Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

They folded into the foot traffic leading to docking bay seven, carrying their heavy packs. As much as he wanted to trust Salju, he knew better than to leave a parcel anywhere it could be snatched. He’d learned to spot pickpockets after the first time he’d been robbed while buying thread for Belen. The day’s crowd was quiet, and he sensed the dwindling clientele all over the Outpost by how much louder the vendors became, trying to lure passersby into spilling their credits.

Normally, Jules liked gawking—discreetly of course—at the new arrivals in the Outpost. He could usually tell them apart because they craned their necks at the spires and stalls as they walked, their attention bouncing from sound to sight. It filled him with a sense of pride when off-worlders found something about Batuu to love. He hoped Izzy would feel that way.

She kept an easy pace beside him, though he found himself slowing down to let her eyes roam the eroded sides of buildings laced with green vines, the couples sitting on stone steps sharing mugs of spiced tea.

He stopped in front of a tall tree. He’d taken a slightly longer route, but the look on her face was worth it.

“What is this?” Izzy asked, reaching for the closest branch. Around the slender wood were dozens of ribbons and scraps of cloth. They ornamented the tree, tied any place there was available bark. The loose ends moved in the wind like leaves.

“It’s the wishing tree,” he said. “You take a piece of string or cloth or whatever you want and tie it up here. When it breaks off by itself, your wish has been granted.”

As soon as he said it, he could imagine what he must sound like—a boy from a small outpost who’d never left home and believed in magic.

“Has it ever worked?” she asked him.

He’d come to the wishing tree once and tied a blue strip of Belen’s yarn around a branch. There was no way he could tell if it was still there, because there was yarn tied in every color. Besides, the tree had grown right along with him. But his wish had been simple. He couldn’t even meet her gaze as he said, “Yes, but it took a long time.”

The look on her face was skeptical, but that didn’t stop her from digging into her pockets for a string. She came up empty. She touched the cord around her neck but seemed to decide against it. There was a string coming loose from the side of his tunic, and he pulled it, snapped it off, and handed it to her.

She pushed up onto her toes, as high as she could reach, and added her wish to the tree.

“What did you wish for?” he asked.

She bit her bottom lip and shrugged. He could already see the lie forming on her lips before she said, “Food.”

“We’re close to Cookie’s,” Jules said. “He’s new to these parts. Downright mean, always angry. You might understand.”

“I’m not always angry!” she shouted indignantly.

But she was. It clung to her in small moments, like stubborn clouds drifting slowly across the suns. Anger was the hardest thing to let go of, other than love. He’d seen his mother go through it. After his father died, she’d succumbed to a deep sorrow. The same woman who’d taught him to dream became someone who cursed the sky. Jules had hoped he and Belen could love their mother enough to make up for the loss they all felt, but it never quite worked. He didn’t want the same for Izzy. She wasn’t his to fix. He didn’t wish that on Izzy. But maybe he could help if she let him.

He began walking away from the wishing tree and back into the road, giving the right of way to a skittish eopie loaded with luggage, a little girl riding atop while her mother led the creature.

“I have a deviated septum that says otherwise. But you’re certainly not the same giddy little girl who used to chase me around.”

“If anyone chased anyone, it was you chasing me,” she corrected him.

They entered the hangar at docking bay seven, where a ship converted to serve as a traveling restaurant was stationed. Jules waved at those he was acquainted with, like the Xexto mechanic who’d fixed Belen’s cleaner droid and off-duty human bartenders from Oga’s. He made straight for the grill counter. That early, there was no one to help Cookie serve the tables, and in the short time he’d known the Artiodac, Jules had learned that the easier he made Cookie’s life, the better service he’d get.

“You should have seen how packed this place was when he first arrived,” Jules told Izzy. “I might have snuck off work early just to get an order of fried Endorian tip-yip or seven.”

“Beats the nutrient packs I’ve been living off.” She took a seat beside him and swiveled until they were face to face. He noticed four black freckles clustered on her cheek.

Something about being so close to her all of a sudden made him feel like a vise was around his insides. He had to look away, turning to the lively tables in the hangar below them. Two humans and a masked Kel Dor were minutes from a food fight over a game of dice. Beside them a group of purple-skinned aliens with large eyes shoveled food into their wide mouths like it was a last meal. They were probably going to the market soon to open a stall. He tried to see if Volt was in the order queue, his bald head easy to spot. Jules wondered if he’d be too hungover to show up to his shift at the creature stall. Hell, maybe even Dok had snuck away to go to Cookie’s.

“What’s moof juice?” Izzy asked.

Jules smiled widely and shrugged. “Sometimes I don’t ask. I just order and hope for the best.”

“This coming from the boy who could survive on popped grain for days.” Izzy watched him in a way that made him fidget.

“Well, I’m not afraid of heights anymore, either,” he said. “Especially after our last scramble down that cliff.” He wanted to ask what happened after that night when her family had taken off, but there was something so guarded about her. He didn’t want to scare her away by saying the wrong thing.

“How’d you end up at Dok’s?” she asked. “Last I was here you were starting at one of the vegetable farms.”

“For a year. Then there was the fire.”

“Fire?”

He picked at the frayed menu and leaned on the countertop. “The year after you left there was a drought. The brush caught fire and spread through the forest and our homes. We got out. Da, being Da, ran back and made sure everyone was safe, but he inhaled too much smoke.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” she said softly.

“It’s all right, Izzy,” Jules assured her. He felt good remembering them whenever he could. “My parents never talked about where their people came from before settling on Batuu, but one of their rituals was remembering the dead to keep them alive. Ma went two years ago from a virus that swept the Outpost.”

Izzy listened, once again toying with the pendant she kept under her shirt, like a secret. “Then tell me.”

“After Da passed, I got a job with Dok. Belen and Ma never liked it. I got beat up a lot. You would have done great here if you’d stayed.”

She wrapped her hand around his bicep and playfully shoved. “I’m sorry I punched you. Will I ever live it down?”

That feeling around his insides tightened when she touched him, but he forced himself to focus. “Belen got me a job at Kat Saka’s farm, but I was restless. I almost enlisted in the New Republic Academy when practically all the kids my age left.”

“What stopped you?”

Nothing had stopped him. Or perhaps everything had. He’d wanted to leave for so long, but when the opportunity lay in front of him, he simply returned to his routine. Every time. At first it had been his mother getting sick. Then he couldn’t leave Belen. Then Kat Saka had implored him to stay on for another season because business was booming. Then? Haal’s words cycled through his mind once again. There was nothing anchoring him to that world anymore. Was there?