Holes

Meeting My Family

Adar stood up and took my hand. The four of us went as far as the lift and boarded. We rose 2 more floors and stepped out.

We were 450 meters up when we got off. The wind, at this height, was coming down the hall at 45 kilometers an hour but none of us had trouble moving against it.

Our clothing was flattened against us and our hair was streaming in its passage. Mother's cloak was spread out on it and Adar's hair style had been shredded. It was as long as Mother's and as black as Father's.

1200 meters down the hall set into the right wall was a door that had silver circlet etched into it.

"This," Father said, "is where We live."

Gathered before the door the wind was wrapping our hair around us. Mother said "Open."
The door slid aside and we entered bringing the wind with us.

The door shut the wind out. We moved, in a loose cluster, toward another door in the center of the
left wall. Passing through it we, then, entered a bedroom, the first door on the right. Adar told me it was our room. Our parents went on down the hall.

"Adar, what room are they going to?"
"Theirs. The master bedroom. It fills the entire far end of our living quarters."

I looked around the room. Every piece of furniture was sized for the Maccar but We weren't Maccar!

"I'll be sleeping on the floor," I remarked.

Adar answered quickly and smoothly. "No, neither one of us will be. Take off your clothes, especially your shoes, and I'll show you why I say that."

She began to undress. A second later I followed suit. Bare skin to bare skin we looked each other over then she opened two closets.

"This one," she said,"is yours, Meda." She ran her hand along the row of dresses in the left.
She shifted attention to hers, scanning what she had then back to her little sister.

"We have the ability to alter our size. We can grow, or shrink. How much in either direction I haven't explored. There's been no need for me to know.i

"It's done by concentrating on the concept. When I focus on applying the word, grow or shrink, I do. Most of us Can. Try it but do it, slowly, because you don't have the control that memory would provide."

I gauged my distance from my closet and backed up about a meter then looked at the floor and concentrated. The floor moved away from me. I was growing!

Surprised, my concentration broke and the growth stopped.
Looking up I considered where my head was in relation to the dresses and added a bit more height to be where I desired.

Adar adjusted her height in proportion to where I had been, moments ago. I watched, impressed with us both, until she stopped then turned my thoughts toward what I would wear.

I picked an orange dress, but I knew the word for this color wasn't orange, it was teemaran. Thinking about words brought to mind the awareness that my Antrican wasn't quite equal to the rest.

"Adar, I'm going to need language lessons. The words I learned to use were developed by a multilingual German and my French mother, neither of whom had a sufficient grasp of my language."

I looked for a zipper or a row of buttons but there were neither. "I'm going to need help, I think. There are no buttons or zippers. Does it slide over my head?"

"No, lay it on the floor near your feet."

"Lay it on the floor?" I thought. I looked at her in doubt. I knew that I had to put it on. That wasn't the way to do it.

"Yes, lay it on the floor."

I looked at her. You had to have a dress in your hands. I knew that but I shrugged and did so.

It moved! Encasing my feet it slid up the legs, then my torso, joining seamlessly at my right shoulder!

I turned to the task of choosing the right shoes. It was a bit overwhelming seeing all of them.
There were 12 pairs. Only the rich had this many pairs! Three were boots; knee-length, half that, and a pair that encased my ankles, stopping shortly afterward.

They-I stopped and picked up the knee-highs. Inspecting them I asked her if they were leather.

"No," she replied. "What's leather?"

"Animal skins. Alligators, crocodiles, cattle, or pigs."

"The pair you're holding came from a plant called the teemaran tree. These are made from the bark of that tree. The dress is made of the leaves of the tree."

I put them back and looked over the others. Three were like slippers, two of which were fabric of some kind. The third pair were-I picked them up.

"What are these made of ?"

Adar stepped over to my opposite side and bent down. "I'll answer."

I bent down next to her. "These," she said, touching them,"are olarv skins." They were faintly ridged. The word was pronounced with a long o. It was familiar but I couldn't picture what it referred to. I knew that it was the Antrican word for red. I returned them and picked up a pair on the left end, back row.

"These?"

"Allor skin." The word was pronounced like the the French word alor. They were a shade of orange that was similar to the dress.

I picked up the others, one at a time, and she told me where each one came from. The boots were all in the back row next to each other. The slippers were next to each other in the front row, right end.

Next to the boots were the olarv
skins then the allors. The last pair-I touched them and looked at her, questioning.

"Their color is that of the stone from a cliff in the mountains north of us."

The three pairs in the left half of the front row were described, as well but the first word sounded like

"They're spreading the word that you, dear sister, are alive and well, and have returned to us. By this time tomorrow no one will be unaware of your arrival."

Because I knew seeing me would be proof I joined them. I moved from one station to the other as I was needed. Adar came to stand between them watching the reaction of the people who saw me.

I, too, was watching but saw nothing I would call suspicious. I saw joy, disbelief, acceptance, and tears.

Reflecting on that I could understand why tears would be present. Grief might still be a factor for a few in spite of the time that had passed.

I wondered how well I was remembered. Had anyone missed me? I saw that hundreds had. Behind me, beside me, the three of them were smiling at the responses they were getting.

Most of the time, however, I wasn't smiling. I felt no trust, no sense of familiarity with most of them. I wondered if I had isolated myself, or if I had been shy. The years I had spent on Earth were ones of considerable close contact.

"Mother, Father, did I keep to myself during my first years of life, here?"

They stopped what they were doing alert to the sadness that lay under the question.

"Yes," Mother said. She continued. "You were a quiet, solitary child. The few friends you had were the kind that would stick close, that would stay no matter what you did. You considered them to be irreplaceable and completely reliable. A girl named All was one of them."

She traded looks with Father and turned back to me. "I will tell her to come, if you like."
"Would you let me talk to her, now?"
"Yes." She did something to the desk that mystified me. Abruptly, a picture filled the screen. It was a girl I didn't recognize, which I was getting used to.

"Speak her name."
"All," I said. The background changed, and so did the picture!
In fact