Pangaea

It turns out, Amberly was wrong. Because when we went to see Tulia where she apparently ‘lived’ the next day, she wasn’t there.

But that might deal with the fact that Galilei gave us coordinates that took us to the middle of a freaking rainforest. We were in Brazil, to be more exact, but to get more specific than that... I couldn’t because I couldn’t even see anything that looked like civilization anywhere to even begin to define where exactly we were.

“Amberly, what the hell?” I asked her, brushing past some foliage. “I thought we were going to where Tulia lived?”

“This is where she lives,” Amberly stated, looking at her phone. “These are the coordinates Galilei sent to me, anyway.”

“How are you even getting service here? We’re in the middle of a rainforest!” I exclaimed, hearing animal sounds all around me.

“Worldwide cell phone,” Amberly bragged. “One of Daddy’s many gifts!”

“Yeah, to get you off his back,” I mumbled, but she ignored me. “I still don’t get why Galilei gave you the coordinates and not me.”

“Well, she knows I’m with you and this was the quickest way to give them, so she sent them to me. Or well, I suppose she could’ve told the other guard to give them to you, but then that would’ve meant he would’ve had to have given himself up.”

“She could’ve just told me before I left yesterday...” I repeated, before realizing what else she’d said. “And wait... the other guard is a he?”

“I honestly don’t know. I was just speaking in the general sense,” Amberly said, brushing it off and looking around, before continuing to move. “Tsk tsk, don’t get so worked up. You’ll probably find out who they are eventually anyhow.”

I was about to point out to her that Galilei was a lot smarter than that, but then stopped myself. “Never mind.”

“Oh my God, why must so many bugs be here?! Ick!” she exclaimed, swatting around her face.

“We’re in a rainforest,” I pointed out, point blank, but to no avail. I rolled my eyes as she continued. “And I’m the one who needs to chill.”

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“That’s it, I’ll just call her,” Amberly finally reasoned, after an hour and a half of trying to make our way through the rainforest. We were still surrounded by plant and wildlife on all sides. I raised an eyebrow skeptically.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? She’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t like to be bothered unless it’s planned,” I pointed out, watching where I was walking. I’ve nearly tripped five times now over roots and whatever else there was sticking up out of the ground. If I wasn’t paying attention, I’d most likely fall over the next thing I stumbled over.

“Oh, psh, we have to find help in some way,” she said, waving it off. “We’re getting nowhere with just wandering around like this.” She dialed the number on her phone before putting it up to her ear.

I waited with her a few minutes before I noticed the call was finally transferred to Galilei. I heard Galilei sigh very loudly through the phone upon hearing Amberly, but she then answered Amberly’s question.

“Ah, yes. I forgot to mention a certain fact with this one...” I heard her say through the phone. “Tulia and her parents travel quite frequently. They’ve now moved on from where they were, so I’ll go ahead and send you the new coordinates. But don’t wait a day like you did before. It’s hard to say how long she’ll be staying at this new location.”

“Travel?” I questioned Amberly, and she made a blank face at me before going back to listening to what Galilei was saying.

“There you go,” Galilei finally said. “Just sent them to you. But Amberly, just be aware... the more often you call and disrupt me, the less good will be seen with the honor and title you will possibly receive if this all works out.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Amberly said, before ending the call. She then went back to searching on her cell phone.

“Okay, let’s go,” she said, grabbing my arm before taking us to the new location.

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We were now in a swampy location, one that made me now prefer to be back in the rainforest. At least there wasn’t water constantly falling on us, but there was the fact that it felt like we were trying to walk on water with all of this watered-down land. Which would’ve been a much easier task if the world was frozen, I might add, thinking back to the time Nick and I walked on water during the time when things were less complicated.

“Great, even better than the last place,” Amberly stated sarcastically, feeling the same way. “She better be here.”

“Look, there’s a boat over there,” I said. The swampy land led to a lake/river ordeal, as I was sort of expecting. And propped to the edge of the land about half a mile away from us was a boat. A big boat.

“Oh, no. I do not have the patience for this,” Amberly said, grabbing my arm before transferring us over the small land closer to the boat instead of walking the distance. I just looked at her. “What? This stuff is even harder to walk on compared to the land in the rainforest.”

Now that we were closer, I could see a woman on the boat from where we were standing. She noticed us, and paused.

“Hola,” she said hesitantly. “¿Quienes son ellas?”

“Um... hola,” I said hesitantly, trying to think back to the few Spanish classes I took in high school. “¿Conoce a Tulia?”

“Si,” she said, but still seemed hesitant. “¿Por que?”

“Shoot,” I said in English, while Amberly just looked at me. “What? Don’t just stand there! Don’t you know any Spanish? You know a heck of a lot of other stuff the average person doesn’t know, so why not another language?” I turned back to the women. “Soy Marley, y esta es Amberly. Son amigas de Tulia.”

She then rattled off in Spanish, asking why she’s never seen us before if we were her friends. I was about to give up, before suddenly, a girl and an older man walked over to the boat.

“Mama,” the girl said. “¿Quienes son las personas?”

“No se. ¿Me dicen que ellas son tus amigas?”

The girl now looked at us. The man was looking at us skeptically. But now a sudden note of realization crossed the girl's face, and she smiled.

“Marley,” she said. “The girl who stopped the world, right? I’m Tulia.”

“You speak English?” I questioned, and she laughed, before explaining to her parents who we were. They laughed as well.

“Of course,” she said. “My parents... they speak English rarely, if ever. I went to school and I was taught it, so I know it better than they do. Apologies for that. But you know at least a little bit of it seeing as you were able to somewhat communicate with my mom.”

“How come you’re...” Amberly started rudely, and I could only assume what she was going to ask. And it dealt with her parents being Latin American and her being African American.

“...'black and your parents are not?'” Tulia finished for her. She then caught the look on my face and waved it off. “It’s fine, a lot of people ask that. Or well, they at least try to put it more politely. But anyway, I’m adopted. Originally from Northern Africa, and if you want to keep going with stereotype, by all means.”

“Oh,” Amberly said, looking as awkward as she sounded.

“What are you doing here?” she asked us, pulling us away from the boat and starting to walk. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the girl who nearly started a revolution?”

“A revolution?” I questioned. She shrugged.

“That’s what we’ve called it,” she explained. “Me, McKenna, and Annie anyway. It’s funny how we all know each other, but not all of us have officially met you yet. Though, I guess considering the situation of how we all met... I guess it makes sense.”

“You mean when you had to go talk to Galilei?” I questioned, feeling bad. She gave me a small smile.

“Details,” she brushed it off. “How did everything turn out, by the way? With Nick, I mean? The world was put back into motion, obviously, but how’s everything with you two?”

When she brought it up, even though she didn’t mean to, she struck a nerve inside of me. It made me again realize why I was here to see her.

“Her and Nick aren’t together anymore,” Amberly explained for me. “That was the punishment for what she did. Galilei took things back to before the time Nick found out about the world in order to show retribution for what Marley did.”

“Oh my God,” Tulia said. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s actually why we’re here,” I finally spoke. She looked at me quizzically. “To see you, I mean.”

“Because of Nick?”

“Yeah. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”