The Whisper

 

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For Toril & Tim

 

November 19, 1989

A whisper is a monster with many mouths. It invites, it infests, it assures: I am not for all ears, I am just for you. There are whispers in the water, as strange as that may seem. But it's only strange to the ones who don't hear them. The ones who do hear them have a choice. They can ignore or they can follow.

On a rainy November night, Alistair Cleary chose to follow. The whispers came out of radiators. “We've waited so long for you,” they said.

He followed them down to the basement of Fiona Loomis's house, where a boiler, tall and round, disappeared, revealing a cylinder of water. The water was unbroken, immune to gravity, suspended in the air.

Alistair reached out and touched it. His body tingled and then crossed over. What was once a basement became an entire world, a place smudged sick and gray. His eyes burned. Tornadoes of ash swirled around him, while in front of him a colorful river raged. With an arm over his face, he rushed toward the sound of the current.

This is how Alistair's tale began.

 

BUT FIRST, ANOTHER TALE

 

IN A YEAR BEFORE YEARS

This tale begins with a girl and a creek.

The girl's name was Una and she lived with a tribe called the Hotiki at the foot of some mountains that were perpetually clad in snow. The Hotiki could have passed for hunter-gatherers, but they were scavengers more than anything. They ate whatever they could dig up, or pull down, or find along the banks of a creek that trickled, cold and clear, by the caves they called home.

Una was an inquisitive girl who asked questions like
Where do the stars come from?
and
What happens to us when we die?
Her elders gave her answers, but none that satisfied. Answers led to more questions until the asking felt like throwing tiny stones into a bottomless pit.

Sometimes at night when her tribe was sleeping, Una would sneak off, hide in a jumble of boulders, and dream of what it would be like to run away, to live alone by her wits. She was not fully grown, but she was strong and knew how to make fire and how to spear fish. There was only one problem. Escape was impossible.

You are Hotiki. Hotiki is you. When you bleed, Hotiki bleeds. If Hotiki dies, you die.

That's what the elders always said, and it meant that no one lived alone in this world. To leave your tribe meant ceasing to exist. There was no reason to question that belief either. Only one person in Una's memory had ever left the Hotiki, a woman named Jaroon who had set off into the mountains after the birth of her first baby. No one ever saw her again.

The jumble of boulders was not far from the creek, and one of the reasons Una hid there was that when the moonlight cast shadows on the stone, she could imagine that the shadows were a tribe that she lorded over. She would wave her arms and the shadows would move. They were at her bidding.

Among the Hotiki, the only person at her bidding was her younger brother, Banar, and his loyalty was waning. Banar was a trickster and a master of animal calls, and while he still adored his sister, he had taken to taunting her. One night, when Una was conducting the shadows on the boulders, Banar climbed a nearby tree and pretended to be a raven. “Kaw, kaw, kaw,” he squawked.

She ignored it.

“Ugly, ugly, ugly,” her rascal of a brother said, though he croaked it like a bullfrog.

Una was particularly sensitive to such taunts, because she had eyes that bulged, a ghastly scar that ran from her left eye to her mouth, and arms so long that they hung down to her knees. So she scrambled up the boulders, spotted her brother lounging on a branch near the top of the tree, and hissed, “Get down, Banar.”

He laughed in response and hooted, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Una's fury would not abate. This was her only time to be alone, and her brother was spoiling it. She slid down the boulders and crept over to the base of the tree.

“Get down, Banar,” she growled as she jabbed at the bark with the heel of her hand.

“Stinky, stinky, stinky.”

The earth was soft near the roots, and Una scooped up a handful of muck and pebbles. “Down. Now,” she commanded.

Banar twisted up his face and stuck out his tongue, and Una flicked her wrist. Her aim had never been so perfect. The mud struck Banar square in the nose with a satisfying
splat
.

Una couldn't help but laugh. “I win,” she cheered.

Banar harrumphed and reached to wipe his face. As he did, he lost his grip on the tree. A foot flew out, an arm pinwheeled in the open air, and Banar fell.

He landed in the shallow creek, his neck striking a rock. There was a snap and a crunch. Banar didn't even scream. Una rushed to help him, flailing her way through the knee-high water, but it was too late. He was dead, his body twisted and broken.

Una scooped him up in her arms and carried him back to the caves, where she collapsed. “What happened?” her mother asked when she found Una's body splayed across the ground, her wet arms draped across her dead brother.

“I do not know,” Una whimpered. “I woke to a yell. I found Banar in the creek. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.”

Una's mother stood motionless, but her father howled, yanked Una away, and shook his son's body, trying to rouse life. “Chaos spirits,” he moaned. “Why do they always take the best ones? Cruel, cruel.”

“Yes,” Una whispered. “The best ones … chaos spirits. So cruel.”

Una had never lied before. Among the Hotiki, truth was as essential as food, and no one ever doubted the words they shared. And yet Una couldn't bear to tell them the truth, that she had essentially killed her brother, a boy so attuned to the natural world, a child who many predicted would grow up to lead the tribe.

The next night they buried Banar in a deep grave, beneath a pile of wildflowers and animal pelts, which was their custom. They sang songs and spoke remembrances until they were too tired to carry on. As they all fell asleep next to a bonfire, Una slipped away and sought out the solitude of the boulders once again. It was here that she made a decision. Just like Jaroon before her, she would leave. The other options—to tell the truth or to keep lying—weren't options as far as she was concerned. Both brought too much shame.

So she followed the path of the creek upstream. Before that night, the farthest Una had traveled was a one-day journey from her home. She may have only been twelve winters old, but as far as she knew, no one in the Hotiki had ever traveled farther. There was never any reason. Food was plentiful near the caves. Life was livable. Una assumed if she were to travel any farther, she'd either reach the end of the world or she'd simply disappear.

For three sunsets she followed the creek, eating berries and taking shelter under rock outcroppings. Each stretch of the forest was barely different from the last. Yet on the fourth morning, there was a change. The creek tumbled over a small waterfall and into a deep round pool. Una knelt down next to the pool to take a sip when she noticed something glowing at the bottom. It glowed not like the stars or the sun, but like an animal that had strands of light covering its body instead of hair. The sight was intoxicating and it compelled Una to dive into the water so that she might examine things closer. Down she swam, her eyes fixed on the strange beacon, and when she was close enough to touch it, she reached out a hand.

Tingling spread through her body, and Una closed her eyes. Something tugged at her arm and sucked her deeper into the pool, and when she tried to open her eyes it was impossible. The water was pressing too hard against her face. The force pulling her was too strong and it surely meant to drown her. It wasn't ever going to let her go.

Until, of course, it did, and Una sprang up to the surface.

Her eyelids drew back, and she found that there was now water all around her, stretching to every horizon. A brilliant sun and a blue sky were above, but nothing else. No waterfall. No creek. No forest. It was as if she had been pulled through the bottom of the pool and ended up at the top of a place where only water existed.

She swam and she wondered,
Is this the edge of the world? Is this the last thing I will ever see? I wish I could at least see the stars one more time before I die.

As soon as she had that last thought, waves leapt around her and slapped against the sky. What was blue became black, and stars sizzled into existence. The sky was now a night sky, shimmering and deep. Her wish had been granted.

I wish I could see Banar once more,
Una thought.

From the water emerged hands, arms, shoulders, and a head, wet hair clinging to a face like dark algae on a rock. Una pushed the hair away and looked into the pair of amber eyes.

“Banar?”

“Yes.”

“You've come back.”

“You've created me.”

Banar shivered in the water, his breaths rattling and short.

I wish we were in a warm cave,
Una thought.

Another wish made and another wish granted. A mound of rocks emerged from the water and melded together until there was a hollowed-out shelter surrounding Una and Banar.

Una was a quick learner. She realized almost immediately that this was not the edge of the world. It was a place where her wishes could come true. So next she wished for fire. Flames leapt up from a pit in the ground. Meat? At the snap of her fingers.

“I'll bring you back to the Hotiki,” Una said.

“You can't,” Banar explained. “I live here. I can't live anywhere else.”

“Why not?” Una asked. “Where are we?”

“I don't know.”

I wish I could go back to the Hotiki and take Banar with me.

Tingle. Pop. Gone.

Just like that, Una was transported back to the pool beneath the waterfall. But she was alone. No Banar. So she swam down and once again touched the glow. Her body tingled, something tugged. She emerged in the cave next to the fire and Banar, who was still eating the meat that Una had wished into existence.