Page 47 of All That Has Flown Beyond
“It’s difficult to try and find the balance between the demands of the human world and the demands of the earth,” she said. Kaiyo nodded in understanding.
“Yes. But the earth has been here longer, and it gives constantly, openly. Its debts always come first.”
Kaiyo enchanted a clear bowl of water as a lure, capturing the elemental in its Ousía form.
“I’ll take it to a place where it’s needed,” Kaiyo told the Kephale. “But I will not return a second time, Kephale. You must do right by your land.”
“Your words will stay with us. We will try our hardest to succeed.”
**********
Kaiyo and Mori stopped at a nearby village hotel on their way back. Kaiyo stood by the window, looking at the moon-dipped night outside. The elemental whirled like grey smoke in the jar on the nightstand.
“You did good,” Mori said, standing behind him. His broad palms rubbed at Kaiyo’s forearms.
“It’s up to them, now.” Kaiyo leaned against Mori’s chest, who brushed the tip of his nose lightly against Kaiyo’s neck.
In the hush of the night, their bodies pressed together. Kaiyo followed a point of light until it perched on a nearby tree. An aosaginohi. Its luminescent feathers glowed against the leaves, a cave of light. He didn’t point it out to Mori, knowing he wouldn’t be able to see the bird.
“Now, what are you trying to tell me?” Kaiyo whispered to the bird.
Mori’s mouth opened against his skin, the imprint of hot breath, but Kaiyo couldn’t close his eyes, watching the starlight pebble of the aosaginohi in the black sands of the night.
PART TWO
Four Seasons
SUMMER
CHAPTER EIGHT
“It can’t be normal. I’m telling you, Kaiyo, I saw it happen. The child…it was like something was doing it to it. I can’t explain it, I just…” Adeline’s voice trembled into nothing over the phone.
“It’s okay, Mom.”
“We did all we could, and that’s the thing. It should have worked. But it didn’t.”
“How many children have died so far?”
“Three. In two months. In a town like this? That’s just…strange. It’s very strange. I just thought, maybe—I know you don’t want to come back—”
“Mom, I’m booking the plane right now. Of course, I’m coming. Three kids dead? And the two infant deaths sound suspicious as well. It’s been…it’s been ten years. I can handle it.”
“You could send someone if you…although I have to say, it would be nice to see you, love. It’s been too long since my last visit.”
Kaiyo shook his head even though she couldn’t see him. There was no way he was delegating this to someone else. Something was killing children in Bamsdale. One of them had died in front of his mother during one of her shifts, putting that tremble in her voice. Not even the clawing of anxiety in his gut could stop him from investigating what corrupted creature was responsible for what the town, blind to another possibility, was calling the nascent suggestion of an epidemic.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he promised.
“Thank you. I’ll make up your old room.”
“Great,” he said hollowly.
Kaiyo closed his eyes. His first instinct was to push the rising anxiety away, to curl into the terrifying numbness it dragged with it. He took a deep breath.
There were reasons to feel like he did. It had been ten years since he had been kicked out of the pack, nine since he had last been in Bamsdale. It had been a trying road, getting where he was. He was not especially powerful in Ousía, or intelligent, or intuitive. Everything he had, he’d gotten through hard work. He’d had to fight tooth and nail for his soul, but it still felt fragile in his hands. It felt like it could slip away the moment he was back in the place that a part of him still called home.
But he had to remember: his perception was treacherous. He wasn’t the boy he had been at eighteen, or nineteen, or twenty. He was almost twenty-nine now; the slip back to the hole he had been in all those years ago felt a mere stumble away, but it wasn’t. He knew how it felt when he was going down now. He knew when to dig his fingers into the earth and stop the descent before he reached the bottom. He knew how to crawl his way back up into open air.
