He would come every night, and stay a few hours. They’d cuddle up on Faye’s bed and talk and talk and talk.

She’d ask him to tell more lemurian tales, which she absolutely loved to hear, and on the third night he brought a big bundle of papers with him. These were all the stories he had collected and written down. His manuscript. He didn’t know them all by heart—now he could read them to her, and it reminded Faye of being read bedtime stories by her father when she was a little girl. She loved it, back then and now. (Sometimes she’d actually fall asleep, like a little girl, before Johnny had even finished his story, and he would tuck her in and leave her sleeping peacefully. When she awoke in the morning, she cursed herself for falling asleep and missing precious time together, and she would then smile to herself, because he had tucked her in so lovingly, and he was such a great guy and he would be back again tonight.)

He would ask her questions about school and the things she learned there. She realized then, that even though he was clearly a very smart boy, there was a lot of normal stuff he didn’t know, or had even heard about—since he had never been to school, nor was he allowed to enter the town’s library. She also occasionally wondered if she herself was perhaps a bit stupid… When he asked her questions about lessons she had learned only months ago, or last year, she had a hard time remembering many of the particulars, and had to look them up.

And so sometimes, she would be reading him parts of her textbooks, or parts from fathers leather-bound twenty volume encyclopedia set.

Johnny told her, “It is told that the island that was Lemuria, this lone island in the Endless Sea was once a great sea creature. This giant among sea creatures did die and floated onto the surface of the Endless Sea, bottomless and eternal. Its bones would be the mountains of Lemuria, its flesh would be the soil. The countless flies that feasted on the corpse, and the worms and the beetles that feasted on it for eons, they grew larger with each generation, and they would someday be the birds of Lemuria, the lizards and the beasts of the jungle…”

Faye was amazed, “So, the oldest of all the lemurian stories tells of evolution..?”

Johnny knew about evolution, it was the eternal change of the Great Current, after all, but wasn’t familiar with how it worked. He knew animals and plants changed over time, but Faye had to explain to him about natural selection and the survival of the fittest—which didn’t mean fit as in sporty, but most fitting, as in what fitted best with the natural surroundings. She also told him about Darwin, and said when he first came up with his evolution theory it was a great scandal and the church wanted him dead. (As she told him this she wondered if this was correct, or was she mixing up Darwin and Copernicus, the fellow that claimed the Earth spun round the sun, instead of vice versa..? Anyhoo..!) Even to this day, she said, at her own school, no less, the theory was still controversial. Some teachers didn’t think children should be taught anything that contradicted the Bible. Many people still didn’t like the idea we were once monkeys.

“I guess,” Johnny guessed, “lemurians have always known about evolution because they are taught from birth that everything is constantly changing, some things fast, others slow. And also,” he said, “because lemurians still clearly resembled the lemurs that still lived with them on the island of Lemuria, or Madagascar. Much more than humans resemble apes. They used to call the lemurs ‘the old ones’.

“What I love about the Great Current,” said Faye, “is that it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, or Hindu or whatever, or if you’re lemurian or human or a cat, everyone is part of the Great Current!”

Faye couldn’t get enough of the lemurian tales, and became quite obsessive when she questioned Johnny about ancient Lemuria and the ins and outs of the Lemurian belief system (and she had told Johnny she would have these vivid dreams of being in Lemuria, of riding Elephant Birds, being stalked by vicious fossas and of going to war with other lemurian tribes). Johnny started to worry a bit if perhaps he wasn’t slowly brainwashing this girl. She was so open minded—had such an unspoiled brain, and here he was, pouring religion into it. It didn’t seem right, and he’d tell her again and again they were just stories, remember.

“How is it possible,” she’d ask, “that the First Mother is the life-giving sun, and makes things grow and the land fertile, and without the sun everything would be dark and cold..? But First Mother was also a lemur, who lived in the jungle, before her Inner Eye was put in the sky to shine as the sun?”

“These are just stories, my love” he’d say, “not history lessons.”

At the same time he started to wonder about his own beliefs. He had been raised in the Lemurian tradition. His mother, and Pearly’s father when he was still around, had taught him about the Great Current, First Mother, her children the stars and truelove. Underlying these teachings was the ever-present message that he, Johnny, wasn’t part of the Lemurian tradition. He was born outside the stream of the Great Current. The Great Current could only flow its one natural course, and he was the result of an unnatural union of a lemurian with a human. It made him feel real bad about himself. And as the years passed it made him only feel worse, and became a great burden to him—until he was old enough to decide he wasn’t going to believe these Lemurian teachings any longer. He instantly felt better.

He’d seen his neighbors, the Catholic Mexicans, pray to their icons, and he’d spoken to other lemurians who’d been raised by nuns and believed in a human god and said Lemurian religion was nothing but superstition. His mother had taught him to read (had this been before she had started hating him?), and he’d read many times a thin booklet of Native American stories. These were now called, on the cover, tales of folklore and mythology, but the Indians had once believed these stories to be true, they had been part of their religion. And he knew there were many more religions all around the world, and there had been countless different religions in mankind’s past. There had possibly been many different religions in the murky past of the lemurians. Young Johnny realized that people believed what they were raised up with, believes that could include pretty much anything: talking burning bushes, a guy walking on water, flying horses, ghosts and demons. There was no logical reason why one religion would be more true than another—though people invariably believed that only their religion was true and there was something wrong with people believing anything else—there was no logical reason to believe any religion was true. That was what the whole concept of believing was: taking things for granted. Johnny thought it was an intelligent decision not to take anything for granted and decided not to believe.

But lately things had changed. Truelove had struck. It seemed to have disabled his free will, and it propelled him forward, into an uncertain future. He felt like he was caught up again in the stream of the Great Current. Everything seemed to have meaning again—he seemed to have meaning again. He felt like he had purpose. Whatever it was. He wasn’t able to have children and contribute in this most natural way to the future, but the Great Current clearly had some plan for him. This realization brought his long suppressed religious feeling back to the surface. One clearly couldn’t simply shake off how one was raised with a rational decision. As he told and read all these stories to his lover, stories he knew well, they revealed deeper meanings he had never been aware of.

And, he thought, wasn’t his own life starting to feel like one of these stories? His banishment, his adventures trying to get home, his forbidden love… Maybe someday parents would tell their children of the Legend of the Truelove of Johnny and Faye.

“This is the Legend of the Boy without a Shadow.

“In the deserts of Lemuria lived the people who’d been judged unsuitable for society. Criminals, murderers and madmen. They were sentenced to die in the desert, and were brought there by caravans of wooden wagons with skis instead of wheels, pulled by elephant birds. They were left deep in the desert so none could ever make it back to the civilized world on their own strength. Most of them would die within days, some would live longer, shooting a wandering bird out of the air with bow and arrow, catching the quick geckoes or perhaps even dining on fellow condemned. These were not nice people.

“The First Mother looked harshly upon the barren desert. She loathed its lifelessness and her glare burned blinding and scorching. She didn’t watch over these deplorable people, had forsaken them, and their bodies cast no shadows in her loveless glare.”

“In the center of this particular desert, the desert where the boy without a shadow was born, there was a mountain range of black stone, sizzling hot during the day, and freezing cold during the night. Small groups of the condemned managed to survive for years in this desert, where they could shelter in the caves of these mountains at the hottest time of the day and during the cold nights. These wretched people would fight each other for access to these caves.”

“When the caravan brought a new batch of condemned lemurians a great commotion followed. Among the new arrivals was a young woman. Women were very rarely sentenced to die in the desert, and many of these deplorable men had been longing to lay with a woman for years.

“The most ruthless band of men won the battle for the poor woman, and took her to their cave. Here they had their way with her, and afterwards, one by one, they fell asleep. The woeful woman looked for a way out, feeling her way in the darkness, and found a crevice in the rough stone wall, wherein she just barely fitted. She sought to hide there safely, out of reach of the loathsome men, and die peacefully. But the crevice led to a narrow shaft, and she made her way through, making her way deeper into the mountain, following a tunnel downwards, deep underground, until she came to a large cavern. She felt her way in the pitch-black darkness, and found a small pool of fresh water, from which she drank gratefully.”

“When the men in the cave awoke and found the woman had disappeared they hollered with rage. They followed their noses and came upon the crevice—but none of the men fitted through it. They spent the day looking for the smallest and scrawniest among the condemned, but none fitted through the crevice.”

“The young woman in the dark cavern found there were small fish in the lake, which she could catch with her bare hands without too much trouble. She hunted for large centipedes that lived there, and occasionally managed to catch a bat. And so she survived living in the cavern in complete darkness.

“Even if she’d had a reason to get out of the cavern, she wouldn’t have been able to any longer. Her belly had grown in the meantime, she was pregnant, and wouldn’t fit through the crevice.”

“It was hard labor bringing the child into the world on her own, but she managed. When she had washed and suckled the babe, she felt no love for it. It had come from the seed of evil men, and she cursed it for wanting to be born.

“Yet even though this woman had led a wicked life, she couldn’t let the babe die. She fed it and talked to it, so it could one day talk back to her. She hoped it would relieve her dreary loneliness.”

“The boy grew up healthy in the pitch-black darkness, and was quickly able to catch his own fish. His mother told him many tales of the world outside, and the boy had weird dreams of this world he had a hard time imagining, since he had never experienced anything but the darkness and his mother’s voice.

“His mother had warned him never to climb up the tunnel to the outside world, for it led to danger and certain death. But there’s no stopping a curious child.

“The first time he went up, he was mesmerized by the light in the cave. Night had fallen outside and the moon and stars cast a pale glow onto the walls and onto the sleeping men. He had never seen anything before, so it was a great wonder to him. He stepped lightly over the sleeping bodies, making his way towards the source of the light. He had to squint his eyes when he saw the glory of the moon through the opening of the cave. It took his breath away, and he wasn’t watching where he stepped—he stepped on some part of one of the men. The man awoke groaning, and made a grab for him, almost catching him by the tail. The boy dashed back to where he had come from, waking up more men, and he only just made it back though the crevice, grabbing hands following him, and he heard the men curse him, as he scurried through the tunnel, his heart thumping in his throat.”

“The second time the boy went out, he was more careful and made it all the way out of the cave. The starry sky was more magnificent than he’d ever imagined, and the desert glowed silvery in the soft light of the half-moon above. This moon, the boy’s mother had told him, was the First Mother as she gently slept. This was ‘the night’. She had also told him about ‘the day’, when the First Mother was awake and blindingly bright, the sky was blue (however that looked) and the world was cast in heart-warming colors.”

“It proved more difficult to make it out of the cave during the day. Biding his time in the tunnel, the boy heard the coarse men talking and swearing. They went in and out of the cave, sometimes there were only a few of them left, but the cave was never completely empty.

“Until one day word was brought that the caravan approached. The men rushed out of the cave, and the boy followed at a safe distance. He hard time keeping an eye on the men, as he was overwhelmed by all he saw—he didn’t know which way to turn his head, and wished he had a hundred eyes to see this world with.

“He saw dozens of men gathered round, and saw the caravan arrive—wooden wagons pulled by great big elephant birds, guardsmen with spears and crossbows. The new arrivals were led out of the wagons and were unshackled. Any man that came too close to the caravan was poked with a spear.

“The boy watched the caravan turn back, moving across the desert in a straight line towards the horizon. This caravan could take him out of the desert, could take him past the horizon, where the many wonders of the world of his mother’s stories awaited.”

“The boy had a plan. A month later the caravan returned. As the new arrivals were led out, and nobody would pay him any mind, the boy ran over the hot sand towards a point he’d seen the caravan pass last time. Here he would wait for them.

“When the caravan came up to him, the boy told them to halt. The foremost guardsman told the boy to move aside, or he’d find himself skewered on the end of this here spear. But look, the boy said, I’m just a boy. I’m not one of the condemned, I’ve never committed a crime in my life! Please take me with you!

“But the guardsman said, pointing to the ground, look boy, you have no shadow, so you do belong here. Now move.

“And as the caravan passed, the boy saw their shadows pass him too, dark on the hot sand. So these are called shadows, the boy thought. How odd they are. As soon as he got out of the desert, he had to get himself one of these shadows, he decided.”

“A month later the boy had adjusted his plan. At the same location as before, he had buried himself under the sand when the caravan passed. He got out then and jumped unto last wagon of the caravan, and hung on tight.

“By the Great Current, he was excited! He was finally going to see the world!

“Then, a rock, hidden under the sand, broke one of the skis of the very last wagon of the caravan, that very wagon the boy clung unto. The guardsmen untethered the giant bird that had been pulling the wagon and didn’t notice the nervous boy stuck to the rear of it. The caravan moved on, leaving behind the carriage and the boy.

“What bad luck!

“The boy had a very hard time getting back to the mountains: walking through the loose powdery sand was very tiring and he’d brought no water to drink…”

“Another month later, the boy carried out his plan again.

“This time the bird that pulled the his wagon tripped over another rock and broke its leg. An elephant bird with a broken leg was useless, so one of the guardsmen put it out of its misery by cutting its neck at just the right spot, and it bled out. They left behind the wagon and the dead bird and the caravan moved on.

“The boy put its hand on the head of the poor bird and apologized to it. He believed he was somehow responsible for its fate.”

“Several tries later—after a lot more bad luck, after hearing the frustrated guardsmen beseech the First Mother to watch over them, after almost dying a couple of times in the merciless heat—the boy finally made it out of the desert.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“He walked the land, loving every moment of it. When he came to a river, he looked if there were any fish in it. He was terribly hungry, and catching fish was the only thing he knew how to do. Now that he could see, it proved all the more easy! He quickly caught a large glistening fish in his hands, and ate it raw, as was his habit. But, as the Great Current would have it, this fish was a very sick fish, and its meat made the boy very ill, indeed.”

“A farmer’s son found the boy, moaning in agony, by the side of the road. He carried him to the farm, where the kind farmer and his wife nursed the boy back to health.

“The farmer had many sons and one daughter. The boy fell madly in love with the soft-furred daughter, who was not much older than the boy and who was the very first girl he had ever seen.

“When after two weeks the boy was strong enough to get out of bed, he had resolved to walk up to the farmer’s daughter and proclaim his love for her.

“Their eyes met, and as the boy gathered his courage—one of the girl’s brothers, who’d been fixing the roof of the farm, lost his balance and tumbled down, crashing onto his sister. The brother was fine, but the poor sister was knocked unconscious, and refused to wake up again.

“The boy was horrified. He told the farmer he was very grateful for their kindness but he should leave at once. The farmer told the boy he could stay as long as he wanted, and he was sure his daughter would be fine tomorrow.

“But the boy did leave, though it broke his young heart. He was certain it was his bad luck that had struck down his love. His being there endangered the farmer and his fine family, so he had no choice but to leave.”

“He made his way carefully, watching his step and expecting danger around every bend. He steered clear of the villages and cities he came across, and wondered: was the outside world this treacherous to everyone, or just to him? The people he encountered seemed happy and contend enough. Some of them would wave at him, and invite him over, but the boy kept his distance, not wanting to harm these kind people with his misfortune.

“Neglecting for a moment to watch his every step, the boy’s foot got caught in a hole, his ankle snapped, he fell over, on top of a scorpion, which stung him several times for his bad manners.

“The boy wailed in pain.”

“A passerby put the boy over his shoulder, ignoring the boy’s pleas to leave him be, and brought him to a medicine man.

“The doctor splinted his leg, and the boy asked the kind doctor if everybody had as much misfortune as he had had. No, the doctor told him, after hearing of the boy’s plight, his case seemed highly irregular. But it wasn’t something a medicine man could help him with, so he led the boy to an old friend, a Seer.”

“The old Seer said, as the boy was introduced to him, son, you lack a shadow! Indeed, said the boy. Indeed so, said the doctor, who hadn’t noticed this peculiarity.

“The Seer told the boy he must have fallen out of favor with the First Mother, who watches over all her children.

“And the boy told him how he was born in the desert where the condemned had all lost their shadows.

“The Seer assured him the First Mother was sure to take pity on this innocent boy, if she were made aware of his plight. The Seer told the boy to go into town and perform acts of charity. Good deeds are what makes Mother shine warmly, he said. Do good, and the First Mother will soon smile upon you again, and your body will cast a shadow in Her benevolent glow.”

“This the boy set out to do. But every good deed—helping an old lady carry eggs from the market, helping a small family mount an uncooperative elephant bird or refereeing a game of kickball—inevitably turned into a disaster and the boy was cursed by a wide variety of people.”

“He returned to the Seer, who knew of only one other method: the boy must look for the First Mother in his dreams, where she might show him his way in the Great Current. This would be no easy task, but the Seer said he would guide the boy and teach him how to dream at deeper levels where one was granted visions.

“For a full year the Seer taught the boy the mysteries of the Seers. The boy sat at his side as troubled people consulted the Seer, and the Seer interpreted their dreams.

“The boy proved not to be a very gifted dreamer. After a year he told the dreamer he still hadn’t had any visions—he would only dream of his poor mother, who he had left behind, alone in the darkness.

“Then your path is clear, my boy, the Seer said. You must make your way back to your mother. You must quench this shame you feel for leaving her behind. It is this shame that keeps you from opening your Inner Eye.”

“However could the boy get back to those mountains at the center of that forbidding desert? He toyed for a moment with the idea to have himself be brought back by the caravan—have himself arrested and condemned. But only the truly devious were sentenced to die in the desert, and he would have to commit a very ruthless crime. Besides this not being something he could stomach, it would also be quite unforgivable to the First Mother, and he would never be granted his shadow.

“So he set out to get back on his own strength. He went well-prepared: he wrapped and tied banana leaves to his feet, which would help traversing the hot and treacherous sand, he brought food and two skins of water, he brought a blanket, which he’d wrap around his head during the day to keep out the searing heat, and at night it would keep him warm.”

“And so he walked the desert for two day and nights.

“When the third night fell, he crept under his blanket again, and dreamed of his mother.

“But his bad luck had followed him into the desert. He awoke, shivering, so cold! It was still night and just above the horizon the sickle of the moon looked coolly at him. Someone had stolen his blanket, and his food and water, they had even taken his banana leaves.

“The boy was too far out to ever make it back out of the desert without food and water, so he decided to push on—and got to his feet straight away. He could waste no time, he had to reach the mountains before he succumbed to hunger and thirst.”

“He didn’t get very far. At the hottest time of next the day, as First Mother relentlessly pummeled him with heat and light, he lost consciousness and dropped to the sand.

“He awoke, cold and shivering again, when it was night. He felt so weak he believed he would die this night. The moon was but a slim crescent, and for a moment it appeared to the boy as a softly glowing smile in the sky. Then he lost consciousness again and sunk back into darkness.

“When a voice came to him from the dark, he thought it was the moon speaking to him, but it was his own mother. Or was it both?

“The voice told him she had been waiting for him so long, and was waiting still.

“And the boy replied, he was sorry he had left her behind, and he was sorry he hadn’t managed to make it back to her. He was bad son, he said.

“And the mother’s voice said she too was sorry, for not having been a very good mother. And she said then, he wasn’t a bad son, he was a good boy with a kind heart.

“Then a bright glow from somewhere deep inside the boy dispersed the darkness that he had been born into. He thought perhaps this was death coming for him, but it was his Inner Eye opening.

“And he had a vivid vision. He saw himself reaching the mountain. It was night and it was quiet. A bright light lit his way. When several of the condemned came out of the caves to meet him, they kept their distance, and some dropped to their knees. The boy looked up, and the moon was but a sliver—the bright light came from himself. And as he passed the condemned, he saw this light cast shadows behind them, and the condemned seemed afraid to meet the boy’s eyes. He got into the cave and sought out the crevice from which he was born into this world.

“He had grown, but his body still fitted through. When he reached the cavern, and he saw it for the first time, lit up like a star shone inside, and he saw his mother hiding in a corner, small and scared, her hands sheltering her eyes from the bright glow. And the boy heard his own voice, and it said, ‘Mother, I’ve come to take you out of the darkness.’ ”

“And the boy awoke. He no longer felt hunger or thirst, he was filled with light. He felt strong, and the light was warm. Looking down, he saw the light cast his shadow on the ground. This light that came from inside himself, this brightness of his Inner Eye.

“And so goes the Legend of the Boy without a Shadow.”

“I would spent the evenings talking to these old-timers living in our neighborhood,” Johnny was telling Faye, who lay curled up against him on her bed, her forehead against his cheek, “and on my days off I’d ride my bike to Stanton or Fort Stockton and speak to the lemurians living there.”

Faye had asked him about his manuscript which was filled with handwritten lemurian tales and legends, and which Johnny had bound on one side with a piece of string so it could be leaved through like a book.

“Some of them refused to talk to me because I was a halfling, others were reluctant, but once they got to know me a bit they softened up. They all took pleasure in telling these tales, and complained about youngsters not being interested in them nowadays.

“What they didn’t like was that I wrote the stories down. These stories have been part of the Lemurian oral tradition since ancient times, passed from generation to generation by spoken words. It was the telling of the stories, they believed, that had kept these stories alive. The stories would change over time, as they were passed from father to son and mother to daughter. They would change ever so slightly. The storyteller might not even be aware they changed aspects of the story, but, as the old-timers told me: if a story wants to change it should be allowed to. Words on a page were dead, they believed. What couldn’t change, was no longer part of the Great Current. These stories had never before been written down—the ancient lemurians never had an alphabet or writing system. The old-timers suspected, and some said this out loud, that it was my human half that had this unnatural urge to write the stories down.

“They also didn’t understand my interest in the past, in the history of Lemuria, but also in the history of the lemurians since they were scattered all over the world.”

“The diaspora,” said Faye, who liked this word, and had remembered it since Patty had mentioned it.

“Yeah. They don’t care about the past. To lemurians the past is dead and gone, and these stories still lived—who cared what part of the stories was made up and what had really happened? They didn’t, and they told me this morbid interest in the past, this too, must come from my human side…”

“There’s this song, or poem, about the Great Current,” Johnny told Faye, as he flipped through the pages of his manuscript looking for it. “It’s in English, so it must be a translation from an originally Lemurian song. Parts of it don’t make much sense, especially the parts about Time… but I think that’s because the English language, or any human language, doesn’t have the right words to describe the concepts. Words are a way to translate reality, to put our experience of the world in another form. I think the ancient Lemurians experienced reality in a very different way than humans do, and than lemurians now do. I only speak English and Spanish, so I only have human words to describe the world and only human words to form thoughts with. You can’t think without using words, so if you would have very different words, you could think different thoughts. I hope I someday meet a lemurian who still speaks Lemurian… if they still exist… ah, here it is!” He had located the right page in the manuscript.

“I believe this poem gives us a glimpse of this different way to look at reality and at Time, but because it uses the wrong words, it doesn’t always make sense, I think. Listen,

The winds that blow over the lands,

Leaves that grow and crumble

And grow.

The clouds that follow,

Storms that rumble,

This the current commands.

The current flows, the current streams,

In circles tight and circles wide.

Onwards it goes, no origin, no end.

A gentle breeze, a raging torrent,

None does it ever leave behind,

Showing its aims in visions and dreams.

Time orbiting like the endless sea,

Waves of change break.

The lone swimmer,

The dead sinker.

All men and women will awake,

The Great Current sets them free.

The stars course the skies back and forth,

In circles tight and circles wide.

The future hatches the present,

Change wields Time, its instrument.

To those blessed with sight,

Eternity forever is fixed and wrought.”

“Well,” said Faye, “it sounds to me like poetry, and poetry never makes much sense to me. I don’t know what people get out of it.”

“Similarly,” Johnny continued his monologue, “the ancient Lemurians didn’t understand the believes of those early humans that came to the island. In many stories the humans are almost magical beings, that can make it rain by dancing, or who became ‘invisibles’ when they die, and who could speak to their dead ancestors. This seems to me just odd interpretations of human religions.”

Faye asked him what Lemuria had really been like. Was it like in her dreams? With these large stone castles in the mountains, and small farms and villages in the lowlands? She asked him to describe it. Did they play instruments? Did they build churches for the First Mother? Did they eat elephant bird eggs?

Johnny told her: her imagination was as good as his. The old lemurians never told him about life on Lemuria, because history, the past, didn’t interest them. That was knowledge that was never passed down the generations.

He told her there had once been an age of battle and strife among the Lemurians, the Days of the Warring Clans. Stories tell that in those days there were too many Lemurians living on the island. There were conflicts between tribes and clans. People would have many children, much more than would have been born from only truelove pairings. The tribes had to grow, they believed, because the larger tribe would win in battle. Villages grew unnaturally large, and there wasn’t the space to produce enough food for everyone. Hunger would become another cause for conflict—now people had to fight to survive.

It was a horrible time, and some stories told of an ‘endless night’, because First Mother was so ashamed of her children, She refused to rise in the morning.

War was outlawed after that time, and people would only have children that were meant to be born. No one would go hungry this way, and they didn’t have to cut down the woods to make way for farmland. They didn’t fight, and no longer had weapons to fight with… so when the English and the French arrived, they had an easy time killing and subjugating them, and stealing their island.

There were a few stories that told of warmongering tribes that had taken refuge in the mountains, and who had never been part of the great peace treaty of the Lemurians. It is said these tribes would sometimes attack the colonizers and then flee back into the mountains, where the cumbersome humans couldn’t follow. Some believed these tribes still lived there, even to this day, Johnny told Faye, with a dreamy look in his eyes…

Faye asked him why lemurians hated half-breeds like him so much.

“Well, you know about truelove, and that lemurians believe this is the pull of the future child wanting to be born from the union of his parents. Now, unions between humans and lemurians are seen as unnatural…and you can understand that if someone is forced to mate, if someone is raped, and the woman becomes pregnant, then the role of the child in these cases is, well, problematic. Many lemurians believe it’s the unborn child’s influence that pushes the rapist to rape. If that particular child didn’t want to get born, the woman, or man, I suppose, would never have been raped.”

“God, that’s terrible! To think that a little baby…”

“Little babies grow up, and become people like me.”

“So, does your mother think that you…”

“Well, she never told me she does. But, she’s a very devout Lemurian, so I’m sure she does. And the way she treats me? Yeah…”

“God…”

“Even when the lemurian slaves where brought here, and the first half-breeds were born, these halflings were blamed for slavery itself. They were blamed for everybody being taken from the island and brought here, maybe even blamed for the Europeans discovering the island—as if these halflings had set that whole mess in motion just so they could be born, you understand?”

“Jeez…”

“So, that’s why they don’t like us half-breeds.”

“Well, I’m really glad you were born!”

He came round every evening for two weeks, and these were the best weeks of Faye’s life. She felt like she was finally becoming a real person. She had often asked herself who she was. When she’d been a kid it was easy: she was a kid. But now that she had grown up, would turn seventeen soon, she didn’t know what she had become. Her friends, and most kids in school, didn’t seem to have this problem. They were persons. Patty was obviously Patty, and there was no one else like her. Claudette? Forget about it. But Faye had never known what kind of person she was, and how other people saw her. She always saw herself as a half-finished person, just the outline of a person. Now she felt filled-in. And it wasn’t like Johnny was the other half of the person she had been looking for, her other half that she had finally found, no, it wasn’t cheesy like that… It was just that she herself had felt more real, lately. It was hard to put into words. Maybe the ancient Lemurians had the right words for it…

And now that she felt more real, the rest of the world had started to feel less real to her. In a good way. It just felt less important, nothing to worry too much about. And how other people saw her? Who cared? She could even lie to her parents, these days. She used to get so nervous whenever she tried to lie to them… she didn’t know why. They were lovely parents and didn’t even believe in punishment, so it was weird to worry as much as she did. But she didn’t anymore. It didn’t seem important. She could lie. When her mother said she’d thought she’d heard Faye talking in her room, Faye told her Miss Porringer, her English teacher, had told her to read her lessons out loud, so she would remember them better. Easy.

On a Tuesday night, their third week of bliss, Faye eagerly awaited Johnny’s arrival. She had a thermos flask of tea (and one cup) and chocolate chip cookies.

It was a lovely spring evening and her bedroom window was open. She heard him climb up the tree, and her skin tingled with excitement. Each time it was still as exciting as that first night he had come into her room. She hoped this feeling never went away.

He stopped in the open window. Faye smiled at him. His big eyes seemed to grow bigger, and then he froze. What was he doing? Did he want someone to see him outside her window?

“Johnny?” she whispered, and got up from her desk.

Johnny recoiled, “No! Don’t!” he said, sounding weird. Sounding angry?

“Johnny, get in!” she said, coming up to the window, getting a bit worried.

“Stay back!” he said, too loud, her parents might hear. He stepped back into the tree, but his crazy-looking eyes stayed fixed on Faye, and he lost his balance, almost fell, grabbed for some branches and hung on. His eyes seemed to have changed color slightly, they seemed a more reddish orange, and they looked at Faye with all sorts of clashing emotions.

“Johnny!” she said again at her windowsill, but he swung down the tree quickly.

“Hey there!” a voice said as he hit the ground. Johnny ran. Faye slammed her window, which wasn’t the smart thing to do.

“Faye?” She heard her father outside. “Who was that… was that...?”

Oh, god…