Mother Alternate
Epilogue: Onward to Forever
“Last stop, Snowman! Snowman, last
stop!”
The rails of the paradise line shrieked as the
long train huffed and chugged to a stop.
The metallic doors of each car slid open, and soon small amounts of
people descended onto the concrete platform.
Some dragged suitcases, which they flailed about wildly due to their
inability to control the weight; a few more arrived into the arms of lovers,
husbands, and wives, and were greeted with kisses; another group met with their
families and friends.
Among the passengers was a small boy with wild,
unruly hair, who jumped off the train and onto the wet platform. He inspected the platform and the station
that came after it as if they were completely and absolutely foreign to
him. Even his breath, which left his
mouth in puffs of steam, was looked upon by the boy as something wondrous.
As the child surveyed his surroundings there
was a slight ruffling in his backpack.
The boy slipped it off his shoulders and held it with one hand while he
opened the zipper with the other. He
smiled when a tiny monkey jumped out of the backpack and hopped onto his
shoulder, chattering wildly. He was
wearing a small, red bow tie around his neck.
“Yeah, I know it’s stuffy in there…but it was
the only way you’d be able to come,” whispered the boy as he smiled at the
small simian. “You know that, Kir.”
The monkey nodded and jumped onto the boy’s
other shoulder, suddenly aware of someone’s approach from the other side. He extended his tiny palm and pointed at the
person, an eighteen-year-old girl who had a duffel bag around her shoulder and
a green jacket in her hand. The boy
turned to look at her and smiled.
“Put this on or you’ll catch a cold, Joshua.”
said the girl as she tossed him the jacket. “Mom and Dad’ll
go ballistic if I let you get sick.”
“Thanks.” Joshua motioned for Kir to leap onto his head while Joshua slipped the green
jacket on over his tan clothing. After
he was comfortable he put his hands in the jacket pockets and sighed contentedly.
“What time did Peel say she’d come for us?”
“She said she’d be here by the time the train
arrived. She must be running late.”
At that precise moment, as if on cue, a third
voice called out to the duo from within the train station. Soon enough a girl clad in a bright, orange
jacket and blue jeans ran out of the building and scrambled to the platform.
“Hey, you guys!” Peel ran up to her friends and
hugged them. “I’m so glad to see you!”
Vee laughed as Peel came up to them. She hadn’t changed one bit. “We’re happy to
see you too. Have you gotten our letters? Joshua wrote the last one.”
Peel separated herself from the brother and
sister duo. Kir
had jumped onto her shoulders and was now chattering happily as he hugged
Peel’s head. She, in turn, raised a hand
to pet the monkey.
“Yep.” She nodded. “Have you been getting
mine?”
Joshua nodded emphatically. As soon as he did Peel grabbed Joshua’s and Vee’s hands, and then led them out of the train station.
“Come on, I have to show you around!”
The girl genius had spent the last three months
living in Snowman with Julian’s family.
The idea actually belonged to Julian’s brother, Chris who, after hearing
the story of the EarthBound
ones from Peel’s mouth, asked her to stay with him and his mother. The situation was ideal since Peel had no
family of her own, her parents having died two years previously. Now she no longer had to pawn off gadgets to
live—she was living in a place where she could fully develop, comfortably and
at her own pace. Although there was
still a big, gaping wound in her heart…
Peel, Joshua, and Vee
had done their best to explain everything to Julian’s mother and brother as
completely as possible. They stumbled on
a couple of details that even they didn’t know, such as just who Diva was and
where she came from—Lisa had refrained from telling them exactly what had
happened. “She came from Magicant, and she was destroyed along with it” she
said. “Julian made sure of that.” Still, the three children managed to relate
the story of their adventures from the very first battle to the present.
Although Joshua and Vee
had been here before, at that last moment, they had never stopped to look
around or familiarize themselves with the town.
This problem was being remedied by Peel, who gave them a brief tour of
the town before leading them to Ana’s Chateau, where they would be staying, and
where she would leave them until the evening.
Of course, she didn’t stop talking the entire time—Joshua and Vee had only been there for a couple of hours and they
already felt like they had been living there their whole lives. On the way there they passed by the town
square, where several workers were setting up a wooden stage and a microphone.
“What’s all that for?” asked Joshua as he saw
the workers testing the microphone.
Peel turned to look at what Joshua was talking
about. “Oh, that,” she said. “They’re setting up for the festival tonight.”
Vee raised her eyebrows. “Festival?
You mean…”
“Yeah…didn’t you know? Tonight is the Cosmos
Festival. Maybe the last one.”
***
It was already night by the time Peel went for
Joshua and Vee.
Like every year, Ana was the one responsible for making the speech at
“So everything began today, one year ago…” Ana
and Vee were sitting on the wooden stage in the
square, enjoying a rather pleasant view of the festival-goers. Ana was musing on the events that had led her
here, just like she had on this day every year, for the past six years.
“Seems like a long time, doesn’t it?” Vee’s legs dangled off the edge of the stage, and she swung
them around casually. “It’s almost hard to believe.”
“I know what you mean.”
The two girls sat silently for a few seconds as
their thoughts drifted to their respective adventures. The silence was broken only after Ana leaned back
and slipped off her bonnet, revealing the golden strands of hair underneath.
“He’s not coming back, is he?”
The question seemed like it had been drifted
off as casually as could be, despite the deeper, more serious significance it
held. When Vee
heard it she looked quizzically at Ana.
“Ninten, I mean. If
he hasn’t come back now, then he won’t come back at all, right?” Apparently Ana
was simply asking for Vee to confirm something that
she already knew. Her silence and her
reluctance to answer were all the confirmation Ana needed.
“It’s okay…I think I’ve come to accept it.” Ana
continued even though couldn’t hear her. “I’ve decided that I’m going to live
on, without him…”
The ‘conversation’ was interrupted as Ana saw
Teddy and Loid come up to meet them.
“Whew! I almost thought we wouldn’t make it!”
exclaimed Loid cheerily as he hugged Ana, who hopped
off the stage to greet him and Teddy. “Getting out of Union Station was
impossible!”
Vee jumped off the stage and joined the trio. Unlike the others, Vee
had, through the course of several encounters with Loid,
noticed the radical changes in his personality: he had gone from an innocent
kid to a sour, aggressive grouch and back.
Heck, right now he had shed his old, bossy personality…he had actually
become nice.
“So when’s this festival supposed to start,
anyway?” Teddy, on the other hand, hadn’t changed at all. “I wanted to grab a
bite to eat, but this crazy lady yelled at me when I tried to snatch some grub.”
Teddy had no idea that the ‘crazy lady’ was actually Julian’s mother, who had
volunteered to work at the cafeteria.
“In due time, Teddy,” Ana linked arms with her
friends and led them towards the festivities.
They didn’t notice, but the smile on Ana’s face was the first real smile
in several years.
Meanwhile, Peel had decided to take Joshua and
Chris to see the various huts and attractions that lined the streets of
downtown Snowman. Since both boys were
the same age Peel decided that she’d take her ‘little brother’ along. As expected, they were getting along
marvelously, and they chatted as they walked.
Chris took advantage of the opportunity to show Joshua everything that
he deemed interesting, important, or just plain fun.
To tell the truth, this was still very new to
Joshua, who was still struggling with adapting to civilization. Vee had helped
streamline the process, of course, but Joshua still had much to learn—not that
he wanted to change too much; his
room in the Vasconceros house was so full of plants
it was almost hard to walk around inside.
All in all, Joshua still had a part of the forest in his heart.
“Hey! It’s the Whack-a-Barbot
hut!” Chris ran up to the entrance to the attraction, eyes wide with joy as he
grabbed two mallets from inside and handed one to Joshua. “Wanna
play?”
Joshua stared curiously at the foam mallet
while Kir climbed over his head to get a better look.
“I…don’t know how to play,” he confessed as his newfound friend led him to the
hut. Chris waved him off. “It’s easy!
Just follow my lead!”
Joshua turned to look at Peel. “Is this okay?”
he asked.
“Of course, silly!” Peel playfully bopped Joshua on the
head and gave him an encouraging push.
The wild boy still didn’t know how to react, but he decided to take up
Chris’ offer, and soon the two were laughing their cares away as they
played. The inventor couldn’t help but
laugh as she watched—Chris reminded her of his brother. Perhaps too much.
After a moment of chuckling to herself, Peel
decided to join the boys. As she began
to walk into the hut she brushed past someone who was walking in the opposite
direction.
“Excuse me.”
Peel stopped dead in her tracks when she heard
that voice. Could it be…?
Immediately she whirled and tried to get a look
at the person who brushed past her. She
was barely able to make out his form as he walked quickly through the crowded
streets. Acting out of pure instinct she
took after him, desperately and clumsily weaving between the people in the
streets, uttering short, polite apologies to everyone she disturbed. All the while the same three words ran
themselves over and over in her head…could
it be?
Finally she came to the end of the street, and
with it the end of the festival. Her
feet stopped touching asphalt and made contact with bare, unadulterated snow,
yet they still took her from the center of town to a clearing to the south,
close to the path that led to the chateau.
It was there that she slowed to a stop, and her eyes glazed over with
tears.
“I told you I would come back.”
A tear trickled down Peel’s cheek and her knees
grew weak. “Julian…”
Wordlessly she ran up to him and threw herself
into her arms, sobbing quietly into his chest as he wrapped his arms around
her. “Hi, Peel…” he said warmly.
Peel pulled away from Julian and looked into
his brown, smiling eyes. All of a sudden
a rush of questions came to her—there were so many she didn’t know what to
say. Her lips tried to form words, but
they wouldn’t come. She had been
imagining and hoping for a moment like this for months, but for some reason the
only thing she managed to say was:
“Why did you leave me?”
The smile on Julian’s face vanished as he
looked to the side. “I did what I had to do,” he said. “Everything had to be
this way…”
Peel’s brow furrowed and she took a step back,
away from Julian. Shock, confusion, and
anguish washed over her features, and her hands dropped to her sides. Julian had put his hands in his pockets, as
if there was nothing extraordinary about this meeting.
Peel shook her head in disbelief and closed her
eyes, as if testing to see if she was really only hallucinating. She wasn’t.
“Why were you gone? Where did you go?” Peel
took another step towards Julian and placed her hands on his shoulders.
Julian’s smile came back and he looked at Peel
again. Slowly he took his arm out of his
pocket and extended his finger skyward.
Peel followed Julian’s finger and found herself
looking up at the clear, starry sky. A
shooting star flew through the sky, a prelude of the meteor shower that was to
come.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” asked Julian,
who also looked up. “You never really appreciate the view we have of the stars
until it’s too late.”
Peel drew herself closer to Julian, feeling the
warmth of his body against hers.
Although Julian was still admiring the firmament, Peel now had her head
on Julian’s chest. She didn’t want to
admit it, but deep down she knew what was going to happen next.
“You’re going to leave again, aren’t you?” she
asked sadly.
Julian lowered his head and managed a weak
smile as he placed his hand on Peel’s cheek. “Please don’t be angry…I just have
to finish what I started…”
A few stray snowflakes began to fall from
places unknown. The two stayed there, in
each other’s arms, hidden by the darkness of night.
“Does that…mean you’re coming back?”
Julian’s smile widened. “I don’t know when, or
how, but…”
His sentence was cut off as Peel quickly
brushed her lips against his. After the
kiss, Peel gingerly pulled her head back and closed her eyes in an attempt to
stifle the tears.
“I don’t want to lose you…” Peel caressed
Julian’s face with the back of her hand. “Not again…”
Julian shook his head. “You won’t.”
Peel lowered her head. “Julian, I…” she began
to whisper, but Julian quickly silenced her by putting his finger on her lips. The girl’s brows creased in confusion, but
Julian simply smiled and shook his head.
“You can tell me later,” he said reassuringly.
That was too much for Peel to handle. She thrust herself into his arms and buried
her head in his shoulder, eyes closed and filled with tears. Everything else melted away until the only
thing Peel could feel was the warmth of Julian’s body, and the only thing she
could hear was the steady beating of his heart.
Time nearly stopped.
…
“Peel! What are you doing out here?”
The girl genius’ eyes shot open and her head
whipped around frantically as she tried to discern the origin of the voice that
was calling out to her. Julian was no
longer in her arms.
Eventually she made out Joshua and Vee’s silhouettes as they ran up to Peel. “You weren’t
there when I finished playing with Chris,” said Joshua. “They gave me this
stuffed animal for some reason, but I don’t know what it is…” he showed Peel
the small Teddy Bear that had been given to him as a prize. Kir, in the
meantime, happily chomped on a small lollipop that Joshua had procured for him
previously.
“Just what were you doing out here, anyway?”
asked Vee as she looked around. “There’s nothing
here…were you looking for something?”
Peel turned to the spot where Julian was and
looked at the ground. He didn’t even
leave any footprints.
“I…” Immediately she tried to explain what had
happened, but after a moment of thought she decided to leave it be.
“I…was just thinking…” she forced a smile and
looked at her two companions, who were unaware of what had transpired. “It’s
nothing, really.”
“Good.” Vee led her
brother and her friend back towards the town square. “Ana just told me that
it’s almost
The three travelers made their way back to the
town square and took up a spot on the outside of the crowd, facing north. The spot was placed on a small slope, and
provided an excellent view of the sky.
As Ana began her speech, Joshua, Kir, and Vee turned their gazes skyward in anticipation. Peel, on the other hand, lowered her head and
closed her eyes, dejected. Even when the
white shooting stars illuminated the night sky, she couldn’t bring herself to
look…to remind herself of how he was gone again.
“Wow! Look at that! Peel, look!”
At the sound of Joshua’s voice Peel looked to
the sky, expecting to see nothing interesting.
But when her eyes focused on the shooting stars she changed her
mind. The white streaks were slowly
fading into other colors, like an aurora.
Soon red, yellow, blue, and purple shooting stars were visible in the
sky, and the crowd oohed and aahed
accordingly.
Peel was mesmerized by the spectacle, for she
knew what it meant. Slowly, her sad lips
curled into a hopeful smile.
“Julian…I’ll be waiting for you…”
And then, as they watched, he was there. For a fleeting moment the four EarthBound ones were reunited once
more. Even if they weren’t really
together, they knew they would be reunited one more, and that alone was all they
needed.
No one else would remember Julian or his
adventures after that. He never left a
mark in the minds of the people, but it was he who saved the future for all of
them. As the travelers looked up at the
sky, though, they realized that that wasn’t important.
They were together, and nothing else mattered
as they looked silently up at the night sky.
MOTHER ALTERNATE
~FIN