The Scar (Chapter 5)

The Museum


The sun had been down for a couple hours and the evening mist was beginning to rise up like it did every night to water the land of Imaginess. Everyone in the Rowan family was asleep including Linda, everyone that is except of course Sira. Sira had sat brooding over everything that had happened that day listening to the quiet sounds of Linda’s breathing as she slept. She had been very upset that night when her mother had told her she would be sharing a room with her but not as upset as she had been when she had been told that the only way she could go to the museum the next day was if she let Linda tag along.
“But mom she’s a human.” She had tried to reason.
“If you change her name and tell everyone she’s a mute no one will know the difference. I need her out of the way when we’re setting up for Shanti’s birthday tomorrow afternoon. So if you’re going to insist on leaving on your sister’s birthday then you can take her with you.” Sira would have put up more of a fight if she thought it would help but she knew that all it would get her was a day stuck in the house helping set up for her sister’s birthday party.
She looked out the window and saw that the mist was so thick she couldn’t even see the tree in her yard any more. A breeze lifted the mist slightly and she caught a glimpse of someone slipping into her shed and then the mist fell again. Her heart leaped and she pushed the blankets away from her and slid soundlessly out of the bed and tiptoed across the room to the door. The door squeaked slightly when she opened it but Linda didn’t even move. She slipped out of the house without too much more trouble slipping on her boots and coat before leaving the house.
Once outside she ran in the direction of the shed. She couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her but she knew it was there. She opened up the big door and shook the water from her hair and took off her coat before going any farther. “Adan?” She called into the dark shed. A hand grabbed onto her shoulder and she spun around to face him. “Don’t scare me like that.” She laughed
“I knew you’d be awake. When I heard that the human was staying with you I knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep.”
“How did you know?”
“I saw Alita at the store and asked her about it. She told me she was here.”
Sira sighed “Yes and mom’s making me take her to the museum tomorrow.”
“What!”
“Yeah I know but it’s the only way mom will let me go. Otherwise I have to stay home and help get ready for the party.” Sira paused before continuing. “You know what’s really weird Adan? My brother seems to think she’s just the greatest thing I think he might actually be falling for her.”
“He’s infatuated Sira that’s it. It’s not everyday that you meet a human girl and she comes to stay in your house.”
“But Adan are we sure she’s human.” Adan looked startled and she continued before he could respond. “I mean she looks so human apart from her name and her accent she could pass for a Imaginese.”
Adan grabbed her gently by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Sira just because she looks Imaginese doesn’t mean she is. Even if by some strange chance she could turn out to be a long lost Imaginese she’d be better off on Earth where things are familiar. She will never be one of us.” Sira nodded slowly and Adan pulled her into a hug wrapping his three sets of arms firmly around her.

Linda woke the next morning to see that Sira was still asleep. She slipped out of the room and went into living room where Rowel was playing some type of board game on the floor with Teesha. He smiled at her when she entered the room and she plopped down next to where he lay on the floor. “Where’s Shanti.” She asked.
“She’s sleeping. She’ll probably sleep all day before the big night.”
That seemed odd to Linda and she had to ask “Is everything all right.”
Rowel looked up at her a small frown playing between his eyes. “Yeah Linda she’s fine. A little tummy ache no big deal.”
“A tummy ache! OH the poor thing that must be horrible.”
He shrugged and moved his piece a couple spaces down on the board “It’s nothing we didn’t expect.” He sighed and sat up, saying something to Teesha in Imaginese as he did. The little girl nodded and slipped into the other room. Rowel turned toward Linda. “Look! Every year on a Imaginese birthday on the years 3-18 we get sick. We sleep all day, have the party in the evening when we’re feeling a little better and then the next morning we have a new or longer arm.”
“Oh!” She paused thinking about it. “My birthday was a couple days ago and I got really sick. It seems like every year I get sick. I wish it was something as predictable as what you have but it’s not I don’t get anything from it just a lot of pain.”
Teesha came back then carrying a large bowl of flower-nuts and plopped down again in front of Rowel and made her move.
The two finished their game in silence until Sira woke up and came and sat down on one of the chairs the news-screen in her hands. “Are you about ready to go Linda” she asked without looking up.
“Go where?” Rowel asked turning abruptly at his sister.
Sira looked over the screen at Rowel. “We’re going to the museum.”
“Were you planning on inviting me?”
“Rowel I have tried to invite you so many times and you always turn me down. I didn’t think this time would be any different”
“Well maybe I’m ready. I want to go.” Sira looked at him uncertainly. “Look if I can’t handle it then I’ll just skip that exhibit.”
“Ok fine but you better get ready Adan’s coming to pick us up in like ten minutes.”

Layka, it had been Rowel’s idea to call her that. He said it was his aunt’s birth name until she got married and her husband started calling her Kay. Then she had flipped the two first and last letters and had been called Kayla ever since. They had made it very clear on the way to the museum that she was not aloud to talk at all. “I’ll explain everything trust me” Linda had noticed that Sira and Adan had exchanged a look when she said that but she didn’t say anything. She had figured out throughout the course of the ride that there was something at this museum that Rowel didn’t like something that had kept from ever coming there up to this point and she was starting to get the idea that the boy liked her more than he cared to admit and although she thought he was nice he was as alien and she had just met him.
They had met up with what was apparently their school group and they had introduced her to the teacher and couple other kids but she knew she would never remember all their names. Not that it mattered she couldn’t talk to them anyway.
She just hoped she wouldn’t forget herself and give away anything.

Rowel stood there slightly nervous as the teacher gave the low down of what was going on. He worried that Linda would mess up or that he would mess up and speak to her in English when other’s were too close and would question. But more than all that he worried about seeing his aunt’s profile displayed in wax clutching his beloved wax cousin to her chest. Would he be able to handle it? He shot up a quick prayer to Kohath that he would be able to handle it and began to move inside the building with the rest of the group.
Alita came up to him and gave him a big hug. “I can’t believe you came here. I never thought I’d see you enter through those doors it’s a miracle.” She hugged him again and then noticed something behind him. He turned to see Linda standing awkwardly behind him. “You brought her here?”
Rowel stepped back to Linda’s side and put his arm around her shoulders. “Alita I’d like you to meet Layka a new friend of mine that I invited to come with us. She’s mute so don’t ask her too many questions.” Alita got the drift and shook Linda’s hand smiling the whole time and said “It’s nice to meet you I’m Alita.”
The group moved on and between Rowel and Ali it was nearly impossible for Linda to miss anything. Everything seemed to be going well. But what comes up must come down and everything was about to come down…hard.
It happened when they were almost completely through the museum the only thing they hadn’t seen was the Martian War display. They went into the big room and Alita and Rowel explained what everything was to Linda. They turned a corner and chills rippled up Rowel’s spine as the soft cries of a baby filled his ears. In front of him was a cut-away-version of his Aunt’s-one-room-house. A wax figure stood at the stove and a wax Leena was running toward her father’s outstretched arms. He could hear Alita explaining the display quietly to Linda and tears welled up at the carven smile on his cousin’s baby-face. He hadn’t known her at this age and he wanted to reach out and hold her and never let her go, he wanted to stop his Aunt and Uncle from leaving at least then they might be alive. He snapped back to attention when Alita put her hand on his shoulder. “Come on Rowel. There’s more to see.” He nodded and followed her around the next corner.
The next scene showed the house again but this time his aunt and uncle were standing in a corner frightened and 5 guards were looking around the house. Three were sitting on the bed. He didn’t see Leena anywhere.
“Are you all right Rowel?”
“I’ve never heard this part of the story Alita. I didn’t know that they had trouble with the soldiers.”
Leena was in the next display but he almost wished she wasn’t. His aunt was cradling her in her arms wax tears were set on her cheeks and his uncle was sitting behind her his arms around her. There was a nasty cut across the baby’s cheek. The stand in front of the display told him she had got it from a spring that broke when the guard sat down on the bed.
He heard a slight gasp from next to him and he turned to see Linda staring intently at the display as Alita read the stand to her.
He was having a hard time keeping the tears back and he wasn’t sure how much more he’d be able to take without completely falling apart.

Linda had learned so much since she had entered the building. At first Rowel had helped Ali in reading everything but ever since they had entered the room about the Martian war he had been much to intrigued with the displays himself to be able to explain them to her. She had been slightly surprised at the way he looked at the first display. It upset him she realized. He seemed to get more and more upset the farther into the room they went until they stopped at one where the mother and father were clutching their baby who, as Ali had read to her had been hurt by a spring. But what surprised Linda the most was the cut that was on the babies face and she reached up to touch her own face in wonder. Then Ali hurried her on to the next room pulling Rowel who seemed to be more reluctant after each display they passed.
The next display was one of the saddest things Linda had ever seen: They were standing in the middle of a wood and the man and woman and baby were lying dead in a display in the center of the floor a Martian stood over them with the offending weapon in his hand.
Ali leaned over and whispered in her ear. “The family tried to escape to earth but the Martian’s caught up with them and killed them.” Alita walked off then to read one of the other signs but something had caught Linda’s eye and she knelt down next to the display to see what it was. It was something around the baby’s neck. She tried to make out what it was. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized what it was.
It was a necklace. A necklace that she recognized.

Rowel hadn’t even gone into the room. The sight of the Martian ships and his aunt, uncle and cousin lying in a heap on the ground was more than he could take. He felt himself getting dizzy. He slid down the wall until he felt the floor underneath him. He saw Alita coming toward him and he absent-mindedly wondered where Linda was but the overwhelming display pushed the thought away as soon as it entered.
“I didn’t know they died like this Alita. I didn’t know why they left. I didn’t know it was so hard for them. I didn’t know-“But his voice caught and he couldn’t go any farther. Alita put her arms around him while he cried. “I did this for Sira the first time she came here.” She said “At first she didn’t want to come again. But later it helped her feel closer to her aunt then she ever had before.”
Rowel looked up then. “Really Sira couldn’t take it.”
“Not at first she remembers more about what happened than she lets on and when she saw this place it tore her up. She’s only been able to let go because she comes here so much…and she talks about it.”
Rowel nodded and was about to say something else when a commotion from outside interrupted his thoughts.

Linda couldn’t keep quiet anymore. How could it be possible that her necklace, the one she had just received for her birthday could be the same necklace around the baby’s neck? And the scar the one on the baby what were the chances that it would look the same as the one she had? It wasn’t chance. That much she knew. But she was unwilling at this moment in time to except that these people laying in a heap on the floor were her parents or that the alien standing over them was their murderer or that the fake trees that stood all around represented the tree she grew up knowing. “How can it be?” She whispered then caught herself.
She decided to leave for a breath of fresh air and headed toward the exit. As she headed for the exit door two security guards headed in her direction and she walked a little faster toward the door. One of them stepped in front of her. The man said something to her in Imaginese. It sounded like a question but she couldn’t be sure. She pointed to her mouth indicating that she couldn’t respond. The man asked her another question and she shook her head. The man squinted at her then he spoke in English. “Nod if you understand what I’m saying” She nodded and he turned to his friend. “The boy was right she is an alien.” The guy behind her grabbed her from behind he led her outside the building, put her in a hover-car and drove her to another building where they locked her in a cell.
She sat down on the hard bed slightly stunned by everything that had just happened. She thought of crying but somehow she couldn’t. She had no doubt in her mind that someone would get her out but until then she had some time to think.
Everything fit together so well. Especially the scar. For years she had wondered where she had gotten it. It had been her shame for as long as she could remember but now that she thought she knew what had happened to her it seemed to hold less shame.
Ali had told her that the baby had been given a necklace by her parents. She suddenly remembered the necklace she had in her pocket and pulled it out. It looked exactly like the necklace around the babies. There had been words on the necklace the woman held. Linda flipped it over and begun rubbing the paint off again. When it had been completely rubbed off it confirmed what she had suspected for written on the back were the same words that had been written on the wax necklace.

To our daughter Leena
From her parents Kayla and Gaylin
On her 1st birthday
My you be a light in these dark times

If this was the same necklace than the display had been wrong the baby hadn’t died with her parents. And not only was she probably still alive but she was fairly certain that she was the baby.
She wasn’t really a human now she just had to convince these police of that. And she knew just how to do it.

“You know it’s against the law to harbor aliens, right” Adan had chattered about it ever since they had arrived at the museum. It was all he had wanted to talk about since he had found out about Linda staying with them the night before. Sira had only listened subconsciously. “If they found out about it Sira they could have you arrested or at least fined. It’s illegal, Sira.”
She had turned on him suddenly. “I am not a criminal Adan.”
“I didn’t say you were…but you’ll become one if you don’t turn the girl in.”
“You want me to betray my family.”
“No, I want you to protect them. I care about your family, Sira and I don’t want any of you to get hurt.”
“We won’t get hurt Adan. Unless you’re the one who turns her in.” She had walked away from him then and hadn’t spoken to him for the rest of the trip.
Now as she stood outside the house next to her brother. Only one thought filled her head I can’t believe he actually turned her in. She had found Rowel and Alita outside Rowel’s face was red and blotchy from tears and at first she had thought it was because of Martian War exhibit but as she got closer she had realized that Alita had been crying too.
When they told her that Linda had been taken by the Tuli she had been ticked. She knew right away that Adan had done it. She had refused to turn her in and so he had taken her safety into his own hands at Linda’s expense.
Her brother opened the door and she walked inside. “There you guys are” Her mother came rushing out of the kitchen, followed by Great-Grandma-Gerda who was carrying a bowl of something that she set down in front of Shanti, “I was beginning to wonder when you’d get home.” She paused and a worried look crossed her face. “Where’s Linda?”
Sira swallowed and whispered so no one would hear. “She was taken by the Tuli”
Her mother gasped and glanced over to Great-Grandma-Gerda before whispering. “We’ll take care of this after the party they won’t do anything until tomorrow and we don’t need a bunch of people knowing that we were harboring an alien. Sira and Rowel nodded and their mother walked away.
They continued the party as best as they could but Sira could tell that her mother and father were stressed out. And she wondered what they would be able to do in order to get Linda out of the prison.
The party had been over for about an hour and Shanti and Teesha had already gone to bed when there was a knock on the door. “Who could that be at this hour?” Mrs. Rowan wondered as she went to get the door. Sira heard her mother open the door and then shout. “Linda, oh thank goodness you’re all right.” Rowel and Sira both jumped up then and ran to greet her. Rowel gave her a big hug and even Sira patted her on the shoulder. “What happened?” Her brother prodded. “How did you get out?”
“It was easy. All I had to do was prove that I was Imaginese and they let me go.”
“How on earth did you manage that?”
A mischievous grin filled Linda’s face. “You guys might want to sit down before I explain.” She waited until they were all sitting before continuing. “As I sat in the cell I was thinking about all things I had seen at the museum especially the stuff about the Martian War. The displays answered a very important question that I’ve had all my life.”
“What question?” Rowel asked from beside Sira.
Linda sighed and pushed back her bangs. “I’ve always wondered where I got this and at the museum that question was answered but not until I saw the last display where I noticed that the baby was wearing a necklace that I got from my sister for my birthday.” She pulled out the necklace and showed it to them.
“That’s a wiper flower.” Sira stated. She took the necklace in her hands and looked at it turning it this way and that and tears filled her eyes. “I never thought I’d see this again.”
“But that still doesn’t explain how you escaped the Tuli.” Rowel reminded her.
Linda smiled again. “You helped me with that one, Rowel.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you told me it was all about willpower. So I willed it and this happened.” An arm came sliding out of one of her sides and everyone gasped. “Like you said it will take practice but it’s definitely a start.” Everyone erupted then standing and embracing her and congratulating her. She caught her own eyes in a mirror hanging on the wall and she studied the scar that stretched across her face.
This was the Scar that she had received when her parents had tried to save her life, the Scar that showed their love, the Scar that she was no longer ashamed of. Let Brenda see it, let Brenda laugh she no longer cared, this scar would be a reminder of who her parents had been, who she was and who she was to become.