateful to be warm for the first time in weeks, but also embarrassed. She’d begun to sob again when the boy started skinning the cat she’d killed and she didn’t think she stopped until she was asleep. The only thing Lukas had said before she fell asleep was, “I’ve never seen someone cry and eat at the same time before.”
         
Turning over, she looked around the dank basement which was lit by one bulb in the wall and a blue flicker coming from the stovetop across the room. The walls were grey and mostly bare, but for some coal sketches of trees in a garden. They were really good. Ynkeri spotted Lukas not long after, sitting in a dark corner, exactly where he’d been when she fell asleep.

“Do you know you sleep with your eyes open? It’s really creepy.”

“What? No I don’t,” Ynkeri retorted, rubbing her eyes.

“Yeah, you really do. It will take a while for it to stop.” He stood up and went to the stove. “You hungry?” he asked, waving a spoon in the air as he spoke. “That’s a stupid question- never mind.”

“How do I make it stop? The eye thing, I mean.” Ynkeri asked.

“Oh, it’s easy. You just have to trust people and feel like you’re in a safe place. Piece of cake.”

“Do you guys still have cake?”

“Oh, no. It’s just an expression. We mostly eat sludge and pretend it’s cake,” Lukas replied as a slick thunking sound hit the inside of a bowl he was pouring food into. Ynkeri gagged at the thought.

Before she could reply, Lukas began to laugh. “Ah, man. I forgot how much fun it is to mess with a frosh. Yeah, we still have cake- it’s just hard to come by.” He handed her the steaming bowl and a spoon. Almost as an after-thought, he turned back around and said, “It’s oatmeal that’s in the bowl, though sludge would also be an accurate description. No sugar or anything, but it’s best that way while you’re still getting used to eating more than once a week.”

Ynkeri put a heaping spoon in her mouth and let the “sludge” sit warm on her tongue while she savored the texture. She hated oatmeal as a kid, but now it tasted fantastic. “What’s in this?” she asked with a full mouth.

“Oats. Meal. Water. Lookit, everything is going to taste like the best food you’ve ever had for a little while. But don’t worry, your body will get bored of it and you’ll be back to whacking cats on the head in no time.” He slopped some oatmeal into another bowl and sat in the only chair in the room about ten feet away from her. Ynkeri went back to eating in silence and was genuinely sad when she came to the bottom of the bowl. Part of her wanted to put her face in and lick every inch until there was nothing left.

Before she could decide on whether she would risk it, a knock at the door startled her and the glass bowl crashed to the floor, breaking on impact into large shards. Lukas was on his feet as soon as the bowl broke and headed right for her. Ynkeri clutched the blanket to her chest and put her back against the wall. He knelt down so that he was level with her, but far enough away he couldn’t touch her. His blue eyes searched hers for a long moment, as if waiting to see what she would do. After several moments of sitting motionless, Lukas smiled, his crooked teeth oddly comforting.

“I should have told you I was expecting someone. I invited her here to speak to you. You can trust her, I promise.” Lukas said in a reassuring tone.

“How can I trust you?” Ynkeri whispered, looking at the shards of the bowl that littered the floor.

“Do you think I would have fed you my last ration of oatmeal if I wanted to hurt you?” he asked, leaning in to catch her eyes.

Ynkeri was silent for a moment before she shrugged, “Maybe you hate oatmeal.”

Lukas laughed and said, “Hating oatmeal and eating oatmeal can happen at the same time. I would know since I’ve been doing it for years.” After a pause, he asked, “Can I open the door? It’s cold and she’s a guest, like you.” Ynkeri responded with a nod, but underneath her blanket she had a white-knuckle grip on the bar of metal she’d used on the cat.

Lukas stood and turned his back on her once again to let in the visitor.
The door opened before she had time to answer and an older woman stepped into the dim, basement room. Despite the poor light, Ynkeri could see the woman had once had bright, copper hair, but now it was dull and shot through with grey at the temples. Her clothes were as dull as her hair, but they looked warm and well patched.

“Is this her?” the woman asked, looking at Ynkeri with a curious gaze. Lukas nodded. “What’s your name, girl?” she asked as her gaze returned.

Ynkeri eyed the woman for a minute before she decided to answer.

“Pretty. Do you know what it means?” The woman asked as she took off her coat. Ynkeri shook her head.

“It means, “Hero’s Daughter.” It’s a good, strong name. I think it suits you.” The woman handed her coat to Lukas and took a small step forward. Despite herself, Ynkeri felt her grip tighten further on the rod in her hand.

“I don’t feel strong. Or like a hero.”

“It’s a good thing you aren’t one then. Being “Hero’s Daughter” doesn’t make you a hero, girl. It just makes you the daughter of one. Where are your parents?” The woman asked gently, not moving from her place.
Ynkeri shook her head and blinked back tears. “Gone. Taken. I don’t know,” she finally answered. Her eyes were burning with hot tears and her throat was constricted past the point of pain. I won’t cry again, she told herself.

“Where did they get taken?”

“Terminal 5. The men were just waiting there like they knew we were coming. Why did they take my family?” Ynkeri asked, her voice breaking. The woman looked at her with pity, but she did not offer any words of encouragement.

“That, girl, is a long story and I need to hear more of yours before I can tell it. How old are you?”

“Twelve and a half,” she lied. “How old are you?”

“Old,” the woman chuckled, “don’t you know it’s impolite to ask a woman her age?”

“You asked first,” Lukas said to the woman, who replied only with a shrewd look. Lukas shrugged and headed towards the stove where he began cleaning. The woman looked back to Ynkeri after she was satisfied Lukas was not listening anymore.

“Where were you coming back from?” The woman asked.

“Everyone knows Terminal 5 goes to Arnor,” Ynkeri replied, confused. How could anyone not know about Arnor? 

“What’s it like on Arnor?”

“The whole planet is an ocean- there are islands all over that people visit when they go on vacation. It has three moons and nothing really grows there.” The woman frowned as she said the last which left Ynkeri even more puzzled. Why would it matter if stuff could grow on Arnor? 

“What year did you go to Arnor?” The woman asked.

“5th Age, 316th year. We were gone for a week.” Ynkeri said, her voice betraying her. We were only gone for a week. 

“It was a long week, Hero’s Daughter,” the woman replied with a tinge of sadness in her voice. “I’m an old woman and tired. May I sit,” she asked, gesturing to the chair in the middle of the room. Ynkeri nodded and watched as the woman sat with some effort. The woman rubbed her knees while she spoke.

“Let me say first that you are not the first person to come back to a different world than the one you left. Some came back a year later, others fifty. You’re an exception and maybe the last one to arrive, though we won’t know until someone like you shows up again. Or doesn’t. But I’m getting ahead of the story. What did you learn about the travel system when you were in school?”

“It’s a mechanical system that transports people from one planet to another with little or no time delay, depending on the distance. Not everyone can do it, though. It has something to do with our blood, I think.”

The woman nodded, “Genetics, not blood- though blood is how we tell whether or not a person can make the trip.

“In that one week while you were on Arnor, something happened- we don’t really know what. But whatever it was, it broke the machinations that make Itinerant travel dependable. Traveling is still possible, of course,” she said gesturing towards Ynkeri, “but it’s not like it was before. An Itinerant can’t pass through a Terminal and know when they’re going to reach their destination anymore. At first, this problem was so bad, many feared to travel at all. But then people started coming back ten or fifteen years later, looking the same way they did when they left.”

“Plastic surgeons went out of business overnight,” Lukas broke in with a laugh.

“You’re going to wish you were that cat last night, if you don’t shut it, Lu,” the woman said testily. She turned back to Ynkeri and continued.

“Wives went on trips and came back to find their husbands were twenty years older or dead. Children they’d left as toddlers were now married and had children of their own. Families were torn apart. That’s how it started. Now, Itinerants are feared and hated.”

“I don’t understand,” Ynkeri said, dismayed. “Why would anyone hate my father for being an Itinerant doctor?”

“Because your father can live forever.”

“No he can’t,” Ynkeri scoffed, “No one can.” Scientists had been promising that kind of stuff for years, but it never came true.

The woman shook her head and continued, “Theoretically, your father could continue to travel until the whole universe gets sucked into a black hole. He would both age normally and live forever. A religious zealot would say that scientists have broken the natural law of mortality, creating a way for man to live as God- apparently it’s quite blasphemous. A normal person you would pass on the street would think of us as thieves and murderers, like gypsies thousands of years ago- hated and feared because that’s what the religious zealots want them to think.

“And these days, no one else’s opinion matters since they control Eris in its entirety. No one cares that we didn’t ask for the gene. And we can’t go to a hospital and just have the gene removed, although they did try that for a while with distressing consequences. Since our genes can’t be altered, the next best solution is to capture us and keep us from continuing the genetic line.”

“So my parents are in prison?” Ynkeri asked, hopefully. The woman didn’t say they kill the people they take.

“All any of us know is that if you are taken, you never come back.” The grim look on the woman’s face said more. It said, “If they’re not dead, they might as well be.”

“Are you and Lukas like me?” Ynkeri asked.

“Yes. We have a network of people who survive on Eris, though it’s difficult.”

“How can you stay here?”

“How can we leave? You have to go through a genetic scanner before you can enter a public place- even the library requires a prick of the finger. And the Terminals? Most of them are walled up and the ones that aren’t, like Terminal 5, are heavily guarded. Now we know why- no one in their right minds would try to leave Eris by that terminal. Leaving is, if not impossible, more than a small challenge and inevitably a shot in the dark. There are Itinerants who’ve lived underground for years here without detection, though that gets more difficult with each passing day. We know what we’re up against here. Out there is a mystery, best left to the imagination.”
Ynkeri disagreed with that last statement. Anywhere would be better than here.

“I can tell you have a defiant streak in you. That will likely work to your benefit here, but for now you look like you could use another bowl of something hot and a long rest.” The woman stood and looked to Lukas, “Feed her whatever you have left. Pik will be by later with some more supplies.”
Lukas nodded and turned back to whatever it was he was doing.

“When you’re feeling up to it, ask Lukas to bring you around my way. You survived a long while on your own and we could use someone like you.” Without waiting for a response the old woman stood and put on her coat. “My name is Heli, by the way. It means “Torch.’ I can’t decide if I’m supposed to set things on fire or light a pathway.”

“Can’t you do both?” Ynkeri said.

Heli shrugged, “I suppose one naturally follows the other. Which one should come first, though, I wonder.” Heli smiled and opened the door and then was gone.