Authors: Luca Rossi
When I'm almost near the light, I try to resist. I brace my knees and elbows against the rocks.
“Come on, come home. You can't keep the portal open much longer. It's me, Anna, your wife. Look for yourself: this is our home.”
It's like a TV screen: inside the light I see the image of Anna. She's standing in our living room. I even see my smartphone on the table. She's wearing the same clothes she had on when I left. Near the kitchen, the table is set with the pasta already on the plates.
I still don't understand what kind of strange nightmare I've gotten into, but what I see in front of my eyes is truly my home. It's over. But this time I'm asking Anna for explanations.
“Come on, now! Careful, they're coming!”
I jump feet-first into the light source while I look to see who's following me. Irene, right behind me, is swimming with a rock in her hand. I try to take shelter and see out of the corner of my eye that Enondil has almost caught up with me. The rock bashes heavily into my head. Two hands grab my wrists. I pass out.
6
“If she was able to send out a space-time signal, she must have grown much more stronger than we had thought.”
“Impossible! Ibril never let her out of his sight! She couldn't have absorbed all that power in just thirty-three years.”
Enondil and Irene seem rather excited.
I open my eyes. I'm lying face-down on the transparent sofa. The landscape flies by underneath me.
“What powers? Who is Ibril?” I stammer.
A few seconds of silence pass. I imagine they're exchanging their usual knowing look. I sit up. I look at their faces, first his, then hers.
“Tell me!” The commanding tone of my voice seems to rattle them.
“Ibril is Costantino Valenti,” Irene says in a low voice, as if apologizing.
“Valenti, the nosy neighbor? Are you joking? What does that obnoxious old man have to do with all of this?”
“How dare you call him that! He's been so faithful to you!” Enodil starts, enraged.
“Enough!” Irene interrupts. “Everything in due time.”
“No,” I say. “I want to know everything, right now!”
“When we found you, some of us had already been transferred to Earth to find out what Cloradil's plans were and to prepare for your removal. Enondil and Ibril were among these people.”
“Why? Who are you? What do you want from me?” I ask again, exasperated.
“Antelmo, you already have the answers to your own questions,” Irene tells me gently, “but you still refuse to recognize this inside you. You have to accept all of this within yourself first, otherwise there's no explanation that could possibly manage to convince you.”
“Deep down inside I can't find any answers.”
“That's what we were afraid of. Cloradil picked a primitive planet like the Earth just so you wouldn't make any contacts.”
“Primitive? Earth isn't primitive at all!”
“Antelmo,” Irene's tone is almost maternal, “how much time do Earthlings spend on issues that have nothing to do with eating, sex, arguing, war and vanity?”
“What does that have to do with anything? Sure, maybe a lot of people only care about those kinds of things, but we also have scientists, philosophers, doctors and a lot of people who do good on Earth. And...”
“Yes,” Irene interrupts, “but do you let these people guide you or govern you? Or do you willingly follow whoever puts out smiling advertisements, beautiful little faces and tempting promises? Evolved planets are guided by love of knowledge, research and spiritual growth. Cloradil chose Earth because it's about as far as you can get from the Kingdom of Turlis!”
“Chose? When?”
Enondil and Irene exchange glances, then lower their eyes. They remain silent, their faces lost in some painful memory.
We're flying over a house surrounded by fountains and waterways that spill into a little lake. In the middle, there's an island with dozens of kids standing around a woman.
“That's a school. And she is a magic teacher. You can recognize her from the braid circling her head, like a crown,” Irene explains, turning off the motor of the pyramid.
“Like...” I start to ask.
“Yes, like mine!”
“So, you teach magic?”
“Not just magic.”
“Magic,” I repeat, absorbed in my own thoughts. I look down. One boy is standing up. He brings both of his hands in front of him and turns his palms towards one another. A point of orange light starts to take shape between his hands, growing larger every second.
“It's a memory sphere. He can put his memories inside, as well as his feelings and fears,” Irene explains.
There seem to be images in the sphere. From this high up, I can't really make them out.
“Magic is the principal method to examine the laws of the universe and the laws of the soul,” Irene articulates her words carefully, as if it was especially important that I understand what she's telling me.
“Magic for what's inside and outside of us,” my words seem to be evoking distant memories.
“Exactly!”
“There are a lot of ancient texts that deal with magic on Earth. Every once in a while there's an interesting movie on TV or in the theaters on wizards. But I never believed in all of that.”
“Why not?” Irene asks.
“Because I always thought it was a load of crap! And Anna always agreed with me. I can't imagine what she has to do with all of this.”
“When did you two meet?”
“We went to the same kindergarten and have stayed together ever since.”
“And what was she like?”
I smile. Anna's personality is a little difficult to explain.
“Anna is a little bossy. She has the personality of a leader and likes to do things her own way.”
“So she always had a certain level of influence over you?”
“She was the stronger of us two. Between a man and a woman, there's always one who's in charge. It's usually the woman. But she always gave me my own space.”
“Your space for what?”
“Tennis games, Friday nights with my friends, games at the stadium on Sundays.”
“And you two never had any arguments?”
“We always talked about everything. It's normal, when you're together!”
“But who decided what you did, where you went, what you watched on TV?”
“I'd say...maybe...she did a little more often. But she always listened to me and considered my point of view.”
“Did she ever tell you her opinions on your career or other important choices in life?”
“Yes, of course. But a lot of the time I was the one asking for her advice!”
“Why did you think you couldn't make those choices alone?”
“No, that's not it at all. It's normal to confide in the people around you.”
“Was she the only person who told you what to do, or were there others?”
“She was my girlfriend for a long time and then became my wife. It's only natural that she'd be the most important person in my life.”
“Did she think the same thing?”
“Of course!”
I don't want to admit it, but Anna had always been very authoritarian. In fact, she had been a real dictator with me since we were little. We never did anything that she didn't want to do. Every once in a while I would complain and get angry, but everything would work out in the end.
7
The pyramid starts flying again.
“Here we are. We'll start to see it,” Enondil announces.
My eyes look towards where he's pointing. The outline of an impressive building stands out against the horizon. We slowly come closer and the contours appear more clearly. My jaw drops.
It's not just a
palace
. It's a fairy-tale construction, which seems to defy every law of physics. It's several stories tall, floating in the air, surrounded by infinite islands connected by rainbow bridges. On each island there are buildings, some of which have solid walls, others which seem to be made of pure energy.
Trees, flowers, lawns and ponds are everywhere, inside and outside of the houses. The water courses form stupendous waterfalls that go from one island to the other. I've never seen anything so marvelous.
Enondil and Irene are staring at me. I don't understand why they're scrutinizing me so closely.
Are they hoping that this place will remind me of something?
“It's too dangerous. We can't bring him to the Well when he's like this,” Enondil, visibly worried, tells Irene.
“There's no other choice. Even I hoped something would reawaken in him. But if it hasn't happened, then the Well is the only place that can help,” she replies.
“But she'll see him in the Well and try to contact him!”
“Not necessarily. Maybe she'll be looking somewhere else at that moment. Anyway, I have faith in him.”
“Sorry for the interruption, but what's the Well? And who's going to see me? Anna? My wife?”
They look at each other, exasperated. Maybe they don't like the fact that I keep calling her
my wife
. Maybe they thought they could mess up my mind with all of their babble, but I know who I am.
They didn't need to tell me when we were near the Well. On an island right in the middle of the palace, higher than all the others, there's a hole about twenty yards in diameter that creates a beam of soft light, which descends thousands of feet into the ground below.
“It goes down to the middle of the planet. Down there, you can connect to many other worlds through other dimensions,” Irene explains.
“Through other dimensions?” I ask.
“Yes, a lot of energy is transmitted through dimensions. But even physical bodies can travel through dimensions, even though it's extremely onerous. To go to the Earth from here, for example, we had to cross through another dimension.”
“The fog?”
“Exactly. We weren't in a physical universe.”
“But...?”
“Wait. I'm afraid we don't have any time left. You need to go into the Well.”
“Me? Where?”
The pyramid lands on the island. There are dozens of people doing something on little wells of light that are floating in the air.
“What are they?”
“Those are mistrofals. They are powerful magnifiers of magical energy. A powerful wizard with one of these can bridge infinite distances. Cloradil used them to fling a space-time arrow on this world and open a breach between here and the Earth, which you could have passed through.”
“Why doesn't she come here, if she doesn't want to lose me so much?”
“Because she's not powerful enough yet.”
“And how do you get more power?”
Enondil interrupts, saying to Irene: “You're right, all we can do is go to the Well.”
They seem defeated. I feel like I let them down, but I have no idea what they want from me.
“We can't help you anymore. But you can try to help yourself,” Irene tells me.
“Here, where?” I ask. “What should I do?”
“Enter.”
“I have to jump into that thing? No way!”
Irene comes in front of me and places her hand on my shoulder. Again, her green eyes look into my own.
“You'll find yourself in this well. And, probably, she'll be there as well. You can choose. Decide what you want to be for yourself.”
She's almost convincing.
“What should I do?”
“Nothing in particular. Just take a step forward and let yourself go. There are only memories in there.”
“Memories of what?”
“Of this and your other lives.”
“Other lives?”
“Yes, the life in which...”
“Irene!” Enondil interrupts. “It's up to him.” Then he turns to me: “Go. If you want to go back to your life on Earth, you'll have the option down there. And it'll probably be the person you call your
wife
who gives you that option.”
There we go, that's a convincing motivation
. I take a step forward and let myself fall down the Well.
The last words I manage to hear Irene say are “Let the connections guide you.”
8
I'm floating in the darkness of the Well.
A distant glow seems to gradually grow stronger. It's coming closer.
It's light, suspended in nothing. Slowly, a few images become more clear.
I see myself, hiding in the storage closet of my parents' house. We're playing a game called
the dark room
. A little light shines through the keyhole of the door in front of me. I bend down and put my eye against the little hole. My mother's walking down the hallway, bringing the pizzas to the table. She doesn't know that I'm hiding in the storage closet.
I've always loved this game, which usually ends with me suddenly opening the door to frighten my mother.
Why am I seeing this scene from my life? Is this one of the connections Irene was talking about?
Another light approaches and comes up next to the first.
I see a man sitting on a throne, with a crown on his head and a scepter in his hand. A woman stands before him, talking to him. The room lights are dimmed. A splendid stellar map stretches out over their heads.
The woman explains to him, indicating a point on the map above her: “These are the Misos and Mauteris stars. The forms of life living on their planets just discovered the secret to interstellar travel. We should do further research on their level of magic.”
It's Irene who's speaking. She looks exactly like she did today.
“Alright, Alissalia. It's a good idea to focus in on this quadrant, where the level of magic is still very low. Considering what level their power has grown to, we can give them new opportunities.”
Alissalia
? Irene must have another name here.
With one gesture from the king, the planetarium disappears and an intense light shines into the room. I can see the splendid islands of the palace outside of the windows. So the memory of the scene from this second light evidently comes from a place very close to where I am now.
Remember!
Irene – Alissalia – had said that I would find memories of this and other lives.
Connections!
Did the darkness also lead me to this scene?
If it's one of my memories, where am I?