Chapter 14

She didn’t know what she was looking at. Before her, completely in ruins, rested a city inside of a massive crater. The strange thing, the thing Jennifer found herself unable to wrap her head around, is how the city got inside the crater… As far as she could tell, and she didn’t exactly trust her reasoning on this one, the city must have been dropped right out of the sky. This theory only dug deeper into her head when, while climbing around the wreckage, she found massive propeller blades, broken, torn, but still intact enough to obviously be identified as propeller blades. Solaris had turned out to be an even greater help than she’d been promised, with the sun now set and replaced with an unending night, having a shining ball of light following you around made things a great deal easier.

Most of the buildings, made of this thin light metal that seemed to have done pretty well over the years, laid lopsided atop one another, some leaning diagonally so that people could walk right underneath these artificial archways. Jennifer found this all a bit suspicious, as if she wasn’t the first person to come across these ruins…

But she’d been suspicious nonstop since Lyla had told her about the poison. At first she hadn’t understood the significance, who cared who the poison worked on, except, it had worked on James. If she believed Lyla, and the jury was still out on that one, then that meant James was a Form and, even worse, he’d lied to her this whole time. What she couldn’t understand is why lie in the first place? What did she care if he was a Form or not? Granted, when they’d first met, she didn’t even know that Forms existed much less what they were, but he could’ve explained it. And, if James was a Form, what exactly was he the Form of, scarves, coats, complaining? The more she thought about it the more Lyla’s claim seemed like just another one of her games, but the thought never left Jennifer for long.

Among the wreckage of the city Jennifer found large signs with paint still clinging to the canvas, Solaris floating over it revealed pictures of smiling families and houses floating in the air surrounded by other floating houses. A slogan at the bottom read, “The privacy of your own island, with the comfort of a neighborhood, Inner T, welcome home.” Jennifer shrugged, that answered her question. But a floating city… How is that possible? And why? But she thought about it for a moment and the appeal quickly became apparent, a whole city of people who wanted to live with the world below them, she could get behind that.

Obviously hadn’t worked out for em, Jennifer thought, staring at a sign for Adam’s greatest sky burgers, ‘how do you get a cow in the sky…’? Was Jennifer’s only concern. The buildings all had a certain flair to them, big windows, bigger signs, everyone clearly trying to outdo each other.

“Used to come here all the time!” Jennifer leapt ten feet in the air and swung around frantically only to see Chirp casually preening.

“SQUAWK!” Chirp looked nervous, but Jennifer continued to shout, “YOU HAVE TO STOP SNEAKING UP ON ME LIKE THAT!”

“Oh… You didn’t know I was here”? Jennifer could almost see Squawk shaking her little head, “you need to be more observant Jennifer, there could be Deathless anywhere!”

“I’ll keep that in mind…” Jennifer growled through gritted teeth.

“But you like it”?

“The city”?

“Yep!”

“Suppose so, but-”

“How’d it fly”?

“Yeah…”

“Well,” Chirp, still totally unaware that a conversation was occurring through his beak, suddenly flew into the air, his eyes communicating that this was not by his own will. Jennifer followed quickly behind. Climbing up the rubble felt like a trek through a graveyard. The rotted remnants of this once proud city littered the tops of fallen houses, shops, offices, parks. A giant wheel with little carriages attached at the rim leaned half hazardly against the wreckage of what appeared to be train tracks with great loops and drops. Within the windows of wrecked houses Jennifer could make out amenities much like the ones she had back home, only far shinier, and obviously designed with style in mind. Great billboards advertising car like devices with propellers shoved in the bottom poked out of the rubble. Something like a massive popped balloon covered a large portion of the mess of debris, a large propeller emerging from the sides and back and a house sized box with windows protruded from the bottom. Jennifer couldn’t help but think that such a place must’ve been wonderful once upon a time, but now…

They arrived near the center where Jennifer had to climb atop rubble atop rubble, until she found herself nearly half a mile off the ground. The mysterious paths allowing her somewhat of an easier journey, paths that shouldn’t exist in rubble. She found Chirp sitting, quite shaken, atop the backrest of a chair facing a large open window, a great wooden wheel before him, ornately decorated with all sorts of wonderful symbols. But, sitting on the chair, a corpse slowly rotted away, a suit of fine silk adorned his skeleton, a symbol of some greater purpose he once served.

“This is Columbus, last ruler of this hear city of Nimbus.” Jennifer stared in horror at the corpse before her, he appeared to have offered no struggle when death came for him, he seemed not peaceful but rather… Complacent. Something Jennifer thought should never relate to death.

“So, he directed the city right”? Jennifer guessed, “That’s what that big wheel is for”?

“Correct!” Squawk chirped.

“But that still doesn’t explain how the city flew…” Jennifer mused, investigating the room.

“Look at his hands.” Squawk ordered sweetly. With nothing else to go on, Jennifer approached the corpse, the smell overwhelming her nostrils, but she pushed through. The only thing of any interest on the corpses’ hands was a shattered topaz ring around his left ring finger.

“I don’t get it…” Jennifer mumbled.

“That ring used to be the North wind!” Squawk proclaimed, “a real dick if you ask me.” Despite the corpse in the room Jennifer let out a slight giggle, she’d never heard Squawk swear so casually. But that still didn’t explain the absurdity she’d just heard.

“How can that ring have been a Form”?

“Through the offer!” Squawk explained, clearly embarrassed how little Jennifer knew. Clenching her fists Jennifer decided to push a little more.

“What is the offer, Squawk”? She growled slowly, attempting to keep her cool.

“The Offer is something one of your kind invented a long long time ago. This old geezer discovered that Forms, before they die, can enter inanimate objects, losing all of their free will but maintaining their reflections.” Jennifer was lost. “Like… If I were dying I could inhabit a pebble and birds would continue to exist still!” Chirp heard the word, ‘bird’ and swung his little head around nervously.

“But you wouldn’t be able to talk or fly around…”? Jennifer ventured.

“Exactly! I also wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now with Chirp.” Chirp, now hearing his name began to preen, seeing as preening always calmed his little nerves.

“So…” Jennifer began cautiously, “The north wind was dying and he entered that ring instead”?

“Exactly! Wow Jennifer you catch on quick!” Squawk beeped, but the compliment didn’t really land.

“And if a human has the object with the Form in it then they can… what”? She figured she knew, but she had to be sure.

“Control the Form and it’s reflections! Like, if someone found the Squawk pebble then they could use it to control all the birds… Destiny forbid it though, because of course he did” Squawk laughed a little, but the laugh came across anxious, Jennifer gathered this Offer was not one Forms took lightly.

“So Columbus here has the North wind ring and he just gets to completely control the wind”?

“Not exactly, only a quarter of the wind, South, West and East still had a say.” Jennifer noted the word, ‘had.’ “But even a quarter of the wind was enough to keep the city afloat, sadly it sucked most of the air out of the lower areas, had to keep my children from flying underneath it.”

“So how’d he die”? The question had been on Jennifer’s mind, but she feared the answer.

“Oh that’s easy, Death killed him!” Squawk chirped, her tone completely counter to the gravity of the words.

“Why?! When?!” Everything she found out about Death made her hate him a little more, his going after Destiny, screwing up the world, threatening James, and just overall making the world a miserable place.

“Well it was after the war, so Death was on a bit of a rampage-”

“What war,” Jennifer interrupted.

“War against Adam, man you really have been living under a rock.” Squawk mocked playfully. Choosing to ignore that one, Jennifer continued, she felt she was finally getting somewhere,

“Tell me about it, this war.”

“Nope.”

“NOPE?!” Jennifer remembered when she found Squawk adorable.

“Nope, but I can show you!” The misdirect wasn’t appreciated and Jennifer groaned,

“Fine, where is it”?

“Pretty close to hear, I’ll show you, but we may want to shake the Deathless first.” Squawk commented offhandedly. Frozen, Jennifer spoke slowly, desperately hoping this was another terrible joke.

“Squawk… Are there Deathless here”?

“Well duh! Where do you think all those paths came from”? Jennifer wanted to strangle the little bird, but she knew Chirp was merely a mouth piece.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT EARLIER?! HOW CLOSE ARE THEY??” Jennifer shouted, Chirp retreated up into the rafters and Jennifer could hear Squawk’s voice echoing from above.

“I felt like it’d ruin our conversation, but don’t worry, they’re still a couple ten feet away.” Jennifer ran back toward the exit and saw a large herd of Deathless approaching, not just the humankind, but the weird mish mash she’d seen before.

“Squawk, if I survive this we’re going to have a serious talk!”

“Well now I feel bad, let me know what I can do to help.” Squawk apologized, though it didn’t exactly mean much at that moment. Jennifer spun around frantically, Solaris lighting the room enough for her to notice that there was a large crack in the massive window, a splintered section that appeared quite frail. Screaming at Squawk to catch her she charged the fragile glass and shoved herself through it into the night sky. Chirp, with Squawk behind the wheel shot out after her. Jennifer’s freefall continued until a massive Chirp, the size of a roided albatross swooped over her with his talons open wide. Shoving her hands into the awaiting talons, Jennifer felt them close around her sharply, a wave of pain shot through her arm, but she ignored it. As large as Chirp was he couldn’t carry Jennifer for long, so she watched the ground carefully, Solaris zipping across the wreckage providing just enough light for her to get her bearings.

“There!” She shouted, wrenching a hand free from Chirp’s grip and pointing to a large chunk of slanted roofing. The pair glided down, Chirp releasing Jennifer a few feet above the roof, dropping her with a thud. Immediately Jennifer realized her mistake as her feet began to slide down the metallic roof without an ounce of friction to stop her. Her eyes wild, she noticed a chimney sticking out a few feet from the edge of the drop off, and, pushing off with all her might, she managed to clear the gap and grab hold of the chimney. Unable to properly hoist herself up on top of the chimney she slowly slid down the side until she landed on an obviously incomplete path, the rubble still blocking nearly all escape routes.

Spinning around Jennifer hoped that the Deathless had been too stupid to follow, but those hopes were quickly dashed. The Deathless had followed suit and those with wings had grabbed hold of those without and she shook anxiously as they glided down toward the roof she’d landed on. Taking off at a full out sprint, Jennifer could hear the booming drums and the blaring trumpets of the band back in the hidey hole and she began pumping her legs to the rhythm. A ledge appeared, and Jennifer leapt over it, landing less than gracefully and rolling forward until she regained her bearings, hopping back to her feat she began the run again, Solaris keeping her path illuminated. She vaulted over a windowsill into a wrecked house now completely sideways and held up only by the owner’s weird design requirements. The wall became her floor as Jennifer dodged stuffed animal heads adorning the walls, hopping over light fixtures until she managed to find a window on the other side of the house that she dove out of onto a rotted mattress preserved by some concoction of ingredients that insured it had to be toxic, though she certainly didn’t have time to care about that.

Some of the Deathless managed to gain on her, mainly the ones with legs designed for the chase. Many of the walking tree looking Deathless had fallen behind and, slowly but surely, Jennifer was losing all but the predators. A quite determined Deathless lion man hybrid leapt across the debris with ease and now found itself mere feet from Jennifer’s undefended backside. Knowing this, Jennifer leapt onto the roof of a shop, the obvious path being to go straight forward, tanking a fall of a couple of feet and continuing on a somewhat clear path, but Jennifer’s eyes fixed onto the side, a long drop off with no foreseeable landing; she chose the drop.

“SQUAWK!” She screamed, Solaris had followed suit and shot to the ground, revealing that the ground was a lot closer than expected. Chirp swooped in and picked her out of the air, slowing her fall just enough for her to land in a pool filled to the brim with snow. The snow offered just enough padding to keep her bones intact, but it still hurt like a bitch. Popping her head out from the snow Jennifer was pleased to see that the lion man hadn’t followed, clearly the winged Deathless had been unable to navigate the rubble and were too far behind to carry him. But of course she’d celebrated too soon, a large condor Deathless about the size of a car dropped out of the sky straight toward her. She braced herself, but the impact never happened. Chirp, now the size of a hawk had shoved his talons into the eyes of the condor and pulled its head sideways causing it to spin out of control and collapse into the rubble. With no time to thank him, Jennifer charged out of the snow and onto a far more pronounced path that brought her close to the bottom of the pile and nearly to the crater.

With hope in sight Jennifer pounded her legs faster than ever, each stride extending further and further until she practically galloped over the rubble, a smile even crept across her face, a pride in her escape. She felt a powerful force stop her movements and she snapped back her head only to see the lion man had caught up to her, one of his massive claws dug into her jacket. Without a second thought she unzipped and wrenched her arms free, falling face first into a snowdrift and rolling away from the confused lion man who sniffed the jacket, wondering where the meat went. Now completely covered in snow Jennifer figured this was her only chance to lose them, the snow had helped her escape before, it could do it again.

Instead of popping out of the snow she opted to remain under it, crawling through, careful not to crawl too far up or down. She could hear the Deathless above her, sniffing the ground and roaring in frustration. But, all of the sudden, the roaring stopped, the sniffing ceased, and she could hear the Deathless charging off in another direction, as if they’d found something far more interesting to chase. With no clue what had saved her, but not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, she emerged from the snow and sprinted away into the night.

After a mile or two of straight running, she stopped after tripping over an exposed tree root and tumbled onto the ground. About to curse Solaris for not shining bright enough, she realized that he’d vanished. Afraid to call out, she scanned the area only to see a massive ball of light shining off in the distance, the silhouettes of the Deathless herd close behind. That clever son of a bitch she laughed, hoping he’d figure a way to get back. With her leg now throbbing from the fall and her breathing ragged, she sat down, her arms propping her up, allowing herself to be cooled down by the oppressive winter raging around her. The blizzard had ended with Claudia, but the cold hadn’t gone anywhere, the snow still lined the hillsides and, now jacketless, Jennifer hoped for another weather shift.

The realization that she’d lost her jacket hit her harder than she’d thought it would, even though she’d hated it from the moment her dad forced it on her, she’d somehow grown to appreciate a lot of things about it; warmth being one of the big ones… But the little front pocket, the sleeves she had to roll up just to be able to use her hands, the soft interior that always felt like a hug. Underneath her Jacket she only had a plain white t-shirt, another gift from the nurse, it fit her nice enough, but she’d always found it so dull… Now she had nothing to hide it.

It just sat there, offering absolutely no explanation for its presence, no reason for invading her room. Jennifer picked up the jacket, holding it far away from her body by the sleeve. The jacket flopped around helplessly, but Jennifer eyed it suspiciously, like an explorer handling a cobra, tense and ready for danger. After she had a good look at the abomination she chucked it across the room and stormed out her door and down to the kitchen where HE sat.

“What the hell is that… THING on my bed?!” She roared, the indignation of housing such a monstrosity boiling over. Her father looked up from the same newspaper he’d been reading all her life and raised a less than amused eyebrow,

“First, watch your language and second, what are you talking about”? He spoke evenly, a monotone that Jennifer hated far more than shouting.

“You know da-” He tilted his head toward her, his eyes daring her forward, “…darn… well what I’m referring to! That hideous jacket!”

“You said you needed one.” His responses came neither quickly or slowly, but hit an optimal spot in between, as if he had a metronome constantly ticking in his head.

“I didn’t mean one of yours!” She stomped about the room, her father’s eyes followed, but his face never strayed from his paper. Thrusting herself onto a chair, she crossed her arms tightly and feigned fuming, in reality she was planning her next move. “I’ll just go back to wearing my old jacket, you know, the really tiny one that you hate.”

“Threw it out.” His eyes again descended onto his paper, not even a smile of triumph.

“YOU WHAT?!” The scream felt a bit overkill and Jennifer knew it the moment it left her lips, she didn’t care at all about the old jacket, but now she’d lost her trump card.

“Please don’t scream in my kitchen.” He ordered apathetically. Jennifer knew he wouldn’t do a thing if she ignored his order, and somehow that hurt more. “And,” His eyes lifted slightly from his paper to meet hers, “if you don’t want to wear the jacket I won’t stop you. You told me you hated that white shirt, so I got you a coat, take it or leave it.”

“Well then I’m leaving it!” She leapt to her feet and thundered out of the room and up the stairs into her room. The jacket had shocked her so much that she hadn’t even noticed the black leggings underneath. She glanced down at her current pants, jeans that constricted her waist and came down barely below her knees, a donation from a ten-year-old. But these leggings looked like a perfect fit, suspicious for a house with only one woman.

“DAD!” She shouted down the stairs. She heard nothing. Groaning, she ripped the leggings off the bed and dragged them down the stairs into the kitchen where her father sat, his eyes still glued to the paper he’d likely memorized at this point.

“Did you shout for me”? He asked, an outsider might take him for being earnest, Jennifer knew that was just his particular brand of sarcasm. She hoisted the leggings up and held them aloft in front of her, her father glancing over at them. For a split second she noticed a break in his demeanor, not the fear when she brought up the sword she’d found, but something else, something new… He coughed slightly and whatever it was vanished.

“Whose are these”?

“Not sure, I found them in the basement.” She could tell he wasn’t lying, but he didn’t seem to be telling the truth either. Staring at the leggings she remembered something the nurse had told her, something her school books neglected to mention.

“Do I have a mom”? His grip tightened on the paper, it ripped slightly, yet his face remained unphased.

“I’d imagine so.” The words hit off tempo.

“You don’t know”? Of all the things to forget… The nurse said everyone has to have two parents to exist, but a lot of the children only had one, her included. “Did you two ever get married”? Marriage was a far more common occurrence, while there were certainly no new marriages there were plenty of married couples.

“I couldn’t much care for such things, Jennifer.” A variation in pitch, a deeper rumble and each word too slow to match tempo; she’d struck a nerve.

“So, these were her’s, my mom’s”?

“Jennifer…” His eyes lifted from the paper, if she’d been less focused on getting his attention Jennifer might’ve noticed the tear forming in the corner of his left eye. “That jacket belonged to my father, I wanted you to have it.” That did the trick, Jennifer froze. He continued, “He…” The memories seemed just out of reach, “He wore this around the city, people knew him by it, when I wore it there was no doubt… that I was his son.”

Jennifer carried that jacket with her everywhere after that. She held a lot of resentment for her dad, a list a mile long of grievances tucked away in the back of her mind, but now she realized the jacket had always felt like it held all the love he had for her. If only she’d realized it sooner… She felt alone now, isolated. Shoving her back against a rock she gripped her arms and shook vigorously, if she was going to be warm now she had to do it herself, there was no one else.

This always happened, the thought barged into her head without a shred of resistance; she was homesick. Her fingernails dug into her arms until blood dripped slowly onto the snow below. You can’t keep doing this, she muttered, you can’t keep hating everything you have and then turn around and miss it. She was a tragic optimist, finding every inch of grass greener than the spot she stood, never considering it was her feet that bent, dented and browned the grass beneath her. But, like every tragic optimist, she did the only thing that came naturally, she kept running to greener grass.