CROSSRegress by Hildred M. Billings

Author:Hildred M. Billings [Billings, Hildred M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barachou Press
Published: 2022-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

twenty-four

The weather remained pleasant during Devon’s stay on Arrah, although the days were longer than he remembered. At the end of the second day, Lanelle made the offhand comment that the planet’s axis had slightly tilted since Devon’s spirit was last there. “Not enough to, like, destroy everything, but it’s hotter and days are a little longer.” The parts of him that hated how much she knew about his home planet were only mitigated by the parts of him inspired by how casually she flitted through the house like she belonged there.

Devon couldn’t say the same for himself. From his first night there, he was aware of how out of place he was among his own kin. Oh, the Gardiahs were plenty hospitable and over the moon to have him around—even better when they gave him a tour of the property, showing what they had done to change their fortunes over the centuries. Yet as much as Fenar and Sonjah insisted that he was the biggest thing to happen to them in the past five years, Devon knew that he really didn’t belong there. He wasn’t going to find what he had been looking for. Whatever that was.

On his last evening there, he ascended one of the staircases leading up to a deck overlooking the nearby forest. Although Sonjah had offered him cageh, he declined it in favor of the clean well water he took with him alongside a small plate of fofarin biscuits and goma berry spread. It was one of the simplest snacks anyone in the universe could have asked for, but it was native to Arrah, and something that still survived from times long ago.

The first bite wasn’t as nostalgic as he anticipated. Perhaps that was part of the problem. He expected too much.

“Oh, come on.” Lanelle crept up behind him, two clay mugs in her hands. “Are you seriously up here moping like you aren’t a god to these people? You’ve got a great-great-great-great-whatever down there who wants to tell everyone in the universe that he’s related to you, and you’re…” she sighed. “Let me guess. Trying to remember what it’s like to be from here.”

Devon didn’t look twice at the mug sitting next to him. Nor at the woman making herself at home in the other chair. Lanelle wasn’t dressed in anything more than comfy, casual pants and a giant sweater, and her lazy look was complemented by the mighty sigh she let out when Devon shifted in his seat.

“Guess you would know about that, huh?” he asked.

“Been around that block a few times. I’ve given up on it, though. It was around my third life I realized I was never going to get that feeling of being at home again. You’re talking to someone who was able to meet some of her first family during her third life. Remembered them perfectly. Didn’t look a day older to them. Awkward as hell. So awkward I went and got absolutely toasted that night and vowed to never meet my old family again.

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