Book of Hidden Truths: 7

She dwells in the present, hidden among us. Who could save us now that the world has been marked? Perhaps, the fate of our world has yet to see the light.

"Flowers, Miss?"

Cloey looked at the twelve-year old at the corner of fifth and Hope with a worried expression on her face. Cheryl was cloaked in brown behind her. She still held her hand and it didn't quite look like it was a friendly hold but other people in the area just rushed passed them. Cheryl stopped them. She had recently acquired sunglasses from a nearby store by bribing the store manager or, at least, Cloey thought that was what happened. In one instant Cheryl didn't have glasses and in the other, she was wearing them. Had it been magic, a part of her talents? Did Cheryl even have a talent? And who was she really dealing with, Cheryl the person or Cheryl the multi-personality character?

"In this weather, you're selling flowers, child?"

Cloey looked at Cheryl, "C'mon, we have to go."

"Wait," Cheryl said, "This girl has the talent, as well."

"The talent?"

"Yes," Cheryl said, her face a measure of seriousness and amusement. How did she even do that? She was definitely a master of deception. The guards hadn't believed for a second that she was the real Cheryl, now disguised as pillows in the third floor building of Santa Barbara General Hospital. Why hadn't they believed her as Cheryl? All Cloey had put on the woman was a new pair of slippers and an off-putting red blouse with skirt to match. Who did they think she was?

Cheryl acted the part of Cloey's personal friend and the guards regarded this as more a time to get personal pleasure than to suspect that someone was escaping the mental ward of the hospital.

The real question was, is Cheryl dangerous?

In Cloey's opinion, the woman was not so much dangerous as curious about things. She had a strange personality at times but that was due to her nature as a person with a disadvantage.

The twelve-year-old took off running when she heard Cheryl say those words. Cheryl smiled. "Come," she said, "It's time to play."

"What are you saying, Cheryl? It's just a little girl, let her go."

"We need to help her, now come or stay behind, I care not either way."

In seconds, Cheryl's whole appearance seemed different. She was now standing straight and walking tall and there was a frown on her face. She walked fast to the end of the street and turned abruptly onto Hope. The girl had taken off down an alleyway. They'd never find her.

Cloey, now realizing that she couldn't lose track of Cheryl, as it was her fault that she had escaped the hospital in the first place, ran after the woman. When she turned the same corner, she saw Cheryl half-way down the end of the block with a walky-talky in one hand. Cloey walked a few paces and found on the side where cars were parked, a knocked out meter-maid, face-up on the ground. She was recovering, it looked like but she was missing her badge and probably her walky-talky. Wow. Cheryl was definitely dangerous, as a bad guy.

Cloey got close enough to Cheryl to hear her talking, "This is dispatch badge number 3561Q, an orphan girl selling flowers in downtown got lost, possible kidnap victim, running between Main and Hope street, check the alleyways, pursuing victim on foot."

The voice of a police officer came out of the walky-talky. "Roger that, three-five, we'll confirm her whereabouts when we see something."

"Lazy bums," Cheryl whispered, "Ah, there she is."

Cheryl crossed the street on green and ran across and under the shaded parts of a couple of Japanese restaurants, turning fast onto an alleyway. Here, Cloey stopped to catch her breath as she couldn't keep up with the woman all that well. How did she do it? All Cheryl had ever done was sit on a bed her whole life and she had the stamina of an Olympic runner. There was a spill of dirty water coming out of a drain-pipe from the back end of a restaurant and a large green garbage dumpster. Also beside the dumpster was a large pile of flowers. Cheryl smiled and talked back into the walky-talky, "Nevermind on the victim. Girl has been secured at the back end of an alleyway, we're in route to her orphanage right now."

"Roger that, three-five, let's go get some donuts, Greg."

Cheryl waved a hand for Cloey to come over.

Cloey stood side by side with Cheryl, who was staring down at the flowers. "It's not really my thing, you know."

"What's not really your thing?"

"This, this whole hero business."

"Hero business?"

"Saving people and whatnot, I don't like it, not gonna get involved."

"You're the one who wanted to chase the girl!"

"Me? You certain? Sounds like me but the opposite therein, you get me, blondy?"
Oh, no. Cheryl's personality had changed. She even dropped her walky-talky in the dumpster. She said she had found the girl but Cloey didn't see anything but flowers.

In the next instant, Cheryl was walking away back toward the street, as though she didn't care either way.

"Leave her, blondy," Cheryl said, "What do I care if the girl starves to death, blinded by fear, that's what that girl's problem is. Deserves to be sleeping in nothing but the shade of the sun."

"Did you find the girl or not?"

"Shhh," Cheryl said, winking at Cloey.

When they reached the beginning of the block, that's when the pile of flowers flew into the air and the twelve-year old in her now-dirty white dress and black flat-top school shoes ran after them. Cloey was in utter shock. Cheryl had known where exactly the girl had been all along and she had used reverse psychology to help her! Who knew that a mental patient would know about reverse psychology. Cheryl was an interesting person indeed.

"Were you serious about helping people?" The girl asked Cheryl.

"What did I tell you, girl is hungry. That's just selfish, I tell you."

"Oh, shut-up Cheryl," Cloey said, "The least we could do is give her something to eat."

Then, the real Cheryl came back, "Of course. She has to show me her talent, though."

The girl made a flower appear.

"What's your talent, miss?"

"Well," Cheryl said, "I used to be a hero for hire, got paid for heroing, is that a word, heroing? No matter. Now I'm just...helping people."
"Are you going to help me?" the girl asked.

Now Cheryl smiled. "Now, now. girly. Where are your manners, huh?"

The girl smiled up at her, "My mom used to say that."

"Names first. I am Cheryl Bernstein and this is my old nurse Cloey, who is now my accomplice."

"I'm Anna," Anna said, "And I can make flowers appear."

"Only flowers ey?" Cheryl asked.

"I don't know, I never tried anything else but I can't make food appear that's for sure."

Cloey laughed. "Come on, let's get you something to eat. And, then, hopefully we can get all this hero business sorted through."

"And don't forget, we have to leave Los Angeles."

"Yes," Cloey said, frowning, "There's that too."

She looked up again and the gray cloud seemed to be looming ever closer to the city. What was it about it that scared her so much?

Now they resided on a hill-top with branches looming down on them from over-growing orchards. Here, the landscape was nothing but green and in every direction the trees grew almost too high into the air, too big to believe but this was Switzerland and weird things happened in other countries, Aral figured. He was examining the book closely. "It doesn't let me write anything now."

Aliendre frowned down on him. He was wearing his red house cape with a black lion imprinted on it with charcoal it looked like. He sat below one of the trees eating apples. "What are we doing here, Aral?"

"Well," Aral said, "We're supposed to meet them here at twelve exactly. It's only eleven forty-nine."

"What will you say to them? Barely did I believe that I was going to travel on some unbeknownst and eccentric adventure with a fellow like you Aral and now you aim to convince someone as eccentric as you."

"Not much," Aral said. "They need to know about the book. I feel like one of these days, I might get to write on it again." At this, Aral smiled.

"Weird thing, that," said Aliendre, "Always going on and on about a book that doesn't let you write on it, at least, not for weeks now. Yet, you smile at being able to write in it, al though you know what that'll mean."

"I don't know how regular writers feel about their work, them being to actually see it in print," Aral said, "But when I write it feels like I can change the world."

"Sounds right," Aliendre said, "I mean, it does change the world, don't it? Every time you write on that wee thing, we get into some mischief that I want no part of, and, yet, here we are because six weeks ago you wrote this very thing we're doing now, then. Oh, an apple, fancy that."

Aliendre found an apple by the floor next to the trees and ate it. "Tell you what, they don't come by the appointed time and I'm out of here, I don't have time to be wasting by an apple tree."

Mat and Simon finally planted themselves aside the Captain's helm on two wooden chairs that some of the regular sailors had brought in from the supply rooms below decks. Captain Kerner looked out into what unbelievably was a calm ocean. He spun the wheel slowly, now diverting their route toward the whales for a more suitable journey toward the south in Pearl Harbor port. The ship seemed to be moving swiftly now out of the rain but even the rain seemed to have let up. There was the slight hint of rain on the decks but his tired crew were signs of what had really happened out there.

Mat, a tall man in red overalls, was soaked all throughout and he was saying, "Well, we got them out of the water, captain," he said.

It was during the worst of it, when the rain had intensified and the Tsunami-like waves hit the boat that they saw a strange little Asian man come out from below decks, a foot of water shooting inside as he stepped out bravely. He shut the hatchet and proceeded onward toward a group of school kids that hadn't been so smart to go with their assigned group leaders to stay out of the storm.

In the next instant, Kerner had blinked and the kids and the Asian man were gone. A second passed after this and Kerner saw the little man again before his eyes. "Hello, do not panic," he said to him, "I am Shuyin, one of those gifted people you hear about on the news and I came to save you."

Kerner looked him up and down for a second and looked behind him and found that the Tsunami was frozen. "What have you done there?" He asked him, watching the frozen waves.

"They are safe now. I can freeze time," he said, "And teleport. But I can no longer go backwards or forwards in time because of some rule imposed on me by another person with a talent. He was a very evil man with multiple powers. During that time, the people with talents were almost defeated by him but we learned how to defeat him in the end. But now, I must save you. It is my destiny."

Kerner eyed him a bit longer before pulling a cigar he had lit in his mouth out of it and said, "Well, you're going to have to defeat a fifty-foot wave, little man. Unless you can pull that off, I don't see a win-win situation where we actually win around here."
He sure was a curious fellow, Kerner had thought at that time. The wave hit the ship full force, unbalancing it on the ocean and breaking through the front banisters. Now, he had guards posted up there in case any of those blasted kids tried to go up there to watch the ocean. For now, he had ordered all unessential personnel indoors for security reasons. All of them, including the annoying Frank were more than happy to go.

During the time of the storm, six or seven kids had gone overboard. Shuyin, as it turned out was the little Asian man's name, told captain Kerner he could save them but that he needed help from men that could pull him back onto the ship. With the rain pounding on the ship from all sides and Kerner battling for control of the ship as waves threatened to sink it, he just waved Shuyin off like he was of no concern. Finally, after some annoying antics by Shuyin to get his attention, Kerner sent two sailors out with him, which turned out to be the best idea he'd ever had.

Part of the crew, as it turned out, had also been pushed overboard by the clashing waves. The Shuyin character had saved all of them but one. Kerner sighed, "A catastrophe like that, " he said to Mat and Simon, "And only one casualty. We could have called it a good day but even one is one too many."

"That was Jaime, sir," Simon said, "Best man on a fire hose, I ever saw. He kept two of the young ones from straying too close to the banisters but that's when the wave hit from the side and sent him flying out to sea clear out the other side of the ship. Man was too far out to save, you know that."
"Still," Kerner said, "He deserves our respects. And that Shuyin fellow our thanks."

"But sir!" Mat started, getting up.

"It don't matter to me what kind of trouble he's in with the old police or whatnot," Kerner said, "That's a mighty evil thing of the past, if it were true they did it. Now, don't get me wrong, Mat, I'm not saying they did not. Those people with powers on television, there's a mystery about'em, that's for sure. But this, this one man saved people's lives today, good people's lives, people me an' you know, matter'ofact and that's a mighty thing to thank a good man for, yes, sir, it is."
"Still," Mat said, "I don't trust any one with powers. Look what happened to my daughter, to my wife."

"A mighty bad end, there," Kerner said, "Not to say I don't feel your loss. Miss Jenny and Kristy were two of my best supporters back when I had no ship and good people too. That little Jenny liked me to bear hug her, said I was the best at it, little rough on the knee-kicks but see here, Mat, that's one person that did that to your family. It's a mighty thing to judge people as a group. That Eliandra's girl father, for example, biggest prick alive but Eliandra, smart as they come, she is, knows her way around a ship. She snuck right out her cabin and was first with a rope out there, slaving to save people to and fro, did about as much if not more work than that Shuyin fellow. Far as I'm concerned Eliandra and Frank are of the same group but two different people. That's what this Shuyin man is, a different sort of talented boy. He ain't part of that group you have in your head, that's a different sort of people."
After a final wave that pushed their ship further out, the storm died.

And, after a moment or two longer, another Asian fellow followed by Shuyin came into the captain's room.

"Hello, I am Tisu, Shuyin's friend," he said quickly, "And Shuyin says he has a plan."

Tisu was a taller fellow with an agreeable smile but Mat stayed clear of both them, trying very hard not to be close to them.

"Saved a lot of good people tonight, your friend did," Kerner said to Tisu, shaking his hand.

"Maybe I can grab a hold of the wheel," He said.

In the back of his mind, Kerner wanted to punch the little man for calling the helm a "wheel." Still, he let him hold it, having saved part of his crew and most of the guest who had gone overboard. In the next instant, Kerner looked out to sea but the ocean water was a different color here. It was a deep-seated ugly green that only came from being close to port.

The ship was still looking toward the ocean so Kerner turned around to see that they were about three hundred yards away from docking.

He got onto his walky-talky quickly. "Pearl, pearl!"
"Go ahead, Kerner, we hear ya!"
"Get us some docking boats out here, pronto. We're at close range to you know."

"Uh, we didn't see you on radar--?"

"Check again, boy!"
"Holy crap, how'd you get under our radar, captain, well, nevermind. We'll send the boats out now!"

The captain sat back on his seat and relaxed.

"Well," Shuyin said, "We must go now, Tisu."
"What about the painter?" Tisu asked.

"I believe Kraig has to find his own destiny."
And, as weird and magically as they'd appeared on his ship, the two little Asian men disappeared from it forever.

Kerner couldn't help but laugh. And, just three hours ago, all hope seemed lost.

"Eleven fifty nine and sixx-- what the?"

In front of them appeared two men in black jackets. They wore brown sweaters and brown slacks and one was slightly shorter than the other.

"Why did we have to get identical suits?" Tisu asked.

"I am the leader here, how dare you question my taste," Shuyin said, flustered.

Arad got up from the tree. They were staring right at them.

Aliendre was so surprised to see them that he had unsheathed his sword. He put it back inside a scabbard under his coat.

"Hello!" Arad exclaimed.

"Aww!" The Japanese men screamed hugging each other.

Then, they turned to look at Arad, the twelve-year-old boy and his slightly mean-looking companion and shrugged.

"Sorry about that," Tisu said, "We just went through a pretty heavy storm, so loud noises get to us."

"They made me write the storm," Arad said, frowning deeply, "But I found a way to stop it."

"Write?" Tisu asked. "What are you saying?"
Shuyin pointed at the book in Arad's hands. "It's the book, the book, I told you I'd find it!"

"Just like in the painter's house," Tisu said, in awe.

"You met him, the painter?" Arad asked, "Well, I didn't write that. Sometimes things happen without me knowing it. Wow, you met the painter, how is he?"
"Blonde-haired surfer-boy," Tisu said, "Not much too see."

"There's not much time," Arad said, "In a few minutes, you guys will poof be gone. I wrote you off."
"Wrote us off? What are you talking about?" Tisu asked, now looking at him strangely.

"You know, to the past. It's a neat trick, you see when Calin-the-wicked stole your powers of going to the past and the future, he didn't really steal them. He just made them unhinge from their sockets. Because they haven't been used with your natural talent, they're going to create a temporal displacement of constant time-traveling, what I like to call...time-traveler's hiccups. You'll, literally, have the hiccups and every time you hiccup, poof, to another point in time, isn't it wonderful?"

"No, no," Tisu said, "That sounds horrible."

"Don't worry, I wrote you guys back in, in the crucial battle of good versus evil. It's all in the book" Arad said, tapping the book a couple of times. "You see whatever I write in it comes true."
"Just write that we live happy lives until the fight between good and evil," Tisu pleaded, "Because you see there's this girl, Shuyin's sister, that's been delayed from marrying me because of a complication with Shuyin's destiny and--?"
"Oh," Arad said, "I can't. It's not letting me write anything now. But don't worry, I'll keep your wife in mind. Okay, well, I guess that's it. See you guys."

"But wait--?" Shuyin said, then hiccupped and disappeared, along with Tisu.

Aliendre was so amazed by what just happened that he dropped his apple. "Well," he said, "That could have gone better."

"What are you talking about?" Arad asked, "That went great. Now let's go meet my flower girl."

"You truly are a dumb one, Romeo."