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 Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:46 pm
two. past: beginning
three. past: birth
four. past: asmadai
five. past: maria
six. past: blindfold
seven. past: desertion
eight. past: alone
nine. past: return
ten. past: etienne
eleven. past: plum
twelve. past: soul
thirteen. past: rosary
fourteen. past: dream
fifteen. past: fear
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:25 pm
There was once a rose sitting on the grave of an artist.
That was me.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:26 pm
I imagine I would have been happy to stay a rose and a spirit, which is what I gather I was, maybe. Since I don't actually have any memory of ever being the rose, or the spirit really, I don't feel I'm qualified to say anything.
What I do remember is this: There was a dying light, and my eyes hurt, and I could barely see. I was small and pale, but my hair was dark and there was a woman with brilliant green eyes a few feet away, framed by tall structures of gray which must have been a pair of angel sculptures, since I remember arms, or something like arms, and sad faces. It was raining and I was cold, I'm always cold but I remember that this was a strange kind of coldness. Asmadai says it was a spiritual coldness, but Maria says it's just because I was wet and cold at the same time.
Because I was afraid, and cold, and hurting, I started to cry.
I know now, as a teenager or something like it, that I would have been shortly found by Asmadai or his sister, come to investigate the sound. But then, I felt welcomed by this green-eyed woman who carried me away from the grave into a copse of trees. I felt safe, and I stopped crying. The rain stopped falling, and I was no longer afraid.
Of course, then she left me in the woods, under the shade of a tree, and vanished. I was terrified, and alone, and no one could hear me when I screamed. This, these moments when I was just born and all alone and in pain, is what I remember the clearest, the moments when I did not know who I was or who the woman had been, but I could hear someone calling, a man with a kind voice. Hello, hello, he called, and I listened, but I did not approach. I was falling asleep, but if I had known who was calling, and that I would be safe, I might have gone to him.
Soon enough, I stopped crying and he stopped calling. I folded my hands with their long black nails on my stomach, and looked up into the trees - I remember seeing a faint, grayish light like the end of the world shining through the trees, cutting green backlights, I could see all the way to the black clouds in places. I felt tired, too weak to move, and I laid my head on a root and curled onto my side.
Knowing what I know now, I wish I had bitten that green-eyed woman when I had the chance.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:16 pm
Once, there was a blond-haired priest with blue eyes and a kind smile. That was Asmadai, and he is the closest thing I have to a guardian or a father.
When I woke up from my nap on the root, the rain had stopped and my clothes, such as they were, were dry. In the evening twilight, my vision was as good as it could be, and my eyes seemed to hurt even more when I opened them, and so for much of my childhood I kept them closed. I did not know this then, but even as I was born the thorns in my eyes were growing to impede my sight. They grew at the same rate as I: painfully quickly. I remember that, young and still tired though I had surely slept for some time, I decided to go back to the place of the tall gray structures - the graveyard where I was born. I remembered the kind voice, and how the voice called - to me, I imagined, he knew I was there.
For many days, I don't even know how many days, I wandered, trying to find my way back to the place where I was born, and I remember the colors most vividly - emerald greens, ruby reds, citrine yellows. Robin's egg blue in a nest, pale rose flower petals so soft and smooth, warm brown in tree bark that scratched my hands when I touched it.
But besides the colors, there was pain - hunger, and the pain in my eyes that was blindness forthcoming. There was water in the streams, in the rain showers, in the powder snow that began to fall, but food was hard to come by, perhaps because of the season and perhaps because I simply did not think to eat the things which may have been edible. As winter came on, I did almost cease to feel the hunger pangs in favor of the chill in my feet.
By the time I'd finally made it back to the glade where the green-eyed woman had abandoned me, my sight was almost gone and the pain was near overwhelming. I sat down in the same hollow of roots, and I fell asleep. Indeed, I'm surprised - that I didn't die, that Asmadai was there, that I lost none of my limbs to frostbite, there are so many things that could have gone wrong.
I woke up to warmth and opened my eyes to see a blond-haired man in what I took to be a black dress, sitting at a desk with one cheek resting on his knuckles, and the other hand holding up the side of a book with a black leather cover. His eyes were a stunning shade of blue, bright and striking; he had a straight nose and a firm chin, which are not things I learned before I was blind but after. I remember the colors so vividly, perhaps because now I see nothing but... nothing, that the actual features slipped my mind.
I remember he had beautiful hands.
He turned to me and he smiled, a close-mouth smile that made his eyes light up, and he put down the book and came over to sit next to me, and he picked me up and said, "Are you all right?"
And I don't remember what happened next, I think I started to cry because I was so hungry and I hurt, and I remember the soothing tone of his voice. His hands were soft as he brushed away my tears and I remember him feeding me like I was a much younger child than I was, and I fell asleep there, warm and safe as I should have been except for the interference of that green-eyed woman the day I was born.
With Asmadai, at his church, I always had a room to sleep and food to eat; he gave me his sister's hand-me-downs as I had long outgrown the black dress I had been born with. When my eyes were finally destroyed, it was he who took me to the hospital and sat with me through the night. When I cried, he was there to sit with me and not say a word - which was what I really needed.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:35 pm
Once, there was a redheaded woman who loved me.
That was Maria.
If Asmadai was my father, Maria was my sister, though the more appropriate term would have been Aunt. It was her question that prompted Asmadai to give me a name; she had come back from a run of a popular musical to visit her brother, and I remember her vivacious smile and her bright greeting - "Older brother! Do you like my dress?" That night, we all sat down to dinner and Maria made much of me, eyes crinkled with joy as she said, "And who is this little sweetie?"
Upon hearing that he didn't know my name, and I didn't know my name or even if I had parents, she had demanded that he give me a name, and that he do it now, before we ate, and I was terribly hungry but she told me I seemed to be nine and to have no name at nine years of age! Why, it was disgraceful! And she smiled to lessen the hurt of the statement, and winked and said, "Of course it's only disgraceful for this idiot brother of mine," and she picked me up and we went to Asmadai's office where he looked through a book of saints and shortly thereafter dubbed me 'Lukia', an Italian version of Lucia, who was the patron saint of blindness. Even then it was clear as to the destiny of my eyes. Even then, the colors were fading.
This did not seem to depress Maria at all; she took to me as well as I took to her, happily and with great aplomb. She called me her sister, and brought me shopping with her, and taught me my first prayers. The dresses she had worn as a girl she gave to me, and said that she would always look out for me, even though she traveled a lot: All I had to do was call her. She organized the dresses in outfits, on separate hangers, so that when I went blind I would be able to find the right ones. Together we went to a doctor to see if something could be done, and when he said nothing could be done, I cried and she sat with me and Asmadai until I fell asleep.
She had been with us for two weeks, and I had been with the priest for three, when she had to leave again. Her work was her passion, and she loved the adulation of the audience after a musical, the costumes and the makeup and the song. Neither Asmadai or myself had the wish to ask her to stay; we loved her, and we wanted her there, but we would not stop her. So even though I cried, she left, saying she would be back in a month or two.
Asmadai told me that she would return. I did not believe him.
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Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:54 am
Once, there was an ungrateful little blind girl.
That was me.
After Maria left, I stayed for perhaps a few days. The man I was beginning to hope could be my father in more ways than just his title seemed distant, almost depressed; now I know that it was because he worried for his sister, who was twenty-four and had never seemed to grow up beyond a very mature fourteen, who sang in operas and wore pretty dresses and loved me. Then, as a child of perhaps three months of age and the understanding of a nine-year-old, I took it as displeasure - he thought I had chased Maria away.
That was fair; I thought I had, too.
I went blind two days after Maria left us. The pain was searing, and I suppose I must have fainted because I don't remember going to the hospital at all; I remember nothing except the pain and the sudden descent into darkness. When I woke up, everything was... gone. There was nothing, but I felt a hand in mine, a smooth-fingered hand that squeezed my fingers gently. Asmadai leaned forward and kissed my forehead, brushed my dark curls away from my face, and told me that he would take care of me for as long as I needed him.
For three days I stayed in the hospital while my eyes healed. During the night, Asmadai would doze in the chair next to my bed; during the day, I was left alone to stare endlessly at nothing, to listen to the repulsed mutterings of the nurses who rebandaged my ruined eyes every few hours, and to long fruitlessly for even one more glimpse of Maria's ruby hair or Asmadai's blue eyes, or even the wine-colored roses blooming on the grave of the artist.
When I was sent home, I was helpless. More than once, I would fall down, tripped by a rug or a suddenly appearing single step; every time, Asmadai would help me, and I never once heard any frustration from him, though I know it must have been driving him mad. I couldn't bear it. Maria was gone. I was blind. I was hurting the man who had taken me in from the goodness of his heart, expecting nothing, whom I thought of as the father I did not have. So I did what I do best.
I left.
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Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 1:06 am
From where I sit now, I hate that woman with all my heart. If she had never taken me from the graveyard, if she had not simply left me to be discovered by Asmadai and his sister, perhaps I would never have thought to leave. I would have never left the place that had been my home for six short weeks, and I would not have begun a trend of running when things were too harsh for me - of doing things that truly did hurt the man who is as close to a father as I can bear to have.
The choice was harder than that to make, of course. I was blind; I could not navigate a house I had spent months memorizing. How was I to navigate the streets? Food, too, would be a challenge, but I was confident that something would provide for me. I felt, on those long-ago nights when I agonized over this decision, that my life might be like a fairy tale, a knight's quest to find the best future, to find my sight or a witch whom I could trick into giving me something like it.
But the facts remained: I was blind. And yet...
I knew I could survive outside; the time after the green-eyed woman's abandonment of me had proven that. I had been a baby then, and so much less experienced. All I had to do this time was make sure I went out the front door, into the city, to search for a witch. Failing a witch, but perhaps superseding it even in my subconscious thoughts, I could find Maria.
I missed Maria so much, I neglected Asmadai, perhaps adding to his own worry: in addition to a young sister who refused to grow up, he had a pseudo-daughter, a ward he had taken upon himself, for whom he bore no legal responsibility at all, who had suddenly become withdrawn. Perhaps he attributed it to my sudden disability; perhaps he didn't worry about it at all. I knew he still cared, though, because every time I fell he would help me.
Even though I didn't want to hurt him, I left. I felt like a deserter in some long-ago army, but still, like a thief, I woke up in the night and left the little house next to the church.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 9:30 pm
I started out walking west, and that was the way I went, unerringly in a straight line, only deviating to pass around buildings. No one questioned me; this, I mistakenly took to mean no one was looking for me. For that I felt myself justified in leaving, with a child's immature conviction that their parents will prove their love by looking for you, or they never loved you at all.
Perhaps I was simply too much of a romantic, thinking of stories that could not be: I'd chance upon a magician, who would give me back my sight and cure me of whatever it was that made the nurses shudder in disgust. Or perhaps it would be a fairy godmother, who would do all that and give me my heart's greatest desire, which was anything from really being Asmadai's daughter (so he could never leave me), to finding my one true love. Dreams of a white wedding only intensified this conviction.
I can't say how long I wandered; I felt spring come and go, bathed in rain and stream that did not chill me, my aloneness did not disturb me, those who sought to help me, I did not allow into my heart; I took what I needed and I left them as I'd left the priest. I convinced my heart that it was stone, and even though I was little more than a child I was enough for this. That I, and I alone, was all I needed, yet...
Yet I would have cried, if I had been able to. Tears of blood, mayhaps, but I'm uncertain; I have not, since the day I lost my eyes, cried. The doctors of the hospital told me that my tear ducts were destroyed by the same thorns which took my eyes. It's comforting to think that my lack of tears was not from an inability to cry, but an innate strength from which I found the will to continue on.
When it was summer, when I was wandering the cobblestone streets of Durem, I abruptly stopped.
I collapsed, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, a puppet with no master. My stone heart felt as if it were about to give out, and the tears of months upon months would finally fall and drown me. I remember, distinctly, the act of reaching for my blindfold, of preparing to remove it, when I heard a blessed voice:
"Lukia," cried Maria, and I felt her soft hands on my shoulders, the tickle of her hair on my face, the brush of her cheek against my knuckles. "Oh my God, Lukia!" She cried, and I - I sobbed dryly.
But it was too late; I'd set a pattern. From that first time where I spent so long away from the little house next to the chapel, I'd established that when I was afraid, I would not stay. And soon enough, they would learn to expect it of me.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 10:10 pm
Maria and I went back to her apartment and she fussed over me. How skinny I was! How sick I looked! And my poor eyes, did they much hurt?
No, I told her, and it was not a lie: No, they didn't hurt.
I listened as Maria called Asmadai, heard her start to cry again as she explain how she had found me, on my knees in the middle of the street and no one to help me. With my long legs curled up against my chest and the ratty skirts of one of her old dresses, I felt like an impostor; another Maria simply sitting on a couch while the real one decided what was to be done with the fake. It made me sad, and I clutched at my shoulders as I awaited the verdict. I did not know, then, whether I wanted to go back or not. Perhaps, sitting on the warm couch of Maria's flat, I did not feel worthy of returning to the church, my home; or perhaps I had grown to like the freedom, the endless time with which to examine my own mind?
Imagine my surprise when she practically shoved me into the bathtub, under a shower of hot water! I didn't think to protest when she washed my hair, ridding the curls and tangles of several eons of dirt and grime; when I ran my fingertips along the bottom of the tub, I could feel the dirt pooling around my feet. She left me alone to finish the first proper bath I had had in who knows how long, but I remember her soft song outside the door the whole time; her voice was vivid, but I couldn't quite hear the words, and when I got out of the tub she stopped singing and came back inside to help me dry off.
"You can stay with me for a few days," she said, tucking me into a clean outfit - probably one of her long shirts, it brushed the tops of my knees and felt entirely too airy. "Then I am gonna go back to visit Asmadai." Her tone turned brightly conspiratorial as she picked me up ("Gosh, Lukia, you weigh like nothing, do you want something to eat? Please! I'll make you a sandwich, anything, just eat something!") and set me on a soft surface - investigation revealed the couch, made up with sheets and a fluffy blanket.
Suddenly I was simply too tired to eat, and I must have made some kind of excuse because she let me fall asleep, and I remember feeling the brush of her hair on my throat, and a kiss upon my cheek as I fell into sleep.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 12:35 am
Once, there was a dark-haired man who played violin like a virtuoso.
That was Etienne.
True to her word, two days later Maria and I were on a train to Aekea; she sat me in the window seat and held my hand, perhaps worried that I would try to run again; but once I felt the floor beneath my feet rumble, I was too frightened to even contemplate running. I tucked both feet under me, off the carpeted and shaking floor, and something in my expression must have given me away because Maria squeezed my hand lightly. "It's just the train starting," she whispered, "It'll smooth out soon."
"I know," I remember snapping, and she laughed a little.
I must have fallen asleep on the way there, for I don't remember anything of the ride until I felt the train shudder to a stop. We waited, of course, for the other passengers to disembark, and then we two walked down the aisles to retrieve Maria's baggage, and then - and this I found odd - I heard a man who was not Asmadai calling out Maria's name. Probably I balked as we walked down the stairs towards the unfamiliar voice, but her grip was firm until I felt a stranger's hand on my shoulder. I cried out, from fear or anxiety - I had only just found Maria again! I had only just found my way home! but then Maria smiled and laughed and she said, "Don't worry, silly. This is my fiance, Etienne. Etienne? This is Lukia, my niece-sister."
"Niece-sister," he'd said, sounding amused; "Pick a relation, Maria." And there was silence for a moment, and then Maria took my hand again; Etienne took the luggage, I seem to recall, and we all walked the short distance to the little house next to the chapel together.
One thing of my entire short life I will always remember, that is cemented into my brain, is the tone of Asmadai's voice when he answered the door. "Maria, who -- Lukia," and suddenly the three of us were swept into a hug, the sort that crushes your bones into Jello, but in a good way. "Where did you find her? Dear Lord," he said fervently, "I am so glad you're all right." Maria explained everything once more, her joy in every note of her bright voice.
(I imagine Etienne must have been smiling indulgently, because that fit the drawling smirk of his voice, while waiting for the priest to greet him as well. )The appropriate introductions were exchanged and then Asmadai said, "I hope you two aren't intending to share a bed until after the ceremony, by the way, which is when?"
Maria laughed. "No, I know certain people would attempt to duel him if we did-" I heard an embarrassed cough, which I think now was Etienne but at the time I believed it was Asmadai "-but you don't mind if he stays with us for a little bit? I want him to get to know you and Lukia before the big day!"
I suppose the discussion of the wedding and the circumstances leading up to it was quite long. Mercifully, it happened after I had been put to bed, once more wearing clothes that fit me and feeling all together loved and safe.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 1:23 am
When I woke up, it was morning; the sun must have been streaming through the windows, because I could feel the heat on the back of my hands and on my face. I sat up and groped for the night stand, for the support it would provide me as I found my way back to the closet. The lace on the ends of one of Maria's old, old nightgowns tickled my heels as I walked unsteadily, picking up my feet higher than I had to to avoid tripping on something. Finding the closet, I opened the door and reached inside; neat tags met my fingers.
It was like I'd never been gone. Like Asmadai had been waiting for me to come back. I groped for a singlet dress, found one by the different texture of the tag, and pulled it on; I walked out of the room, just as cautious as before, and bumped into someone. "Oh," said Asmadai, "Lukia," and he hugged me again, like he was worried I was going to disappear. I waited it out, and I remember how when he let go, he left one hand on my shoulder to keep me from running into one of the obstacles.
"My blindfold wasn't on the table," I remember saying, and I heard the incredulity in his voice as he asked:
"Do you really want one?"
At the time, I didn't want to frighten Maria's husband-to-be; so I told him so, and he helped me put it on with a disapproving sigh. Perhaps he thought that if Etienne couldn't deal with my deformity, with my lack of eyes, then he definitely wasn't worthy of Asmadai's sister. But - I'd heard Maria talk around him. I knew her happy bantering from even my short time with her before I tried to run away; I knew she was happy with him. So I would do my best to be presentable.
I took my place at the table, sliding cautiously onto the bench with one hand on the table so I could find the place set for me; Maria, it seemed, was already there. I heard her cheerful greeting and smiled in her direction. "Where is Etienne," I asked, anxious; she laughed, and patted my hand.
"He's sleeping still, that lazy bones. He has a concert tonight."
I didn't know it then, but Etienne was a skilled violinist, and he played with a fairly popular string quartet before switching full-time to orchestra; that was how they had met, through the string quartet, because Maria loved to listen to classical music, which was mostly what he had played. Now, he pretends to play violindustrial, which is as I understand it, violin in the metal genre. "If you're worried about him not liking you, don't be," she continued. "He loves you, just like we do."
Asmadai coughed something discreetly. Maria laughed, and said, "My brother observes that if he didn't, there would be problems." She paused. "There would be. You're like the younger sister we should have had." Something else I didn't know: There are three other Riffael siblings, which is why she said 'should have' instead of 'never'. The table was silent for a minute while I tried to find a fork; finding none, I set my hands into my lap.
She set a fruit on my plate; a plum, my investigations revealed, unless it was a nectarine. "Watch out for the pit," advised Maria cheerfully.
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Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:11 am
The day of Maria's wedding dawned dark and gray, I'm told, but for all of the laughter and talking I heard around the reception you would never know it.
A month before, my - sister? - friend had taken me aside and adopted a serious tone. With both hands on my shoulders, she said, "Lukia, sweetie, do you want to do me a big favor?"
I remember the feeling of that smile. Maria needed me? Me, the blind girl? I practically screamed my desire to do her a favor, any favor, and she laughed and patted my head and told me that I needn't shout, she was right here, and she hugged me to prove it. And while my chin was against her shoulder she asked me if I would be her flower girl. Of course I said yes, and the next day we went out shopping for a dress - it was soft, I remember, and warm beneath my fingers even before I slid into it.
"It's blue," she said, explaining so I could imagine myself in it, "but a very close to white blue." I felt the neckline, the sides, trying to picture it more perfectly; it felt like a column dress, floor length and soft. She had figured out a hairstyle that made use of my curls, said it made me look older and more refined, but not too old; there were shoes like slippers, with a ribbon tie, and I had a corsage of white roses to match the petals I would be scattering. The entire outfit, said Asmadai, made me look very pretty. Maria would be lucky, he said, if I didn't steal the whole show.
I will not lie; I believe I blushed at that.
Then I was wearing it for the real day, waiting inside the reception hall at the table where I would later sit for the dinner. Maria had gone off somewhere to finish preparations, I held her bouquet for her and stroked the petals of a lily; I was sitting between Asmadai and one of his friends, a man with a sort of refined accent I couldn't identify, but perhaps it could be defined as some sort of British. He wore gloves, which didn't allow me my normal method of determining a personage, which would be shaking their hand; it was quite disturbing, but I trusted my pseudo-father's judgement. And he, who was to be one of the ushers, certainly seemed to be a nice man if taciturn, he had said hello to me and that was about all anyone said, at least in our trio. Everyone else, Maria's friends, Etienne's friends, Etienne's family - who said I was a beautiful child, was I Asmadai's, of course not but of course I should be, we even had the same sort of smile - and of course the serving staff, who for some reason stayed very far away from me.
The ceremony I could not describe; I feel that it perhaps would have benefited from the words of someone who could see it, but I believe that it probably was the most lovely wedding in the world. For my part, I did just as we had practiced the night before, scattering the petals to my left and then to my right; I imagined them like raindrops, and only stopped when I felt Asmadai's hand against my shoulder. And I listened to the rite intently, smiled when I heard everyone laugh, because apparently Etienne had forgotten that they were in public and in front of his bride's brother and the kiss when on a bit longer than it should have.
At the reception, I danced for the first few songs; it truly was just me standing on the feet of my partners, which were Asmadai and then Etienne and then a few other members of the wedding party, I could not tell you who because beyond those two, no one spoke to me. I listened to the speech of the best man - a friend of Etienne's by the name of Pierre - until Asmadai covered my ears and hissed something to Maria, who did nothing but laugh her windchime laugh before 'having a quiet word', and then Asmadai dropped his hands.
"That was memorable," he said, darkly.
After the speeches and the cake, which tasted like strawberries and vanilla, I became bored; there wasn't much for me to do, being a child and all at an adult party, and Asmadai had fallen silent some time ago, or perhaps he had left. This second was in fact the true reason, I did hear him when he returned with steps altogether unlike his normal, sure stride. Someone, I think Asmadai's friend (whose name, I remember now, was Archer), handed me a phone and I listened to it ring, thoroughly distracted though I heard discontented muttering in the background; the voice on the other end was that of a friend I had, perhaps the only one of my age, and we spoke for a short time as I kicked my heels, waiting to be allowed to go home. I described what I could; he suggested I go dance, and so I did with great reluctance.
I did feel bad for Christopher; he was sickly, and had not been allowed to go to the wedding or outside, ever, actually, and so I started to pay more attention to my surroundings to better describe the goings-on to him.
I do not know if I consider the occasion memorable for any reason other than it was the first party I ever attended, and the fact that, after it, Asmadai was acting very odd. In fact, the next day, he didn't come out of his room at all.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:32 pm
A week after the wedding, Asmadai came into my room and sat on the chair next to the window. I know because the chair creaked; it made the same noise when anyone weightier than I sat there. I was sitting in the bed, running my fingers over rows of raised dots. That night, I planned to call Christopher and tell him about this poem, and so I was trying to memorize it - the universe instills a different tremor in every hand - but I paused to pay attention to him.
"You missed Christmas," he said. He sounded uncomfortable, so I nodded; yes, I had, I had been wandering during that time. Clearing his throat, he said, "And today is your birthday... or something like it, anyway."
This threw me off. I hadn't known I had a birthday - having been absent for Maria and Asmadai's birthdays both, I had even thought that the Riffael family did not celebrate them. But here was Asmadai, informing me that I did have a birthday, it was today. "What is the date," I remember asking; I felt rather awkward, admitting I had no idea what day it was, but he seemed to understand the whys and hows of it and told me:
"It is October the fourteenth," and he told me what I already knew: he'd heard a child crying, and found the remains of a rose on the grave of an artist. Together we went outside and I ran my fingers over my birthplace, feeling the name of the artist upon whose grave the green-haired b***h had brought me into being; his name was Ian Peverell, and I was surprised, remembering a clip from Harry Potter aloud. "It's just a coincidence," said Asmadai, and he sat down next to me and placed my hands carefully on a thin box, like a jewelry box. I opened it carefully to find smooth beads and a crucifix; I smiled towards him.
A question occurred to me as I ran my fingers over the knots and beads of the rosary; I asked Asmadai what color the rosary was. It was black, pearlescent; Maria had helped him choose it to match the clothes I wore, so I could wear it as a bracelet if the Catholic faith was not for me. I smiled again. "When Maria gets back," he said uncertainly, "you'll have to tell her how you like her gift." And he passed me another box; I felt the velvet cloth. "It's a jacket, for when you grow. You will need it, if Archer - er, Mr. Wells - decides to let you visit Christopher then."
The best present, I thought, was possibly getting to meet my best friend, but when Maria came to visit a week later I told her that her gift was the best, and asked her if my rosary matched.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:32 pm
I was beginning to tire of the two pairs of watchful eyes - and frustrated over the third set, all of which I could feel targeted between my shoulder blades like rifle sights, snipers set not on the ending of my physical life but on securing my emotional state, of hiding my ribs beneath a layer of flesh. So, as I had often done as a child when the nearness of so many people began to rankle, I retired to my room and sat quietly on the end of my bed.
Then I could no longer bear to sit there quietly and I launched myself up, walking until my questing hands found a window; I leaned against it, forehead to cool glass, and let myself slide down when that did not comfort me either.
Disturbed, I clenched my hands and let them sink to my lap, tried to half-rise against the weight of my upper body; the tension cleared my mind, distracted me from the strange feeling that I was seeing, truly seeing, again. Not the room I was in; I didn't recognize this place except in a vestigial way, and the woman in the mirror wasn't me, and yet I knew she was me. Perhaps an older me?
Her hair was light, unlike mine; her skin was pale, and her hair was short brilliant curls in a golden color. A lace veil, fastened to a small cornet inset with diamonds or some sort of clear stone, rose up above her heart-shaped, beautiful face and gave her the dignity of a queen. She - I? - smiled, and laughed, confident in my own beauty, and looked over my shoulder with a bright expression at me mother.
"Do you think he'll like it," the me in the mirror asked as she ran her hands over the bust of her dress, lace gloves turning the action into a waterfall of white silk.
The older woman smiled, a beautiful and vivid smile that made her look ages younger, more like my twin. She pressed a papery kiss to my cheek, and ran a familiar hand over my flaxen curls. "If he doesn't he isn't worthy of you," she advised brightly. "And we both know that it's his choice if he is worthy or not." The advice was familiar, spoken in a warm way, not like she thought the man I was speaking of was unworthy at all. I ran my fingertips along the dark red roses, still alive for now, that ornamented my lace choker; bound by silver chains that ended in teardrops of ruby, it was what I had been kindly loaned by my maiden aunt for this special day.
Something old, something new, something new, something borrowed...
I smiled to myself as I was ushered towards the waiting limousine. A chorus of smiles greeted me - a redhead who wasn't Maria, but who felt familiar none the less. A blond girl with Asmadai's ready smile. So many more than I had expected, each in a matching dress. "It feels more like a prom," I joked, smiling as my best friend, whose face I couldn't quite see, wrapped her arms around me in a hug. For a moment, my life was bliss- there was nothing and no where I would rather be. Even returning to the place where I'd lived most of my short life seemed to dull in comparison to these brilliant, perfectly preserved moments. It was like holding a memory in my hands, encased in the clearest diamond, frozen forever so I could look at it from all angles.
The world slipped on its axis, and suddenly I felt blinding pain and a rush of warm blood; I could barely move. I had fallen forward, it seemed, and I waited for the inevitable laughter and sympathetic words of the wedding party. As I struggled to get up, I wondered why it was so hard; why I felt so heavy, when before I had been light as a feather. After a moment of laying there on the floor, I identified a strange, iron smell; the floor was soaked in slowly, painfully spreading blood. That, if nothing else, allowed me the shocked adrenaline to sit up.
Looking down, my heart stopped as I absorbed the sight: bridesmaids and flower girls, some no older than I, all sprawled along the wreckage. The weight on my back had been the torso of my best friend. Her eyes were closed. She was breathing. My hair was soaked in blood; it dripped down to the sculpted resin roses, trailed down between my breasts. I imagined I could feel it pooling in my navel.
The others were stirring, the first was the blond flower girl with Asmadai's smile, and I reached out one bloody hand to brush my fingertips along her cheek. Already I felt as if I were fading away, as if this moment of sublime, horrific clarity was nothing but a prank. The sort of prank that green-eyed b***h might play, I thought, not knowing why... The little flower-girl opened her green eyes, eyed me drowsily; asked me what had happened.
It will be okay, I know I whispered - aloud, in real life, as well as in the nightmarish vision.
Something blue.
Their blue dresses were stained with blood. My wedding party was uniform in their garish accessories, dark red seeping into expensive satin. I tried to hold the girl's chin, tried to keep her from looking around and seeing the horror, but my fingers faltered. I was too weak. The little girl looked around and she screamed, kicked me away; the force of her desperation slammed me against the seats on the other side of the small aisle.
I jolted back out of the vision - dream - nightmare. Darkness fell over my vision, a guillotine that plunged me back into the young, healthy, alive body that I had so recently left... and that is when I discovered my greatest horror.
I could not move.
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Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:35 pm
I don't know how long I stayed like that, paralyzed in fear and pain.
But it was a very, very long time.
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