I chuckled and unrolled the scroll further. Only a special pen could make the imprints, so I was surprised to find a message written in regular ink: Pyrite. Tree 36. Village of Banyan.
“We thought,” Robin started, hands in her pockets, “that since you’re heading to the Wilds anyway, you may want to meet Pyrite. We haven’t seen him since you were born, and we’d like to know how he’s been.”
I closed the scroll and tucked it carefully into the front of my satchel. “Are you sure this is where he still lives?”
A shadow came over Puma’s face for a split second. We shared the same dark, freckled skin and brick-colored eyes, similarities that allowed me to read her emotions intuitively. She was distraught, uncertain. “We aren’t sure,” she answered with an uneven voice, “but this is all the information we have.”
The subsequent silence was thick like sap. I took a cautious tread into my next question. “Why haven’t you spoken in so long?”
Robin scratched her head and looked down. “We used to correspond every month or so…but we stopped receiving letters from him about five years ago, like he dropped off the face of the world.”
“Do you think…” I stopped myself before I could say he’s still alive, and instead ended the sentence with “...he’ll know who I am?”
“Probably. Assuming you find him at all.” Robin sounded dull, low on energy. I could tell she expected the worst.
I held the satchel close to my chest. “I promise I’ll check up on him and make sure he’s okay.”
My parents were different from one another. Puma could make friends with anyone, while Robin tended to keep to herself. However, when it came to parenting, both were the same. They wanted me to be happy and safe, and little else mattered. They wrapped me in a hug.
“You’re a good boy. You’re a strong boy,” Puma said in my ear. “I know you have good friends, but we’re still worried about you. You have to be careful in a place like that.”
I hugged them back and laughed away my own unexpected tears. “I promise I’ll be careful. The way I see it, I’ll either be safe, or I’ll learn something. Win win!”
They hugged me once more for good measure. I was grateful for their love. Part of me never wanted to meet Pyrite, as if doing so was an insult to the people who raised me with everything I ever needed. My life was never missing anything, certainly not a father.
I couldn’t help the new-found curiosity that accompanied my new power, so I followed them out of the room. I stepped through the door, invisible, and watched as they walked down the hallway. Their souls were gold sun and green grass; the strands of lights knotting together in naturally married tangles. Even as they separated to go about their business in different parts of the house, the glowing fingers of light reached out to each other, as if needing to be entwined once more.
The next morning, I woke up to a full house, thick with the smell of breakfast. Glass and Sharp brought dishes of spiced sausage and fatty bacon, while Piranha brought ten different types of tarts. Willow helped my parents cook a mess of eggs and tomatoes, singing and twirling as he did. He wasn’t as helpful as he thought, but my mothers enjoyed his energetic presence.
We ate and laughed while my more traveled friends shared stories of previous adventures. Willow’s claim of sparring with a princess from the Kingdom of the Wind was so obviously false, he was heckled before he could finish. On the other hand, Piranha shared a riveting tale of stalking a six-legged jaguar back in the Jungle, which was almost certainly true.
The ATMOSPHERE around the food was so joyous, I forgot the reason they were there.
The sun was an hour up from the horizon, the dishes were cleaned and put away, and the mood shifted into melancholy quiet. Sharp helped me finish packing (and made sure I knew how much she disapproved of my organizational habits). When we returned to the others, Glass was in the middle of a lecture about safe traveling.
“There’s no reason for you to leave the path on your way into the Wilds,” he instructed, tracing a path on the map and narrowing his eyes at Willow. “If you try to take a shortcut through the trees, you’ll get lost, no question.”
“What’re you looking at me for?” the nomad balked, adjusting the straps of a lightly packed bag.
“Because if anyone is going to insist on a shortcut, it’s you, who has a real knack for getting into trouble.”
On a different day, Willow might have smirked at an accusation like this, but his mouth was a straight line, and he didn’t break eye contact. “Thank you, Dr. Glass, but you don’t have to worry. I’ve been across the continent dozens of times. I know what to do and what not to do.”
Only slightly more reassured, Glass led us outside into the brisk, adventurous morning. My mothers flurried around me, asking a cascade of nitpicking questions, most of which they already asked yesterday.
I pulled them both into a final hug and whispered, “I promise I have everything I need. This is something I have to do.”
“We know,” Robin assured me, deep worry-lines on her forehead. “You’re so grown up…”
“We love you,” Puma whispered. “Please listen to Sharp.”
“I can’t promise that!” I joked, stepping away because I wanted to see them smile.
The four of us began our journey, stopping for a moment on the top of the hill to wave back at the adults. When I look back on this moment, I remember everything, down to the smell of dry summer air and the color of my mom’s shoes (custard yellow). I remember the casual way Piranha carried their bag over one shoulder. I remember the song Willow started to sing as we walked over the hill towards the path that would lead us to the Wilds.
“When the light of the sun
Kissed the sky on the water
Before the Goddess was pleased
By the gifts Death had brought her.”
We sang along. The idea of spending two weeks together made our spirits light and full of new energy. The exploration season would be over in about a month, and a mission to find a doctor in a dangerous forest was the best way to spend it, despite everything in my body pulling me back.
Maybe it was a blessing, in retrospect, that none of us knew just how long it would be until we were home again.
On the first night, we camped along the base of The Endless Mountains, spanning from one end of the continent to the other and separating it into a north and south. Willow was the only one of us who’d been to the place where the mountains met the sea. He said they descended into the water, submerging below, and was convinced the range continued underneath the Infinite Ocean, around the globe to the other side.
“When I was younger,” shared Piranha, tilting their head up to the peak, “I used to think the mountains were called ‘endless’ because of how tall they were. You can imagine how surprised I was when I found out most of the range isn’t very tall at all. I think we’ll reach the summit before dinner time.”
“We will,” Sharp confirmed, her face buried in a map. The Warrior armor was polished with an obsessive kind of care, a sign she was overcompensating for her ‘irresponsible’ lack of foresight at the Fireday market. Her words, not mine.
The path connecting the Valley to the entrance of the Wilds was a wide and well-traveled one, crossing through Summit Town at the top of the closest mountain. The red, dusty road was surrounded by many shades of mountain green; the grass, the trees, the moss. We often passed other travelers, who would always stop to chat.
