The Scar (Chapter 4)

Imaginess

Rowel sat staring at the girl lying on his couch fast asleep. When he had seen that she had fallen asleep on the trip from Earth he couldn’t bare to wake her. Alita had been a very big help so far while Adan and Sira had made it very clear that they wanted nothing to do with the girl and had pretty much left as soon as they had returned to Imaginess. It had quickly been decided that Linda would stay at Rowel’s house. His parents were much more understanding about such things while even though Alita’s father might understand he would never agree to let her stay. There were too many risks involved and he couldn’t afford to harbor an alien. Alita had helped him to get her into his hover car and had even gone with him to make sure she was comfortable in his house.
“Man she is really out.” Alita commented when they had gotten Linda into the house and she still hadn’t moved.
“We probably freaked her out pretty good.” Alita just nodded then she looked at her watch and gasped.
“Oh my, I’m late I need to get home before my dad gets home and realizes I’m not home. I’ll see if I can get over here tomorrow.”
Rowel sat staring at her now waiting for his mother to get home from where ever she disappeared to with his two younger sisters. He stood up and went into the kitchen he grabbed a flower-nut off the counter and crushed the fragile shell in his fingers. He picked up the news-screen which was Imaginess’s newspaper but instead of being on paper it was on a flat touch-screen. He scanned through the headlines as he pulled the sweet flower out of its shell and plopped it in his mouth. He licked his lips as it melted in his mouth and tapped on one of the headlines as he reached for another one.
The article was about the funeral procession that had gone to earth that day. Telling the story about his aunt and uncle for about the millionth time in his 18 years. He sighed. Why couldn’t they just leave Aunt Kay alone? She was dead why did they have to keep reminding him of that fact. Kay had been his favorite aunt he had only been three when she had died but he remembered it almost as clearly as if it had been yesterday. He still had dreams about those times sometimes. He remembered his mother taking him and Sira, who had been six at the time, down to visit Aunt Kay right after his cousin Leena had been born. “She likes you.” Aunt Kay had said to him as he held her and she looked at him with her big glittering eyes. He remembered smiling down at her and grabbing her little fingers as she cooed quietly in his arms. That was the first and last time he had ever seen her.
He had never told his parents how much his aunt and uncle’s death had affected him and they assumed that he didn’t remember them well enough for it to effect him. They had worried more about Sira in the years following their death because she was older when it was him they should have worried about.
A new museum had opened up in the city a couple years ago and he had refused to go because he had heard of a display that had been dedicated to his aunt and uncle and he hadn’t the courage to face what had happened to them.
Rowel sighed and placed the news-screen back on the counter and grabbed a hand-full of flower-nuts as he went back into the living room. The girl was still sleeping as he sat down across from her. The hair that had covered most of his face since he had met her had slid slightly and something near the corner of her right eye caught his attention. He leaned forward and brushed the remaining hair away from her face. His heart jumped into his throat at the sight of the ugly scar running across her face. Her eyes opened then and he jumped back slightly in surprise. It took her a second to realize what he had been staring at and she quickly covered herself with her hair as she sat up and looked at him angrily.
“I-I-I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…how’d it happen?”
She relaxed slightly then and looked around her. “Where am I?”
“This is my house…well my family’s house anyway. Alita and I brought you here. You didn’t wake up when we landed and neither of us wanted to wake you.” He stood up then and motioned in the direction of the kitchen. “You want something to eat? We have some flower-nuts that my little sister just picked yesterday.”
“What’s a flower-nut?”
“Here come try one their really good.”
Linda followed him into the kitchen where he showed her how to break the shell and eat the flower inside.
“MMM this is really good.” She said as she grabbed another one from the bowl he had placed in front of her. It tastes kind of like raspberry and watermelon wrapped all in one.”
He smiled at her. He liked the way she smiled and talked and maybe just maybe he thought she was beautiful. Could it be that he was falling for a human girl?

“Come along girls we need to get home and get dinner ready before your father gets home.”
Five year old Teesha grabbed her little sister’s hand and attempted to drag her away from the shop window she had plastered herself to. “Come on Shanti we’ve got to go.”
“But Teesha,” the two year old whined, “did you see that tool set in the shop window.”
“Yes Shanti I saw it. Now will you come on?”
“But it was amazing. I just have it for my birthday.”
“Shanti it’s too late for that. Your birthday is tomorrow. All your presents are bought already.”
The little girls face dropped and she gave in to her sisters prodding.
“Well it looks like your brothers home.” Peka observed as they neared the house. They climbed the two steps to the house and pushed open the door. “Rowel, I’m home.” She yelled into the house. She heard voices in the kitchen and headed in that direction. She entered the kitchen to find her son and a young girl sitting at the kitchen table a bowl of flower-nuts between them. They both looked up as she entered. She smiled at the girl and turned to her son. “Who’s this?”
Linda was standing now and stuck her hand out in greeting. “I’m Linda it’s nice to meet you.” She said in English.
Peka frowned, “Rowel can I talk to you for a minute.”
“Sure.” He stood and followed her out into the hallway and stopped. They were still within hearing distance of Linda but he knew his mother didn’t care. “What is it?” He asked in Imaginese
“Who is that?” She asked nodding in the direction of the girl at the table as she grabbed another flower-nut out of the bowl, broke the shell and popped the flower into her mouth
“A friend I met at school today.” He said not looking at her directly.
“Rowel look at me,” he looked up at her, “Where exactly did you meet her.”
He looked down at the ground. “At the funeral procession.” Peka closed her eyes and tried to breath. When she recovered she opened her eyes and glared at her son. “You brought a human to Imaginess?” She asked as calmly as she could handle her voice trembling slightly.” He nodded. “Do you realize that if the Tuli found out about this they could have your father and I highly fined for harboring an illegal alien?”
“Yes mother I know, but she’d seen too much we had to do something.”
“Who’s we?”
He hesitated then said “Alita, Adan, Sira and me.”
“Sira’s part of this? I thought she knew better than that.”
“Actually,” Rowel stumbled trying to cover for his sister, “Sira and Adan aren’t really responsible. They didn’t want to take her along but they didn’t think we had any other choice. But Sira made it very clear that this is my fault and she’s not helping.”
Peka sighed and crossed three sets of arms in front of her. “I can’t handle this right now Rowel. I’ll entertain her until your father gets home and then it’s up to him as to what happens from there. Understand?”
“Yes ma’am”

Linda finished the bowl of nuts and set it on the counter next to the sink. She could hear the voices of Rowel and his mother in the hallway. They had slipped into their own language now but although she didn’t know exactly what they were saying she had a feeling it was about her and they way their voices had begun to raise she didn’t think it was very good.
She stood and went into the living room as much as because she was bored as to get away from the yelling.
She entered the room to find two young girls sitting on the floor playing with dolls and babbling in their own language. She sat down between them and they looked up at her curiously. “Hi!” She said in English. “My name’s Linda.” The girls looked at her curiously and Linda wondered if they even spoke English. Then one of the girls-the oldest one-spoke.
“I’m Teesha and that’s Shanti.” She nodded her head in the direction of the little girl.”
Linda smiled, “It’s nice to meet you.”
Shanti scooted closer to Linda. “Why do you speak English?”
Linda hesitated “Because…” a throat cleared behind and she turned to see Rowel and his mother standing behind her. Rowel looked slightly defeated but he smiled when she turned to them and his mother looked pretty upset with 3 sets of arms folded in front of her. “Why don’t you sit down Linda,” she said trying to smile, “And I’ll get you something to drink.”
She left then and Rowel indicated for her to sit down. A few moments later Peka returned with three glasses of something light brown and handed a cup to Linda and Rowel. Linda looked into the cup. “What is this?”
“It’s Kail milk.” Rowel stated “try it.”
“So tell us about yourself,” Peka said as she settled into a chair placed her milk down on the table next to her and grabbed what looked like some kind of broken blender or another type of kitchen tool and began working on it like someone would work on knitting.
“Well-um-I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Mrs. Rowan.” Peka responded slightly irritably.
“Well Mrs. Rowan what do you want to know?”
“What brought you into the woods today?”
Linda settled down into her chair then and began her story she told them everything. She told them about Brenda Keegan, about school, and her birthday. When she was done telling about her birthday Shanti, who had bright yellow-green skin and white hair, climbed onto Linda’s lap. “I’m going to be 3 tomorrow. I can’t wait to go to school,” she said.
“School,” Linda said in surprise looking up to Mrs. Rowan with eyes wide, “she’s only going to be 3.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Rowan matter of factly not looking up from the broken blender, “children always start school at 3.”
“But why?”
“Well two reasons, one the Imaginese children are very smart Shanti’s already made her own hover board.” She looked up now and smiled.
“Really,” Linda was really surprised now. “So what’s the second reason?” Mrs. Rowan turned back to her work on the broken blender.
“The second reason is when children turn 3 they start growing their arms and they grow half an arm every year until they are 18.”
“Half an arm? You mean like literally half an arm like just a little stub?”
“Oh, no,” said Rowel laughing. “More like a complete arm that’s about half the size of a regular arm, but it still has a hand.”
“But it’s not quite long enough to need an elbow,” Added Mrs. Rowan
“Interesting,” said Linda, “but what does that have anything to do with school?”
“Oh lots of things,” Rowel replied picking up a screwdriver type tool to hand to his mother, “it takes lots of practice to learn how to get your arms to come out you have to go to school to learn.”
“How can you learn to get your arms to come out?” Linda was interested but she found it kind of farfetched to have to go to school to learn to get your arms to come out.
“It’s all about willpower you have to want it and it’s not that hard once you’ve got the hang of it” as if to demonstrate he shot a couple more arms out of his stomach, “The first time it’s hard because you’ve never done it before and the second time its hard because you have to learn how to get only the arms you want to come out, to come out. When you’re learning you might want 1 arm to come out and instead all 5 arms come out. After the first couple times it becomes easier.” Just then Sira rushed into the door slamming it behind her and stepped into the living room. “Mom?” She asked without looking up as she opened up her bag and started digging through it in search of something. “My teacher said you had to sign a release before we go to the museum tomorrow.” She found what she was looking for and looked up. She dropped her bag when she saw Linda sitting there with a glass of Kail milk in her hands. “What is she doing here?” She asked pointing right at Linda and staring at her brother angrily.
“Sira,” Mrs Rowan scolded her daughter. “Be polite to our guest. Linda may be staying with us for awhile and I expect you to behave…or you can just forget about me signing that little slip of yours.” Sira’s jaw tightened and glanced menacingly at her brother as she stormed past them out of the room.

Mr. Rowan got home a couple hours later and was pretty surprised to find a pretty, young girl sitting on the couch next to his son and talking to Rowel and his wife but he was even more surprised when she introduced herself. For three reasons: One she spoke to him in English not Imaginese like any other native of the planet. Two her name was one of the strangest names he had ever heard in his life and three her accent was definitely not one he had ever heard before.
Mrs. Rowan turned to her daughters who were still playing dolls quietly in the corner. “Teesha why don’t you and Shanti show Linda the garden.” The girls jumped up excitedly and dragged Linda out of the room babbling the entire time in Imaginese.

Sira sat in the garden it was her favorite spot on the Rowan land. There was a large Wiper tree in the middle of the yard. The Rowan’s like every other family on Imaginess couldn’t afford to cut down the trees in their yard because no body knew how to grow them so when a tree grew up in the middle of a main street the street moved instead of the tree cause everyone knew that if they moved a tree it would die.
Sira sat on the bench that was set back against the fence in the back of the yard. Little wiper flowers were all about her indicating that the roots of the tree had spread that far since the flowers only grew from the roots of the tree. The garden was Sira’s one passion she had tried so hard to keep the yard looking as good as possible. She had even put in a stone walkway that would keep the place more under control and had traveled often to the nearby woods to gather plants to grow in her garden but they always were dead by the next morning so she had stuck to taking care of her tree. Not many people knew about her secret obsession with plants. If they did they would probably tease her. After all Imaginese were supposed to work with electronics not plants. She thought that the human’s ability to grow plants so easily was amazing and everyday she wished she could learn their secret but she knew that was impossible she just didn’t have the touch.
She heard voices coming toward her and saw Linda being led by Shanti and Teesha who were both babbling away in Imaginese. “Sira works really hard on this garden.” Teesha was saying. “She tries to get other plants to grow here but they always die.”
“But she takes good care of the tree.” Shanti said pointing to the tree in the middle of the yard. “That’s were we gather our flower-nuts.” The continued mumbling and pointing things out and poor Linda looked confused out of her mind as the girls dragged her along. Sira decided now would be as good a time as any to talk to Linda alone knowing it would probably be nearly impossible to get her brother away from her later. She walked up to the three girls and spoke to her sisters in Imaginese. “Why don’t you let me show Linda around my own garden?” The girls nodded a little disappointedly and hurried off somewhere else.
As soon as they were gone Linda spoke. “Look I don’t like being here any more than you want me here.” Sira looked at Linda skeptically. “Look I don’t care if you’re here just don’t expect me to be all nice and answer your questions. If you don’t know something then ask Rowel I’m sure he’ll be glad to answer for you.”
“OK I won’t ask you questions…but can we be friends as long as we both agree not to ask questions?”
Sira hesitated then nodded “I guess so!” Just then they heard footsteps and looked up to see Rowel coming toward them. “Don’t tell Rowel.” Sira whispered just before she disappeared inside a shed.
“Rowel came up to Linda and stopped a couple feet away from her. “Where are the girls?”
Linda just shrugged, “They got bored I guess and decided to split.” She nodded toward the tree. “That’s a weird looking tree. What’s it called?”
“It’s a wiper tree. It’s made out of really strong leaves which hold it up and soft wood that grows on the top. The flower-nuts grow on those two long branches there and all those little flowers grow out of the roots.”
“Wow!”
They were quiet for a moment and then Rowel spoke again. “They said you could stay by the way.” She looked at him surprised. “My parents said you could stay with us until we’re sure we can trust you then we’ll get you home as soon as possible.”
“Thank you Rowel for everything. But just out of curiosity how long will I have to stay exactly I really should get home as soon as possible before my parents start to worry.”
“Oh probably only a week at most. That is if you’re trustworthy.” He smiled a teasing smile and only then did Linda begin to really get worried.