Whisper

Whisper1

Kaelynn blinked her eyes, and she was straddling the rocky, frozen, jagged peak of a mountain top, all alone, with nothing but the ever-present power to escape. And in a flash, she was gone. The mountain was left with nothing but the sheering wind, the bitter cold of sparkling snow and ice, and the faintest memory of a sad, lonely little girl. She had vanished even before her feet could make prints in the fresh fallen powder. The peak was as naked now as it was the day of creation, and what dreams it had contained but one, solitary soul.2

Somewhere completely unknown to the frozen peaks, in a city full of comers and goers and hot sunshine and sweaty people running to and fro with no apparent rhythm or destination, Kaelynn sat under the mist of a fountain. It's sculptor was long since dead, for the marble had all but crumbled beneath the heavy load of this world's star and its mistress of acid rain. Their destruction caught her observant eye, and she wondered what sort of goddess would allow her image to be thus mangled and torn. The insignia at the base of the fountain read Hestia, goddess of the hearth and domestic life. The goddess of home.3

Home was a word Kaelynn had hoped for many times. It was a word she longed to hear, longed to feel within the deepest places of her heart. Home had given her a reason to live, a reason to fight. But it was lost. It was dead, just like she was dead. She had been without home for the last fourteen years of her life. But her memory had not faded with the rest of her. She remembered, and she remembered well what had happened to her. She remembered everything about the day home was taken away. Over all else, Kaelynn wished to escape the blistering, choking grasp of her memory. But she couldn't.4

It was her eighth birthday. The sun was shining, and only a few clouds drifted lazily across the orchid sky. Springtime had crept gently around the bend, and the grasses were all shades of neon and sparkle and fluorescent blue. Flowers grew in great symmetric patches behind the house, and they shimmered and glinted gold and orange with the sun's majestic reflection in the eastern horizon. Ribbons and pennants and balloons of every shape, size, and color danced as the cinnamon winds gently caressed and played with the children in their games of hide-and-seek. They ran and climbed and fell without fear of losing a thread from their soft, yet impenetrable steel-woven garments whose edges were as silver lined as every cloud in the sky.5

This day was a day of laughter and dance, a day of joy and celebration. It was a day which marked all days forever in the hearts of those who loved her. Not because of the laughter, but the tears. And not for the joy and celebration, but for the dread and the sorrow, the pain and the anguish of lost love. On her eighth birthday, Kaelynn Hobbes was dared by her friends to cross the busy street in front of her house. Her best friends coerced her into four lanes of vicious, unkind, pitiless traffic, and in the third she came face to face with a monster. 6

Kaelynn died that day. She died to a world that would never see her again, a world that would mourn the death of a beautiful child who would be replaced by the birth of another. Kaelynn Hobbes died; but only for a moment! She had seen her end and comprehended. Her eyes closed as a swift, powerful glider slammed into her body. A second later, she opened them to what? Death, she thought, a strange death-world without glistening plants and shiny red balloons and purple skies and birthday cake. 7

Things were blurry at first, and she wondered if heaven would reveal itself eventually. But when her head and vision cleared, things weren't so heavenly.8

“Where am I?” she asked aloud. 9

The street was gone. Her house and neighborhood had also vanished, along with her mother and all her friends. The glider was nowhere in sight, and she felt no pain from the impact. Kaelynn would have sworn the thing hit her. There was no doubt! But all of it was gone, and what was left looked like the pictures of the abandoned quays in her mother's old books. Buildings were piled upon one another like wooden blocks stacked by a child. The streets were unpaved, and the lamps were all broken and rusted by rain and time. No doors or windows were present on any single structure, but eyes could not penetrate the blackness just beyond the unbroken plain of each building's threshold. The city was dead. 10

In disbelief, Kaelynn closed her eyes.11

She opened them somewhere far from the ancient city, away from the rust and the crumbling, toy buildings and the trashy streets. The only construct in sight was a glassy dome, miles and miles away. She was standing in a nearly endless field of purple sage and wild roses. 12

“I'm dreaming!” she screamed as she closed her eyes and opened them once more to a different scene.13

Kaelynn cried for weeks as she jumped and flew and sailed to strange, unfamiliar worlds. She wanted nothing but to see her mother, her friends, her schoolmates and teachers again. She wanted to wrap herself in the blanket her grandmother had made and smile a sweet smile as her mother kissed her goodnight. She wanted to walk to school with that boy who called her Valentine. She wanted to go home. But Kaelynn was too far away. She was worlds away, universes away, dreams and wishes away from the home she knew once, a long, long time ago. And every blink of the eye took her further and further away.14

Open. Close. Open.15

Blink once, twice. One place gone. One year gone. Awake, asleep, another year gone.16

For seven years Kaelynn blinked time and space away, never stopping, never finding what she wanted so desperately to find. She saw mountains and forests, glaciers and deserts, jungles, oceans, planets, moons. She saw ancient, vast empires of warriors and stone-masons and theocratic nobility. She witnessed the final destruction of a war-torn planet and its orbiting satellites. She felt the chill of an ice blue sun on a nameless, hopeless world. She moved and changed with every environment, and if time were measured by the places and things she saw, Kaelynn lived forever. She lived unending, unceasing, tossed and driven and plummeted by the waves of an unfriendly ocean. Every word she spoke, every thought that crossed the neuro-pathways in her brain, every person she met, all of them existed for hours, minutes, mere seconds. And all of them were consumed by the space between here and there in Kaelynn's search for home.17

More than once, she had appeared in a place not too unfriendly and unwelcoming. Some worlds were warm, restful, welcoming to strangers who wished to blend in. They were not home, but they certainly felt a whole lot closer than other places and other times. Often, Kaelynn would let through a minuscule glimmer of hope when she alighted on a friendly town. She had learned to control her own tear ducts enough so that she could keep her eyes moist without blinking for two or three hours, and she would spend these precious hours fully on any world that was reminiscent of her own. 18

When the time came for sleep, Kaelynn would again choose some place nice, some place warm. She did not vacate her present world fully until her eyes reopened. And from the very beginning, she planned to use this knowledge. 19

If ever fate led her home again, Kaelynn Hobbes was ready to sacrifice her sight. Years of wandering had taught her that she could stay in one place indefinitely as long as her eyes remained shut. So, her plan was simple. Once home, she would close her eyes and never open them again. Perhaps a doctor could remove them without her seeing anything during the operation. But that was a risk, she knew, for if but the slightest ray of light penetrated her retina, the world would change. And nothing could be worse than losing home for the second time. But nothing could be more joyous, more wondrous than finding home again! 20

Home. It was a cruel and torturous joke played out by the worlds ruled by merciless people and the people ruled by merciless gods. They dangled her over the fire as she cried out for mercy, and none were left to defend her. She had nobody. And as she sat under the shade of Hestia, Kaelynn wondered if the people passing by could possibly know what it was like to be not only physically and emotionally, but spiritually and universally separated from home. Did they even care that this beautiful, innocent fifteen year-old girl had no friends, no family, no possessions of any kind? Or were they worried only for the sake of their own selfish bank accounts and luxuries and jobs and securities? 21

The latter seemed a more fitting characteristic for people on a world like this. Plus, believing that they were heartless gave Kaelynn less remorse for what she had to do next.22

She was hungry. Not every world had an abundance of food in the open. Some held it as a valuable commodity which could only be rationed by government officials. And some worlds did not even have people, and Kaelynn knew nothing of the environmental hazards of such places. But most of all, she did not want people to think ill of her, consider her a criminal. For these reasons, she was very careful when choosing to steal. Presently, her stomach was telling her to eat or face the consequences of an unfilled palate. 23

Hestia was located in the central marketplace, and food vendors were in abundance here. The square seemed more like a bazaar of ancient times than a grocer's gathering. The pathways were filled to the brim with transportable, wooden carts and pillared canvasses and cloth coverings and weather-worn shelves clammed up with ivory, jewelry, stained-wood ornaments, linens of every size and color, shoes, hats, tools, luxuries, indulgences. And several of the vendors carried boxes of fruit, bread, and fish from loading docks on the seaward size of the market to their carts and shelves on the plaza side. Kaelynn knew what to do. 24

The loaders had a true variety of workers under their employ. Some were old men, nearly crippled under the weight of a few dollars worth of merchandise. Others were seemingly unhealthy, yet strong, young men and women from the middle-working class. The rest were children. Boys and girls of all sizes and ages swarmed about, taking orders and lashes from employers and shipyard hands and dock inspectors. They dared not smile or laugh, for the whip found mouths as easily as it found backs. The only happiness here could be found in a hard day's work, and these children knew well what a hard day really was. 25

It made Kaelynn sick, watching these innocent little girls and boys losing their childhood for this. But she could not save them. She could only use them in hope of gaining a meal. And after watching them for a minute or two, a chance presented itself. A group of ten or so youths hurried to unload the last of the crates and boxes from a nearby freighter, and Kaelynn jumped in step with them. 26

They had a few hundred yards to carry the load to the plaza, and the stronger boys jumped ahead of the younger, weaker adolescents. Kaelynn grabbed a box of apples and a crate of pastries, and she began to make her way in the general direction of the others. Slowly, slowly, she walked and labored under the weight of her burden. One young boy passed her. Then another, and another. And one by one each of the workers overtook her on their journey. The leaders rounded a broken-down warehouse, and the younger ones followed them. But Kaelynn did not. Each child turned left on the pathway around the warehouse. She simply turned right, and in a moment, she was alone in a building with two full boxes of food. 27

Unfortunately, she could take nothing with her that was not from her own world. She had tried many times before, but every try was a failure. Kaelynn knew that she must eat as much as her stomach would hold, for the worlds ahead were a mystery. And so she spent the next hour eating pastries and apples and thinking about the past and wondering about the future. Will the next world be warm? Will the sun shine through the rainclouds, and will the breeze feel cool on my face? Will the people there be happy? 28

She could not have known the answer to either of the first two questions, but Kaelynn knew without a doubt the answer to the third. In all her ceaseless, careless interruptions of places and times and worlds, she had become certain of only one thing. No other idea or theme or value or emotion was ever the same in every place. People were different. They knew nothing of other worlds, and they knew nothing of each other, save the fact that friends and enemies could be used and manipulated to expand selfish enterprises and worthless endeavors of politics, money, power, and fornication in pursuit of a lifestyle of decadence and decay. In every time, every space, every universe, Kaelynn discovered that people took completely different routes and ended up in the same place. So when she asked herself the question, “Will the people there be happy?” she knew immediately that the answer was undeniably, unmistakably, and indisputably NO! 29

Nobody was happy. Ever. Not since Kaelynn had been forcibly extracted from the place she called home. She was happy then. And her friends were happy, and her mother was happy, and even the world itself was a happy world. Perhaps she was kicked out of the only place and time where the light outshines the darkness. And she wondered then if this life of constant wandering was punishment for not recognizing the beauty and majesty of heaven. She wondered if the goddess of happiness died when she left, scarring and scathing some picturesque, marble statue under a dried up fountain on a barren world that Kaelynn called home. Perhaps she would never see it again. Perhaps she wouldn't recognize it even if she did. 30

Her eyes were beginning to sting with the combination of hot wind, sand, and time. She was eager to leave this paradoxical home world of Hestia. Kaelynn closed her eyes as she took one last bite of an apple. She was famished after having nothing to eat for nearly an entire day, so she savored the last bit in her mouth till the saliva made her swallow, and she let the core fall to the ground. Kaelynn allowed her eyes to moisten under the lids for a few seconds, giving them the recuperation they needed to withstand the attack of another few hours of light and wind. And she wondered again what sort of world was next in line. The thought came and passed swiftly in the scope of eternity while an ageless, timeless child ventured into the depths of universes and ages and colors floating through trackless space. For a moment, before she opened her eyes, Kaelynn swam through a haze of purple myst, then an endless expanse of black nothingness. 31

And then she was home.32

Home! There was no question. There was no room for doubt, no room for disbelief. The sun was too bright, too warm on her weary shoulders. It glinted and smiled deep-seeded serenity in the reflection of gilded flowers and florescent, blue grass. She knew of no other place as wondrous as this, as beautiful and as heavenly as a mystic, lost Atlantis under the breadth of an orchid sky. No other place like this. Only home! And the birds in the sky sang her a song as the cinnamon winds embraced her in caresses of ecstasy which she had missed so dearly!33

“I've made it!” Kaelynn exclaimed, gazing longingly at her house from the third lane of an empty motorway. The traffic had cleared for the day, and the normally hot pavement had cooled from a lack of burner-exhaust. 34

She stood right in the middle of it, sobbing from the joy of having found home and the horror of having so many years torn from her. She cried for her mother and her baby sister whom she never had the chance to meet. And when her eyes finally dried, she realized that she had been standing in the street for ten minutes.35

"It's time to go in," she whispered to herself.36

Her house had not changed. Not one bit since she had last seen it, seconds from a disaster that separated her from the world she loved so tenderly. Unashamedly, Kaelynn stepped through the sparkling garden and into the snow-white terrace. Her hand reached for the doorknob and turned ever so slightly. It gave way to her and opened with a gesture of friendship and adoration for its long lost daughter. Nine years had gone by. Nine, long years without her, and the house still knew and loved and comprehended Kaelynn Hobbes. It offered a game of remembrance, and she played along.37

Six years old! Same house, same neighborhood, same old cushioned sofa. She ran across the room and jumped into its billowy catch! Saturday mornings were her favorite. There was no school, no work for mother, no mean teachers to tell her what to do, no goody-two-shoes Allison Bender to correct her mistakes out loud in class. Saturday meant pancakes and sausage in the morning. Saturday meant playing outside in the comfort of the lilies and the grasses and the trees. Mother stayed with her on Saturdays, and she would play as if she were twelve again, running and jumping and laughing along with Kaelynn till both of them were shining bright with silvery blue stains.38

“Mommy! Climb the tree with me!” 39

“No, dear, it's too high for me. I'm too old for climbing trees.”40

“No, mommy, climb it. Climb it with me. We can go to the stars!”41

“Kaelynn, come down. It's nearly lunch time, and we haven't made anything yet!”42

“Not till you come up here and get me! Nope, I will not come down from my tree house until you visit me here.”43

“Oh, you most certainly will young lady. You will if you want to eat dessert!”44

“Catch me!” Kaelynn screamed as she jumped from the lowest limb into her mother's arms. 45

Kaelynn's mother always played with her no matter the cost in time or energy. She loved her daughter dearly and would do most anything to please her. And Kaelynn loved her mother in return. They were inseparable at times, and no wedge was big enough to drive between. None but death. 46

If Kaelynn only knew what anguish her mother went through after her only daughter's death, she may not have wished so desperately for home. For houses have the strange ability to corral emotions and fuse them to their inner workings. Walls, floors, and ceilings change to suit their owners, and when Kaelynn stepped through her front door for the first time in nearly a decade, she felt the heavy load of deepest depression on her shoulders. She tried hard, but could not keep the tears from streaming down her cheeks. Don't blink, she thought to herself. And when emotions were finally under control, she had kept herself from closing her eyes. 47

Kaelynn walked through the darkened soul of the house, checking room by room to see if anyone was home. She headed for the stairway, but stopped short in the hall. Something was different. Something had given the room a new flavor. A moment later, she realized that the pictures on the wall had changed. And the foamy letters which used to spell K-A-E-L-Y-N-N now spelled S-A-R-A-H. 48

Every photograph of her had been replaced with one whose central figure was a beautiful, blond girl who looked a lot like Mom. In a second, the room shared its emotions and feelings with Kaelynn who, in turn, shied away from the house's burden of memories. It was too much to think about. She was home! And no one was going to take her away again.49

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a slamming door. Someone had just come in from the back! Kaelynn ran to the stairs and took cover behind them, peeking through the rods that supported its banister. She knew that in a few seconds, somebody would walk around the corner into the hallway, and they must either walk up the stairs or venture around the corner where she hid. It was too late to hide elsewhere, so Kaelynn stayed put.50

It was Mom! She looked the same as always, beautiful and full of life. And the instant she walked into the hallway, the whole house changed. It felt calm and peaceful. The depressive atmosphere was gone. It had been replaced by restoration and belonging, a feeling of things going back to the way they were supposed to be. It felt like the ocean on a warm, Summer afternoon. It felt like home.51

The mood of the place was so transformed in that moment that Kaelynn no longer felt fear of discovery. She did not need to hide from Mother anymore, for her presence was acknowledged and recognized by the house. Kaelynn knew this because she felt it, and she knew that Mother felt it too. So when she stepped out from behind the staircase, she was not surprised to see Mother smile at her and walk on by as if nothing strange had occurred! The world accepted her as its own, as if she were there all along. Even Sarah thought nothing of the unexpected return of her dead sister. All was as it should be.52

Despite the difference in age, they quickly became best friends. The tree in their backyard was a formidable doll house, and the sisters ran outside to climb and run and roll around the flowerbed. It was Saturday, and Mom came outside and played with them. She was forty years old, but looked twenty-five. And anybody walking by would have sworn that the three were sisters. Life had never tasted so sweet, and the sun had never felt so warm to Kaelynn. But something was wrong. She felt it deep inside herself that evening when the house was still and the rain was falling gently on the ground outside.53

She had followed her mother upstairs after they came inside. The walls of the house had been a deep blue all afternoon, and they were beginning to dull. Mother had gone into her bedroom and shut the door, but Kaelynn followed her in after standing outside for a few minutes. Mom was lying on the bed, tears flowing down her cheeks and gathering in puddles on the bedspread. She didn't respond when Kaelynn asked what was wrong. But an hour later, she ran downstairs with a smile on her face.54

Mother was happy again, and she spent the rest of the day cooking a special meal for her daughters. After dinner she went upstairs to sleep, and Sarah began washing dishes. Wanting to help, Kaelynn grabbed a towel to dry them. Her eyes were beginning to sting. It had been four hours since her arrival, and the time was nearing when she would sacrifice her sight forever. 55

As she dried the plates, stacking them one by one on the counter, she said, “Mom has been acting strange today. She's different.”56

“I think she's a little bit nervous. Sometimes the house changes when something is wrong, and it has been changing a lot lately. Mother doesn't like it. She sits alone sometimes and won't get up for hours.” Sarah responded.57

“Maybe she just needs a little sleep. I saw her crying upstairs, and when I went to her, she acted like she didn't even see me, like I was far away instead of here.”58

“She has really missed you Kaelynn. Things aren't the same when somebody close to you goes away. Mommy feels so alone sometimes. I don't ever talk to her about it, though, because she pretends that nothing is wrong. And then we just go on cooking or playing, and everything is better for a while; but then it gets worse. Oh, Kaelynn, she loved you so much.”59

“I loved her too, and I missed her more than anything when I was gone. I thought so much about her and about you. Everybody thought I had died, but I didn't. I just went away to different worlds and different places. And every time I hoped that home was around the corner, but until now I thought it never would be. I thought I'd never see purple skies or smell cinnamon wind. I thought I'd never feel happy again.”60

“I think the world would be a much happier place if nobody ever had to go away,” Sarah said. Kaelynn smiled at her younger sister's naive remark. “I mean, if you had just stayed with Mom, she wouldn't have ever been sad. She tells me all the time about how you used to play together in the back yard, and how you would climb the tree and roll around in the grass and get your clothes all dirty.”61

“Oh Sarah, I missed Mommy so much!”62

“She misses you, Kaelynn.”63

“But I'm home now. She should be happy that I'm home, right? And this time will be different.”64

“She misses you a lot.”65

“But she doesn't have to miss me anymore! I'm home, and I'll never go away. I'll never leave her again. And we can play together forever if you want to! We can be best friends.”66

“And I miss you too, Kaelynn. Even though I wasn't here when you went away, I still miss you.” 67

“But you don't have to miss me!” Kaelynn screamed as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I'm here, Sarah! I'm going to stay here forever, and nobody ever has to miss me again!”68

“Oh Kaelynn, I wish you would come back,” Sarah sighed. She looked down at the wet dishes she had stacked on the counter top, and she thought about how nice it would be to have a sister. After a moment or two, she grabbed a towel and began drying them.69

“Oh, I really wish you were here.”70

Kaelynn fell to the ground and sobbed uncontrollably as she watched her little sister dry the dishes by herself. She cried for Sarah, knowing that Mother would never be the same as she used to be. The world was not so bright as it was the day she had died. And everybody in this house was alone. It was then, in that very moment, that Kaelynn discovered for the first time that unhappiness had penetrated the only happy place she had ever known.71

“I'm sorry, Sarah,” Kaelynn whispered as she left her little sister forever. She wandered into the hallway, barely able to see through all the tears. Her eyes hurt badly now, and she knew that in a few minutes all would end. The walls and stairway drew her along, and somehow Kaelynn found herself at the foot of Mother's bed. The sheets were still wet from earlier that afternoon, and new stains had formed on the pillow below her eyes. She was asleep.72

“Oh Mommy!” Kaelynn cried. “I miss you so much. I'm sorry I left. If you'll just take me back, I'll never leave again! I won't let you cry any more, and we'll all be happy together. Please!” 73

But the end was inevitable, and Kaelynn had but a few brief seconds before her eyes would close forever. She tried to wake Mother, but no matter how rough her pushing and pulling, she couldn't do it. They were separated by a curtain that nothing could penetrate. She was dead to the world.74

Kaelynn savored the last few moments in the place she called home, staring at the person she loved most. And as she closed her eyes for the last time, she let out a piercing, agonized scream for the world lost to her; for her depressed mother; for the sister she would never know! 75

She was gone.76

Mother awoke with a start and sat up in a cold sweat. Sarah was standing beside her with a glass of water in hand, tears flowing down her cheeks. 77

“What's wrong Mommy?”78

“I thought I heard a whisper!”79

“It was only the wind, Mommy. Only the wind.”