The Darkly Stranger

Okee-dokey.

We left. People stared at us as we walked back to Tan's house. We were inside his house about two seconds when we heard someone say their name outside. Tan said something that I assumed was come in. The door opened. Creature. Totally black like Tan. Slight breasts, no tail. She was carrying something.

"The females don't speak English," Tan whispered to me.

Does this mean all the males do?

The woman, because it was too much trouble to think of them as just female or creature, I had to think of them in nouns used for people, went over to a wall and pulled down a tabletop. She put down what she was carrying on the table. Removed a leaf from the top. It smelled great. Food. I looked at it. Two shades of orange, and a little bit of grey. Looked like a casserole in a leaf bowl.

Tan was talking. I assumed he was thanking her. She smiled at me. Bowed and left.

I went over to smell the casserole. "This smells great," I said.

"Jeeka is a very good cook," Tan said. Finally, a name I could pronounce. "You will weave with her."

Okay-dokey. Right. Whatever you say, Tan. Although I'm thinking my weaving skills are going to be lacking.

Someone else announced themselves at the door. Another woman. More food. A few minutes passed. Another woman at the door. More food. A guy. Food. Two more women. Food.

This is great, it's a welcome wagon, and I won't have to cook.

"I guess it's okay that I'm here," I said.

Tan looked confused. "Yes. You have permission to be here. You are here now."

I wanted to lie down and take a nap, but someone else announced themselves at the door. More food. Jeez, where were we going to put all this stuff? All and all, I figured it was about fifteen people who came by. When the last person left there was no more room on the table for food.

I eyed the bed.

"You would like to lie down?" Tan asked me.

"Yeah."

"I will lie with you."

"That would be great."

Tan motioned for me to lie down, then he followed me and snuggled me into him. I was too amazed to really sleep soundly but too overwhelmed not to check out a little bit. I drifted, thinking about the amazing sex we had. I gloried in Tan's warm body, and how great it felt to be near him. After a while, I drifted deeper into a light sleep.

*

I must have slept through the night. Maybe my subconscious worked some things out, because when I woke I felt better, more able to handle things. Tan's body was tangled over mine.

"You wake."

"Yes, I wake."

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

I looked over at the table. It was up. The food was gone.

Tan hoped up. Whoosh. Into another room. Back with the casserole. It was cold. He handed me a curved leaf. I'm guessing this was a spoon. He had one as well. We ate from the same bowl.

"What is this?" I asked.

I couldn't make out the first word, but the second word was definitely roots.

It was delicious. After I had eaten a little, Tan took the bowl away and brought out something else. It was a little moss-colored treat, about the size and shape of a stack of three or four quarters. Tasted like mango.

"Are you okay to visit?" he asked.

"I'm okay to visit."

I followed him across the town square. Not so many people stared this time. He announced himself outside a hut.

The door opened. A man who looked exactly like Tan answered.

"Donna," Tan said. "My son, Taah-rrr."

Son? What?

Taah-rrr nodded his head at me. I blinked. Somehow the thought of Tan having children never occurred to me. The weirder thought was that meant he had had a wife. I was hoping this was past tense. I looked at Tan. Surely that was past tense.

Taah-rr stepped back, and we walked in. "You are gladly here," he said.

I was pretty sure he meant 'I'm glad you're here'.

Taah-rr offered us more of the same little moss-colored treat we had just had for breakfast, and Tan and I each had one.

I looked back and forth between Taah-rr and Tan, scrutinizing to see if I could find any physical differences. I couldn't. Maybe there were some that they could see, but to me identical twins couldn't possibly look more similar. It was a little freaky.

Taah-rr and Tan spoke to each other for a minute in their language. It sounded even stranger to me now as I concentrated and could hear how many sounds we didn't have in English at all. They embraced in a full body hug and held it for a minute. Then we left.

"Is your first wife still alive? Your first mate?"

"No. She died a long, long time ago."

"Oh."

How long ago is long ago? What was she like? I had a hundred questions but I didn't ask anything. It took me a minute to realize we weren't walking back to Tan's house, but to John and Marie's. Tan announced himself at the door, adding my name to the end of his.

One of the boys, Peter, opened the door. "Hello."

"Hi," I said.

Marie came out carrying a large basket. "Hey, I was just going down to the river. Want to come?"

"Sure," I said.

Tan nuzzled my neck and then went inside.

Marie waved goodbye to her family and turned and looked at me. Sure, okay, whatever you are up for I'm up for, right? She and I walked past huge purple leaves and reddish trees.

"I have so many questions, I'm not even sure where to start."

"Yeah, I hear you."

"You called this a planet."

"Yes."

"Care to explain that?"

"Hey, I was an accountant. Quantum physics wasn't my thing. But as near as I can understand it, from what John says is that Bumonth exists in a alternate gravitational field bubble that is attached to Earth like so." She put both her palms together. "It's a parallel planet stuck to Earth because of a vacuum that a worm hole created during or right after the big bang."

Ooookay then. "Yeah. Whatever you said."

Marie chuckled. "I'm not sure the physics of it matters so much. The guys go back for the root. They all carry the openers. You can't go back by yourself, but you can go back with one of them, as often as you like. I used to go back once a month or so before I had kids. Now not so much."

I was silent for a minute taking this in.

"Everyone goes back for roots?"

"Just the males."

"Hhm."

"What else do you want to know?"

"What's with the chemical thing?"

She laughed. "The ba'ah'grah'had?"

"Um, yeah, what you said."

"It's how they attract one person and then keep track of that person."

"Wait, what?"

"You didn't know?"

"Know what?"

"Oh boy."

"What?" I asked. I stopped short and stared at her. I knew I didn't know what the hell I'd gotten into, but now I expected I got a whole lot more than I bargained for. "What do you mean, keep track of?"

"The ba'ah'grah'had. Once a male sees someone he's attracted to, even from afar, even just once, that feels right to him...Bam. The ba'ah'grah'had. It's a deep release of chemicals that specially alters to best fit the recipient. Makes them not just want the male, but also be able to communicate telepathically and empathically with the guy. And, more importantly, that same chemical feeds back to them to give them a constant fix on where you are, emotionally and physically."

I blinked.

"So Tan knows where I am, as well as how I am?"

"To the most minute inch. Yeah."

"Whoa. Not too super creepy."

We resumed walking.

"It's a natural defense for them," Marie said. "If something bad or dangerous happened to you, Tan would be there in a few seconds. If you had a bad feeling while you were here for example, it would be less than a few seconds. A lot less considering we're in easy walking distance from my house, and they can run up to forty miles an hour when stressed."

I frowned.

"It's good news for us. It means if you ever, ever need him, Tan will be there. And emotionally, if you are happy, he'll share that with you. If you are upset, you don't need to try to find the words for why. He'll understand it, because he'll feel it. That will give him a better ability to fix it. And trust me, there's not much they can't fix."

"Huh."

"Humans are pretty simple with our types of discontentment. We basically want more attention, more love, more recognition, more food, more praise, more ability to be needed, the kind of stuff that is simple to give if the communication is there."

We reached the river. Marie put her basket on the bank and reached her hand deep in the clear water and pulled out something that looked like a plum, except it was a slightly glowing magenta color.

"Help me gather some of these?"

We ended up lying down on the edge of the bank in order to plunge our arms in deep to pick the fruit.

"Any other questions?"

"What do you know about Tan's first wife?"

Marie was silent for a minute. "Nothing. He must have had a mate before, because I know Taah-rrr is his son. But he hasn't been with anyone for as long as I've been here. That's twenty-five years. He didn't have a mourning branch on his door when I got here, and they keep those up for ten years, so..."

I let that sink in. "Wait, he's been a widower for thirty-five years?"

"At least."

"Fuck. How old is he?"

I didn't expect her to answer.

"I don't know exactly, you'd have to ask him, but he's a childhood friend of John's so... about a hundred."

I scowled. I was beginning to feel like maybe she was just messing with me. It must have shown on my face.

She put her hands up in a pose of surrender. "That's almost like middle age for them."

"So, I'm in love with a telepathic, centenarian, frog-man speed racer?"

Marie laughed. "Yeah, I guess that about covers it. Except you forgot to add an adjective for mind-blowing, consistent sex."

"Okay," I said. "A telepathic, centenarian, exuberant orgasm-inducing, frog-man speed racer."

Her basket was full. We started walking back.

"Yeah, Donna, that about covers it."

"This is going to be one hell of a ride."

*

Chapter 4

I woke up to something that smelled like eggs, toast, and burning butter. Tan had made breakfast for me. He was looking at me like I was the only woman in the world, and he had some serious lust going on, and knew that he and I could make it happen.

I could get used to this.

"Marret," he said, and his voice was low and the word was long and drawn out with the promise of sex. "Let me feed you." Then he thought at me a picture of me on his lap, and him placing each morsel of delicate food on my tongue, and I could tell for him that it was a ritual that had more meaning than I currently comprehended.

"I'm totally game," I said.

His eyebrows furrowed for a minute. "That is a yes?"

"Oh yeah. That's a yes."

As sensual as it was in the image he sent me, the reality was more so. It was a hundred times more so. I felt the texture of his skin under my thighs, and he was giving off a smell that was like deep lush forests combined with Christmas.

Except sexy as hell.

It was a long, slow breakfast. Followed by a long detailed shower in the waterfall, that let me know, without a shadow of a doubt, that as mind-blowing as I thought our mambos had been until now, with each time he knew me he could make it even better.

Wow!

I could definitely get used to this.

After we got dressed Tan suggested a walk. He took me deep into the forests, through plants with huge leaves and riotous blue and purple flowers. The foliage was so dense it was like walking through a tightly packed crowd of plants, where each one caressed me as I walked by.

Everything was so good, so amazingly perfect, that I got the feeling the other shoe was going to drop. My stomach did.

Tan turned around abruptly.

"What? What is it, marret?"

I didn't want to tell him that it was so good I couldn't accept it. I didn't want to tell him a lick of fear travelled down my spine, warning me that the unknown should sometimes never be known.

Instead of answering him I forced myself to dispel my fears. I smiled at him. "It's all good."

His jaw sucked inward, as if he tasted something sour. He wasn't sure to believe what I said, or what he thought he had felt coming from me. I forced myself to think good thoughts. Tinkerbell, interplanetary travel, sex.

I smiled again.

He narrowed his eyes. Apparently that thing where a guy asks a woman what's wrong and she says nothing so he can't do anything about it is universal too.

Tan turned around, and we resumed walking.

We came to a clearing that looked over a huge canyon and twisted cliffs laced with veins of copper and gold. Tan stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. We stared at the curvy lines of the rock. The metal winked in the sunlight.

The two suns gave off a subtle light rather than a harsh one, and as we watched one of the moons went partially in front of a sun, creating a bluish light that highlighted us in its shaft.

As he held me I thought about the nature of love. I didn't realize how lonely I'd been until I crossed over and I saw how the community was so strong here and how content I was sharing a home with Tan. I wasn't sure if everyone here considered me officially Tan's wife, but I definitely didn't think of him as a husband. I didn't have a category for him. The word boyfriend seemed too shallow and well, Earthly. Would the strange overlay of chemicals that Tan put out lose some of its overwhelming pull, and if it did would I have to then see if I was the type of person who could really commit to someone who was so different from me, even if he treated me amazingly well?

Tan kissed my ear, and I forgot what I was thinking about. Wait, had he read my thoughts? I twisted slightly and looked over my shoulder at him. No. He didn't know what I was thinking, but he might have known what I was feeling. Again.

He distracted me, and infused me with the feeling that wafted out of him. Even though I'd never felt it before, I knew that warm feeling coming out of him was love.

The moon that had eclipsed the sun had passed completely by it; the extra light beat down on us, and the air got hotter. The plants behind us perked up and waved in a breeze.

"Let's go home, marret," Tan said.

I nodded, and we strolled back toward the village hand-in-hand.

We just got back to the edge of the dirt clearing in the middle of the village when four huge fireballs, each bigger than a cannonball, rained down over us. I was still staring up, shocked, looking at the strange, scary barrage, when Tan picked me up, cradled me to his chest, and ran.

Marie said he could run forty miles per hour when stressed, but I was sure this was faster. He raced through the village dodging not only the horror raining down from the sky, but smaller vertical blasts, some kind of flaming arrows maybe, and small whizzing projectiles that reminded me of bullets.

Within seconds he had passed his house and was on the other side of the village. I caught sight of a huge, humanoid being, maybe eleven feet tall and five feet wide at the shoulders. It wearing dark green-blue armor, and had what looked like an Uzi up to its face and was blowing fireballs out of it.

What the...?

Tan ran faster.

My heart throbbed, like a weapon in and of itself, beating a fast bump-bum-bum rhythm in my chest. A droplet of sweat ran down my back. I could smell my own fear.

In less than a minute we were at the entrance of a small, dark cave, about four feet wide. Tan set me down, and gently pushed me inside. When I looked back at him, he was moving a large boulder in front of the entrance.

'Stay,' he thought at me.

The boulder blocked the entrance completely and plunged the cave into mostly darkness. A thin gap between the top of the rock and the cave entrance let in a tiny sliver of light and a faint breeze.

I heard a whoosh and knew Tan was gone.

As my eyes adjusted I could see that the cave was about eight feet wide and twelve feet deep. Wait, no, deeper than that maybe. It looked like it narrowed and went even deeper, but I couldn't tell in the almost non-existent light. The ceiling was covered with small, sparkling stalactites, reminding me of beige, white, and light-green shining teeth. They were so pretty, I stared at them, and I could see a few were much larger, almost as big as my arm, and although I guessed they were made of a lot of materials, some of it harder than anything we had on Earth, they looked like a combination of pink quartz and diamonds.

What was going on? My fear for my own safety quickly turned to worry about Tan. What was he doing out there?

Someone pushed the boulder out of the way, and light poured in.

"Tan!" I said, hoping.

It wasn't him. It was John. He was carrying Marie cradled to his chest. She was holding the baby. John walked further in and crouched down, and the two older boys climbed off his back.

John kissed her. The press of lips looked hard and fierce. He zoomed out. He pushed the boulder back in front of the entrance, and we were shrouded in darkness once more.

"Marie," I said, but shock was making me dumb. I didn't know what questions to ask first, or even how to formulate what questions to ask. She made a kind of subtle clearing of her throat noise that I assumed meant don't say anything scary in front of the kids.

We could hear the battle outside. More of the fights were coming closer to the cave. The sound of whooshing fire, explosions, pops, and screams was even scarier in the dark.

"Mommy," the baby said.

"Marie," I said at the same time.

Marie gathered her sons around her and held them close. "Daddy will be fine," she said. She looked at me. "Tan will be fine."

More screams. He would not be fine.

Apparently war is universal too.

"What are they?" I asked Marie.

"They're called Zorkuts. The last attack was just before I got here. In a way that's why I met John. The Zorkuts destroy all the root and the Bumonthians need it to survive."

She looked like she was about to say more but she shut up abruptly. I got the feeling I wouldn't get any more information out of her while her kids were awake. An explosion landed so close it rattled the cave. The baby started crying, and Marie shushed him.

I was a pinball of adrenaline. Fear was a tornado smashing against my insides. I forced myself to calm down, more for the sake of Marie's children than for myself.

Marie fed her kids a small treat, something wrapped in a dark brown leaf. In a few minutes they were asleep. She smiled at me in the dim light.

"I keep those in case of emergencies. They're called dum-foo. They have a natural sedative. My kids are really sensitive to it; it always knocks them out."

There was a scream, more of a shriek really, the cry of the wounded. I could tell immediately it was one of us. Funny how quickly 'they' had become 'us'.

"That's Jeeka," Marie said, her face contorting. "She's my best friend here."

"The good cook."

"Yeah."

I looked at the boulder blocking the cave entrance. We were completely locked in. We were probably safe but also totally helpless.

We heard another scream, deeper this time. I looked at Marie. She shook her head.

"Not John. Not Tan."

I put my hands over my face and rubbed my eyes. "We have to do something."

"There's nothing we can do. The best thing we can do is stay safe so they don't have to worry about us."

"There must be something. Tell me about these Zorkuts. What's their problem? Why did they attack? What are they fighting about?"

"The same thing all men fight about. Land. Resources."

"You're going to have to be more specific than that," I said.

Marie sighed, a high note of frustration, and the sound echoed in the darkness. She was silent for a few seconds, and I wasn't sure she was going to answer.

"From what I understand, many hundreds of years ago, maybe even thousands of years ago, the Zorkuts and Bumonths were friends. They lived together in the same villages. The two continents were one big content, two plates together side by side separated by a river."