Chapter 1: The Unknown Unfolds
A gust of wind brings the fragrance of a freshly baked pear tart out into the garden. It's an unremarkable piece of green grass, roses and winter pear trees surrounding a tiny brick house. For tens of kilometers in all directions there's only the thickest, leafiest forest you could imagine. Except a private high school. To the north it stretches all the way to the ever glacier on the Silvertop mountain. To the south, a row of grassy hills part the forest from the city.
It must be only a matter of seconds before his mother calls him in to dinner. He could go bathing in the river afterwards, or climb the nearby mountain. It's a hot day, after all. Wiping his forehead with a napkin, he rises from the flowerbed, removes his gloves and brushes the dust off his trousers. Nothing like a little weeding in the early evening. It certainly helped to get the appetite going. There's the sound of the bell, and he hurries off to join his parents by the table.
"I have something to tell you, my dears." He looks up from his nearly empty plate to face his father.
"What's wrong? You look tired." he points out in a strained tone. His father hasn't worn that expression since they got the notice of his brother's honorful demise in the border war. That was many years ago now, and the lands are at peace now, at last.
"It is something I've wanted to tell you for a long time. I just didn't know when to," his voice disappears in an attempt at grasping for the right words. A wrinkle creases the young man's forehead. He turns to his mother, who looks just as confused as he himself feels.
"It's something I've kept hidden from you, both of you, for so long I nearly forgot. But I feel the pull of it now, and I know I must soon return." His mother puts a hand on his cheek. She smiles her heartwarming smile, radiating her love for the man she's spent most of her life with. His voice trembles, and his eyes seem to be fixed at something in the far distance.
"What is it, my love? What pulls at your heart?" his mother asks. He looks away so that he does not see his father weep.
"The city in the Void." he gasps, forcing the words out. His mother pulls back his hand as if stung, and his father bites down his teeth so hard it echoes in the dead silent kitchen.
"What did you say? What does that mean? Mom?" He looks to his mother, who wears the face of someone who has seen the Reaper herself. Eventually he, too, realizes something is wrong and leans back in his chair.
Before his eyes, his father's form stretches and changes shape. His skin darkens from ochre like his wife's to near black, and his graying hair turns silvery white. His irises fade away and gain a pale glow. He looks younger, maybe only fifteen years his son's senior. He looks like a defeated man. His son doesn't know what he's witnessing, except that it is not his father. It is a younger man, with a longer, narrower bone stucture and a beautiful face. His mother stands up from the table and uses her full force to slap the man who sits by their table. She opens her mouth and closes it again without saying anything. Their son can only sit in stunned silence. Finally, his mother rounds on him with eyes like molten stone and raises her voice to him for the first time in his life.
"Fayre, go to your room and pack your things!" The boy, unsure what to make of the whole situation, stands up. He begins to leave.
"What does this mean?" he asks from the doorway. There comes no answer. He doesn't know where the City in the Void is, or what it is. He has never seen a man like his father before either. Nothing of it makes sense to him. At least not yet. When it is apparent that no answers will come, he drags himself up to his room.
For several minutes, he sits on the edge of the bed, hands in his lap and gaze focused out the window. He counts the snowcapped mountains in the horizon, where he once dreamt of visiting. Their voices carry to his room, mostly his mother, but he knows what they're arguing about. His father is going to leave. And the way his mother looked at her son, too, when he showed his true form, makes it hard to believe that she will let him walk alone.
He looks about the room. This was where he grew up, where he decided to stay after high school, after being rejected for college. Not surprisingly, they let him stay. His mother had always wanted a son; she got a miracle baby. Fayre had been a quicker learner that most children his age, and grew taller and stronger than all but a very few. School had always been a game, and the rejection letter was forged. He suspects his parents knows. They knew everything about him. At least he thought they did. Whatever his father is, he's half that too, and his mother doesn't seem happy about it. This is a whole world, a new world, that he didn't even know existed. Not outside the books in any case.
"What am I?"
He packs a bag full of clothes, toiletries and other necessities, and then sneaks down to stuff a backpack full of food while they're still arguing. He's never heard them yell at each other like that before. Frankly, it terrifies him.
When all the preparations are made, he escapes through the back door and jumps over the fence. He figures he'll be more than halfway to the city before they even notice that he's gone. His phone lays on the bed, with a note and the shards that remain of his piggy bank. 'See you when you decide to let me know what I am. Until then I will make that out for myself, like I should have done from the start. -Fayre'. His mother will be livid, his father will be heartbroken, but it doesn't matter. Maybe if they don't want to tell him what he is, someone else in this... foreign world will. For all he knows, he's taking his first step into a world he knows nothing about.
Just before the house he grew up in, his home, disappears out of view, he stops to look back at it. He can imagine all the good moments within those walls, the bad, the painful, the happy. Heaving a sigh that makes his bones shiver, he turns his back to it and walks away. His heart feels heavy and it's cramping up harder for every step. Eventually he has to sit down and rest at the top of a hill about half an hour's walk away from his house, chest aching and head spinning.
It had happened before, many times. Every time he leaves home without his parents permission; the same symptoms. According to the doctors, it's a kind of phobia. Experience has taught him that they will fade in a little while. It should, anyway. Until then, his old high school is nearby, and since it's a Saturday it should be open until seven and mostly vacant. There should be an opportunity to calm down there. Maybe even use the computers to find out what to do next.
Until he catches his breath he lets his vision glide over the forest he knows as well as the back of his hand. A creek that doesn't freeze in the winter here, an old oak struck by the lightning there. By the foot of a hill opposite the valley he stumbled across a family of raccoons. On the other side of that hill lies the city. He squints and uses the tree he leans against to pull himself to his feet.
Something's not right in that area, where he met the raccoons. There's smoke rising from several places in a radius of about a kilometer. Someone's camping there? Maybe he can sleep with them if he doesn't make it to the city before night. It seems like it will take a while before his symptoms go away, if they will. The sun has already set and it's getting cold. Tucking himself into another jacket, he forces his legs to move, headed for the school.
At the gate he can't feel his legs anymore, which has never happened before. However, it's a relief from the cramps, and it's the only reason he's still standing. Despite having only walked, he is out of breath the way he would be if he had run a 5k. The bags he brought are hidden in a ditch and covered with leaves a few hundred meters down the road.
He sits down by one of the benches in the schoolyard to keep himself from throwing up. A myriad of stars dance before his vision and the ground under his feet is rotating. A few students leave and enter the school grounds while he's sitting there, even a teacher. All but one doesn't even look at him.
"Mr. Kullen, is that you?" he looks up at his old geography teacher. Her green eyes and grey eyebrows are turned in worry. She places a cold, dry hand on his forehead and pretends it burns her with a tiny smile. She used to do that with everyone who dared show up to school with a fever.
"Hey, Mrs.," he frowns and grins sheepishly. He forgot her name. She just sighs and shakes her head.
"I know I'm not a favourite but honestly, Mr. Kullen, it's only been a few years." He chuckles with her. Eight years since he graduated and she can still make this joke, funny woman. She lets him lean on her to the nurse's office and plops him down on the bed there. He swallows a few painkillers and lays down with closed eyes. Within half an hour he's back on his feet.
"Mrs. Honeybell, isn't it? Sorry, my head wasn't working like it should." she nods, satisfied at being recognised by an old student. She's sitting in the nurse's chair, observing him while he stretches to get his body back in the game. "Do you think I can borrow the library computers? My laptop broke." He smiles, and she returns it, although it doesn't reach her eyes.
"Of course, I've always been saying our school should be more public." she says, stands up and leads him out of the room. "It's probably locked now, I'll open it for you." He snatches the box of painkillers without her noticing, and follows.
"Thank you, Mrs. Honeybell. I've decided to start coding, you see. And I need something to practice on. I'm becoming a webdesigner!" He bites his tongue before he can spew any more stupid lies, and follows her in silence. She nods to let him know she heard him.
"How does your parent feel about that? It seemed all three of you were certain you'd be taking over your father's work." she sounds indifferent, and he reminds himself that it's her job to look after all these kids, after all. He shrugs.
"I think my dad is moving," he trails off, unsure where this City of the Void can possibly be. He studies his hands, long and lanky and exactly what you'd get if you put his human mother's genes and his, what, monster father's genes in a blender. He pulls his jacket closer.
"Where is he going?" Her voice is sharper now, but only by a fraction. He probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been so quiet.
"Oh, just away. Home, I think he said." He is looking at her back then, and sees her straighten up.
"Do you know where that is?" she asks. They've reached the library's double doors, and she reaches into a pocket in her skirts to find the key. He shrugs, avoiding eye contact, something's not quite right. As she puts the key in the lock he places a hand on hers and shakes his head.
"Actually, it's okay. I think I can go a day without practice. I'll just head back home." She looks at him without saying a word for roughly five seconds.
Then, four things happen too fast for him to stop them. The first is that she unlocks the doors and pushes them open. The second is that she grabs him by the neck and throws him into the library so that he slides all the way to the receptionist's desk. Third, she locks the doors again. And finally, her body warps and while he watches, she becomes what her father is. He swallows, still lying on the floor but no longer in any hurry to get up.
"Good, you don't seem too surprised. I can only assume your father has finally let you see what you're part of." She is only a few years older than him now, maybe thirty or as much as thirty-five, or looks like it anyway. She plants her fists on her hips and looks at him down her nose. "Young People of the Void shouldn't be outside when it's night. Especially not without their parents permission." She doesn't raise her voice, but it hammers against his eardrums and he knows he will never forget those words. He tries to cover his ears with his hands but the sound comes from inside his skull. Every hair on his body stands on end and the nausea returns tenfold through the haze of the pills. He retches, but keeps his dinner down.
"I have no idea what you're talking about! He only showed me, that's all!" he says, uncertain whether she can hear him when her voice is still echoing through his head.
"He didn't tell you anything?" she asks, eyes widening.
"No! I don't know anything. Except that my mother wants me to go with him. And that they're arguing about it." she holds her chin and thinks for a moment while he stands up, feeling weaker than ever. It must be the pills; they are making him sleepy, as well as taking away the uncomforable pains and nausea. He sits down on the desk, looking at the lanky dark woman from under heavy eyelids.
"Then let me explain the basics, Fayre."
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