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  For Toril & Tim

  November 19, 1989

  A whisper is a monster with many mouths. It invites, it infests, it assures: I am not for all ears, I am just for you. There are whispers in the water, as strange as that may seem. But it’s only strange to the ones who don’t hear them. The ones who do hear them have a choice. They can ignore or they can follow.

  On a rainy November night, Alistair Cleary chose to follow. The whispers came out of radiators. “We’ve waited so long for you,” they said.

  He followed them down to the basement of Fiona Loomis’s house, where a boiler, tall and round, disappeared, revealing a cylinder of water. The water was unbroken, immune to gravity, suspended in the air.

  Alistair reached out and touched it. His body tingled and then crossed over. What was once a basement became an entire world, a place smudged sick and gray. His eyes burned. Tornadoes of ash swirled around him, while in front of him a colorful river raged. With an arm over his face, he rushed toward the sound of the current.

  This is how Alistair’s tale began.

  BUT FIRST, ANOTHER TALE

  IN A YEAR BEFORE YEARS

  This tale begins with a girl and a creek.

  The girl’s name was Una and she lived with a tribe called the Hotiki at the foot of some mountains that were perpetually clad in snow. The Hotiki could have passed for hunter-gatherers, but they were scavengers more than anything. They ate whatever they could dig up, or pull down, or find along the banks of a creek that trickled, cold and clear, by the caves they called home.

  Una was an inquisitive girl who asked questions like Where do the stars come from? and What happens to us when we die? Her elders gave her answers, but none that satisfied. Answers led to more questions until the asking felt like throwing tiny stones into a bottomless pit.

  Sometimes at night when her tribe was sleeping, Una would sneak off, hide in a jumble of boulders, and dream of what it would be like to run away, to live alone by her wits. She was not fully grown, but she was strong and knew how to make fire and how to spear fish. There was only one problem. Escape was impossible.

  You are Hotiki. Hotiki is you. When you bleed, Hotiki bleeds. If Hotiki dies, you die.

  That’s what the elders always said, and it meant that no one lived alone in this world. To leave your tribe meant ceasing to exist. There was no reason to question that belief either. Only one person in Una’s memory had ever left the Hotiki, a woman named Jaroon who had set off into the mountains after the birth of her first baby. No one ever saw her again.

  The jumble of boulders was not far from the creek, and one of the reasons Una hid there was that when the moonlight cast shadows on the stone, she could imagine that the shadows were a tribe that she lorded over. She would wave her arms and the shadows would move. They were at her bidding.

  Among the Hotiki, the only person at her bidding was her younger brother, Banar, and his loyalty was waning. Banar was a trickster and a master of animal calls, and while he still adored his sister, he had taken to taunting her. One night, when Una was conducting the shadows on the boulders, Banar climbed a nearby tree and pretended to be a raven. “Kaw, kaw, kaw,” he squawked.

  She ignored it.

  “Ugly, ugly, ugly,” her rascal of a brother said, though he croaked it like a bullfrog.

  Una was particularly sensitive to such taunts, because she had eyes that bulged, a ghastly scar that ran from her left eye to her mouth, and arms so long that they hung down to her knees. So she scrambled up the boulders, spotted her brother lounging on a branch near the top of the tree, and hissed, “Get down, Banar.”

  He laughed in response and hooted, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  Una’s fury would not abate. This was her only time to be alone, and her brother was spoiling it. She slid down the boulders and crept over to the base of the tree.

  “Get down, Banar,” she growled as she jabbed at the bark with the heel of her hand.

  “Stinky, stinky, stinky.”

  The earth was soft near the roots, and Una scooped up a handful of muck and pebbles. “Down. Now,” she commanded.

  Banar twisted up his face and stuck out his tongue, and Una flicked her wrist. Her aim had never been so perfect. The mud struck Banar square in the nose with a satisfying splat.

  Una couldn’t help but laugh. “I win,” she cheered.

  Banar harrumphed and reached to wipe his face. As he did, he lost his grip on the tree. A foot flew out, an arm pinwheeled in the open air, and Banar fell.

  He landed in the shallow creek, his neck striking a rock. There was a snap and a crunch. Banar didn’t even scream. Una rushed to help him, flailing her way through the knee-high water, but it was too late. He was dead, his body twisted and broken.

  Una scooped him up in her arms and carried him back to the caves, where she collapsed. “What happened?” her mother asked when she found Una’s body splayed across the ground, her wet arms draped across her dead brother.

  “I do not know,” Una whimpered. “I woke to a yell. I found Banar in the creek. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.”

  Una’s mother stood motionless, but her father howled, yanked Una away, and shook his son’s body, trying to rouse life. “Chaos spirits,” he moaned. “Why do they always take the best ones? Cruel, cruel.”

  “Yes,” Una whispered. “The best ones … chaos spirits. So cruel.”

  Una had never lied before. Among the Hotiki, truth was as essential as food, and no one ever doubted the words they shared. And yet Una couldn’t bear to tell them the truth, that she had essentially killed her brother, a boy so attuned to the natural world, a child who many predicted would grow up to lead the tribe.

  The next night they buried Banar in a deep grave, beneath a pile of wildflowers and animal pelts, which was their custom. They sang songs and spoke remembrances until they were too tired to carry on. As they all fell asleep next to a bonfire, Una slipped away and sought out the solitude of the boulders once again. It was here that she made a decision. Just like Jaroon before her, she would leave. The other options—to tell the truth or to keep lying—weren’t options as far as she was concerned. Both brought too much shame.

  So she followed the path of the creek upstream. Before that night, the farthest Una had traveled was a one-day journey from her home. She may have only been twelve winters old, but as far as she knew, no one in the Hotiki had ever traveled farther. There was never any reason. Food was plentiful near the caves. Life was livable. Una assumed if she were to travel any farther, she’d either reach the end of the world or she’d simply disappear.

  For three sunsets she followed the creek, eating berries and taking shelter under rock outcroppings. Each stretch of the forest was barely different from the last. Yet on the fourth morning, there was a change. The creek tumbled over a small waterfall and into a deep round pool. Una knelt down next to the pool to take a sip when she noticed something glowing at the bottom. I
t glowed not like the stars or the sun, but like an animal that had strands of light covering its body instead of hair. The sight was intoxicating and it compelled Una to dive into the water so that she might examine things closer. Down she swam, her eyes fixed on the strange beacon, and when she was close enough to touch it, she reached out a hand.

  Tingling spread through her body, and Una closed her eyes. Something tugged at her arm and sucked her deeper into the pool, and when she tried to open her eyes it was impossible. The water was pressing too hard against her face. The force pulling her was too strong and it surely meant to drown her. It wasn’t ever going to let her go.

  Until, of course, it did, and Una sprang up to the surface.

  Her eyelids drew back, and she found that there was now water all around her, stretching to every horizon. A brilliant sun and a blue sky were above, but nothing else. No waterfall. No creek. No forest. It was as if she had been pulled through the bottom of the pool and ended up at the top of a place where only water existed.

  She swam and she wondered, Is this the edge of the world? Is this the last thing I will ever see? I wish I could at least see the stars one more time before I die.

  As soon as she had that last thought, waves leapt around her and slapped against the sky. What was blue became black, and stars sizzled into existence. The sky was now a night sky, shimmering and deep. Her wish had been granted.

  I wish I could see Banar once more, Una thought.

  From the water emerged hands, arms, shoulders, and a head, wet hair clinging to a face like dark algae on a rock. Una pushed the hair away and looked into the pair of amber eyes.

  “Banar?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve come back.”

  “You’ve created me.”

  Banar shivered in the water, his breaths rattling and short.

  I wish we were in a warm cave, Una thought.

  Another wish made and another wish granted. A mound of rocks emerged from the water and melded together until there was a hollowed-out shelter surrounding Una and Banar.

  Una was a quick learner. She realized almost immediately that this was not the edge of the world. It was a place where her wishes could come true. So next she wished for fire. Flames leapt up from a pit in the ground. Meat? At the snap of her fingers.

  “I’ll bring you back to the Hotiki,” Una said.

  “You can’t,” Banar explained. “I live here. I can’t live anywhere else.”

  “Why not?” Una asked. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I wish I could go back to the Hotiki and take Banar with me.

  Tingle. Pop. Gone.

  Just like that, Una was transported back to the pool beneath the waterfall. But she was alone. No Banar. So she swam down and once again touched the glow. Her body tingled, something tugged. She emerged in the cave next to the fire and Banar, who was still eating the meat that Una had wished into existence.

  “There’s no way I can take you home with me?” she asked.

  “None,” Banar replied. “This is my home.”

  “Will you wait here for me?” she asked.

  “That’s all I will do.”

  Una believed him and she wished herself back to the waterfall, where she decided to return to the Hotiki and tell them about what she had discovered. She had killed Banar but she had resurrected him as well. All could be forgiven.

  However, during the journey back she began to question her plan. Did the Hotiki really need to know about this place? Yes, they all loved Banar, but the sad fact was that they loved him much more than they loved her. If she shared the place with them, would their wishes come true as well? Would those wishes make Una even less significant than she already was?

  Selfishness, reassuring and warm, settled into her body, and when she arrived back at the caves, her parents embraced her. They would have embraced Banar twice as tightly, she told herself. Then she lied for a second time.

  “I chased the chaos spirits into the forest,” she said. “They captured me for seven sunsets. They told me that if I don’t visit them again, then they will take us all.”

  As before, the tribe had no reason to doubt her, and they encouraged Una to do as the chaos spirits commanded. Not long after that, Una set off and followed the creek upstream for three sunsets until she reached the waterfall. She dove into the water and touched the glow. It transported her back to the world of Banar, to the world of fulfilled wishes. Una started to build.

  She created landscapes of fields and forests, of valleys lined with caves. She created plants and creatures as wondrous as her imagination would allow. She spent many days summoning a world of her own, and the only person she shared it with was Banar. And when she was happy with her creations, when she felt that Banar had a suitable place in which to live, she wished herself to the waterfall again.

  Three sunsets later, she was back at the caves, apologizing for being gone for so long, but the Hotiki didn’t understand. “You have only been gone for six sunsets,” her mother explained.

  This was more than a surprise to Una. It was a revelation. It meant that no matter how long she spent in the other world, she would return to the waterfall at the exact moment after she had touched the glow.

  Over the next ninety sunsets that she lived with the Hotiki, she spent ten times as many in the other world, a place she dubbed Mahaloo. In Mahaloo, her body didn’t age and she had absolute power, so it was a preferable life in every way but one. Banar wasn’t really Banar.

  She began noticing it almost immediately, but she was good at denying it. Death has changed him, she thought. He’ll act like himself soon enough.

  Soon enough never came. Banar looked exactly like Banar. He sounded like him, could do all the animal calls and could taunt Una endlessly. And yet, he was different. He was an impression of Banar, not the real thing.

  Eventually, Una lost count of the sunsets in Mahaloo, and she accepted that he would never act like her true brother. So she decided to try again. She brought forth another Banar. And then another. She resurrected him again, and again, and again, until she had a tribe that consisted of herself and 142,858 Banars. No matter how many times she tried, none of them were like the real Banar.

  While Una didn’t age in Mahaloo, all of her creations did, including the many Banars. The Banars started out exactly the same, but even after a short while, their personalities became distinct. They took on the traits of animals. They moved like animals, had eyes like animals. Their voices growled, or whinnied, or cooed. There was Banar the Wolf. Banar the Snake. Banar the Beetle. They acted as faithful servants to Una, and she loved them all, for they were her creations. She was also ashamed of them, though, for they were living reminders of her failures.

  I wish to give these Banars everlasting life. But I want to let them start over, to give them somewhere else to live, someone else to love.

  All at once, 142,857 Banars disappeared, never to be seen again. One Banar remained, the first Banar she had created. The original impression.

  Una started over too. She created a new tribe that consisted of people with names like Vinda and Hoo and Meck. She brought forth fifty-seven companions—every one of them a great hunter, cook, or magician—and she lorded over the new tribe. Life was pleasant, and Una had no reason to return to the Hotiki.

  Time rumbled by in Mahaloo. There were births and deaths. Meck passed on, so did Hoo, then Vinda. But with two generations of descendants, the tribe had grown much larger. Banar still looked the same as the day she had given him everlasting life, and he still had pluck and vigor. Una, however, had grown weary. Sure, she had the body of a girl, but her mind was restless. She knew she couldn’t go back to the Hotiki, because she wasn’t sure she would even recognize that world anymore. And yet, she was tiring of the world she had created. It held no surprises, and though it could grant her so much, it could never take away her shame.

  One night, she was alone in her cave and she whispered into the darkness.
“I wish I knew the point of this. I need to know why someone so guilty and sad has been given so much power.”

  An answer didn’t arrive, but Banar did. He showed up in her cave not long after that. “Una,” he said, his body dripping wet, “are you all right? Can I help you?”

  He could help her. She realized that now. He could be whatever she needed him to be. “You love me, don’t you, Banar?” she asked.

  “More than anything.”

  “So if I asked you to do something for me, if I commanded you to do something, you would do it, right? No matter what it was?”

  “You created me,” he said. “You gave me everlasting life. I am here to serve you. Always.”

  Una placed a hand on Banar’s shoulder and felt the dampness on his skin. “I don’t need always anymore. I need you to end it.”

  Then Una lay down in her bed, and Banar, who was kind and sweet and loyal, but who could never be her real brother, shed a few tears. Because whenever Una asked him to do something, he was obliged to do it. Tucked behind his ear was a hollow bamboo reed. He pinched the reed between his fingers, and as he brought it to his mouth, he said, “I am sorry for not being what you wanted. I am sorry for doing all that you have asked.”

  Those would be the last words that Una would hear. The reed entered her ear and there was a slurping sound, like a mouth to cupped hands full of broth. Una tried to respond to Banar, to tell him it was okay, to say that she loved him for what he was, but no words came. She couldn’t move a muscle. The only parts of her body that still worked were her eyes and her brain, and she watched helplessly as her creations left her.

  All the color in Mahaloo began to drain away as liquid. The blue of the sky, the yellow of the fields, the green of the leaves. The liquid poured over the ground and merged into a river that sparkled and swirled with every shade of a prism. When all of Mahaloo’s color had slipped into the river, the only things that remained were piles of ashes in the shapes of trees, rocks, animals, even in the shapes of the children and grandchildren of Vinda, Hoo, and Meck.