32 – Eventine’s Demands

Eventine waited for Rhen to speak. She’d let them enter, surely she had something to say? Eventine burned to hear her say anything, and when no message came, Eventine almost lost her temper. Cool it, she told herself. Nothing has changed. This is how she’s always been.

But she needed a minute before she conveyed her message. “Let’s look for Jaggar and Leilani,” she told Dahlia. “This way.”

She led Dahlia through the forest that held no color. The gray was so intense, she almost missed the pink that the meadow used to be.

They reached the end of the path and pushed into the meadow itself. No one was there. Her office still stood, colored gray and grayer, but nothing else moved. Would Jaggar and Leilani be down a path? Had they already returned to the Ula? Dahlia walked toward the office.

Eventine managed to get some of her control back and she spoke into the meadow, making Dahlia turn to look at her. “I’m not leaving until I talk to you,” Eventine said clearly.

A voice came to her, came from all around her. The way Dahlia looked up let Eventine know that she heard it.

When you leave is not up to you.

Anger flared inside Eventine and she let it go. It would not help. Besides, finally she was getting somewhere. No one had ever spoken to her in her decades in the meadow, although she knew instinctively that this was not Rhen.

The catamount.

“You’re not Rhen.”

No answer came back to her. That meant assent, in Eventine’s mind, which was good and bad. Good because she knew who she was dealing with, bad because the catamount had always seemed to hate her, and did not think she had belonged in the meadow.

“You know I came here to ask for help.” She took a deep breath, knowing that what she was asking for was unethical, and maybe immoral, if she held herself to human standards. Did she? She did, or she tried to, but she would ask anyway. It was too important.

“We need Jaggar back in the KSRT.”

The voice came, clear and loud and dangerous. That is up to Leilani.

Hope surged inside Eventine for the first time in days. “Does she know that?” Eventine said.

No answer. She wanted to push her luck, wanted to demand an answer, but she knew the catamount would kick her out of the meadow for the smallest infraction.

When she spoke, she kept her tone light. “Okay, good, because I know she wants that and I know you’ll be very clear to her that it’s up to her.”

No answer. She spoke again. “We also want Leilani healthy and we know you can do that.” She hoped Rhen could do that.

Time travel comes at a price to the Ula or to the traveler. Leilani has chosen to accept that price upon herself and, as such, we cannot reverse her choices.

Eventine considered, thinking she was starting to understand this, starting to “get” what in the hell was going on here. She asked another question. “Again, I’ve got to ask, does she know that she has chosen to take on that price herself, or even that there is a price to be paid?”

There was no answer for several moments. Eventine was just about to try again, when the catamount spoke.

On some level, she does.

Eventine started to lose her cool with the riddles. “There has to be some way around this. You can’t ask Leilani to live like she is for the rest of her life. It’s not fair.”

The catamount spoke right away this time. There is no reversing what has been done. There is only traversing it.

Keep your cool, Eventine whispered to herself. Dahlia sat down in the flowers and stared at the sky, her eyes turbulent.

“Are you saying she has to live like that? Blind? Scattered? Not able to control her power?”

We have already offered Leilani a way to traverse her injuries. She did not accept it.

Eventine shook her head, clamping down on herself as hard as she ever had in her life. Had she once thought she had daddy issues? Daddy issues were nothing compared to Mommy issues.

“You asked her?” she said. “You told her clearly what she wasn’t accepting?

The catamount’s voice was hard. The meadow offered. She refused.

Eventine shook her head, cool and calm all of a sudden. She would get her way no matter how long she had to argue, no matter what she had to do. They could throw her out and she would return again and again. They could bar the entrance and she would knock until her knuckles were bloody. She would demand what was right, and she would get it.

“I just know there’s a riddle in there somewhere,” she said lightly. Then she pushed, just a little bit, hardening her voice. “Offer it to her again.”

The catamount spoke quickly, easily, like they were discussing something of no consequence. We cannot. Not in the same way.

“Then offer in a different way,” Dahlia said from the ground, the duh on the end of the sentence implied but not spoken.

There was no response.

Eventine sat down next to Dahlia to wait them out.

After several moments, she couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She spoke into the meadow, barely keeping the hostility out of her tone. “Did you forget we are here?”

We are considering. Discussing.

“How many people am I talking to?”

No response.

“Why have none of you spoken to me before?”

No response. “Okay,” Eventine said to herself. “Keep your cool.” Dahlia patted her on the shoulder. They waited.

After what felt like an hour, the voice spoke again.

Jaggar will receive a gift. We cannot force him to take it.

“But you can make it clear to him what you are offering?” Eventine said, her next question already on her tongue, about how would that help Leilani, when a moving sensation caught her around the middle.

Her and Dahlia were being ejected. Thrown out of the meadow. But she had hope, didn’t she? Hope and faith that Jaggar would figure it out. He was the smartest male she knew.

As she was shot back to the Ula, the catamount’s voice spoke one more time, possibly only in her head.

It is not lack of intelligence that makes people reject divine gifts. It is lack of believing they are worthy of divine gifts.

She fell back into her body with a jerk and opened her eyes. Harlan was there, staring into her face, rubbing her hand.

Eventine sat up, several possible futures clear to her, but she’d done all that was in her power to do. Now she could only wait.