A wind materialized from a wall in the room and spread across the small farm inside. It waved the grain in a hypnotic rhythm around a young man who stood knee deep in it.
Moving through the amber waves toward the corner of the room, Syth struggled with the breeze. For every time he flipped his dirt colored hair out of his eyes, the wind tossed it back, running through the individual strands.
An arm, covered with freckles that were barely visible under a heavy tan, reached for the shaggy mess and tucked it behind an ear. He ran his tongue along his bottom row of teeth, something he did often as he worked under a noon sun.
When he reached the corner and leaned against the walls painted with photo realistic mountain scenery, the air picked up again. His jaw, which had crept toward the same sharp and bony square of his father’s the closer he got to eighteen, clenched as the wind undid his work, throwing hair from behind his ear into a deep brown eye.
His sigh joined with the wind as it continued forward, swirling through the shifting golden heads of the grain. It blew out of the field and away from the young man. It spun across a small dirt path and past a doorway that stood against the middle of the wall. The door loomed seven feet high and five feet wide. As far as anyone could tell, it was made of solid, four inch deep stone, that’s dark gray surface sucked the heat and light from the air, giving the wind a biting chill.
The wind carried this chill to the next corner adjacent to the exasperated man. Here chickens squawked in their pen, flapping near useless wings against the gusts. A brown hen bobbed her head as she took cover from the cold in a small wooden cubby, reserved for where the chickens laid their eggs. Once inside, she settled into a small nest of hay and looked through the opening to see a white hen taking advantage of the gusts to clime the wire fencing, thrashing her feathers and hooking her claws between the hexagon holes.
The white chicken continued her climb before reaching the flat wood roof of their pen. Hitting the roof, she fell through the air and landed in the dirt and filth covering the floor. She rolled onto her skinny legs before continuing to cluck along the edge of the fence.
The wind left the chickens too, as it pushed across the room. It passed closer to the center of the farm, and rippled the water that submerged the rice plants. Patterns in the form of small waves hinted at the wind’s shape and strength as it flew past the rice and to another corner of the room, opposite the grain field.
Here it found an old log cabin, barely large enough to warrant the small attic tucked under a sloped roof. The breeze swept into the cabin through an open door and scooped up dust from a small pile directly at the entrance. It threw the dust across the room and into a small kitchen. A middle aged mother griped her straw broom tighter as she watched the dust flow back to where it had come from and away from the pile she had made on the floor.
She jerked her hand away from the broom after a sharp sliver of it stabbed into her skin. It took her only the time to scowl at the broom to decide that sweeping was no longer necessary and could be done tomorrow. She paced toward the kitchen as another current blew her loose jeans around her bare feet and continued through the cabin.
The wind turned into a calm breeze as it flew out a window facing a garden alongside the cabin.
The garden stretched from the house to the last corner of the room and hid behind a row of corn that had almost grown high enough to level with the eave.
Behind the corn, the garden took shelter from the blunt of the gusts. Littered with cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, and other odd, unorganized placements of vegetables, an unusually large pumpkin stood out as it grew in the corner of this hide away. On top of it, a thirteen year old girl lounged while reading a book in the light of a sun that beat down on her from an unreachable ceiling.
Gren sat on the pumpkin with her legs kicked out to both sides, only careful enough to avoid damaging the plants. She flipped the page of one of her many adventure books, so entranced she didn’t even notice the drool coming from her open mouth, or that her shoulder length golden hair stuck to it. As the wind dissipated in her hideout, a small amount of the dust flew through the window.
“Agk,” Gren flinched from the dust her mother had swept up but couldn’t avoid it. She stuck out a tongue as her face crinkled. The dry taste of dust filled her small mouth as she rubbed her watering eyes. She swung back to her book, trying to force her blurry vision to the words on the page.
She gave up on reading when the words wouldn’t stop swimming before her. Instead she shifted her feet closer to her organic chair and pulled on her tan cargo shorts that had ridden up her legs. She flipped the hood of her brown sweat shirt over her head just in time to avoid another bit of dust. As her emerald eyes began to clear, she whipped a tear from her cheek along with the drool from her chin and huddled back over her book.
Syth glanced at his younger sister as she curled closer to the page. From where he stood in the corner of the grain field, he could barely make out her energetic smile through the corn stalks. He had thought she was having dreams of their father again, but she seemed far too happy for that to have been the case.
Syth took after his father enough to cause his mother sadness every time she saw him. He could almost claim to be taller than him and was already stronger. Traveling through rooms didn’t give someone the same physique that working the land did. Syth had inherited Jar’s closet and stretched the t-shirts that he had once worn. Even the occasional smile that cracked Syth’s lips was almost mirror images of the grin Jar had loved showing off.
Despite the golden brown eyes matching his fathers, these are what always reminded his mother that he was a different man. Jar had always been looking up and searching the rooms for anything to spike his curiosity. His gaze jumping back and forth from an interesting stick that looked like a lightning bolt to a button in a closet that had no conceivable purpose. He would stare down anyone he disagreed with while showing off crow’s feet as he smiled at his family.
Syth’s eyes were always looking down and away. Even as he worked he focused only enough to see what his hands were doing and otherwise watched as his feet moved about their job.
The only times those eyes seemed remotely alive were when he read one of his technical books. It didn’t matter what it covered. Whether it taught about computers, spiders, or traditional cooking of chicken, he would scan through it as fast as he could only to go through a second time and focus on every word. Each time his mother interrupted him, she could see the light in his eyes die and his smile fade. She hated seeing him like that and avoided him, either letting him do his work or read his books.
Both her children's love of books came from their father but Syth seemed to be interested in nothing else. The mother, as much as she hated to admit it to herself, preferred Gren. The girl smiled even as someone interrupted her treasured reading time. Gren seemed to find everything amazing and fun to such an energetic extent that the mother sometimes wondered if one day she would go to the door and leave their farm out of sheer curiosity. That excitement is what got her father killed and what kept the mother awake at night. She hoped the girls books would keep her appeased.
She knew that both her children had been affected by the death of her husband, but she wondered if it had hurt Gren less because of her young age. It had been four years since their father had been killed, but they all still remembered. The mother had just barely escaped with her children to find this room. They had almost kept going before deciding to try to make a life where they could be safe. They had refurbished the farm, and the occasional visitor traded them books, spices, and tools for rice and grain.
“Gren, can you come help me with dinner?” The mother had put her broom away and was looking through the cupboards in the cabin.
“Syth said he’d do all my chores today.” Gren’s attention wavered only long enough to form the sentence before jumping back into the world held within her hands.
“Do you want dinner or not?”
“Syth’s a better cook, though.” Syth had returned to tending to the grain but looked up as Gren mentioned his name.
“Gren.” The mother clenched her throat and her words came out stern and harsh.
“Can I please finish the chapter?”
“I. Yeah, that’s fine.” The mother said as Gren focused on getting as far into the next chapter as she could before her mother called her again.
Syth looked away from his sister and around the farm to find nothing left for him to do. He laid down his tools and began striding toward the cabin to help with dinner after all, before he stopped.
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He wanted to try to experiment with the stone doorway anchored to the wall near him. The Wary Adventure: A Guide, his father’s book, contained all known information about them and he wanted to try what he had learned. His father had taught him a lot about the world, but now only Jar’s book could guide him.
Jar had lost Syth’s trust when he had led their family away from the middle world and into danger, but his book and knowledge was undeniable. Jar had been famous for writing the most widely trusted guide for the strange nature of their universe. It had been used as text books in schools to explain and show the nature of the rooms that all people lived in.
He had had a small cabin near one of the larger cities. Fans would visit and the city council provided their family with all they needed in exchange for the added tourism. They had been happy then. Jar had retired from his exploration of the rooms in exchange for a comfortable family life.
Then one day a woman had come. Syth could remember Jar talking to her as if an old friend.
* * *
“Jarz. It’s been a long time.” Jar had smiled and hugged the woman as she spoke and stepped through the open door and into their home. She wore matching black pants and jacket that looked expensive and sharp. The jacket had two buttons that pulled it around her gut and caused small creases to trail from her stomach to her back. The outfit seemed more official than anything even the city council would wear. The only personal touch that the clothes could be said to have was a white button up shirt’s collar that popped above and rested lightly on top of the jacket that otherwise covered it.
“Sahn, I can’t believe you’re here. My wife’s at the store with Gren right now, but she should be back soon. She'll be even more surprised than I am.” Jar released the hug and waved a hand to guide the woman into the small living room. As the two walked to the couches, Jar said to Syth, “Could you grab us something to drink?” After looking at the woman and out a window he added, “Something cold.”
Syth moved through an arched opening into the kitchen. Their family had been gifted one of the few houses connected to the electricity the room produced, and Syth could hear it running the fridge.
By the time Syth returned with three glasses of water with ice and half a lemon at the bottom, Jar and the woman were past the pleasantries and deep in conversation.
“They didn’t want me to come to you; it’s dangerous in these loops. But I told them I had to give you this information. That we owed it to you.” The woman watched her hands twist around each other.
“And that’s it?” Jar nodded to a folder that the woman had produced from a backpack at her feet.
“We unlocked a record room recently. I thought this might interest you.”
“What about the other records?”
“This is the only one they would allow me to take to you.” Sahn looked up to Jar’s eyes. “They’re still not happy with you.” She paused slightly. “Or her.”
“I’m surprised they let you bring me anything.” He hesitated, and furrowed his brow. “I’m surprised they even told you they unlocked something. They’d be even more secretive if it was a record room.” Sahn broke Jar’s gaze as he continued, “You stole it and ran, didn’t you?”
“This was the only file I could grab. It’s not like they would do anything with it anyway. They just sit on the information they have.”
Jar grinned and Syth could hear a laugh catch his throat. “They barely told me that silly children's story. They’re paranoid about anyone coming after them.”
“We have our reasons.”
“I suppose.” There was a small silence in the room. “Thank you. I know what it means for you to leave your home. That couldn’t have been easy. Or safe.”
Sahn’s crisp exterior broke and her face flooded with weariness while her eyes glistened. “We’re over now Jar. The elders won’t ever let you back in and I’m not leaving the tunnel ever again. I’ve paid my debt.”
“I didn’t realize,” Jar’s face had relaxed to the same sad look Sahn’s had, “that this was all over a debt. But no, you don’t owe us anything. Thank you for bring this to us. I can get you a spare room for the night and some more supplies for your trip back.”
“I won’t be staying. The file has the location, plug it in a navigator and you’ll be fine.” Sahn set the folder on a small coffee table. “Goodbye, my old friend.”
* * *
Jar had trusted this woman, had taken everyone, even an eight year old Gren, to chase some lead. His curiosity had destroyed their family’s life. It had stranded them in the throwaway territories. But despite his mistakes, he knew more about this world than any before him.
Syth wanted to believe in his father. Perhaps he couldn’t agree with the decision to come here, but The Wary Adventure had been Jar’s proudest achievement, and Syth knew it couldn’t be wrong. He had seen people enter the doors but had only ever touched a door on that hazy night when they had been running from raiders. His hand had usually been held by his father while Gren was pulled along by their mother.
Syth slipped on an old pair of worn gloves with a small hole in the right hand pinky before lightly touching the door with both hands. He could feel the warmth pulled from the glove and chill his fingers. He jerked them away.
A breath of a laugh pushed through Syth’s open mouth when nothing happened. He hadn’t disappeared. The book had been right and the stone needed to feel the heat directly from a person’s skin to work.
Syth’s hand found the stone again and pushed on it harder, seeing if it really wouldn’t budge.
“No Syth!” The mother’s voice cut across the farm as she stood in the door to the cabin. “What are you doing?”
“Stop worrying, I read it in dad’s book. The gloves stop it.” Syth rubbed his hands along the stone to demonstrate.
“We’ll have to leave the farm, you’ll ruin everything. Get away from it.” The mother attracted Gren’s attention and the girl no longer remembered her book as she watched them.
“Listen, it’s just a little experiment.”
“And what if it doesn’t work? We don’t have any coordinates, let alone a navigator. We’ll die.” The mother’s voice continued to jump through octaves.
“If it doesn’t work then you’re free to stay here. I’m my own person and I’ll deal with it. You don’t have to worry about me.” Syth ran his tongue along his bottom row of teeth. “But it’ll work.”
“We stay together as a family. Now get away from that door.” The mother began to step toward Syth.
“We’ve been on this farm for over 3 years. I’ve read each book at least that many times,” Syth said, his voice and furrowed brow beginning to give away his anger, “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we did-“
“Do you want to end up like your father?”
Syth shrank back from his mother’s words. Face scrunched and mouth open he leaned even closer to the doorway.
In that moment, not even the wind seemed to rustle the still-as-statue grain or fluster the chickens to a squawk. Gren didn’t breathe as she felt her muscles tighten. The moment lasted a lifetime, while their small family tried to process the hurt that had just been spoken.
Gren began to realize this fight between her two loving family members involved deeper emotions than just a simple argument. Syth’s emotions crept from shocked, back to angry. And the mother had just began to feel sorry before Syth yelled,
“I’d rather that then spend the rest of my life in this room.” As he said this, Syth’s pinky pressed through the hole in the glove and he felt the heat sucked from his entire being.
Syth didn’t have time for his eyes to flash open. He couldn’t even manage a sharp gasp of surprise, before he vanished from the room.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I'm not sure about the flash back. It doesn't feel quite right to me. Neither does the description about how Syth feels towards his father. Tell me what you think. Thank you for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoyed it at least a little.