Terrene: the Hidden Valley, Page 2

  “Hey Scarface. Hurry it up already. Your ribbon tying can’t be any worse than your Blooming.”

  Flora looked down at the ground to see a thin blond teen unjustifiably pleased with his own wit. “Well, we can’t all be superbly mediocre like you,” she called back. 

  “Thanks,” Crick said. Flora sighed. People just didn’t seem to get sarcasm today. 

  Flora looked around to see that she had climbed past the last of the other ribbons. She reached out to tie their three ribbons to the end of a bare branch, only five feet from the very tip of the tree. Everyone would be able to admire their ribbons. They were the topping to a patchwork of color which would envelop Pinto for at least a few weeks before the ribbons degraded, eventually falling to the ground and turning into compost to feed the tree. From her perch, she could make out her grandmother and her mother now standing together. Her mother’s eyes scanned the tree, searching for Flora. Undoubtedly, she was worried that Flora would fall asleep and drop out of the tree. 

  Yet Flora’s blackouts were nothing like sleep, even though that’s how most people thought about it. Drifting into sleep was pleasant, almost soothing. When Flora slept, she could feel the passage of time as dreams flit through her subconscious. In contrast, the blackouts were sudden and jarring, like giant voids in her life which sucked away time itself. To Flora, the world changed in an instant, the solitary blue dot the only evidence that anything had happened at all. 

  Her mother’s eyes finally locked onto Flora. She beckoned furiously at her. “Get down from there!” she yelled. Unfortunately, Flora wasn’t the only one who heard her.

  “Look, someone’s up near the top of the tree,” she heard someone call out.

  “That’s the highest I’ve seen anyone go,” someone else said, sparking a hint of pride in Flora’s chest.

  “No wait, that’s the Karachi girl,” another voice called out. “It’s not safe for her to be up there.”

  “Someone go grab her.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Flora called out, but it was too late. As one, the crowd surged towards the tree. The people in the back helped push the people in the front up the trunk, forming a fire brigade up the tree. The people of Terrene loved to work together, and they were determined to rescue the poor damsel in distress that got herself stuck up in a tree. They worked in tandem, hardly needing to speak. They certainly didn’t need to listen to Flora who pleaded for the villagers to stop shaking Pinto so that she could come down on her own.

  Flora’s calm shattered like a raindrop striking a boulder. She cringed, alternately angry, fearful, and embarrassed by the advancing line of aggressively helpful villagers. And then the head of the line approached, Crick’s tufty blond hair reaching out towards her from beneath the layered branches. He looked up, his mouth beginning to form the inevitable taunt when the worst possible thing occurred. A chilling shiver stung her spine, and then the blue dot came to take her pride as she fell into Crick’s arms.

  When her eyes opened again, all she saw were the vague outlines of backlit faces. She was lying on the ground looking up as dozens gathered around to witness her humiliation, apparently a better spectacle than the thousands of colored ribbons that represented Terrene’s unity. She stood up only to find more faces, more eyes staring at her. She pushed away her mother’s groping hands and ducked through the crowd, trying to escape the stare of dozens of concerned faces and eyes that too poorly hid the laughter behind them.

  ************

  Flora ran. In the distance, she heard her mother shout and then her grandmother’s voice. “Let her go, Geena. She’ll be fine.” It didn’t matter. No one would be able to catch her. She pushed all thought from her mind as she let her legs stretch out before her. Aside from the path to the Institute, the trail to Tilarny Point was the highest in Terrene, and the thinner air soon had Flora gasping for breath. But she didn’t pause, for she was no longer running away from the crowd, she was running towards something unseen and unknown, and she yearned for it more than anything in the world.

  As she ran, she could see the valley of Terrene spread out below her as well as the circle of mountain ranges that boxed the valley in, boxed all of them in. To Flora’s left, the near-vertical rock dominated the view almost as much as it dominated her life. Every day she stared at the chiseled gray and black face of the mountains. It was dark, imposing, and unchanging. No one had ever climbed the mountain. It wasn’t impossible, just impractical, and that was enough to keep anyone in Terrene from trying.

  She flew down the trail, speeding past a twisted tree here and a perfectly round rock there, recognizable landmarks pointing towards home, a place she wasn’t quite ready to return to. Up ahead she saw a break in the brush. Impulsively her legs sent her onto the unmarked path, the crunching of rocks beneath her feet echoing in her head.

  She focused all her energy on moving forward, clamoring over large rocks and ducking under dry branches while ignoring the fingery bushes that scratched at her calves. Up ahead, she could see a clearing, a simple goal for her tiring limbs. She stumbled out of the tangle of trees and bushes and onto a field of grass. The southern rock face loomed surprisingly close by in front of her. Scanning the area, she noticed an oddly shaped boulder on the east side of the field. It felt familiar, like she had stood here before, but she couldn’t quite remember when.

  As she crossed toward the odd boulder, she found herself picking her way past giant stones embedded in the field. Flora glanced up at the granite cliff that rose above her and imagined the massive rockslide that must have dropped these boulders into the soil around her. As she got closer, Flora could make out the details of the rock formation, a lumpy head leaned up against the cliff-face. The nose of the boulder pointed up at the sky, like a pompous giant looking down at her. The gravity of the boulder tugged at her curiosity, bringing her face right up against its rocky surface. She veered right, circling around the base of the rock, letting her hand glide across its gritty surface.

  “Wow, this thing is amazing,” she whispered, as she traced the lines of the rock with her hands. How many eons had this rock survived? What stories could it tell? If only her fingers could read the nooks and crevices etched along its skin. She didn’t realize that her eyes were closed until she smacked into the rock in front of her. She had reached the crease where the boulder leaned up against the mountainside. She took a step back. There was a small crevice along the bottom edge, forming an oddly familiar cave just four feet tall.

  A distant memory flitted through her head. She was scared, gripping her father’s soft hand with both of hers. His face was silhouetted by the afternoon sun, but she could smell his scent, a comforting musk. She stared into the black hole before her, a dark tear in the fabric of the landscape.

  “Let’s see how far it goes,” her father had said, his deep gravelly voice echoing back from the cave.

  Back then, Flora had been able to walk upright, but today she ducked into the cave, full of excitement rather than apprehension. It was dark, but just before it became frighteningly claustrophobic, she saw light emanating from around the bend. Turning the corner, she gasped, just as she had ten years ago. The cave opened up into a small room shaped like a tall cylinder. Rock walls, glistening with moisture, formed a nearly perfect circle, stretching upward 30 feet before curving into a domed ceiling. A brilliant shaft of sunlight streamed through an opening in the ceiling the size of a large serving platter, faintly illuminating the room. In the center of the brilliant shaft of light stood a solitary tree.

  Standing fifteen feet tall, the tree’s slight frame looked strikingly delicate inside the granite chamber. Its slender branches were silky smooth and so pale as to be almost silver. Its green leaves were sparse, only a handful spread out on each branch, but they were so brilliant that they were almost glowing. She slid her fingers across the lower branches and gasped in surprise. The bark of the tree felt cold, like how she imagined the snow that capped the mountains must feel.

  Flo
ra searched her memory frantically to no avail. The cavern walls looked familiar as did the way the light formed a spotlight in the center. And yet this tree was unlike any she had seen before. Suddenly Flora dropped to her knees at the base of the tree and began to dig frantically with her bare hands.

  “Yes, this looks like the perfect spot.” Her father’s voice echoed in her memory. “We’ll plant it here.”

  “What kind of tree will it be?” Her own voice sounded so light, so airy. 

  “I don’t know what kind of tree it’ll be,” her father said. “One day we’ll come back, and it’ll be a surprise.”

  “Won’t the tree be lonely?” she asked. She clutched a nut in her tiny hands, held it so tightly that it left red dents in her palms.

  “We’ll leave it with the toy we found at the entrance,” he said. “It’s not really ours anyways.”

  “I can’t keep it?” she asked. She relaxed her grip on the nut. “I think maybe the tree will be fine without it.”

  “No,” her father said strictly. “This doesn’t belong in Terrene. We’ll bury it with the nut.”

  “But Mom said there’s nothing outside of Terrene,” her innocent voice said.

  Her father knelt down beside her and looked her straight in the eye. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispered, “something that the Institute doesn’t want anyone else to know.” Flora looked up into his face. She still couldn’t make out his features, but she could see every detail of his deep, green-flecked eyes. “There is something beyond these mountains, Flora. And beyond that there’s even more. There’s always more to be found, Flora, if we can only imagine it.”

  Flora’s fingers felt raw, bits of dirt wedged beneath her fingernails. Her heart trembled with excitement as she dug towards her past. Her fingers hit something hard, but not sharp. She dug around it until the top protruded far enough for her to get a hold of it and pry it from the ground. She wiped the dirt off of her prize and then held it up in the sunlight for examination.

  It was a globe the size of her fist, clear like glass, but much lighter and softer. Inside the globe was a tiny toy village, covered in white, like the white flowers that adorned Podek during the Blooming. She rotated the globe in her hands, and the white flakes flew into the air around the toy village, swirling magically around the buildings. Snow. This is what snow must look like.

  A shiver touched her spine just half a second before her vision contracted to that single blue dot in the distance. Not again. But this time it remained in front of her, giving her space to think. She moved towards the blue dot, wary that at any moment it could disappear. As she got closer, she saw her own face in the blue dot. It was a circular pane of glass. She walked up to the window and stepped through.

  ************

  Flora threw her arm over her eyes as a blinding light assaulted her senses. Carefully, she peeked out from under her thin sleeve, her vision filled with a thousand white specks, dancing on a stage of gray. A frigid wind blew across her face, scattering frozen bits of wetness across her cheeks. Tiny white dancers swirled in unison, making beautiful patterns above her head. Behind the hazy sky, a bright spot hinted at a powerful sun, but today it was just the backdrop to a festival of snow.

  Flora looked behind her, but the window had disappeared. She was alone in this snow-filled landscape, the cave and the tree now just a distant memory. She saw a small domed building in the distance, its gray walls just barely visible in the snow. She trudged towards it, but the storm grew stronger, the roar of the wind deafening her ears. She had never felt such cold in her life, her limbs losing all sensation as she willed herself forward. Minutes passed, perhaps hours, but the domed building remained as far as ever. Exhausted, she collapsed into a bed of snow, and as her eyelids pulled a blanket of darkness over her eyes, a faint shadow passed over her vision; the silhouette of a man.

  ************

  Flora opened her eyes to find herself standing once again in the cavern, made somehow less magical by the power of her vision. She shivered uncontrollably though her skin was warm to the touch. She looked down at the globe still clutched in her fist and stroked its alien surface.

  A dozen questions zoomed through her mind, ricocheting freely inside her skull. How had she managed to dream during a blackout? Was it just a dream? It felt so visceral, so real, and yet here she was, still holding the globe as if she had just picked it up. And the globe itself was unlike anything she had seen before. Was it truly, as her father had said, from outside of Terrene’s mountainous walls, from a place that Terrene lore claimed didn’t exist?

  She needed to find the answers, to understand the origin of the trinket she held in her hands. She longed to find the meaning of her dream, and perhaps even discover the purpose behind the blackouts that had plagued her life since her birth. And of course there was the mysterious birthing incident itself and the multitude of secrets that the people of Terrene refused to question.

  Yes, it was time to find the answers, but there was only one place where the knowledge of Terrene was kept, one place where the secrets of centuries were held: the Institute.

  Chapter 2:  The Festival

  Flora filled the edges of her folio plant with the murmurings of her mind. With a few strokes of her stylus, she etched a village along one of the leaf’s veins, adding a whirl of snow above it. A few more strokes, and the right edge blossomed with her favorite flowers, plants, and trees. She had already covered the top of the leaf with the mountains of Terrene, tightly packing in each of the four cardinal directions along the one inch header. Over and over again, she wrote the words “The Institute,” in varying bold fonts.

  The Institute had guided Terrene’s path for all of history, and yet it kept itself aloof from the valley. Its home lay hidden somewhere in the mountains, entry prohibited to non-scholars. It was the only place where she might find her answers, though writing the word over and over again was unlikely to help her quest. As a normal villager, she wasn’t even allowed to speak directly to an Institute scholar if one deigned to be in the valley, and gaining admittance as an apprentice scholar was nearly impossible.

  Flora was economical with her doodles, for the folio plant only grew fast enough to allow her a couple pages a day. She had drawn all around the edges, leaving the center of her page blank. She stared at the emptiness, pondering how to fill the void.

  “Flora!” Her head shot up.

  “Flora. Pay attention.” Mrs. Gardner stared right at Flora, demanding eye contact.

  “Yes Mrs. Gardner. Sorry.” She ignored the chuckles coming from the other students and struggled to focus on the lecture. But even as she spoke those words, her mind yearned to travel back to the snow-swept mountains that covered her folio.

  “Flora?”

  “Yes, I’m here.” She said. But her head still lay immersed in a storm of white petals.

  “Can you solve this derivation for us?” Mrs. Gardner asked maliciously.

  “Yes. Um.” Say something. “Twenty-three?”

  Mrs. Gardner sighed. “One would think that with your condition, you would try to make better use of the time when you are not asleep.” Flora wanted to object. She was actually one of the better students in class, which was amazing considering she missed quite a few lectures. Today she was just distracted by questions infinitely more important than calculus. This was hardly something she cared to share with the rest of class, so she put on her best apologetic smile and tried to ignore the indiscreet snickering behind her. Though Crick was two rows away, it felt like he was laughing right in her ear. She struggled to stay calm, staring blankly ahead until Mrs. Gardner’s gaze found a new target.

  “Crick?” Mrs. Gardner said, staring pointedly at her own son.

  “Uh. I’m sorry,” he started. “I’ve just been spending so much time on my other subjects that - .”

  “How disappointing,” Mrs. Gardner said, causing Crick to slump down into his seat. “Mendel, please come up here and show us how we solv
e this derivation.”

  As Mendel Tesserect stood up, Flora felt the tree root shudder beneath her, almost as if it was sad to have him leave. Mendel walked towards the trunk in the center of the classroom along the aisle left by the roots as they snaked in and out of the ground to form rows of benches and desks for the students.

  Flora yearned to gaze beyond the giant umbrella which enveloped them, its hundreds of branches stretching several meters overhead and then dropping all the way down to the floor. Layers of golden-green leaves rustled above her, blocking her view of the sky and the fields outside. She wondered if the leaves would survive snow, if they could catch the flakes the way they caught raindrops, directing them into streams that trickled out along the outside of the canopy and into the soil outside.

  Somehow light penetrated where the water could not. Beams of sunlight bounced from leaf to leaf, creating a disc of marbled light overhead, a show of heavenly light as varied and beautiful as any night sky. Would snow glitter as brightly?

  Mendel reached the willow’s ten foot wide trunk and began to write on a large section that had been flattened and polished smooth over the years. Some said the giant classroom willows were hundreds of years old. Flora imagined they were older still. The stalk he wrote with temporarily stained the tree’s bark with indigo juices which Mendel expertly squeezed out of the plant’s body.

  “Ah, yes, very good,” remarked Mrs. Gardner.

  “It seems that Flora’s initial estimation was quite accurate,” Mendel said. “The solution is, in fact, twenty-three.”

  “Excellent work Mendel,” Mrs. Gardner said. “But please don’t confuse lucky guesses with real intellect. Now children, don’t we all wish we could be more like Mendel?” The last seemed to be directed primarily at Crick, who sunk further into his seat.