Iliona and the resumption of ties Read online

  “You know, what I wanted to talk about it’s not that important after all. I guess it can wait. Besides, it would take some time, and there’s another place I need to stop by yet. So, I’ll text you later Bob.”

  He said standing up while the other two just observed him leave.

  “I guess I see you soon too, Muriel, Bye.” He added.

  And before Bob could say anything Timothy was already opening the door again.

  “Bye, see you around,” Muriel replied a bit louder than usual for he was already outside.

  And he rode his bike back to his home.

  *

  As if Timothy didn't have enough things to wonder about when he was approaching his house he found a gray-haired person standing in front of it. With both hands on his hips, staring toward his attic window, now properly closed because he had replaced the piece of rope Winda had cut last night. The person was Ed. “Great,” Timothy thought to himself.

  “Good morning.” Timothy stopped the bike and said toward Ed who turned to him calmly and said:

  “Good morning, kid.”

  Despite being thirteen and feeling less day as a kid, Timothy didn’t mind being called so, but in the way that Ed put the word out it made him feel uncomfortable because it came such in a scornful way.

  “Is there any problem? I mean…you seemed to be staring at my attic…”

  “Oh no, there’s no problem. I was just walking around, getting to know the neighborhood.” In fact, he had just returned from Winda’s.

  Timothy noticed he wasn’t using sunglasses anymore and his eyes were black with regular round pupils.

  “Aren’t your eyes sensitive to clarity?”

  “Yah, some days more than others, though. Today, for example, I’m cool.”

  “Hmm,” Timothy mumbled without sure of what to do next since Ed wasn’t showing signs that he would leave. So he looked at Ed’s house and noticed it was all closed, with just the blue van parked inside its flowerless garden.

  “Would you like to go there?” Ed said, following Timothy’s eyes.

  It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but as a matter of conversation he said:

  “Maybe… I just got inside there once when the last people who lived in there invited us…”

  “But you can’t.” Ed cut him, and Timothy was surprised with the sudden dryness in his tone. He turned his gaze on Timothy and continued:

  “Please, do not get in there, ever.” He said seriously, and seconds later, he added with a smile: “Have a nice day, kid.” And he gave his back to Timothy as he headed to his house.

  Timothy stood still in there a little longer, in the middle of the street, watching Ed walk away again, for the second time since he had met him, trying to digest all that behavior.

  Couple minutes later he headed to his house, which was empty, because his parents were in downtown, working. He kept his bike behind the front door, had a glass of water in the kitchen, and headed to the gazebo on the seashore behind his house. He lay down on its floor feeling the warmth of the wood at the points where the sun rays passing through the gaps of the thatched roof heated them.

  He stayed like that for a while, lying down with his arms wide open, staring at the ceiling, ‘till he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He thought about Winda disappearing again in front of him because this image used to come to him very often now. And he thought about Ed and the way he didn’t seem to like him. He thought about Muriel being friends with his uncle. And about what Ed had just said to him on the street and the way he blocked his passage when they first met. “Something is going on with these new neighbors,” He thought to himself opening his eyes again.

  7

  Choice and Silence

  The days passed by and Timothy kept his attention on the house next to his, often observing who would go in and out of it. Sometimes, he would also go to the attic with no reason just to check if there wasn’t anyone disappearing in there. And there wasn’t. In the meantime, the only one he observed visiting that house, besides Muriel and Ed, was Zian but as Timothy didn’t know him yet, he just remembered his face along with his short gray hair, from the first meeting he had with him when Ed blocked his way last month.

  It was the first day of summer vacations, and now he finally had all the time he wanted to spend in the woods with Bob. Since the last visit to his house, Timothy and he have been chatting via text messages, and Timothy had asked his uncle about how long he knew their neighbors and from where exactly they had come.

  Nevertheless, Bob always gave him vague answers that just increased his curiosity even more. Such as “I’ll tell you everything when you visit me again, it’s a long story, better to say it personally,” or “I don’t know very well where they came from this time, they keep changing places.”

  Timothy just used to sigh and to wonder why Bob couldn’t just tell him things. So, on that morning, he decided he would go to his uncle’s.

  He was leaving his house, pushing his bike when something called his attention. The house of his new neighbors was wide open: the garden gate in which they had crashed the car on the first day they arrived and the front door. The van, however, was in the garden. He stopped for a moment and waited to see if someone would go in or get out.

  He couldn’t see the interior of it from where he was, all he was seeing was a dark rectangular passage that was the open door. He pushed his bike toward the house, still attentive to his surroundings, ‘till he stopped in front of it.

  He waited a little longer to see if Muriel or Ed would appear, but as the silence grew and nobody showed up, he started to believe there wasn’t anybody inside the place.

  So instead of stepping back, he did what would drag him into this story for good: he got in.

  *

  Timothy passed the garden gate and headed to the open front door next, always attentive. He decided to carry the bike with him because if he let it hanging in the garden, it could be a sign some outsider was in there.

  He passed by the door threshold, and the windows inside the place were all closed and because the new ones Muriel and Ed had bought had no glass on them the room was very dark. Differently from Timothy’s that house didn’t have the second floor. It was a one-story dwelling with a large living room, two bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen.

  Despite the darkness in the living room, he could notice it was lighter indoors, after the corridor leading to the kitchen. Still, he took his cell phone out of his pocket to use its flashlight, because he was too careful to turn on the lights of the room.

  He saw no furniture in the place but for five stools set in a corner and organized in a circle and a lamp floor next to them that had fallen. While observing around, he automatically started to look for the source of a strange and sweet odor he smelled.

  Then, when he finally pointed his light to the ceiling, his mouth fell open. He saw many cocoons hanging from it. Some were bigger than others, but all of them were wrinkly and had greenish ramifications across their dark purple tissue, like veins. Some of them were throbbing and others were still. Timothy froze:

  “No way…” He whispered to himself with wide eyes.

  “Some people know too much about people they shouldn’t.” Ed’s voice came from behind him.

  With the shock of the sudden voice, Timothy dropped his bike and turned toward the voice’s owner, casting light on Ed’s serious face that was framed by his long and pale hair. He was slightly starting to shake, and the trembling light on Ed’s face denounced it.

  “Who truly are you?” He asked in a tone that failed at sounding threatening.

  “Really? Of all the things to ask, you choose the least important one?” Ed started, stepping toward him. “Insisting that we’ve met before even with me denying it, going to your attic in the middle of the night and stomping with Winda, and even visiting her afterward. And now breaking into other people’s house when they expressly told you not to do so.” He paused dramatically, slowly shaking his head:
“You make bad choices indeed, kid.” He added, serious.

  Timothy was surprised to hear he knew about Winda and him, but he wouldn’t let it show. “I didn’t break in; it was open.” He replied in a surly way, stepping back.

  “This doesn’t mean you can get in,” Ed said taking something out of his pocket. Timothy could not see very well what it was, but Ed quickly sprayed on him. It smelled to nothing similar with anything he knew, but it made his throat burn, so he coughed and ran.

  Since Ed was in front of the door, blocking the exit, he ran toward indoors, to the kitchen. In there, he found the house backyard door that would lead to the seashore behind it, just like in his house. However, it was locked.

  He dropped his cell phone in the attempt of forcing the door with his both hands. Then, everything became a blur, and he felt too dizzy to stay standing because he had already inhaled the gas Ed had sprayed on him. He fell to his knees when Ed was advancing toward him, with no hurry. He kept the spray again in his pocket, and Timothy saw, in a very blurry way, the container of it was very slim and silver with red stripes, very similar to a pen shape. And that was the last thing he saw in that house before it all became silent to him.

  Ed leaned forward slowly and took Timothy in his arms. “What a day,” he mumbled to himself while he left the kitchen, carrying Timothy to his van, parked outside.

  8

  Conversations

  “What now?” Zian asked them.

  “You already know my opinion,” Ed answered him, sat on Bob’s living room windowsill.

  “Nobody is hurting him,” Bob said in a serious way looking from where he was, by the kitchen table, toward his bed where Timothy was sleeping.

  “I’m not talking about hurting him,” Ed retorted, “I'm just saying for us to erase this particular part of his memory.”

  “I think we should just tell him everything. He’s not going to believe if you give him more excuses.” Muriel said toward Bob.

  “But telling people about it is exactly what we are trying to avoid right now.” Zian reminded her. They were sitting at the table with Bob, that stayed by the side of the windowsill on which Ed was.

  “El, I can’t believe you’re going to insist on that,” Ed said toward her, with a tone of whom was already tired of arguing about that matter.

  “Ed, the nil in his house is a permanent one. We don’t know for how long it’s going to be in there; it can be for days or months. We have to tell him.” She replied.

  “Ed isn’t practically a walking nil? I mean he can open them anytime he wants. Can’t he close it too?” Winda reminded them.

  “Ed can’t close the one in Timothy’s attic. Just the creator of it can close permanent nils. Soon, more people will start to use it. That’s why we need to be there to watch it.” Muriel explained.

  “Furthermore, closing permanent nils is entirely different from closing regular ones. It would destroy the whole house.” Ed said, defensively. “Likewise, it’s not like he would hand his key’s house to us after we tell him everything.”

  “I just don’t want more problems with the Administration.” Zian pointed. “What about his parents?”

  Winda was the one who answered him:

  “I don’t think we should tell his parents. If that nil needs to be watched, let’s just talk with the kid so he can let you be in his attic. Otherwise, you can also do it sneakily. It’s very easy to open that window, anyway.” She said, remembering a certain rainy night. “I guess dealing with his parents would be more troublesome.”

  “What you shouldn’t tell my parents?” Timothy said trying to get up from the bed, but his legs were a bit adrift yet.

  Everybody looked at him. And after a few seconds, Ed deviated his look to outside, to the willow tree in front of the house. It was almost afternoon’s beginning.

  “How are you feeling?” Bob asked when he reached the bed.

  “A bit drowsy. And irritated because someone spray dosed me.” Timothy said toward Ed who was still looking to outside.

  “What he did was wrong, and it won’t happen again. I won’t let him.” Bob said, helping him to stand up.

  “My legs are a bit dormant but they still shaking, what is that?” Timothy asked when he was near the table, with Bob’s help.

  “It’s due to the matmit gas. When the matmit is about to get off a person’s system, it can cause different effects. Some people feel their legs shaking; others feel queasy or feel very asleep, anyway, it’ll pass soon.” Muriel explained, offering the chair in which Bob was sitting before, so Timothy could sit.

  But Timothy didn’t seem any happier with that justification. He sat, took a deep breath and looked to Bob standing by his side:

  “Bob, I don’t know how or why these people know you or why they make themselves so comfortable at your house as they were in theirs.” He glanced at Windas' boots on Bob’s table. “But I really would like you to tell me. I know something is going on. I feel it.” He said looking at Ed again, then at Zian, of whom he vaguely remembered.

  “Well, I’ll tell you everything. And they’ll all help me with this, ‘cause I don’t think there are better ones to explain this to you.” Bob said, sitting on the floor by Timothy’s side because there weren’t any chair left.

  9

  Questions

  “What is this matmit gas?” Timothy started toward his uncle.

  “Matmit is a kind of Iliona berry. It looks like cherries, but they are white. It has a calming effect, but its gas is overly calming, working as a sedative.” Bob explained.

  “Iliona?”

  “It’s where we come from,” Winda added like saying no news, with her boots still on Bob’s table.

  However, Timothy remained silent, waiting for more than that.

  “How would you feel if I told you there’s a place outside Nagranto, outside the boundaries you learn at school, where people also live and build cities, and it’s where the wishes of you go to be born?” Muriel asked toward Timothy that looked confused at Bob.

  He put some thought on it, blinking:

  “I would feel like you were lying.” He finally said staring back at Muriel, who had caught all her hair in a large bun. His answer made Ed laugh from the window.

  That laugh irritated Timothy, but he said nothing toward him.

  Timothy sighed with irritation and said:

  “But, I just saw a person disappear into nothingness, so…. Ok, let’s suppose there’s such a place. And let’s suppose I would like to go there, what should I do?”

  “You would have to use a door, which we call nil.” Winda helped with the explanation.

  “A door like an invisible hole in the space that swallows a person?”

  “Yes.” She answered him, already knowing of what he had remembered.

  “Did you come from one of these?” He added.

  “Yes. That’s how all of us came from our world to your world.” She replied.

  There was a pause to that, as Timothy was trying to make the words sink in. Then Ed broke the silence:

  “Don’t you ever read books, play video games or watch movies? I mean, what’s the difficulty in imagining other worlds beside yours?” He finished impatiently.

  “Well, it’s not as we talked about it every day.” He retorted, impatiently as well.

  “But they exist,” Muriel spoke again, “there’s a place to where your wishes go when they are born. I mean, all human wishes are reflected in a place.” She took her cell phone and showed him a photo of a dark cyan sky full of shining stars. “Your wishes are reflected in our sky as stars. But they aren’t real stars. They just shine like one, that’s why we call them fake stars.”

  He listened attentively, feeling chills in his arms and nape. The others around him were so serious as if they were saying something truly remarkable, that he started to believe in what he was listening.

  “And how come we never heard of it?”

  “Some of us did.” Bob said, “But they have a
rule, it’s forbidden to talk about Iliona with humans. That’s their main rule.”

  “Forbidden?” Timothy remarked. “Why? What happens if someone talks?”

  “We change the person’s memory.” Ed answered him and then added with a soft smile, “Such as we’ll do with yours.”

  “Don’t listen to him.” Bob interrupted, “We’ve already discussed it when you were sleeping. Furthermore, one more human knowing about Iliona is not quite an exception right now. He won’t do anything to you.” He finished moving his eyes to Ed, whose smile widened as he retorted:

  “Fine by me. We can’t change memories unless we’re told to do so. And from where my orders come from, people are not as condescending as I am.”

  “If those people were as condescending as you are, we wouldn’t remember anyone in this house, by this point,” Winda replied with a sarcastic smile.

  “We can’t make contact with humans. That’s the main rule.” Zian spoke for the first time since Timothy had joined them. He did it, though, looking at the table in front of him, thoughtful, as his words were more a reminder to him than an explanation to Timothy.

  “His name is Zian, by the way.” Bob introduced his friend.

  “Along the centuries, just three cities of Iliona have decided to show themselves to humans, while the others adopted a strict policy about this subject, including ours,” Muriel said.

  “I thought Iliona was the name of your city.”

  “It’s ALSO the name of our city. Our town takes the same name of the place in which is located because it was one of the first to be founded. So we call it Iliona City.”

  “But where is it? Is there a map of it? Is it a country? An island?”

  “Enough.” Ed said, standing up from the windowsill, “Limited minds search for concepts in everything. I honestly think we’re losing time in here.”

  “But minds can be taught to expand,” Muriel answered him, staring at Timothy yet. “You can think about Iliona as a distant land. But the only way to go there is passing through a nil.”