Not Quite Time, Not Quite Space

Precipitation like the inhabitants of Humbleville had never seen drenched verdant earth and cast a darkened shadow over the farmland, both the dirt and paved roads, the downtown with its storefronts and bronze statue, the new subdivision, the old subdivision, the trailer park, and the lone school. All were inside and even the cats without a human home to claim rushed for cover, leaving the lonely bronze statue of Samantha John to watch over her home. Far into Humbleville, where the summer thicket gives way to unmanaged farmland, a forgotten barn from a time when Samantha John was just a child hosts the sudden reappearance of Emma Mota. The barn’s shedding scarlet paint with pinholes made by BB gun bullets from decades of target practice did nothing to speak of what was inside.

If a resident were to pass by the barn, they would not hear Emma’s sobs over the heavy roar of rain on the tin roof and they would not see her behind the barn’s closed doors or even through the mended bullet holes patched over with clay. The old barn was long forgotten, and the person inside felt the same way. Curled with her legs brought close to her body, Emma refused to open her eyes. On her arms droplets of water dried against rich sepia skin, but this water came not from Humbleville. It did not even come from Earth. The breeze Emma once sought after with open barn windows now cursed her as each alien droplet dried and reminded her of where she had been and where she returned. The scarlet barn was once considered to be a reprieve. A place for Emma to escape to when the fighting at home became too much, when her mother was too drunk and her father too boiled. Once a hiding place and then a home, the barn shuttered Emma in when her mother’s hugs became stale and her father’s advice gurgled with threats.

A scarlet home with sand bags placed against rotting panels to keep bugs out and used industrial carpet to cover the dirt floor. Emma patched a home from the misused and discarded pieces of Humbleville and at one point took to the downtown dumpsters nightly. A three-legged table from Greg’s Bakery kept standing with phone books, a library chair, half-burned candles from Pine Pizza Crust as the owner had lost one too many tables from overused candles, matches from every bar, towels from Humbleville Hotel, a tourist’s cot that fell from the bed of their truck, dreary succulents from New Hum’s Garden and Tree, a circle mirror from Coffee and Read Used Book Store, a mini refrigerator and generator from Nancy’s Supply and Stock, and at least another dozen items. Emma made a home and for a while her life unadhered from the riotous life of her parents. Emma went to school, read by candlelight, and on the weekends went by night searching for items of interest, but she never found satisfaction.

This was not why Emma cried and felt her heart loll from one side of her chest to the other, or why she denied herself the first glance of her home in nearly five months. The young woman rocked from her place on the floor, feeling the edge of her cot knock against her upper back. There was a night, a Saturday night after the bars closed and Humbleville Hotel was the only building with light gleaming against sudden fog, that Emma found something. Not used or misused, not missing parts or broken down the middle, but something wholly uninterrupted. A shop downtown that shouldn’t have been and since Emma found it, never was again. A booth of a storefront with a blue steel awning locked in place, signaling it to be open in the early morning hours. No door to be seen, just a white service counter with a menu board outlined in square, neon green lights. Emma noticed the store on her first pass through town that night, but it was not until her third pass did she think to check it out.

A woman with ebony ringlet hair parted, braided, and balanced with gold bracelets on her wrists smiled at Emma with full lips. Glowing tawny cheeks with warm eyes that made Emma believe for a moment the woman knew her, but that was impossible because Emma would have remembered her. The woman had waved gently and when Emma approached, the woman asked a question, ‘What’ll it be’ or ‘What would you like’ something to that meaning. Emma, confused but comfortable enough to be perplexed, read the menu items. In black letters against a bright board were items such as ‘New Life’, ‘Adventure’, ‘Romance’, ‘Trials’, and ‘Happy Ending’. There were no dots leading to a price, no ingredients listed below, no notes to detail if the items were vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, or anything else that would be important for a consumer to know. Emma’s gaze attached to Happy Ending and if it were a milkshake, she imagined it would be marshmallow and chocolate with bits of cinnamon cracker at the top and soft caramel at the bottom.

The woman spoke, Emma recalled. She said “I can’t promise a single thing on that board, but I can promise I’ll be with you the entire time.” Those words, that promise, so soft and understanding, left Emma with the distinct impression this stranger knew every hurt her heart had endured for too long. The woman held out her hand and left the choice to Emma. It was not the first choice Emma ever made, but it felt like the first easy choice she ever decided on. That woman was Audra Tholos and where she came from was a place blazing with sunset horizons and ruby skies made clear with warm rain and humble shores.

“Audra.” Emma groaned from the floor of the barn. Churning and molding, a steady hurt carved and divided Emma’s chest and subsequent heart so that each pulse plummeted her deeper into pain. Despair and hopelessness chewed its way into Emma’s thoughts until the young woman’s mind backed into a corner she did not know existed until then. Audra could not be dead, Emma thought, but defeat swallowed whole that idea.

Emma and Audra were far away from Earth, in a place Audra described as not quite time and not quite space, but real nonetheless. Outside it was raining lime-green droplets but inside the temple-home with limestone columns and dizzying mosaic floors a party Audra claimed to be invited to hustled on with guests Emma would describe as alien, but she knew they would describe her in the same way. Emma walked through that night again and again, recalling how the party’s air seemed to suck the usual joyfulness from Audra. The older woman warned Emma to keep close and not to wander off, a task Emma thought easy, but as the night continued, became more and more difficult.

The air was intoxicating and moved sweetly of a nose-dwelling miasma that made it hard to focus. Emma did not remember the number of floors the temple-house had, but that smell only increased the further down her and Audra spiraled. The bottom level proved to be the most extravagant, with ebony marble cracked with gold and a vast space filled with several times the amount of party goers then was upstairs. Towards the very back was a tall man wrapped in black silk, smoking a gold pipe that perfumed the air with the scent of blood. Sprawled out with his feet up and guards surrounding him, the man smiled when Audra approached. The dimness of this most bottom floor made it feel to Emma she was dreaming and would wake up any moment with the urge to vomit. Still, the young woman noted a change in Audra as the older woman went stiff at the sight before her.

Emma opened her eyes and instead of taking in the barn, she stared at her open hand, the one Audra grabbed the moment she noticed the man. Audra expected someone else at the party and not the man with the gold pipe, Emma assumed.

Something Emma had never seen in the five months of intergalactic travel crossed the older woman’s brow. It was surprise, but what was more alarming was the fear in Audra’s eyes. The man, whether ghost or hellish nightmare, brandished a gruesome, vengeful grin with pomegranate red teeth and fast like a Neptune storm Audra took Emma’s hand. It was a rare oddity for Audra to use her telepathy, but at that moment it was all she had left to protect Emma.

You have to go now. Our travels are no longer safe. The words in Emma’s head carried with them splintered sentences as each word spoken to Emma through thought tied to multiple communications, turning a single sentence into paragraphs of information. Emma heard Audra’s rising pain, her fear, and remorse, but also building hope and her radiant love for Emma.

Hold on, was the final thought Audra shared with Emma before the tall man came to his feet without dropping his smile and lifting his hand to the air twisted once with his fingers extended. Audra fell to the ground, her eyes left open, and Emma screamed before disappearing into the darkness. Emma still smelled of the party, while the moldy air of the barn entered her nose. The young woman swore she could still feel Audra’s warmth at one hand while the other now rested on the dampness of the carpet. Audra saw the barn’s dimness, but could have easily mistaken it for the low light of the party. Thunder and lightning interrupted Emma’s hopes that Audra would return any moment. The rain outside seem to mock Emma and so poured harder against the tin roof, reminding her she was back on Earth and as far from Audra as she could be. The whole of what happened replayed again and upon that final time, Emma rested on the hope and love Audra held in her thoughts. This was not what she wanted for Emma.

Emma came to her feet and dashed to the dresser missing one of its four drawers and pulled from it a black hoodie tie-dyed with bleach. Pulling the hoodie over her head, Emma grabbed the small umbrella she found outside the library one night and cracked open the barn doors. She knew where to go, and knowing how the rain impacted the people of Humbleville, Emma was sure the person she needed right now would be home. The new subdivision with seven-bedroom homes and massive dividing gates was on the other side of town, but luckily for Emma she knew all the shortcuts and many ways those metal bars were made passable.