By the time Anna cleared the trees, the creature had wrapped its long arms and legs around her and nestled its head tight against her shoulder. Its body felt light, like balsa wood. Scales fluttered then opened around the rim of the Shadow’s head, as blue and green and purple sprites floated out and clung to its skin like luminescent dewdrops, vibrating and shaking in the wind. Anna could feel the glow against her own skin and smiled. The creature trusted her, and it was letting her know.
She dipped her right shoulder and glided closer to the lake’s surface—close enough to touch the water with her hand. The last of the day’s light was now gone, and the moon peeked just above the horizon, lighting the landscape in a dark blue haze. Anna looked down and saw her own dim reflection on the surface of the water as she sped toward the small black island in the center of the lake.
Anna slowed her trajectory as she drew closer and turned her body upright to land. The creature sensed the change of movement and leaned into the turn as Anna landed gently on the same patch of grass she had shared with Mara just the night before. The creature unfurled its arms and legs and sat back in a crouch. Its head tilted toward Anna in expectation.
“You’re going to have to go swimming for a bit. Is that okay?” Anna asked.
Sprites circled slowly around the two of them like electrons in orbit, sending and retrieving signals from the surface of their skin. Specialized neurotransmitters and peptides communicated at a level outside language. The creature understood and stepped forward with its hand outstretched. It was time to go home.
Anna guided the shadow to the shoreline and looked down. She flipped on her full mask then made a diving gesture with her free hand. But it wasn’t necessary. The creature knew what to do and where to go now. The two paused for a moment, their bodies in sync, and then dove into the lake as if they were one form, barely disrupting the water’s surface.
The creature moved easily underwater, and Anna wondered how much time it had spent swimming beneath the surface of its own world’s vast black ocean—and what mysteries lay underneath. Within seconds, they made it to the small cave just beneath the island’s shelf.
The wormhole spun noiselessly in front of them just as it had the night before, and flecks of light circled the edge like shooting stars. The creature squeezed Anna’s hand. It knew where it was. It knew where it was going. Sprites floated from the surface of its skin and spun in spirals toward the wormhole, where they disappeared like small petals down a whirlpool. Anna let go.
The Shadow didn’t look back as it reached into the wormhole with both hands. There was a brief pause as the creature leaned into the dark orb and pushed against the surface tension, then its body disappeared with an audible pop, as if something had reached across space and time to yank it to the other side. And with that the Shadow was gone.
Anna floated just feet away—tempted to lean in for one last look—when the wormhole started to slow its spin. Its edges began to smooth and expand as the flecks of spinning light slowed down so much that they appeared to float like fixed stars. The orb was growing. A perfect circle, a smooth glass window, now the same height as Anna.
On the other side of the window, she could make out the pale red planet reflecting off the surface of an expansive black ocean. Then the view opened up even more, past the cliffs of the alien planet to the distant plains lined with dead baobab trees as far as the eye could see. Ash fell like snow across the landscape.
From a clearing in the trees, a figure stepped forward, bone-white and thin. Its movements like jump cuts. The brim of its round white hat flashed bright as if from some internal light. Long, sticklike fingers cast out orange and purple sprites like a farmer spreading seeds across the ground as it walked. Another bone-white figure appeared in a small clearing, and then another from behind a tree, each casting sprites far out into the sea of trees.
The stars in the sky began to spin in concentric circles. Then Anna realized it wasn’t the stars that were moving—it was the planet spinning faster as time unfolded in front of her. She was witnessing the passing of days, maybe years, in seconds. The sprites cast out by the bone-white figures began to spread from tree to tree in a wave, lighting the landscape until the whole plain was aglow in life and light. The trees shook off their ash and began to breathe again.
She didn’t know how or why, but Anna was witnessing the future—a time when the alien planet, the Shadow’s home, was beginning to heal. She had been given a glimpse of this renewal for a reason, but she had no idea why or what it meant.
Suddenly the wormhole began to shrink in front of her until it was the size of a small black ball. Anna reached out with her finger and touched the edge of the shrinking black orb. She could feel the pull from the other side and heard a small, distant hum.
Then . . . thwip!
Anna jumped as the wormhole disappeared, leaving behind no trace.