The secret

CHAPTER 2 — The Secret

The river did not appear on any map.

It was too small to have a name. A strip of clear water between tall trees that Marek had discovered at age eight by following the sound, and which he had made his own in the only way you can make something yours without buying it or inheriting it: by using it when no one was watching.

Three years later, it was still his.

He made sure twice that the path was empty. The trees around him hadn't changed. The water flowed with the same sound as always. The same place where he had learned to let the yellow energy out without breaking anything.

It hadn't been easy at first.

In the early months, the energy came out when he didn't want it to and didn't come when he needed it. He had burned three trees before learning to contain it. He had blown an entire log to pieces before understanding that power was not the same as control.

Now it was different.

Now he could call it.

He raised his hand. The yellow energy responded immediately. Without the tremors of the first months. Without the irregularity of something that doesn't know where it is. Three years of secret practice had turned that first frightened flash into something that recognized his hand as its origin and awaited instructions.

The fish in the river stirred.

Marek concentrated the energy in his palm. Not all of it. Just what was necessary. The exact amount for what he wanted to do. That had been the hardest lesson: that more wasn't better.

He released it.

A yellow flash touched the water's surface. Steam rose in a thin column. The fish floated to the top. Cooked. Aligned almost as if someone had arranged them.

Marek lowered his hand. Extinguished the aura. Collected the fish in the bucket he had left on the shore and began the walk back.

Joe was at the house entrance when he arrived.

Not with a worried face. With a questioning one. Which for Joe was almost the same thing but with less urgency.

He looked at the bucket. Looked at Marek. Looked at the fish.

"So fast?" he said.

"I got lucky," Marek replied without stopping.

Joe said nothing. But he stared at the bucket a moment longer than necessary to see the fish.

Marek went into the kitchen. Set the bucket on the table. Pulled the fish out one by one with hands that no longer trembled when using the energy, but trembled now for another reason.

Joe came in behind him.

He sat at the table. He didn't start peeling the fish. He waited.

Marek felt the weight of that silence as he finished emptying the bucket. It wasn't an accusatory silence. It was the silence of someone who had decided not to ask, knowing the answer would come when it was ready.

That night, as they peeled the fish in the kitchen, Joe didn't mention the bucket again. They talked about the rain that hadn't come, the crops that needed more water, the hens that had started laying regularly again after the thief incident.

Joe talked about these things with the same attention he gave everything. As if nothing more important was happening.

Marek watched him as he worked.

And he understood something he hadn't understood before.

Joe knew.

Not about the yellow energy. Not about the flashes on the river. But he knew something was happening. And he had decided not to ask. Not because he didn't care. Because he trusted that Marek would tell him when he was ready.

That trust carried a different weight than distrust.

Marek looked down at the fish.

He wasn't ready yet.

But for the first time, he knew that someday he would be.

---

The bicycle appeared on the dirt path a week later.

Marek was in the orchard when he heard it. Not the sound of an engine, but the sound of something moving with the precision of someone who knows exactly where they're going. He looked up.

Pink.

With metallic details he had never seen on any bicycle in Cromatica. Or on any bicycle, period. It stopped in front of the farm's entrance with the naturalness of something that had arrived exactly where it wanted to be.

The girl who dismounted was his age. Ten years old. Dark hair tied back. Clean, well-chosen clothes, the folds in the right places and the pockets where they should be. Her eyes moved with a quickness that suggested she was processing more than she showed.

She looked at the farm. The orchard. The chickens. The empty chair on the porch. Then she looked at Marek.

He stood among the crops, hands dirty with soil, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. He didn't move.

"Are you Marek?" she said.

"It depends who's asking."

She raised an eyebrow. Not with displeasure. With assessment.

"Someone who doesn't have time for answers that don't answer anything."

Marek wiped his hands on his pants. Left the orchard. Stopped in front of her.

"I'm Marek."

"Sira," she said, without extending her hand. Not out of rudeness. Because she didn't seem like the type to extend a hand without a reason. "I live in Cromatica. I heard you're the grandson of Farmer Joe."

"Who told you that?"

"People talk." She paused. "Can I talk to you?"

Marek looked at the bicycle. Looked at Sira. Looked toward the house where Joe was inside preparing food, unaware of the visitor.

"About what?"

"About something you'll probably think is crazy," Sira said. Her tone wasn't apologetic. It was the tone of someone who had considered that possibility and decided it changed nothing.

Marek looked at her for a moment.

"Do you want some water?" he said.

Sira blinked.

"What?"

"To sit and talk," Marek said, pointing to the fence along the path. "I have water. Or tea. Joe made tea this morning."

Sira looked at him with an expression that wasn't exactly surprise. It was the recognition of someone who hadn't expected the response to her offer to be another offer.

"Water," she said.

Marek nodded. Went into the house. Returned with two glasses. Handed her one.

They sat on the fence. The same place where Joe sometimes sat to look at the crops when he wasn't on the porch. The same place where Marek sat when he wanted to see the path before anyone arrived.

Sira drank the water with the same precision she did everything. Neither faster nor slower than necessary. Set the empty glass beside her.

"Have you heard of the Kratar?" she said.

Marek frowned.

"No."

"It's an artifact. A square greenish-blue stone with a K engraved in the center." She paused. "Legend says it grants wishes."

Marek looked at her. Waited for her to smile or say she was joking. She didn't.

"Are you serious?" he said.

"I'm always serious."

"A stone that grants wishes."

"That's right."

Marek processed this.

"And why are you telling me?" he asked.

Sira didn't answer immediately. She looked at the dirt path leading to Cromatica. Then back at him.

"Because I want to go find it," she said. "And for that I need a ship. And to build a ship I need someone I know named Arlo. He's the smartest person I know, but he wouldn't do it for free. I owe him a favor. And that favor involves getting him someone with physical abilities beyond the ordinary for one of his projects."

Marek looked at her.

"That was a lot of information very fast."

"I summarized it," Sira said.

"And what does that have to do with physical abilities beyond the ordinary?"

Sira looked directly at him.

"I saw what you did in the river."

The silence that followed was different from all previous silences.

Marek didn't answer immediately. He felt something cold move from his stomach upward. Not fear. Something closer to the awareness that a secret he had kept for three years had just opened without his consent.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The cooked fish," Sira said, her tone unchanged. "The yellow flash over the water. The steam." She paused. "I was studying the flora of the eastern sector for a school project. It wasn't intentional."

Marek looked at her. Searched her expression for something like fear, judgment, or the urgency of someone about to tell someone else what they saw.

He found none of that.

Only attention.

"Who did you tell?" he said finally.

"No one."

"Why?"

Sira considered it for a moment.

"Because what I saw didn't seem dangerous to me," she said. "It seemed interesting." A pause. "And because what seems interesting to me, I prefer to understand before telling someone who won't understand it."

Marek looked at the dirt path ahead.

Three years keeping that secret. Three years practicing alone in empty fields and nameless rivers and moonless nights when Joe slept.

And the first person who saw it was a girl from Cromatica on a pink bicycle with eyes that processed everything too quickly.

"What exactly do you want?" he asked.

"I already told you," Sira replied. "I want to go find the Kratar. And I think you should come."

"Why me?"

Sira looked at him with the patience of someone explaining something she considered obvious.

"Because what you have, no one else I've ever known has. And because a mission like that without someone who can do what you do ends badly very quickly."

Marek didn't answer.

He looked at his hands. The same hands that had split a tree at seven. That had cooked fish with a flash. That had practiced alone for three years without knowing why.

Maybe for this.

Maybe not.

"And this Arlo?" he said finally.

"He lives in Cromatica. In the white house next to mine." Sira stepped down from the fence. "He's annoying but necessary."

"Annoying how?"

"You'll see."

Marek didn't move.

"I didn't say I was going."

"Not yet," Sira replied. She mounted her bicycle with the same clean movement as before. "Think about it."

She rode off without waiting for a response.

Marek watched her disappear down the dirt path until the pink bicycle vanished behind the trees.

He sat on the fence a moment longer.

Then he looked at the sky. Then at his hands. He closed his fists slowly.

The yellow energy ignited without being called. Small. Steady. Like something that had been waiting three years for someone else to see it, and now that it had happened, didn't know whether to hide or stay.

Marek extinguished it.

And went to help Joe with dinner.

END OF CHAPTER 2