Twin Suns of Arterra

20

By the time we reached the next area, my stomach was in knots. Everything I had known had been false. My entire reality was woven with lies and half-truths. How much more would there be? How much more could I take before the fabric of my life fell to dust and ruin?

We stopped at a doorway that opened into a small courtyard. The smell of fresh grass and blossoming flowers filled the air. Outside, more children gathered, some digging in the dirt as they pulled weeds and pruned plants, others just walking or sitting.

My eyes landed on a pair sitting on a bench: a boy, his large dark eyes luminous and sparkling with the laughter that burst from his lips, and a girl. She was turned away, but her thick dark hair sifted over one shoulder in a soft wave. The boy looked up at her with open admiration. I wondered which of them was the one afflicted.

Then the girl turned, and my heart stopped.

Camille.

I knew it the moment my eyes met hers. There was no doubt in me, although there was little left of the girl I had carried on my shoulders and chased through our home with bowls of creamed Greenleaf as she shrieked with equal parts horror and pure joy.

She froze, her eyes going wide.

My heart gave a shudder as it resumed beating, a gasp of air leaking out of my parted lips. It was her. It was truly her.

"Bana?"

She stood, and the trembling in my legs matched the vibration that rippled through her. Then we were both moving, drawn together like magnets unable to stop ourselves from sliding toward each other, slowly at first and then faster until she hurtled into my arms and I was wrapping her up and crushing her close, breathing in the smell that was my baby sister, our tears blending as we stood, and clung, and cried.

So long I had wondered, but I had not dared to hope. Now I knew. She was alive. Incredibly, miraculously, she was alive, and she was here. In my arms. She was whole and intact. Finally I managed to separate myself from her long enough to look into her face. For just a moment, she was seven again, her wide eyes shining as she looked up at me. Then time caught up with us and she resolved into a portrait of an older Camille. The lines of her face had narrowed. Her nose was still turned up at the end, but her cheeks were thinner. Her jaw more pronounced. Her hair was longer. Her mouth fuller. And of course, she reached almost to my chin now.

"How did you find me?"

Her question took my breath away and left my knees feeling weak. Of course she thought I'd somehow followed her. It was true that she had been my goal, but she had no idea that we'd stumbled onto this entire village by complete chance.

"It doesn't matter," I answered, pushing the hair back from her forehead. "What matters is that I'm here." I could hardly believe my own words, and wasn't sure who I repeated them for. "I'm here."

She smiled.

In that smile I saw many things. I saw the culmination of six years of my life. I saw the face of my mother.

I saw the future.

My gut clenched in question. Did she still have a future? She saw my face cloud.

"What is it?"

"Are you sick?" I felt my arms grip her more tightly. "Are you sick, Camille?"

Relief washed her features clear of tension. "I'm fine, Bana." She smiled over my shoulder. "They've taken good care of me."

"But then..." Who was sick? Surely this group of children consisted of some that were sick.

I watched as a shadow passed over Camille's dark eyes. She tugged on my hand, pulling me closer to the bench she had been sitting on. The boy was still there. He watched as we approached, his face wary.

"Zacc," Camille smiled at him, "this is my brother, Bana." When she turned that smile on me I felt the warmth that was in it. There was nothing forced about the warmth it held. "Bana, this is Zacc."

Her affection for the boy was obvious. I recognized it. It looked the same as I looked in pictures from our childhood.

Whatever else may have happened to her, one thing was obvious. She had not been unhappy.

Zacc looked up at me, squinting into the light. "You're Cami's brother?"

My chest tightened with a variety of emotions. "I am."

"Are you here to take her away?"

Camille's hand escaped my grasp as she sat down. "Of course not," she admonished him. "You know I would never leave you, Zacc."

I heard the truth of it in her voice, and with it, the sound of all of my plans falling to rubble at my feet.