Tanzania, in the near future, on a near Earth

            Out of the watchful eyes of her android guardians, Akeelah’s spirit floated weightless in the dark. Winking in and out from the black celestial sphere of her mind, a galaxy of stars seemed to speak, Come to me. Come into my world. Each of their pleas, more promise-filled than the last.

            There it was. The portal. The proper entrance to her jungle wilderness approached. It changed from pinpoint to circle. Taking the form of a long undulating tube, the portal enveloped her, sucking her into a mist-filled clearing.

            Through the fog, green fan palms and ferns smothered her in fragrances rich with life percolating from the loam beneath. Tempted by a clearing bordered by moss-covered rock, she inhaled the aromatic air. Everywhere, space filled itself with the busyness of life. Birdsong rang out with diversity richer and more complex than found in Uhuratown, her home on the trembling slopes of Kilimanjaro.

            And here he was—Saffron—just where he said he’d be, all smiles, striding toward her with assurance. He thinks he’s the one who got us here. Noting his over-confidence, she shook her head, averting her eyes to palm fronds waving against the powder-blue sky.

            This orb, this universe, she created, would be special, if it held, if woven tight enough. As real as my belief in it. As safe as I want it to be.

            Breathless, she looked up at Saffron and inspected his perfection. When had her image of him changed from a so-so childhood friend to this overwhelming distraction?         

            Saffron. Magnificent Saffron. Muscular in his creamy skin, like hers with just a tinge of metallic gold. His crystal-blue eyes, his dazzling smile framed in long white-blond ringlets, flowing over those powerfully built shoulders.

            Akeelah moved her hand over the bib of her overalls and down past her stomach, hoping to put out fires aroused by thoughts of her attractive friend.

            Her orbing worked. They arrived safely, unscathed. The universe had changed. Didn’t it always? Yet, she still had the same immature body and—so unfortunate—the same cravings. She attempted and failed to catch her breath. He’s all there too.

            Saffron put his hand out to her, palm up. So inviting.

            He smiled big at her, the smile that melted many a native girl’s heart. Yet he seemed clueless about his allure, or he’d have noticed her looking at him with the same longing.           Grabbing her hand, he pulled her through the jungle. Cold and wet foliage slapped against her face. Here I am again, thoughtlessly dragged behind him as if some forgotten appendage. His large hand grasped hers and projected self-assurance. False assurance. He meant well, but she could not resonate with the discomfort. She wanted to behave as a mature young woman with the grownup and sophisticated fortitude shown by the village girls who gathered around as he scintillated bigger than life. At such times, she felt trivial standing there beside him—her hair, a dirty blonde, her eyes, a polluted turquoise, and her skin, pale and freckled, all wrapped up in the baggy overalls of a tomboy. They were both twenty. Slow to mature. But she looked years younger.

            She wanted to suck up her distress and carry on, pretending none of it mattered. Yet eventually, whether she complained or not, she would fail. Once disenchanted, she’d be unable to find the will to forcibly resonate with him, and this world would collapse without her continued support.

            Slick from the jungle wetness, Saffron’s hand lost its grip. He bounded ahead, leaving her collapsed to her knees in a shallow swamp. Just like him. It’ll be minutes before he realizes I’m no longer in tow.

            She sat there, waiting for some creature to shove its ugly head through the silent fronds.   Soaked to her waist, she scooted back against the trunk of a palm.

            A punk-looking kid, a kinky-haired redhead, appeared in front of her. He looked a few years younger than she, piercings all over his freckled face. “Oh, sorry, love,” he said, with a sexy, maybe-Scottish accent. “I must ’ave lost ma way.” Then the punk kid disappeared—right through her.

            She gasped as Saffron exploded from the fronds and grabbed for her hand, water dripping down his handsome face to a soaked shirt plastered against his muscled torso. “Come, Akeelah. I made an ocean, reefs and all. I want you to see it.”

            She tried to tell him about the redheaded interloper, the punk kid, but he shook his head. Pretending confusion?

            Smiling again, he single-mindedly continued his obsession with showing her his creations. She sighed, ready for another round of wet foliage and squishy swamp.

            As the rain dripped down her face, darker clouds gathered above. Probably reflecting my depressed mood. He’s taking me for granted—again.

            He pulled her through the jungle toward his ocean at an uninhibited pace, her attention drawn in front of her to jeans stretched tightly over his straining bottom.

            It no longer mattered how magnificent, how handsome, he looked, because he didn’t know how she felt trapped in her young body, a body that wanted the same thing as those more stylish girls—him—a body that might never have him.

            This orb, this tropical jungle, she’d helped Saffron conjure, wasn’t real, or put more succinctly, she could no longer force herself to believe in it. Her ebbing conviction caused nimbus clouds to gather, and the world began to disintegrate. A clap of thunder robbed her of the sweet-smelling air, pulled her out of his grasp and through the jungle’s birth canal, delivering her back to Tanzania onto the scraggly-forested slopes of Mount Kili. Home.

            She found herself sprawled on the fallen leaves under a baobab tree, silence descending.   Tension gripped her insides. No Saffron. If she called in the Everetts, their guardians, to fix this, to find him, the punishment would be directed at both of them, because she’d gone along with his antics. And the androids were justified in cautioning them about the overuse of their Golden powers. She hated herself for seeing the common sense in their motives. Someday, her and Saffron’s forays into orbweaving might leave both of them stranded in some alternate world. Once lost, we might never return.

            Akeelah closed her eyes, attempting to locate Saffron, to sense his thoughts. Once more, she’d have to go in after him and pretend she was the one being saved. It was expected of her. She was a female hybrid, thought vulnerable. Her sisters, the other females didn’t have the powers she possessed, went missing—slaughtered by superstitious gangs. And everyone, everyone, believed her association with Saffron was the reason she’d survived. Each time the gangs trailed them, cornered them, he’d save her, or so the Everetts thought. Far from the truth.            She had to lie. The Everetts forbade any orbweaving experiments in the real world outside Stara, the sanctuary protecting them and the other hybrids. If their android guardians found out the mischief Saffron had gotten her into, they wouldn’t hurt her. They’d take it out on him. They’d select Taalib, four years younger, as her future mate.

            Still, no Saffron. He hadn’t escaped. Standing beneath the tree where she’d landed, Akeelah closed her eyes. The darkness behind her lids deepened as she brought the portals into focus. One by one, she searched them for the wispy tendrils of jungle aroma. Imaginary arms of the tube-like portals reached out to her from the twinkling stars at their origins.

            We’re the world you want, they said. Try us. The portals amplified, undulated, and then diffused into the background.

            She pictured Saffron, sought his frequency. Though it had yet to happen, she imagined the way her body might feel about his—up against him, aroused in his arms, his hands moving about, their bodies pulsating with one another.

            His signal’s weak. She focused her energy. The portal to his jungle appeared as a star-like point, enveloping her into its circular tube, sucking her through. The earth before her shook and grumbled. Inhaling gusts of cool air from the jungle’s storm, her lungs filled with stimulating oxygen, and the collapsing world pulled her in.

            Pelted with rain, she landed on her knees. Wind whipping at her body drenched her blouse, overalls, underwear. Palm trees, black against the dark sky, bent nearly to the ground. Still no Saffron.

            She’d heard the howl of this type of wind before. The closing of a portal. This world, this universe, this orb, woven tightly at first, was frayed and disintegrating. She had only moments to find him. His signal’s weak. Something must have happened to him when he released her. He shouldn’t have done that. If he’d held to her tightly, she might have kept the portal from giving way. Akeelah forced herself to stand against the wind, squeezing her eyelids shut, allowing her love to flow out to him. She imagined Saffron somewhere, in a universe where he might love her back. A sure knowledge of his whereabouts pulled her through the sodden jungle until she found him face down in the flooded underbrush. Unconscious?

            She attempted to drag him away. Won’t work. Dropping his arm, she knelt beside him, and lifted his head above the water. He was soaked through and cold. So was she. He might have little time to live. She had to choose: two hops to Stara and the blaming eyes of the Everetts; one hop to her secret meadow-world. She’d sworn never to convey Saffron into that world, yet there she could bring him back to life, and no one would find out.

            Continuing to pry him upward, she closed her eyes. The clover in her newly fashioned world pumped out its aroma of dry safety. She allowed the meadow to pull them out, just in time to see the jungle’s spark extinguish against the black sky of her imagination.

            Opening her eyes, she found herself sitting in a field of clover. Lifting her nose to the sweet smell, she spied the white gazebo there in the distance, its stately columns covered in climbing roses. Saffron’s head rested in her lap, his breath slow and labored. Could she save him?

            She placed her hands over his chest and willed him to survive. If you want to shape shift, just create a world in which others resonate with your shape. If you want to read minds, create a world where your minds are one. If you want to teleport from here to there, imagine there to be here. And if you want to heal, then open up a world to the cure. All orbweaving. All forbidden.     But she’d broken the rules before and no doubt she’d break them again. It would serve the Everetts right for underestimating her. She tried several times to psychically revive Saffron before he coughed up the rainwater. Unhooking and then squeezing the moisture from the bib of her overalls, she wiped his mouth.

            He lives. She swabbed a mud streak from his face and watched his chest for shallow inhalations. With his eyes closed, his pulse and breathing steadied. Filled with the confidence only her personal world could provide, she kissed him, first on his cheek, and then gently on his lips. That last kiss not passionate, but sad, because she feared he’d never return the affection. Her sadness wasn’t just the loss of a dream, or the loss of a love she would never have; it might have been a good-bye in reaction to his attitude—Saffron always thinking he knew what was best for her. She’d played his silent sidekick and accepted his point of view to the detriment of her own.          The pain from his insensitivity went deep. A stabbing headache. Nausea. Aching in her joints. Akeelah didn’t know how long she could endure in this life with him, with his lack of concern for her well-being. She didn’t know how long she could continue this charade or protect him. Bail him out.

            His eyes opened. She flung herself away from his body with a gasp—into a faint.

***

            Saffron coughed up floodwater from the jungle hurricane. How had this happened? His mind spun in and out of consciousness. Awake, he looked up into a concerned face. “Akeelah?”            “We, ah, I couldn’t get back, and you saved me,” she said. “Thank you.”

            He searched for any memory that would confirm her story. She must be mistaken. Maybe he’d take the credit, hoping she really did believe he’d saved her. “Right. I remember.” He lifted his dizzy head to peer out from the small porch.

            Fields in every direction looked nothing like the ragged forest of Uhuratown, or the quaking slopes of Kilimanjaro. Weakness overtaking him, he slipped back into a dreamlike state, reliving his rescue. The disruptive force he’d experienced on previous orbings was present this time as well, as if some gremlin got into his world and messed it up. Sometimes he could almost visualize the portal where the chaos originated. Sometimes all his portals went wacky. Letting go of Akeelah’s hand in the jungle, he’d allowed the portal to pull her out before it destabilized any further. He’d have a better chance of escaping than she would, if she were left behind.

            All he wanted was her safety—for her to live. His jungle world was breaking up faster than anticipated, sucking her through, ricocheting back, propelling him away from her. The painful thought of their separation, a lonely wound that would never heal.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

            So, he hadn’t saved her. She saved me. That’s probably how she found me, unconscious in the middle of my fragmenting world. She shouldn’t have come back. Too dangerous. But as turned off as she’d seemed to every one of his self-centered attempts to brag about his powers—punching his chest like a silverback gorilla—she had returned to save him. Didn’t even take the credit. She had wanted him to think he’d saved her. And he’d gone along with her story, because, maybe, it’s what she wanted him to believe.

            He moved his fingertips to his mouth. He remembered something else. Even though he’d been nearly unconscious, he knew a kiss when he felt one. She’s my friend. Many times he’d thought about kissing Akeelah, ever since he discovered they were to be bonded, mated. To know that someday the Everetts expected him to be intimate with his sweet companion, to extend his boundaries, to move inside her. How he’d wondered could anyone, or anything, top that? Getting native girls interested in him had never been a problem. Approaching Akeelah on this subject left him awkward and perplexed.

            The temptation to investigate her kiss plagued him. Reaching into her mind, he was stopped hard.

            “You shouldn’t have gone there,” she said, a playful sparkle in her eyes. “Don’t you remember the last time they punished us for mindreading without invitation?”

            Over a ten-year period, the Everetts had disciplined them to read body language and moods, rarely thoughts.

            “What about . . .” He moved his fingers across his lips and cocked his head in an attempt to capture her attention. That gave him just enough time to penetrate and identify this place of caressing breezes and scented clover. It was her place, a place the hybrids had been banned from conjuring.

            “But they don’t know.” She reached out, briefly touching his hand and then withdrawing.             “You mean the Everetts don’t know about this place? We’re safe here—in your mind?”           

She nodded and smiled. “Much safer than in your jungle.”

            He pressed his lips together to prevent an all-out smile, and briefly touched the tip of her nose. He should not make light of this disaster. “That jungle wasn’t too stable.”

            “But it was great while it lasted,” she said.

            Perhaps he laughed more from nervous energy than anything else. The release of tension felt so good, now facing the jumble he’d made of things. As Akeelah smiled, so it seemed did the flower heads of the clover surrounding her. “So how did you manage it—this place?”

            “I don’t know. It’s just something I discovered recently, but I never brought anyone here. You’re the only one who knows.”

            “I’m honored.”

            She looked around. “I think we need to leave, and soon, or perhaps this portal will destabilize as well.”

            “Interesting. Creating a world that is yourself, representing you, your mind, and your feelings. Perhaps I should try that.”

            “Not today. Please. I think I’ve had enough of your different worlds.” Akeelah stood, brushing the remains of the clover from her now dry, but still baggy, overalls. She reached down to him. “I like the real world, our home back in Tanzania, on Earth, our volcanic Kili quaking in the distance.”

            Dizzy, Saffron stood on weak legs. Regaining his balance in Akeelah’s arms, he deeply inhaled her fragrance on the wind. “You know Geo Survey won’t let our families stay in Uhuratown.”

            “I know,” she said. “Even more reason to enjoy our home before the world government rescues us from the volcano.”

            He reached for her hand, but she pulled away. She kissed me, or did I dream it? Had he misread the signs? Was he coming on too strong? She’d seemed shy before. Perhaps he’d mishandled their friendship.

            No matter. Saffron thought he loved his Uhuratown home, but now he knew the truth. His home was with Akeelah, especially in this world, the world of her mind, where every warm breeze was a kiss and, with every kiss, the wind whipped across the meadow and the clover sighed.

***

            Akeelah hadn’t heard from Saffron all morning. They usually met around noon at her brother’s home, a short walk from hers. He lived apart from his family with her older brother, Basra, and his sister, Aminali—newly married.

            Did Saffron feel guilty about what happened the day before? Did he realize the danger they’d put themselves in? Or, maybe, using their powers irresponsibly, he thought them both in danger.

            He might stay away from me for my safety, she thought.

            Maybe that’s not it. Maybe I’m just not his type. When she and Saffron went out on their adventures, she always wore overalls, her safe clothing. The bib of the overalls covered her up top, so Saffron wouldn’t be tempted to compare her state of underdevelopment with the voluptuousness of the other, more sophisticated neighborhood girls. Her brother’s house was located toward the populated section of Uhuratown where tourists visited to watch the threatening volcano, even as some willing locals were bused out by the Survey.

            “Not here,” Basra, her brother, called in from the back yard. “Down by the lake, most likely.”

            Aminali, Saffron’s sister, wiped her hands on a dishtowel, following Akeelah out into the living area.

            Akeelah remembered how she’d thought it strange that she and Saffron looked nothing like their families. Few humans were as pale as she, Saffron, and the other hybrids. Aminali and Basra were a light chocolate brown, like most peoples of the world, the result of a long tradition of governments encouraging mixed marriage, a healthy protection against the sun and disease.         The porch door slammed behind her, and its cowbell chimed. Akeelah thought of another reason for the missing Saffron. He knows I kissed him. She wondered whether their friendship would change because of the stolen kiss.

            The lake where they’d caught frogs and fish as youngsters wasn’t too far away and very close to the baobab where she landed the day before. At times she enjoyed sitting under the tree, writing in her journal.

            She left the paved roadway leading from her brother’s home to walk on a dirt path that entered Kili’s forested slopes.

            The ground shook violently.

            She tumbled to her knees. Her palms, to the hard earth, the quake rumbled through her body. Her heart beat faster, pulsing in her ears. She’d become used to the volcano’s mild quakes, but she wasn’t prepared for one like this, lasting more than tens of seconds.

            She brushed dirt from her overalls, checked herself with each swipe of her hand. Made sure she was uninjured. Swallowing hard, she realized another strong quake was imminent. An aftershock.

            Her journal had fallen from her pocket. She picked it up and placed it back in her overalls, then walked carefully down the path, almost to the edge of the trees. But the aftershock didn’t happen, just more mild and familiar growling from the mountain.

            Akeelah looked up to see the trees obscuring her view of Uhuru, Kilimanjaro’s highest peak, and the steam it belched daily.

            Soon she arrived at the small lake to see Saffron disrobing, preparing for a private swim. She backed off the path behind a big-leafed philo plant, its lacy elephant-eared fronds shaded by young banana trees. Saffron had always been modest and it was impolite to spy on him this way. Because of his reserve, she’d never seen him like this.

            Today will be different. He would think of her, her kiss, and realize what they meant to one another. Neither of them ran around naked in front of the others for fear of exposing their overly light skin. Out of the sun, they looked like dark-phase albinos. In the sun, their skin tanned to the medium tone of a Tanzanian native. Unclothed, their lighter skin would give them away. Akeelah’s eyes scanned Saffron’s bared flesh. While he disrobed, she pretended her hands were touching his creamy skin. Her imaginary fingers followed his as he slid shirt and jeans from his body. She should look away, even now, but she couldn’t. He was naked, aroused, and self-aware, looking around, maybe suspecting someone spying on him.

            I have the skill to block him. He won’t know I’m here. Anyway, Saffron’s to be mine someday. His nakedness made her forget about his transgressions. She could hardly wait to hug and kiss every part of him with the whole essence of her being.

            Gone. All his masculine beauty, gone. He’d sunk his delicious body below the water, swimming toward her from the opposite shore. She squatted lower behind the leafy undergrowth, sure her light, kinky hair or blue overalls would signal her presence. As he turned to swim back to the other bank, she heard a giggle and saw a young woman, a relative of her neighbor, someone who visited their village from time to time. She didn’t know the girl’s name, but she was naked and beautiful. Her straight black hair streamed all the way down her milk-chocolate-colored back. Her white-white teeth stood out from her smile. She dangled Saffron’s jeans in one hand, his shirt in the other. Though she knew it was blasphemy, Akeelah amped up her pathing to hear their spoken words.

            “I thought I sensed you,” he said. “Mind giving me some privacy.”

            The girl continued to tempt him, shaking his clothes. “Oh, don’t think I have forgotten. Saffron, the prude. Come let me see you as you see me.”

            “Not today, Raziya.”

            “Not today, Raziya. Never today, you always say. Saffron, I warn you, I am not going to wait any longer.” The girl continued to wave his clothing about.

            He swam to the shore, hiding beneath the pond’s surface.

            And then it struck. The aftershock.

            Akeelah grabbed onto the trunk of a banana tree just in time to see the girl falling onto her hands and knees on the muddy bank, and then sliding helplessly into the water until Saffron sloshed over to rescue her. He grasped two large roots protruding from the bank, and faced the girl, holding her firmly until the rumbling subsided.

            In no time, the quake was over—but they weren’t. Saffron and the girl were standing on the bank, against one another—naked—and they were kissing. Then the girl backed Saffron to a nearby tree trunk, putting her arms around his neck and grinding her hips into his. That is . . . one moment the girl was against him, and the next—she wasn’t.

            She’s not anywhere. He’d opened a portal and sent her away. Akeelah looked down, to gather her emotions. In his recklessness and anger, she sensed he’d flung that poor lusty girl somewhere from where she’d never return.

            How can I face him after that? Is that what happens to women who come onto him too strong?

            “I said No,” his voice, so strident.

            Was he speaking to the girl? Is she back?

            Hopeful, Akeelah looked across the lake. Saffron was reaching down to where his jeans had fallen out of the girl’s hands. He pulled them on, buttoned them, and then sat back against a tree near the bank, bowing his head, and resting his face in his hands.

            As Akeelah waited, as they both waited, it became evident that the girl wasn’t going to return. She knew the only way they could make others disappear for good was if the departed believed as strongly in the distant world as those who sent them there.

            Still, the girl did not return. And if Akeelah had to guess, she’d conclude that the poor thing was gone forever. She exhaled silently against the banana trunk, and then on all fours, backed up the path, nearly choking on her silent tears. Without realizing it, she’d put up an even stronger defensive shield. Saffron wouldn’t be able to locate her. Though she should be thinking about that poor girl, her mind turned to finding protection for herself—to locate her brother—tell him what happened.

            Could she get away? If she ran as fast as she could, her psychic shield might leak, or break up, and Saffron would have her. He’ll know I’m here. He killed that girl. For what? For kissing him? And he kissed the girl back. To her shame, at first, Akeelah thought more about Saffron rejecting her, than about the lost girl and where she might have ended up.

            She tried closing her eyes to find the girl’s portal. Nothing. Just blackness. She crept along the trail on hands and knees until she could stand hidden by the tall scrub, and then willed her legs to carry her as fast as they could move. All along the trail, the ground shook and rumbled. She had to remind herself that the sound was from Mount Kili quaking and not Saffron following.

***

            How can I get out of this one? Saffron thought. There’s no getting out. Something had interfered with his orbweaving. That’s it. It caused me to port Raziya to places unknown. She didn’t deserve that. The story would be that he had just wanted to stop the girl.

            Saffron had come to this secluded place in the forest where he and Akeelah used to play. He wanted to think about what happened with Akeelah in her world of clover, right after she saved him.

            She kissed him while he was barely conscious, and it made him feel both wonderful and strange. She had teased him before with kisses on his forehead or cheek, but this was different.             What had he been thinking just before he made Raziya go away? It wasn’t the girl’s fault. He’d enjoyed her visits, the teasing way she flirted with him. Just then, the emotion he’d experienced welled up within, helping him understand his motive—fear. Saffron had never felt so endangered. He’d been afraid the girl would threaten his relationship with Akeelah. He and Akeelah grew up together, almost from birth, and he had a hard time admitting he couldn’t survive, didn’t want to survive, without her.

            What would he tell the others, Raziya’s family, after they failed to find her? He’d tried to locate her at first, closed his eyes tight, and searched through residual light from recently opened portals. Nothing. And she didn’t reappear.

            As if from nowhere, with heightened senses, he detected a large creature rustling in the underbrush across the lake. Few large mammals, except humans, remained anywhere near Mount Kili. Because of the active volcano and civil unrest, the Geo Survey, world government geologists, had the absolute power to lock up all endangered wildlife in remote wilderness preserves. With Kili’s quakes, the animals were first to go. Of course, they were. They couldn’t protest. So what manner of creature did he sense barreling through the underbrush? A warthog?             That’s it. A wild pig surprised me and I zapped it away. Saffron strode to the location where he heard the animal. Nothing there. Except . . . He leaned down to retrieve a muddy book. Akeelah’s diary? Was Akeelah here? Watching him? Or did she leave the book earlier in the day? He wondered if she’d back up his story about the warthog. It was all an accident. How could he possibly know it had been Raziya? A convenient lie, and he hated himself for it. It would have to do for now, until the neighbors stopped searching, or the girl showed up on her own.