Karin Maatman

Eos
Saturday, 12 October

A single, bear-shaped cloudlet obscures the golden Hunter’s moon; the forest floor at the end of the use trail shudders. Moss, ferns and soil exhale a hushed sigh. A quietness descends, like fleece coddling the wood’s ancient trees. Peaceful, subdued. The forest unwinds, in anticipation of new songs that will echo and enhance the old.

Seconds later – five, ten, twenty ... How do you measure time when time has stopped? – the forest awakes from its slumber. The bear cloud shifts. The moon colours autumn leaves of oak trees, ancient and budding, in vibrant reds, oranges and yellows. A mellow glow draws a quicksilver rim between the languid trees and their reflections in a rippling heart-shaped pond. Trees quiver, ever so briefly. Ignoring the dark-time, birds call out, carol, chirp and warble; others caw and hoot. Life celebrates life.

Then, for the second time that night, the forest unwinds. But a freshness lingers. Petrichor, as if raindrops stir the reborn soil. A new brightness, as the moon lifts the earthy colours. Most inhabitants of the forest resume their sleep, as others – owls, badgers, foxes, bats, hedgehogs – continue where they left off before ...

In the middle of the night,

dawn broke.

A new dawn,

for the forest, for its dwellers.

For the planet,

for the dwellers that remain.

*

In a castle on the other side of the country, seventeen people sit in silence. There is also one other, and two cats and a black and cream sausage dog. The fire knuspers as they reflect on the month that has passed – the people, the other, the felines, the sausage dog.

On their losses – family, friends, people they’d never met, lost during the Reset.

How they survived. The new life they settled into. The violence that erupted. Death – again, needless and senseless.

In the cot by the piano, a baby chuckles. Waving about a plush, turquoise Brachiosaurus in their tiny, clenched fist, she ends the solemnity of the moment. Brings a smile to the grown-ups’ faces.

The woman beside her breathes, “Aurora ...”

Others nod.

Aurora.

A new dawn.

A new beginning.

This time it will be different.

Better.

Chapter 1
The Longest Day
Eight months and nine days later, Saturday, 21 June, Hever

Like most villagers, Caila and her husband Chris didn’t bother with a picnic blanket. They just plunked down – the grass was cooler anyway – as the sun, unchallenged by even the wispiest of clouds, served up a firestorm. The children didn’t appear to notice the swamping heat. Or they simply weren’t bothered, as they chased each other, gathered daisies and buttercups, and splashed around in the castle’s 38 acre lake.

It was good to see the whole community come together, after having their lives propelled into turmoil ... Turmoil, too meek a word for what happened to Earth and humanity, less than a year ago.

Accidental survivors, the ones who lived because they possessed partial extra-terrestrial DNA had been traced and gathered by Neteru, the alien race who’d build an ecology from scratch on a deserted planet – Earth. New people had started arriving at Hever the day after the second Reset (the Reset being an event aimed at removing all but a select group of humans from Earth). Newcomers had expanded their original lot of eight, to eighteen to ninety-seven in less than a month. Then it had been up to Caila to explain what had happened. Who had taken the roads, who had taken the houses. Who had taken the people. Eleven separate arrivals. Eleven identical renditions of the first and second Events, what preceded, and what came after:

Politicians had been about to raze Earth into seared, acidified oblivion, with their latest while-I-cower-a-million-feet-down-under-I-don’t-give-a-hoot-who-or-what-survives-above-ground weapon. An alliance of extra-terrestrials, overseen by Neteru, interfered. Their plan: remove all humans from Earth, bar twelve birth Khered, who will have to agree with the plan, unanimously, and select seven companions each for a restart. Both bits, condemning eight billion people, and selecting seven companions, still featured prominently in Caila’s nightmares. The Interstellar Assembly hadn’t left them a choice, but still...

Anyway, Neteru hadn’t counted on humans accidently inheriting fragments-only Khered DNA from their ancestors. There were about 10,000 of such descendants world-wide, a little under a hundred in the UK. Some had joined existing colonies, organised around birth Khered like Caila. In places where no birth Khered had survived the millennia of Earth’s turbulent and perilous past, Neteru and the Assembly of birth Khered had assisted accidental survivors in establishing local colonies. Representatives of those new groups had joined the Assembly of birth Khered, who gathered regularly to discuss pitfalls and perils of restarting humanity almost from scratch, on a planet that had lost all human-constructed infrastructure outside a seventeen-kilometre radius around their domusses.

The rapid expansion of Caila’s group hadn’t gone without a hitch. Several times, their carriage’s hitch had come loose or unbraced, and issues still plagued their community eight months on.

Even before the Reset, life hadn’t always been a walk in the park. Now it was a dig and turn the soil endeavour, and not everyone was happy to equally contribute to the physically exhausting chores. Caila, a former mathematician and desk jockey, hadn’t been prepared either. Painful month-one blisters were gone, but calluses bedecked the palms of her hands and soles of her feet. Supplies salvaged from supermarkets, part of the remaining infrastructure removed during the second Event, were dwindling horrifically fast. Ninety-seven didn’t equal eight, the original number of intended survivors – no maths degree required for that equation. No margin for error or disobliging weather events ... like this heatwave. If only Neteru could have fixed the impact of climate change while they were at it. Next winter, they’d need to support themselves mainly from whatever the autumn harvest served up. One glitch and they’d be on a diet of eggs, acorns and rosehips until spring. Everyone knew, still people grumbled. Factions threatened to tear apart the unity that had existed and flourished early on.

That is why Caila had suggested some sort of get-together, another social. Six months ago they’d celebrated the longest night, bingeing on Brussel sprouts, parsnips and hot mulled apple juice, amidst decorated fir and spruce branches and mistletoe. So, a Summer Solstice party seemed the perfect excuse to sample their strawberry jam and fresh cream on soft, deliciously crumbly scones, washed away with the dregs of last year’s apple juice. Except ...

Objections like, too ‘pagan’ and too ‘religious’, resurfaced. They were arguments Caila believed they’d settled and put to bed six months ago. Also: ‘why on a Saturday?’ An argument that would have rung true, if most people didn’t work six days a week, taking only one day, mostly Sundays, off from carrots, radishes and slug-removal duties. The discussion had slipped into a vehement squabble, threatening to collapse into an especially vicious quarrel. One side argued the sun and earth’s rotation set the date, the other that a weekend-day holiday wasn’t really a holiday. Caila had pointed out that no one would object if anyone who’d intended to rest on Saturday the 21st would take a day off in the next week. The vote had been decisive, 86% in favour of fixed dates for summer and winter solstice celebrations, but with resentment lingering and cliques forming, Caila began to question the wisdom of suggesting any event at all.

“For you.” Sally, a quiet, all-things-horse-and-pony-adoring six-year-old, draped a daisy chain around Caila’s neck. After the Reset, the girl had survived on berries, dandelions and nuts – she still treasured the rock she’d used to crush those – until she was found and beeped 600 miles south, from a town called Kingussie in Scotland, across the countries, to Hever Castle’s library in Kent, where she devoured six cheese and tomato sandwiches in ten minutes.

“That’s lovely, Sally, thank you ever so much,” said Caila, caressing the flowers.

“I think that deserves a cheese roll.” Chris, Caila’s husband, offered the girl a crusty roll. “Would you like one for Shaun too?”

As the girl skipped back to her best friend, eight-year-old Shaun from Devon, to share her spoils, Chris teased, “That necklace goes with your daisy bracelet and daisy posies, darling.”

“They know you’re a soft touch,” Caila laughed. Bestowers of bracelet, posies and fistfuls of pebbles had all received crusty cheese rolls in return.

“Woops!” Noticing a flash of grey from the corner of her eye, Caila dropped her blueberry muffin in the long grass.

“Doing your reputation justice, I see.” The Neteru who materialised beside her was a six-foot-four, ethereal, silver-grey, cloaked, no-musculoskeletal humanoid shape. He was also her part-biological brother – it’s complicated.

“My reputation for clumsy moments is ever so slightly exaggerated.” Caila pulled a face, brushing grass and soil of her muffin. “How’re the other groups doing?”

“They send their best wishes.” Since the Assembly of birth Khered had decided to make the 21st of June and December global holidays, Mateos (leader of the Earth project from when it started eons ago) was visiting all colonies today at local times. “I’ve got some time to spare before going to Canada. I, eh, ...”

He looked around him. Searching.

“You’re, uhm... Are not here to see me?” Caila teased. “I might have urgent business to discuss, with you, my one and only liaison. We have a bit of a sit-uation here.”

Mateos turned back. “What happened?” Caila sensed how concern radiated off him.

“Got you! Sit-uation ... Get it?” She wiggled a finger at a picnic table where two goats squatted in the shade on the benches. “No one else can sit there ...”

As Caila giggled, Chris shrugged. “Sorry, Mateos, that is something that’ll never change.”

“We should increase our efforts. A poor sense of humour is not innate and can be healed in the majority of cases.” Mateos scanned the area again.

“Nothing wrong with my sense of humour and...” Caila nodded to her right, across the lake. “He’s there.” After a rocky beginning – not unreasonable when one party in a relationship is responsible for removing the other party’s husband from Earth during a planetwide extinction event –, Stuart’s and Mateos’s shared specialism, Earth ecology and species, had inevitably drawn them closer, and they’d become rather good mates (massive understatement).

“If you weren’t my sister...” Mateos let his threat linger, as he vanished without another word. As he materialised across the lake, Stuart jumped to his feet.

Caila waved at them. They were too absorbed in each other to notice. This wasn’t the first inter-terrestrial relationship, but it was the first in her colony and half of the equation was her brother. If this progressed from budding into bloom, full bloom, the men would be faced with some difficult choices. Caila knew what she wanted for her brother, but a relationship combined two elements from different groups, which overlapped with an infinite number of other groups; a limitless network, tugging and pulling and pushing—

“Did you tell him?” Chris eyed her worriedly.

Caila hesitated, long enough for her husband to guess the answer.

“You didn’t, did you?”

“I will. Tonight. Or tomorrow. It’s just, there’s...” Caila frowns, “Things have been hectic, tense, and...” she gazes across the lake, “I wanted to give him some space. But I’ll tell him tomorrow, promise.”

“Okay, let me know if you want me to be there for you.” Chris pulled her into a hug.

Caila buried her head against his chest. She should have told Mateos weeks ago, when she first noticed. She would tell him tomorrow, though; or she’d tell Guvnor, their father. She’d avoided telling them, dreading they’d confirm what she feared. She wasn’t ready. Not for that. Not for a long while yet.

Tepid sweat trickled from Chris’s forehead down his temple and into his shirt. Caila wiped it off. Humans perspired; Neteru did not. Not even on a day like today. The longest day of the year. The hottest day of the year, so far, by far.

Chapter 2
The Longest Night
The shortest night, Saturday 21/Sunday 22 June, Hever

Around ten thirty that night, Caila crossed the moat from the outer- into the inner courtyard. The moon’s brilliance afforded the Boston Ivy’s thick green foliage, which covered the castle’s façade, sufficient luminance for her to marvel and reminisce at its luscious glory. Come October, it would once again flaunt its crimson splendour, as it had every year for yonks, before the Event. Almost a year ago, a week before the Reset, she’d admired its glossy red leaves, as she and Chris picnicked on the lawn, oblivious that that same night their lives would be turned upside down and inside out.

“Oops.” She stumbled off the last of the three stone steps into the cobblestone courtyard, and grimaced. It wasn’t as though these steps hadn’t been here for ages – literally, actually, even before Anne Boleyn lived here, before she lost her head.

The castle was quiet. Deserted, with people retreating to their rooms in the B&B at the back, or homes in the village around it. For a short night. The shortest night of the year, but Caila doubted anyone would be fit to rise at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning.

The double oak doors to the castle stood wide open, and Caila wiped her feet on the grey mat inside. Tomorrow, she was on swiping and vacuuming duty, no need to cause more work for herself than necessary.

A grating sound from the library at the far left end of the entrance hall startled her.

“You there already?” she whisper-shouted.

No response.

She tried again; this time using lectanimo, a form of mind communication, shared between herself, Neteru and her initial companions.

- That you, Mateos? - She restricted her reach to the castle, not wanting to disturb him if he was still with Stuart.

No response.

No more sounds either. Scraping nor otherwise. Except for herself, as she winced after banging her hip against the long refectory table, again – Juliet, one of her companions, had pre-emptively moved the Japanese porcelain vases to a safer place months ago.

Cursing herself for being silly, Caila shuffled along the wooden floor towards the library. The leaded windows on her left, transformed moon beams into silver rays, which reflected in the Italian walnut choir stall on her right. The sparkling light shapeshifted the bench’s intricate carvings into a Fata Morgana of quivering contours.

“Hey, what are you—” Rooted to the floor at the library door, her heart racing, Caila puffed out a breath. “Shi-vvers!”

“Sorry to disturb you at this late an hour.” Caila giggled at Columbus’s bust by the window across the room. “...but if I don’t talk to Mateos now, I never will. Until it’s too late, that is.”

Unmoved – stone head and shoulder, he wasn’t likely to go wandering about –, Columbus sat stoically on the sill, as Caila sank into the pale-pink cushions of the sofa in the middle of the library. She checked the clock on the mantle. Ten thirty-two.

Mateos had been in her life for as long as she lived, which amounted to almost fifty-four (Earth) years now. The only time they’d had a serious falling out, had been last year, when she’d gone behind his back to contact his father. Keeping it a secret until he found out on his own accord. Now, she’d kept something from him again. Not intentionally; when it started, she wasn’t even sure she wasn’t imagining things. It was only later when—

“Caila.” Her brother’s cheerful voice told her, his relationship with Stuart was growing stronger still. He extended both hands in a greeting. Caila placed her palms against his. Mateos hardly ever masked as a human anymore. To her, it made sensing his emotions easier. Facial expression always baffled her – crying, laughing, pain, the grimace for these emotions were so similar. Her brother’s silver-grey spheream – a diaphanous cloudlike cloak, typical to and differently coloured for each Neteru – rippled around his opaque, silver-grey human-like physique. A sure sign he was in a pretty good mood, confirming the vibes she caught from him directly, mind to mind.

“Lectanimo or talk?” he asked, sitting beside her.

Caila frowned at the open doors to the hall and to the morning room. What she had to say, was between them. At least, for now, if she’d interpreted the signs correctly.

- Lectanimo, - she decided, uncharacteristically quickly. - It’s... - She’d rehearsed how she should tackle this subject so many times, in her head, and still... - It’s nothing serious, it’s probably nothing, it’s best if I show you, probably. Or not. - That wasn’t the fluid speech she’d prepared, and blundering straight in, showing him, was a rubbish idea. Judging by Mateos’s sharp spiking spheream, she had him properly worried now. - Sorry, Sets... - she used her nickname for him, - ...About six weeks ago— - “What the...?!” Caila jumped up and rushed to the window, Mateos beside her.

A group of about twenty villagers with swaying torches came running up the drawbridge and into the courtyard. From the other side, inside the castle, through the inner- then the entrance, hall, more footsteps and panicked voices.

Stuart burst into the library first.

“Sally’s missing!!! he panted.