A Secret in the Woods

That night, Timoteo finally had the chance to speak with Miguel and get filled in on the details of the Smeralda-Extraterrestrial agreement. “They say their home planet has been destroyed. They call themselves the Vermilionites,” said Miguel.

“Vermilionites?” said Timoteo. They were in Miguel’s room, sitting on his bed while the rest of the palace fell steadily to sleep.

“Their home planet was called Vermilion. The planet doesn’t appear on our records, though, which made mom and dad suspicious at first.”

“And?”

“Apparently their planet is beyond our scope. They’ve been traveling through space, at light speed, for centuries. So I guess it wouldn’t be surprising for us to have no record of their planet. They were able to indicate the exact location in space for us though—in the end, Hermenegildo’s suspicions were allayed. He was on edge the most, I’d say. Mom and dad seemed to be taking the Vermilionite leader’s words at face value.”

“What do you think?” Miguel was eighteen, only three years older than Timoteo, and while Timoteo didn’t look up to many people, he did look up to his brother. Though they didn’t always see eye to eye, Timoteo always wanted to know what Miguel’s opinions on matters were; more often than not, they shaped TImoteo’s opinions as well.

“I’m speaking from my gut here,” began Miguel, “but I don’t think there’s any reason to be alarmed. Klaus, the leader, seemed trustworthy enough. And, I know I’m not the best people reader out there, but he didn’t show any red flags, in my opinion. However… I do think mom and dad and the council could’ve taken a little longer coming to a decision. It all seems a little… precipitated.”

Timoteo frowned. “So what’s the agreement?”

“Well, believe it or not, he promised to teach us magic—well, not magic exactly—but something like a breed of technology far beyond anything we’ve ever imagined.”

“What’d he have to show for it?”

“At first, not much. Then he elaborated upon the whole cloaking system their ships were using, and how they only made themselves visible to Smeralda. We’d already figured that out, of course, but we had no idea how they were doing it. Then he did something really creepy—he teleported into the room.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Miguel nodded, remembering with excitement. “He manifested himself within his hologram—I mean, one second he was just a projection—the next, he’s stepping off the HoloProjection Pad and greeting us in person. It was crazy. The guards almost shot him, they were so startled.”

“He frikkin’ teleported?” cried Timoteo, thrilled at the prospect of figuring out how that worked.

“He teleported,” said Miguel with a nod. “It was awesome. So you can only imagine what else those guys are hiding up their sleeves—not to mention, if they’ve got the technology to teleport, and to stay in space for as long as they have and sustain their entire people—well they’ve certainly got something to teach us.”

“Why’d they come here? Why Smeralda?”

“‘Apt conditions.’ He didn’t say much more than that. Apparently, Coralende caught their eye from afar—and Smeralda is the country most like their original home.”

“How many are they?”

“About five hundred. Most of them died while escaping their home planet… And ever since, they’ve kept population growth tightly restricted.”

A brief silence. Timoteo was so fascinated, he couldn’t wait to run into Lila again. She could give him the full scoop—if she didn’t run off and vanish again. “What happened to their home planet?”

Miguel shrugged. “Don’t know. They don’t seem to like talking about it.”

By now the palace had fallen into a deep silence. Timoteo could see the golden light from the hallway’s faux-flame torches flickering through the crack beneath Miguel’s door. “Well OK. I guess I should—“ A bird perched itself suddenly on Miguel’s windowsill. A yellow bird, with a dog’s tail. 

“What the…”

The bird winked, and flew away. Miguel turned to look one second too late. “What is it?” he asked.

“I thought I just saw—“ Timoteo stuttered. A winking bird? Really? “Nevermind brother.” He hopped off Miguel’s bed. “Good night.”

A minute later Timoteo was in his bedroom down the hall, peering out his own window. Why would Lila’s chimera appear to him like that—and wink? He looked out into the darkness covering the palace gardens, dimly lit by the flickering glow of faux-flame torches. He strained his eyes, hoping to see a streak of bright yellow flying around, somewhere. Was the chimera spying on him? 

A chirp.

Timoteo turned around, just to spot the chimera perched on his dresser, head cocked to the left, staring straight at him as it vigorously wagged its tail. “What’re you doing here?” Timoteo whispered, not sure whether the bird even understood what he said.

The chimera soared past him and out the window, hovered in front of him for a bit, then darted across the gardens and over the palace gates in the distance. There was no doubt about it: it wanted to be followed. 

Timoteo threw on his cloak and headed out, taking the route he always took when visiting his tree house in the woods. He crossed the grounds undetected, as usual. The air, however, was unusually cold. He wrapped his cloak tightly around his shoulders and crept through the palace gardens, found the small iron gate, rusty, hidden and forgotten behind a wall of ivy, and slipped out beyond the palace’s domain.

He was now out in the open. Up ahead, the chimera flitted back and forth, urging him to approach the forest edge. Timoteo followed, and as soon as he stepped into the thick silence of the woods, found himself surrounded by an ever-growing number of blue fireflies. It was odd, but if Timoteo hadn’t known better, he’d have believed they were attracted to him.

“Where’re you taking me?” Timoteo whispered after the chimera. He knew the creature could understand him, but it just kept on flying ahead, keeping Timoteo at a swift trot. He tripped. He stumbled. He struggled through brambles. He was dangerously far from the palace now. “Hold up!” he called after the bird. It was flying faster now.

And then Timoteo stopped. This was as far as he would go. The chimera had vanished, and Timoteo was panting. He had never ventured so far into the woods—wasn’t even sure he’d know his way back properly. “I thought you’d stop here,” said Lila.

Timoteo jumped, his heart skipping a beat. She had startled him, severely. “Lila, what the—”

“I’m sorry to call on you so late,” she said, as if wandering the depths of the woods at night was the most natural thing in the world. “But I wanted to know if you were aware of this.” She pointed her finger into the air before her. “I assume you are.”

Timoteo blinked once. Twice. Waiting for the punch line. “The… trees?”

Lila looked at him sideways. “I thought you knew these woods.”

“I never come this deep. It’s really not safe—”

“So you don’t know what this is?” Again, she pointed into empty space.

“Lila—I don’t see anything.”

She pulled him by the wrist. “Come, stand here,” she said, setting him directly next to herself. She grabbed his hand and pointed his index finger forward, “There. See it?”

Timoteo didn’t, at first. But then, after a moment’s notice, it became apparent. A sort of shiver in midair—like heat rising off the street on a sunny summer day. Timoteo’s first instinct was to look at the ground, expecting to find some sort of hole or gas pipe. There was none. “Where’s it coming from?”

“It’s not coming from anywhere. It’s just there.”

“How’d you find it? I would’ve never noticed—"

“I ran into it, completely by accident. I thought you’d be familiar with it.”

Timoteo shook his head. He approached the shiver and stretched his hand out, attempting to touch it. It was like sticking his hand into a recently cooled oven. The air was warmer around his hand, but not significantly so. It was like a warm pocket in midair. He dipped his arm in… The heat was pleasant. He got closer, dipped his face in… then walked straight through the shiver. He expected to be engulfed in warmth, then step right out back into the chilly night air. He didn’t. The entire forest was now warm. “What the…”

“Tim!” he heard Lila cry, her voice muffled, as if submerged under water. He looked around, startled. She was nowhere to be seen.

“Lila!” Tim called, suddenly, aghast. Where had she gone? Where had the shiver gone? And why had the air become so suddenly warm? Suddenly, Lila’s disembodied hand appeared, floating in midair, waving frantically.

“Tim!” came Lila’s muffled voice. “Grab my hand!” Timoteo did, and Lila pulled him back through the shiver and into his own world. “Timoteo!” she scolded. “You’re not supposed to step inside it!”

The air was cool again. “What—what just happened?” He turned back, unnerved, to look at the shiver. There it was, sort of—difficult to observe if not from precisely the right angle.

“It must be a portal. That’s my best guess.”

“A portal?”

“Yes. I had never seen one. I know they existed back in the woods from my home planet. The forest from our country was also a strange, magical place. Or so I’ve been told.”

“A portal to where?”

“An alternate universe, I assume.”

Lila spoke with such offhandedness, he couldn’t tell whether she was pulling his leg or not. “You had portals, as well, where you come from?”

Lila nodded, the sincerity in her expression removing all doubt from Tim’s mind that she was kidding. “They’re everywhere. Your people aren’t familiar with portals?”

Timoteo shook his head. “Nooo,” he said, an inevitable pinch of sarcasm in his voice. “No portals. No alternate universes… We’ve never even considered the possibility—”

“How odd. All planets have portals, in some place or other. My people have never seen one because we’ve been on spaceships all our lives, but we’ve been taught about them. They’re extremely rare to come across, but they exist in a number of different spots.”

Timoteo stared hard at the shiver in midair. Little by little, everything he thought he knew about the world seemed to have been turning on its head since the Vermilionites arrived. Magic… teleportation… chimeras… alternate universes…

“So what happens if… you know…”

“Walk through them?” Lila asked. “Well from what I’ve learned from my physical sciences teacher, you’re not supposed to. She says portals are ruptures in the fabric of space-time. They’re not supposed to exist, and their existence, as of yet, is unexplained. But I know that back in my home planet, tampering with them was forbidden. Every portal, once discovered, was strictly watched and forever off bounds.”

“Why?”

Lila shrugged. “Something about the butterfly effect and the balance between universes. How any slight alteration of events on either side could cause a massive ripple… And so on and so on.” Timoteo was fascinated. He wished he could speak with Lila for hours on end, just to satisfy his curiosity regarding all those things which, while to her seemed so mundane, to him were so incredibly intriguing. Lila caught the wonder in his eyes.

“I can lend you a book on the subject, if you like.”

Timoteo nodded. “That would be great.”

Lila turned to look at the portal. “So… what do we do about the portal?”

Timoteo found the possibility of such an extraordinary discovery becoming off limits. He needed to explore it further—or at least have the option of exploring it further, once he read about portals and alternate universes in Lila’s book.

He looked sideways at Lila, a sly smile on his face. “Can you keep a secret?”