Secrets of the Sun

“What do you mean you’ve never left the Westward Borough!?” Cahya demanded.

Skuggi’s shoulders slumped and he smiled sheepishly. He seemed torn between the embarrassment of admitting to a lie and the panic of shooting away from the only place he’d ever lived.

“I thought you’d traveled between all the Borough multiple times, you said, you said-”

“I may have embellished a bit,” Skuggi interrupted, “or a lot,” he corrected himself under Cahya’s infuriated gaze. “Look, I would have gone tons of times, but workers aren’t supposed to board the trains, we just load them up. It would have been a drastic breach of protocol. It is a drastic breach of protocol! I’ll lose my job over this if the Dispatchers find out.”

Cahya shook her head, “All those stories you told about the Eastward Borough you just made up? Why would you lie about something like that?”

Skuggi leaned against one of the containers in their boxcar, “I guess I just wanted you and the others to like me. I never figured you’d actually get the chance to put my theories to the test.”

Cahya smirked, “Theories? More like random guesses.”

Skuggi frowned, “You’re not much different, Cahya, chasing after the secrets of an empty locket on a train headed to who knows where.”

Cahya sat down next to him, her hand instinctively stroking the heart-shaped locket tied around her neck. Skuggi was right in a sense. She didn’t know exactly what she was after, but she had a vague idea of who.

Tamno had given her the locket before he’d passed away. He was the closest thing Cahya had to a father. He’d watched over her under the lamplit streets, kept her safe and out of trouble. He’d been a light in her life, a life filled with constant darkness in the underground city of the Westward Borough.

Tamno had always had the locket on him. Cahya asked him about it once, but he’d given her a distant answer, something about it being a family keepsake. She hadn’t pushed the issue until he became ill. The closer death came the more he held the locket, toying around with it, staring at it. Then he’d started rambling, sometimes coherent, and often not. The day before he died, he handed the locket over to Cahya.

She recoiled at first, surprised by the locket’s icy touch.

Tamno stared deep into her eyes, “This locket belonged to my family.”

Cahya nodded, unsure of how lucid Tamno was at the moment.

“It kept us together,” he continued, “It kept us together until I decided to stay behind.” His gaze wandered, “They were right. I was a coward. I wish I hadn’t. I could’ve told them. I could’ve gone…” his voice trailed off.

He didn’t talk again after that. Cahya wondered about Tamno’s family. That was the most she’d ever heard about them. Two days after Tamno’s death, her mind was made up. She would find Tamno’s family and show them the locket. Then maybe they’d take her under their wing like Tamno had and they could carry on the old man’s legacy together. Cahya would have a purpose again.

So she’d gotten Skuggi, a cargo boy who’d claimed to have traveled to all five Boroughs, to sneak her on a train against his better judgment. She hoped to find Tamno’s people along the streets of one of the other Boroughs. She had a feeling that the locket would help her. Maybe someone would recognize it as belonging to him.

While the locket might have been the key, however, it currently wasn’t opening any metaphorical doors. Cahya unlatched it once again revealing the smooth blackness of the inside. There was no photo or picture, no writing, no token, nothing. It was dark and empty, just like the shafts that connected the cities.

Skuggi was right. She was chasing the secrets of an empty locket, searching for people who had a connection to Tamno.

“I’ve got to try,” she said softly to Skuggi as the train car chugged along. “I have to find others who knew him. Who he meant something to. Otherwise…”

Otherwise, it would all be real. Tamno would be gone and Cahya would be forever alone in the shadows.

Skuggi fell silent, but he occasionally glanced at Cahya, eyeing the locket skeptically.

They sat in the dark. Time passed. At one point Cahya must have fallen asleep because she suddenly awoke to a strange warm sensation. She opened her eyes and was blinded.

A searing light poured through the spaces between the planks of wood that made up the walls of the train car. It was unlike anything Cahya or Skuggi had ever seen. So bright it put glowing embers and oil lamps to shame. So bright, it could only be one thing, something Cahya had only heard stories about until now: the sun.

Cahya and Skuggi groaned and shielded their eyes with their hands. Gradually, their eyes began to adjust.

“Is that what I think it is?” Skuggi asked.

Cahya nodded, “The sun.”

“But it can’t be,” Skuggi shook his head. “There’s no way the train could be above ground. It’s not supposed to go above ground, nothing is supposed to go above ground.”

It was true. The storms demolished everything and anything on the surface. Their winds carved mountain ranges in hours, their rain-filled seas in days, and they tore apart any vegetation or nearby organisms that happened to get caught in their paths. Cahya and Skuggi had grown up listening to those stories. They’d learned to follow the Burrow’s rules or risk being exiled to the surface.

Now here they were. Surrounded by light on a train with an unanticipated destination in mind.

Cahya approached the wall of the train car, straining her eyes against the light, trying to get a look at what was outside. She pressed her face against the planks of wood and winced. It was still too bright.

She pulled away, but the locket caught between two of the boards. Cahya tugged against it. The locket shifted, opening against the force of friction, but refusing to leave its spot. Cahya bit her lip. She needed to remove the locket but worried if she pulled too hard it would break or fall out of the car.

Skuggi waved his hand, “Just leave it. What good is an empty locket anyway?”

“No, it’s important,” Cahya insisted, “It was Tamno’s locket and now it’s mine.”

Something in her voice or expression must have sounded desperate because Skuggi walked over to her and began picking at the locket from the other end.

“I can see this matters to you, so I’ll push and you pull,” he said.

After a few tries, with their combined efforts, the locket came loose. Cahya cradled it in her hands, surprised by its warm touch. She reopened it to inspect for damage and froze.

The black surface of the interior of the locket had changed to reveal two sets of numbers, a compass, and a set of squiggly lines. Skuggi noted the change in her face and came to look at the locket.

His eyes widened, “It looks like a map with coordinates.”

Cahya nodded. The sun had activated the locket. The inside wasn’t empty, it was solar-powered.

She exchanged a glance with Skuggi as they felt the train begin to slow. The world of the surface laid on the other side of the boxcar and it held a reality the pair hesitated to face. Still, the light streaming into the cabin didn’t seem so blinding anymore. Cahya gripped the locket. She wasn’t sure what truths the sun held or the secrets behind the locket and Tamno’s family, but she knew the map led to somewhere and she wasn’t about to stay behind.