Dreams

“Don’t touch it!” Tryon seized Zyla’s arm with both hands and wrenched her backward. She tripped over her shovel and landed with an audible thump between the tomato plants and the asparagus, her gardening skirt ripping farther down an established tear.

“Moon and stars!” Zyla snapped. “What’s wrong with you?” She climbed to her feet slapping dirt from her clothes.

Tryon paid no attention. He brushed black locks from his face and stared into the newly dug hole, eyes alight with excitement. A half-buried, tarnished object glinted in the slanting evening sun. “It’s a gen-u-wine artifact! That’s what it is! It could explode!”

“Explode?” Zyla scowled as she limped to her friend’s side. “It’s just an old hunk of metal. Help me dig it out so I can plant the sweet potatoes before dark.” She thrust the shovel toward Tryon, who hesitated before taking it. He hiked up his linen pants, inched forward as if approaching a rattlesnake, and prodded the curiosity with the tip of the shovel.

“For pity’s sake!” Zyla pushed him aside and stepped to the hole. With bare hands, she freed the dirt around the object and dragged it onto the thick mulch of the garden. Kneeling, she inspected the silver cylinder. About two hands long and four hands around, it seemed innocent enough. “There’s writing on it!” she said, pointing, but her companion had vanished. Tryon’s sandals were visible beneath thick stalks of corn, and one brown eye peeked out between the silks. Frowning, Zyla folded her arms until he emerged.

“Can you read it?” he asked, eyes widening as he rejoined her.

Zyla squinted at the shallow inscription. “I think so. The words are odd, but it’s definitely our language.” She ran fingers over the etchings, tracing them, sounding them out under her breath before translating. “Mara Ballard’s Time Capsule, Reynolds, North Carolina, May 15, 2019.”

“A-ha! It is an ancient artifact!” Tryon danced a little jig of victory.

“Three hundred years isn’t ancient, it’s the Old Age.”

“My grandpa’s ninety and he’s pretty ancient.”

Zyla smirked. “We should take this to him.”

“So he can keep the treasure for himself? Great idea.” Tryon rolled his eyes.

“Treasure?”

“Sure! Why bury worthless things? Something valuable must be inside.”

Zyla knitted her brows. “Like what?”

He shrugged. “Could be anything: heirloom seeds, down gloves, honey candy—”

“Candy? Are you fifteen-summers-old or five?”

Tryon dropped to his knees beside her and jerked a chin toward the capsule. “Go ahead, open it.”

Zyla bit her lip, heart pounding. Even if the object wasn’t dangerous it was still exciting. Screws circled the capsule’s lid. Brown and rusted, they crumbled between her fingers. Gritting her teeth with effort, she twisted the top off the container. The contents tumbled from their protective shell and landed on the moist, upturned earth.

For a moment neither spoke.

Then Tryon groaned. He stood, flinging a clod of dirt into the hole. “See ya later. It’s supper time.” He collected his burlap tomato sack before ambling out of the garden into a copse of young pines, leaving Zyla alone with their find.

Three items lay individually wrapped in what looked like bags but were clear as still water. She poked the wrappings, making them crinkle, before judging them unimportant and removing their contents: a small, black notebook and two stacks of green papers bound by violet ribbons. Time had tried to devour the stacks—edges were frayed, discolored, disintegrating—but they were still recognizable as dollars, the pieces of paper people once traded for desirable things. But why are they buried in my village?

Perhaps the black book held the answer. She studied the stiff cover so different from the floppy sheepskin of modern books, then turned the brittle, lined pages with care to the first entry. Written in a neat, tight script was a date—May 15, 2017—followed by Dear Diary. Zyla flipped through the book, noting blocks of text and colorful drawings that grew dull as light faded from the garden. Zyla glanced at the darkening sky. The diary would have to wait and so would the potatoes.

The treasures nestled deep in her harvest apron, Zyla slung the shovel over one shoulder and headed home. Tired feet dragged, but her mind raced with possibilities. What might she learn from the book? Anyone not born yesterday knew stories about the Old Age were rubbish— outlandish accounts of villages so populous they swallowed thousands of square kilometers, talking boxes containing the accumulated knowledge of all of humanity, wagons that pulled themselves and sped faster than hawks can dive. She rubbed her bruised backside. I could sure use a magic wagon right now.

The rays of the sinking sun shone on her earth dome as she swung open her gate, careful not to let the chickens out. No candles illuminated the dome’s skylights; no one was home. The distant village of Grenvull was the best place for her parents to trade hay, making it well worth the week-long trip.

Zyla dropped the shovel, removed her sandals, and descended the stairs into the dome. She skirted the central fire pit and plucked an apple from the hollowed gourd on the dining table before heading to her bedroom. There she traded her soiled linen tunic and skirt for a long cotton nightshirt, lit a pillar candle, and settled onto the patchwork covers of her bed. Zyla opened the notebook to the first page. The words were strange—some elongated and others truncated—but decipherable with a little concentration.

Dear Diary,

I’m Sweet Sixteen today! I didn’t expect a party and wasn’t disappointed. Marjorie only spends money on her own awful kids and Dad acts like I don’t exist ever since he married her. If Mom were alive she’d have thrown a party. I hate it here! In two years I’ll get the money Mom left me and leave FOREVER! I don’t even have the $20,000 yet and Margorie is already plotting how to get it out of the bank. Joke’s on her because I’m going to bury it in the field until I start my own family. I’ll marry Jeremy, move back to Erwin where all my friends are, put the money down on a big home, and never be alone again!

Zyla paused in her reading. So this is the answer. Dollars had not been buried beneath the garden, but dreams. In an age when green paper meant everything, Mara had planned to trade hers for happiness.

Consumed by curiosity, Zyla leapt into the book like a bullfrog into Tulliver’s pond. She devoured one entry after another, ignoring both her growling stomach and drooping eyelids. No tale about grand achievements and important rulers had ever been as riveting as the everyday life of Mara.

Every sane person regarded descriptions of the Old Age as exaggerations. Time had a way of twisting history, aggrandizing it. Yet here was recorded, in minute detail, the existence of those vast villages and talking boxes, alongside wonders even more astonishing. Zyla adventured with Mara across indigo oceans to faraway lands. She rode silver birds above puffball clouds, so high the earth below resembled her patchwork quilt. She stood atop buildings one hundred times taller than Old Man Tulliver’s barn, which was the largest and finest anywhere. When Mara’s new haircut made her feel beautiful, Zyla beamed with her. She attended Mara’s school, explored Reynolds, and drove her very own magic wagon. Butterflies filled her stomach as her lips pressed those of the blue-eyed Jeremy, and tears fell as she watched him kiss another. When Mara shook with sobs, head pressed to her knees, Zyla wept on the bed beside her.

Zyla read until the skylights turned from deep black to dusty gray. Then, as dawn displaced candlelight, she turned to a colorful illustration so lifelike it fairly levitated off the page. The drawing depicted a dwelling very different from Zyla’s earth dome. This house sat completely above ground, all angular planes of wood and stone. Windows graced the sides rather than the top, which was sloping and steep. Chairs dotted a wide, wooden platform surrounding the home on all sides. To the right grew a familiar sapling—the graceful dawn redwood, now wide and towering, stood close enough to Zyla’s home to throw evening shadows across the white plaster. Zyla stared into space as the implications sank in. Moon and stars, Mara’s house sat right here! She might have drawn this picture on this very spot three hundred years ago! The revelation proved they were kindred spirits, sisters whose link transcended the centuries.

****

In the days that followed, Zyla and her new sister were constant companions. Mara had entrusted the secrets of her soul, and it was only fair to reciprocate. Zyla spoke aloud to Mara, sharing feelings and observations, asking for advice and imagining answers. Zyla explained how to plant beans and squash during a waxing moon—never during a waning one. That was the time to pull weeds so they didn’t grow back. She taught Mara which plants loved sun, which sought shade, and which liked each other’s company. She demonstrated how to grind wheat for bread and how to roast turkey so that it melted off the bone. When noontime sweltered, they lazed by the creek watching willow leaves swirl in eddies while mallards and geese slipped by. Sometimes Zyla could almost see Mara right in front of her.

And then she did.

Resting in the shade of the willows, Zyla opened the book to find green eyes as alive as her own staring back. Below the drawing was written, self-portrait. She ran fingers over amber corkscrew curls, high cheekbones, the delicate teal dress that would have been useless in the fields. The youthful face surrounded haunted, worried eyes that puzzled Zyla. Daily life could be hard—crops failed, cattle died from no discernible cause, accidents claimed young lives—yet the eyes of Zyla’s family and friends radiated warmth even through bitter tears.

“What’s wrong?” she asked her sister, even as the answer formed in her mind. In a village many times larger than Zyla’s, and in constant contact with the entire world, Mara had been alone. In a house filled with love, none had been spared for her. In an age of incomprehensible material wealth, her only desires had been intangible. Zyla brought a hand to her chest where an unfamiliar tightness was spreading.

Shouts erupted from the village. Mara twisted to see her parents’ wagon coming to a halt amid smiling neighbors. A new plow lay in the wagon and a stout draft horse trailed behind. Trading had gone well, and work ended early as calls for a celebration swept through the village.

****

As darkness fell, Zyla lingered on a log by the heat of the communal fire pit, her belly stuffed with pork, potatoes, and honey candy. She plunged bare toes into cool dirt and imagined Mara beside her doing the same. The shifting, orange flames merged with moonlight to illuminate friends, family, the woods and fields of her home. Villagers laughed, teased, traded cups of cider, threw arms around one another.

Zyla fished the dollars out of her pockets and shifted her gaze between them and the smiling faces. Across the circle, Tryon’s eyes met hers, his cocky grin making her stomach flutter and inviting thoughts of Jeremy. All Mara wanted was this. So simple, yet so out of reach. Tears welled, threatened to fall. What had become of Mara all those years ago? Why had her dreams remained buried in the ground instead of achieved?

Clutching the stacks, Zyla stood and ceremoniously untied their purple ribbons. She fed the papers to the sparking flames, letting dreams dreamed lifetimes ago release and float upward into the black sky. She pictured the green eyes of a girl whose deepest wish had been to have what Zyla had been gifted by virtue of her birth.

“You don’t need those dreams anymore,” she whispered to Mara. “We’re your family now. You’re home.”