Wings of Fate: The Lost Ones

The forest’s stillness was disrupted by the sound of children playing. Raven listened as their voices echoed against the trees as they called out to one another. Squealing laughter accented the echo of splashing and the high pitched noise of their rapid fire conversation sounded like squawking geese. A quick survey of the surrounding area produced no small children, nor any evidence of the water they played in.

For a long time now, their march through the forest produced only a continuity of mid-afternoon shadows broken by blinking sunlight. But now, several yards ahead of their retinue, a steady stream of unbroken sunlight poured into the forest’s center like a spotlight. Within that spotlight, the trees gave way to leveled ground and another small clearing.

Raven followed Bael into the blinding light, pausing to allow her eyes to adjust. The circle of light feathered outwards, fading from blinding to hazy as its intensity lessened at its edges. Beyond the spotlight lay ten cabins -- each appearing too small to accommodate more than a kitchen and bedroom.

Each home offered a curved door with a matching window on either side of the door, the slats of wood having been pulled and curved with a scraper. Identical in every way, the wooden cabins were spaced a dozen feet apart, in a crescent shaped semi-circle around the clearing, squeezing together so each was exposed to the constant stream of sunlight filtering in. Tall strands of summertime grass blanketed the clearing, with the intermittent patch of powdered dirt, having been created by frequent passage, littering the ground.

Beyond the homes, the forest resumed and everything beyond fell into shadow once more.

The village epitomized what Raven expected an island village to look like -- small cabins, dirt trails, and tall trees. Near the edge of the village a roasting fire pit rested, covered in gray ash and charcoal, the wooden spindle clearly marked with use.

The slap of water play echoed louder in the village, though it remained invisible. If the village children played in the water then their parents must be close-by, guarding them, all leaving the village unattended.

Thin streams of smoke rose from several of the cabins, preparing for dinner, but for all the detectable activity, the village appeared abandoned.

Bael moved towards the curved door of one of the cabins, knowing from experience which of the homes housed the old wise woman. As he tapped his knuckles against the door, Austin sidled up beside Raven and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. Glancing over his shoulder, he eyed the other cabins, hiding his thoughts behind a blank expression. His brown eyes met hers briefly before returning his focus to his stained shoes.

The cabin door swung open on silent hinges, allowing Bael to step into the gloom. Glancing inside, Raven’s hopes of seeing the wise woman were frustrated by the darkness. Allowing Austin to move in behind Bael, left her standing outside in trepidation. After all that happened so far, she wanted to get to this place to find out what she could and understand better what was happening to them.

But, standing on the woman’s doorstep with anxiety clutching her chest, Raven suddenly wished there were still hours of walking left, being uncertain if she wanted to know why the old woman waited for her after-all. Swallowing her panic, she stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind her.

After the brilliant glow outside, seeing anything inside was made impossible. Standing just inside the door, Raven waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

The overwhelming smell of dust and old wood was permeated by a thread of peppermint, providing an image of candy canes and breath-fresheners as feet shuffled across the floor. When her vision cleared, she spotted an old woman shuffling away from them to lower her bulky weight into a rickety wooden chair -- a match to the set of four placed around an equally rickety-looking table.

Following the group, Raven joined Austin at the table, choosing a chair across from the old woman. Austin chose a seat beside her, climbing into it while Bael moved to stand behind the woman’s chair where he rested a hand on Ruth’s shoulder.

“Ruth, I have brought these travelers to visit with you.” He said, tired.

The old woman laid one gnarled hand on top of Bael’s in a familiar gesture while she stared at Austin with glittering green eyes. “From where have you brought these travelers?” she asked in a voice raspy from years of singing, or laughing, or screaming.

Ruth Summers was indeed an old, old woman. But there were no visible tattoos or bones in her nose as Raven imagined she would find.

Gray hair was pulled into a bun at the back of her head, held back so tight it straightened the sagging wrinkles framing her eyes. The woman watched Austin covetously, unnerving Raven and, as though sensing her watchful stare, Ruth’s gaze flicked away. “Tell me, friend,” she asked Bael, “from whence did they come?”

Bael glanced at Austin and cleared his throat. “From the Crash Site, of course.”

“I see...” she nodded her head with eyes glued to Raven’s face in watchful inquiry. “I was expecting you yesterday -- all is well?”

Bael met Raven’s eyes across the table. He hid his thoughts well but there was no doubt he thought of his dead friend. Wondering if she would ever be able to rid herself of the image of Bael’s friend slung over his slumped shoulder as he carried him to the boat, Raven apologized with her eyes.

As though discerning the direction of her thoughts, Bael looked away. “Yes, all is well.”

“Very good, then, thank you Bael, you may go.” She removed her hand from his and he turned to leave. Austin, panicking, opened his mouth to protest but Raven kicked his foot under the stable, squinting at him. Don’t. Instead, the kid pressed his lips together as he watched the man leave, but the objection was illuminated on his face by sunlight allowed in when Bael opened the cabin door.

Faded furniture appeared behind Austin’s head, revealing dust and squalor before the door was pulled shut, extinguishing the light. Returning her attention to the old woman, Raven found sharp green eyes staring at her.

“I want you to understand -- though everything I say to you may be difficult to believe, I am speaking the absolute truth. No good would come of lies. I realize you have been traveling for several days now, even though Bael was not forthcoming with your tardiness, and so I will soon see to getting food ready. Baths are available one at a time, if you so wish to take one, and then you are more than welcome to take a nap in here on the floor. I -- don’t have any other beds, I apologize.”

“Thank you, you have no idea how much I would like to do all of that. It has been a difficult few days for us.” Raven responded, grateful and unsure she would be able to pay attention to anything else the old woman said now that she was thinking about a bath.

“What are your names?” she asked.

“I’m Austin.”

“Raven.” Ruth’s attention flicked from Austin to Raven, whom she stared at with gentle eyes gone distant. Those eyes watered, making the green sparkle. “The black bird.” She whispered. The old woman covered her eyes with chubby fingers sheathed in near transparent skin and pulled in a broken breath. With shuddering shoulders, Ruth pressed her fingers against her eyes, as though attempting to pull herself together.

Ignoring the curious look from Austin, she focused on the old woman, and his stare slipped in the same direction. Bael told her Ruth waited for them, which made her wonder why the wise woman appeared shocked now. If she had, indeed, been expecting them -- wouldn’t she have already known their names? She asked Ruth.

“Oh dear, no.” She answered, rubbing her hands across her face before folding them on the table. Redness rimmed her eyes as though she cried for hours instead of rubbing the tears away before they had a chance to escape.

“No,” she continued with a shuddering breath that revealed jowls, “I knew someone was coming, Raven, but not who. What I told Bael was I was waiting for a woman who would one day come, but I had no idea when that day would be. He and his men go to the Crash Site every day to watch and wait. I suppose -- did he mention the situation with the Crash Site?”

Raven thought about what Bael told her about the Crash Site -- about the planes and boats appearing, and disappearing, over some hundreds of years. If, if, there was any differentiation between Bael’s story and Ruth’s, Raven didn’t want to hand feed her the fabricated story she was supposed to use. Rather, it would be best to hear what Ruth would say.

Part of her pleaded, in silence, that Ruth’s story would be oh so different and the last forty-eight hours some kind of nightmare brought on by expired pretzels.

She wanted the old woman to tell her they were stuck on an island and Bael was some kind of tour guide trying to keep his life interesting by freaking people out. She wanted Ruth to say they could go home.

“He told me some things but I haven’t explained anything to Austin so perhaps it would be best if you told the story.” She suggested, leaning forward a bit to hear every breath the wise woman would say.

Ruth turned her attention to Austin, the look on her face a clear expression of consideration -- what she should or should not say. But then she explained and, with a few differences in word, inflection and tone, the story was the same. Crash landed on DeSolar, a planet far away from Earth, with no possible return. She did not expand much on the story, giving no additional details and while Raven initially watched Ruth talking, she ended up watching Austin.

Kids, they say, are more resilient than adults are, and apparently more easily duped -- even if their current situation was no mere matter of being duped. He listened to Ruth with the watchful expression of someone in the process of being wowed. Raven witnessed the same look on people watching a freak accident or some shocking story on the ten o’clock news -- horrified and interested.

There was no momentary flicker of indecision or disbelief; he simply stared at Ruth while she spoke -- absorbing. In the end, he looked at Raven for a confirmation she could neither give nor deny and so she stared back at him with raised eyebrows.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

He chewed his lower lip, glancing at Ruth. “When do we get to go home?” he asked.

“Austin, I’m afraid there is no way for you to return home.” She answered with gentle words, not wanting to upset him but also disinclined to lie. He expelled a heavy breath and hunched his shoulders against the brunt of that bad news. It was bad news for Raven, too, because she didn’t want to be stuck on some foreign planet with no way of returning home.

It was like taking a vacation and realizing it was a one-way ticket -- a horrifying vacation. Why couldn’t they get lost over Hawaii, Raven wondered. It would take days, most likely weeks, to untangle herself from the confusion and frustration. But in Austin, the absorption took mere moments and then he was ready with more questions.

“How did we get here?”

Ruth looked away and as her eyes drifted around the room, secret memories flitted across her face and Raven wondered about the thoughts the old woman kept to herself. She began to think Ruth would not explain further but the emotion passed and she looked at Austin again.

“Believe me when I say there is too much to tell you and I cannot do all of the telling. The Moirai will come for you tomorrow, maybe even today,” she peered towards the window, where the afternoon sunlight filtered through, as though the Moirai waited there.

“What is the Moirai?” Raven asked.

“And why is it coming for us?” added Austin. Raven glanced at Austin, feeling at once the deep-seated connection between two people who went through something tragic together. What twist of fate had put Austin in the seat beside hers on the plane? Had she not gone to the bathroom in some random attempt to protect a kid she didn’t even know, would she have still ended up in this twisted twilight zone? Would he?

They landed on DeSolar together, alone in every other way, and were kidnapped by sailors whom died only a few short hours later. Raven had never seen anyone die and assumed Austin hadn’t either. Just one more thing they had gone through together. Realization hit her.

Austin was her only tie to home, and she his, and whatever happened to them on DeSolar, they were a team that would have to stick together. How could she survive if they lost that tie? How could she protect him if he ever left her sight? She would protect him. Austin was just as much her responsibility on DeSolar as if he was her own child -- she hadn’t wanted one but here sat a kid who needed her.

Almost as much as she needed him.

“Who, not what.” Ruth corrected with a decisive nod. “The Moirai will come for you because you are part of an elaborate plan to turn the tide of war. They will explain more to you about themselves and your future, I will explain the past.”

“The past?” Raven interrupted. “You mean the plane crash?”

“Yes,” Ruth nodded, “and much further back than that, further back more years than you have been alive –- both of you.” Pressing her palms flat against the table, the old woman hefted her weight out of the chair and gained her footing. Shuffling away in bare feet, Ruth hobbled across the dusty wood floor to a built-in bookshelf against the wall. Her gait did nothing to sway the tattered brown dress hanging tiredly against her hips.

Sliding a small box from the top shelf, she turned back to the table and re-joined them. After adjusting on the chair, Ruth set the box on the table before her, lifted the lid and methodically set it beside the box. When she dipped her fingers into the box, Raven held her breath in anticipation. “No doubt,” Ruth continued, “you realize I am an old woman. I am, indeed, an old lady. I celebrated, quietly, my one hundred and ninth birthday last month.

I have been at this place, none of us are from, since I was twenty-one and found myself here in much the same way you have.” Moving her hand to the middle of the table, Ruth placed an item where they could see it. When she moved her hand, Raven stared hard at the pale oval object on the table.

Matte paper was cut into shape and then framed by gilded metal designed in an intricately laced pattern. Its weight, if held in the palm of her hand, would be as slight as a cell phone, but, much like a cell phone, its existence on DeSolar was just as out of place.

“What is that?” Austin asked, reaching for the miniature.

“That is a picture of me when I was a girl, about seven years old I believe.” Ruth retrieved another object from the box, answering him as she laid the next item beside the miniature. As she continued to explain the items and their history, Raven took the miniature from Austin and glanced down at the gap-toothed, smiling girl with pig-tails.

It was difficult to identify the girl in the picture as the same woman at the table. Dozens of lines creased her face now and the little girl’s dark eyes faded with time. Seven-year old Ruth wore a pale, lacy frock appropriate for the thirties, with a matching bow tied at the top of each ponytail. In her face Raven spied a carefree childhood -- most likely with parents who loved her and, judging by the girl’s appearance, most likely with money.

Her smile was almost a laugh in the picture, reminding Raven of the times Margaret demanded family pictures and took her to a professional photographer who possessed a showcase of stuffed, squeaky animals designed to elicit laughs from small children. Had Ruth laughed at a croaking frog behind the camera?

She changed much during her years on DeSolar. Older Ruth didn’t look as happy as she did in her miniature a hundred years ago. But why would she? Raven wondered, glancing out of the corner of her eye at the barren room. Ruth went from a happy childhood to a derelict living on some remote planet -- forced into some freak existence. Just like me and Austin. Raven wondered if she would be another Ruth in a hundred years -- sitting at a table with her little box of mementoes.

“This is the barrette I wore the day our plane crashed. And this...” Ruth paused, setting out another item, “...is the wedding band I wore for only six weeks.” She eyed the items on the table and then returned them to the box. “I was nineteen when I met and fell in love with a handsome bachelor -- a man who would become my husband for a few short weeks. His name was George.” She pushed the box to the side, laying her hands flat against the smooth wood in reverence of the memories it held. Raven supposed she might choose to cling to every memento of her life on Earth, perhaps tuck them away in box, put them on a shelf to pull out and caress when the mood struck her.

But would she be able to spend almost a hundred years chained to a life irretrievable? Giving up items like her watch or cell phone, or her laptop if it survived the kidnapping, would be too much like turning away from the past -- but would she want to end up shackled to the past like Ruth?

When her watch was ruined by the water, she tossed it to the ground as though it was of no further use. It could have been one of her Earthling keepsakes -- but she hadn’t thought about that then. Would she have kept it?

Giving herself a mental shake, Raven focused on Ruth’s continuing story.

“George was a pilot for one of those new airplanes, flying almost every day, as long as the weather permitted. One day I asked him to take me up with him. George said he wasn’t too keen on me being in that plane with him, he didn’t want anything to happen to me, but I was not to be discouraged. So, we went. It was springtime and I was pregnant. I should have thought twice about going up with him but he flew everyday. I had no idea something so terrible would happen.”

A sudden storm appeared overhead when she and George were banking over the ocean waters off the coast of Florida. Her husband yelled about the dials and gauges going haywire and then there was a deafening crack as a bolt of lightning struck the plane. George fell over in his seat, dead from the electric shock. She had only a moment to scream before they hit the dark waters of the Atlantic. After waking, Ruth found herself alone in a shattered plane, and assumed George fell out during the crash.

But her husband was no where to be found and, instead, she found a stranger standing a hundred or so feet away who bade her to follow him to the village. Having not been met by an old, wise woman with answers, she had instead been left alone in the very cabin they were seated in today. Several days were spent trying to figure out what had happened when she was unexpectedly visited by a beautiful young woman named Atropos.

The visitor told her many things, each more difficult to believe than the previous, but the worse of it was when the woman told her she lost George’s baby. Her eyes slid to Austin and again Raven noted the covetous look in her face, but understood, now, how Ruth saw her son in Austin’s face. Raven hated being pitied and did her best to hide the overwhelming emotion from Ruth, staring at the table until certain her face was blank, and then meeting her eyes again.

“When my plane crashed I thought we landed on an island or some place we happened to veer towards. This is not the case.” She said, shaking her head. “Where we are now is in a different world entirely, a different time, a different place, a different -- well, we are far away from home.

The ‘how’s’ of this conversation need to be saved for your journey with the Moirai, they will explain what they will. I am here to explain basics. So, one,” she stuck her finger up in the air, “as I have said already, you are not on Earth, you are now inhabiting the world of DeSolar; two, you cannot return home no matter how much you may wish, it simply cannot be done; and three, DeSolar is at war.

The fact that we are at war is probably distressing for you, as well it should be, for it is this reason and this reason alone you are here.” She said, glancing pointedly across the table at Raven, who frowned.

“Are you saying we were intentionally brought here?”

“Yes, you were deliberately pulled through the portal.”

Their being on DeSolar wasn’t as random as she expected they were. Both Bael and Ruth said hundreds of people arrived at the Crash Site -- but was none of it random? “What portal are you talking about?” Raven asked.

Ruth smiled mischievously. “It is the portal between Earth and DeSolar, of course.”

“What about those other people you indicated came through, were they intentionally brought here, as well?”

“No, the others, their arrivals on DeSolar were happenstance, accidentally falling through a portal anyone can come through when the moment is right -- but they have no purpose here. You,” she pointed at Raven, “were brought here specifically, they forced open the portal and pulled you through so you would be on DeSolar when you were needed.”

Raven frowned. “Who is ‘they’?”

“The Moirai, of course.” She answered, peering at Raven as though she may be daft. “When people arrive at the Crash Site, the Moirai ensure they are safely ensconced in the Lost Village. I, on the other hand, was made to wait here for you. That was my purpose on DeSolar.”

“You’ve been waiting since you were twenty-one years old?” Raven asked, astounded. “You’ve been here for nearly a hundred years and I’m only twenty-four, why would they choose someone to wait for so long when I hadn’t even been born?”

“I don’t know everything,” Ruth answered, rubbing her fingertips against the surface of the wooden table. “Atropos told me you would come but she did not know when. If I did not last the whole time, if you came after I was no longer here, I mean, then they would have to replace me -- but Atropos was sure I would still be here.”

“So, you were supposed to wait for us to arrive and then wait for Atropos?”

Ruth nodded. “Also to tell you about the past and help you to understand just a bit about how you came to be here and why.”

“Why, as in the war. I don’t understand how I can be important to this war. I know nothing about DeSolar. How am I supposed to help?”

“I don’t know the answer to that. Atropos said it was important to keep you safe and to wait for her. She will have the answers to all the questions I can’t answer.”

Austin climbed onto Raven’s lap and, wrapping an arm around her neck, laid his head against her shoulder. Figuring the kid must surely be exhausted, she resisted the impulse to return him to his own chair since he was almost as big as she was and had yet to behave so child-like as to climb onto her lap. Settling for patting his back, she considered Ruth’s story. “I apologize if I sound rude, Ruth, but all of this sounds ridiculous. I have never heard anything of the kind.”

Ruth grew silent, watching her with a quizzical expression. “Are there no stories at all on Earth about strange disappearances? About the ocean?”

“Of course there are stories about the ocean.” Raven answered but it sounded like a question even to her own ears. Why is she asking about the ocean?

“Okay, but are there stories about that particular part of the ocean? The part you flew over; the area where the three of us crashed and disappeared?”

Images of text book articles flashed through her mind -- old black and white photographs of steamships and the smiling, waving crew doomed to disappear at sea; the rumor about Amelia Earhart, who disappeared in the thirties and was considered a possible instance. Shifting her leg beneath Austin’s bottom, she narrowed her eyes at Ruth. “Are you talking about the Bermuda Triangle?”

When she only nodded in response, Raven continued. “Okay, what does the Bermuda Triangle have to do with any of this?”

“You said this sounded ridiculous. Just consider, for the moment, how you came to be here, which is probably the most difficult thing to believe at this moment,” she said, chuckling. “Even before I came here there were stories about the mysterious disappearances of planes, boats, and ships in the Triangle. These people, the crews, the pilots -- would be visible one moment and in the next, whoosh! Gone, vanished. I assume others have also fallen to the malady?”

“Yes there are still stories, though I can’t recall anything specific. I know several instances have occurred in the early nineteen hundreds but nothing recent. Scientists argue amongst themselves with theories and the subject has fallen under popular interest. What I have heard is people vanish without a trace, never to return, seemingly without reason -- at random.”

“Yes, yes,” Ruth answered, nodding impatiently. “But where do they go, Raven?”

“No one knows.” she said, almost choking on the words as the truth began to dawn on her.

Ruth raised her eyebrows with a small smile. “Well, now I would think someone knows.”

When Austin became restless Ruth suggested taking him to the river while she made dinner. After getting instructions on how to find the river, Raven and Austin left, angling through the trees as they followed the sound of splashing water and laughing children.

“You haven’t said much.” She said, watching the top of his head. He swished through the grass, alternately stepping over fallen branches and skirting random holes dug by animals. This close to the river, dark masses of grass grew uncontrollably, the tall blades covering most of the bottom of her leg. Austin was continually buried up to his knees in it, which made it difficult to discern obstacles in his path.

A quick searching glance offered nothing more than a full blanket of grass stretching for miles in every direction topped by a burgeoning team of summer time trees in full regalia. Twenty-foot branches dipped and swayed beneath the pressure of a breeze unfelt on the forests’ floor. The sunlight behind them, pouring down on the wooden cabins as though personally selected by the Heavens as a recipient of goodwill, threw the rest of the woods into a stark contrast of dancing shadows and muted colors.

The greens and browns were less vibrant here, the heat, while muted by the trees, was no less suffocating for the lack of direct sunlight. But the birds offered a faithful reminder of their presence -- always calling, always singing.

“I’m just tired.” He answered with a shrug.

“Would you rather go back to the cabin and take a nap?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I want to go to the river with you.

“I know it’s probably a stupid question at this point Austin but are you okay? Can I do anything to make this craziness easier for you?” She should be doing something to ease the transition between the normalcies on Earth to crazy life on DeSolar. But then again, what was normal on Earth? His mom just died -- his whole world already changed. And now it had again.

“On the way to the village I was thinking about my dad and how mad I am at him. This is his fault you know? That’s why I’m here on this...” he brought his head up and looked around, swinging a small arm in a wide arc at the forest around them. “...this planet. If he hadn’t made me go to my aunt’s house...” he turned to her, his eyes pleading with her to agree that his troubles could be blamed squarely on his dad, and she understood the need to blame someone.

To have a focus for the anger.

She could blame Mr. Hinkley because if he took the trip then he would be here with Austin and she would be safely at home. But what good was it to blame someone else? It wouldn’t change anything about their circumstances and, if Ruth was speaking the truth, she and Austin were supposed to be on DeSolar anyway. For whatever reason, they were meant to be involved in the war. They could whine about it to their hearts’ content but it wouldn’t change anything.

“Why didn’t he want me Raven?” Austin asked, hanging his head and kicking the grass aside.

Oh, Austin, she thought. “I’m sure your father wanted you. It was hard losing your mom, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He whispered.

“Very hard, I’m sure.” She replied. “She was your mother. Perhaps his behavior might make more sense if you look at this from your dad’s point of view -- she was his wife. He was in love and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He has to go to bed every night without her by his side and move through each day missing the sound of her voice. That is probably hard for your dad.” She grew silent, wondering where her explanation came from.

As an adult, from the perspective of a woman, it was easy to understand how much such a loss would affect her. If Austin was able to see it that way, though, was something completely different -- he was a kid.

“Of course he’s sad, Raven, you think I didn’t see how unhappy he was? He stayed in his bedroom with the door shut but I could still hear him crying. I tried to sit with him but he just got up and left the room. I was sad, too, so why would he send me away?”

“Did you want to see your friends or family? Did you want to do anything but be alone?” she asked.

He sighed and kicked at the grass. “No.”

“I bet your dad couldn’t handle it either and thought he was doing what was best for you. I’m sure he would have missed you within a day and begged for you to come back.”

“Raven,” he whispered, pausing to look up at her. Tear-rimmed brown eyes dominated his pale face. “Are we ever going back to Earth?”

“Ruth said we can’t ever go back.” She said, struggling with the words.

“So, my dad -- I won’t ever see him again?”

Raven almost choked, trying to breathe past the sudden clog of tears in her throat. Something inside told her they would never see home again. It was possible Ruth was wrong and there was a way back but somehow Raven knew she wouldn’t return. Hoping he would drop the line of questioning, she told Austin she didn’t know.

They walked in silence for another five minutes before spotting the river.

“Hey,” she said, forcing cheer into her voice. “Look at all those kids!” they stared in shock at the handful of dark-skinned, half-naked children jumping in and around the river. They were guarded by a dozen equally half-naked adults who sat on the opposite side of the river, talking and laughing amongst themselves while their children splashed each other with sparkling handfuls of water.

With such freedom, the kids’ hair hung in matted dampness down their backs, doing nothing to hide their nudity. Raven glanced at Austin, whose slack-jawed expression was indicative of his surprise at their state of undress. “You should um -- go play, Austin. Take a break from all this serious stuff.”

“They’re kids.” He answered, meeting her eyes.

Raven smiled. “Um, news flash, you also happen to be a kid. Go play.” She gave his shoulder a suggestive nudge, eliciting a scowl but he moved towards the river. She followed, watching the ground as she maneuvered between branches and rocks littering the ground.

Summer was in full swing, six months further into the year than on Earth where snow still covered the streets. Here on DeSolar, it would be autumn soon -- in a month, maybe less, she would be shoved back into winter feeling as though she hadn’t been given a reprieve from frozen bones. In blue jeans and t-shirt, the warm weather was doable, but what about during the winter?

Her luggage held sweaters and a coat, even though she knew she wouldn’t need them in Puerto Rico, one just never knew. So she packed them along with a swim suit, shorts, and random warm weather clothes. But the plane was gone and, with it, her suitcase. Would she be stuck wearing the jeans for the next hundred years as Ruth’s tattered dress appeared to have been?

Sighing, Raven shelved the concern into the same gray area as ‘stranded on alien planet’. These things would work themselves out. Having forced the thoughts aside, she turned instead to Austin’s concern about his dad and she wondered about her own family. Did her mother know about the plane crash yet? Did anyone know? Raven frowned at the ground and gave up on that thought, as well -- it wasn’t getting her anywhere.

And it really didn’t matter what the answers to those questions were. According to Ruth, they would never go home.

As she came through a final row of trees, Raven glanced up in search of Austin and spotted him leaping from rock to rock in the center of the river. Other children jumped with him, pointing at various things in the river and giving apparent instructions for the game they played. Austin glanced up and waved at her, almost falling off the rock he stood on. When he wind-milled his arms to catch his balance she laughed and pulled up short alongside the rivers’ edge to sit down.

The ground this close to the river was soft. Ignoring the curious stares from the adults several feet away, Raven rolled her pant legs up, tugged off her shoes and socks, and within moments her legs were lying in the trickling water. The chill sent goose bumps coursing over her skin, offering a brief opportunity to feel grounded in reality. Leaning backwards on her hands, Raven glanced at the cloudless blue sky above the river, where the trees offered little respite, and imagined she was sitting beside a river on Earth. It wasn’t a difficult transition to make.

Most likely, it would take a while to remember she wasn’t on Earth.

Austin was right, no one would ever believe this.