“Oh, no, I really did wake Henri. They will hate me!”
“They love you Tiegal. And Henri has been awake for hours. You were just so lost in your nightmare you didn’t hear it.”
Please don’t ask me, please don’t ask me.
Johannes sighed as he rolled over onto his back.
“I heard you mumbling something about fire again. Is that something from your old world?”
His concern was etched all over his face.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just memories of that ridiculous mantra they used to make us chant. Nothing for you to worry about!”
She watched him get dressed in silence. His thoughts were all over the place; worries, past hurts and fears deeply embedded within him.
She squeezed her eyes shut to turn it off. The more she absorbed these emotions the weaker she was becoming. Just as Parador kept warning in her dreams.
“Johannes! Stop worrying. Everything is okay,” she assured him.
He nodded at her. “Okay, well, get some more sleep now. You don’t need to get up just yet. You’ve been very tired recently.”
“I’m fine. It’s just the silly dreams.”
He kissed her once more and then flung open the door, shouting out to Frederick that he was ready to go as he bounded down the stairs.
If only it were just dreams!
The heat from her fingers was burning the skin on her back where she had hidden them. She pulled them out from underneath her to let them cool as she held them above her head.
Please stop burning! Please let me keep my fire and stay here with him!
She pleaded to whoever might hear her silent pleas.
“You have a beautiful voice. I’ve never heard anything like it before.”
Tiegal watched how Annarita reacted to her praise, a bashful shrug followed by a careful smile. The compliment must have confused her.
“Tiegal, I was just humming that’s all. But, thank you. You do say the nicest things.” Annarita muttered her words in an absent-minded fashion, busying herself with moving the baby from one hip to the other as she cleared the table of breakfast items.
It was proving hard to hide how much affection Tiegal felt towards this hard-working young mother now they had spent some time together, but even Johannes had advised her to take it slowly with her.
“Remember, she cannot know all about you. It would be too much. Try to keep a part of yourself, and your emotions, hidden. I think it’s lovely that you are so fond of her, but your eagerness may frighten her a little. You can release it all to me when we are on our own again tonight,” he had promised her that morning, before leaving the house to tend the neglected fields.
His advice was - as always - on point, but still, it jarred. It had been his idea to introduce her to Annarita, properly this time, and to move her into the farmhouse with him. It was supposed to be the beginning of her new human life, learning to be part of a family, in readiness for when they started one of their own.
“Do you want to hold Henri?” Annarita asked, unable to hide the pleading nature in her tone. The dark circles under her eyes had become more pronounced in the last few days and Tiegal could smell the exhaustion on the girl’s skin.
“Of course, I will Annarita! I would love to,” she cried out in response. In her eagerness to help, she jumped up too quickly from the table, failing to remember how loud the chairs sounded when they scraped on the floor. The noise startled baby Henri, prompting him to raise his head from where it rested on his mother’s shoulders and let out a frustrated sleep-disturbed wail.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I…”
“It’s okay Tiegal. He’s just really tired. Why don’t you sit back down, and I will hand him over to you? He’ll soon settle when he is in your arms. He likes you! Frederick noticed that straightaway! We all do.”
“I’m so glad. You have a wonderful husband. I’m so grateful to be here with you all.”
“And…Kagiso would have adored you too. I’m sure Johannes has told you that already, but…I just thought you should know that.”
Tiegal clenched her fists behind her. It still hurt to think that she had been so close to meeting Kagiso just before she left this world. Even now, her fingers would flicker little flames from their tips whenever she thought about it. Only Johannes knew she was still struggling to control it.
“Thank you. It means a lot. I wish so much that I could have met her properly.” Tiegal’s voice faltered as she darted her eyes around the kitchen, mentally ticking off all the objects she knew had once belonged to their beloved adopted mother.
It was the cream apron that reminded of Kagiso’s absence the most. It had been four weeks since Kagiso had passed, but the apron still hung from a nail in the wall. Her memories wafted their scents whenever anyone walked past it - milk, vanilla, and sugar. The greying kaross shawl she had worn around her shoulders, almost religiously even in the heat of summer, still graced the back of the old, worn, chair where Kagiso had apparently always rested on an evening. The wool still contained her floral smell within its threads: lily bush, chamomile and bay leaf.
“You are all so strong. The way you have come together after another loss,” Tiegal added, squirming inwardly as soon as the words had left her mouth. Despite the warmth Annarita and Frederick had extended towards her since she had joined their household, it was still impossible to gauge if her tendency to speak her emotions so openly was the appropriate manner to adopt.
Much to her relief, Annarita gave her a reassuring smile, whilst moving her ears away from the loud cries of the now distraught Henri and then lowering him down into the cradle of Tiegal’s waiting arms.
“Is this right? Tell me if it’s not!” Tiegal insisted, suddenly fearful of taking on the responsibility of holding such a fragile being.
“You are doing fine! Have you never been near babies before? You did mention you dreamed of being a mother yourself one day.” Annarita asked.
No! Tiegal wanted to cry out in response. She had never been near a baby before meeting Henri, Johannes’ nephew. In her old world, the baby kimberlings were kept separate from the main camps until they were five. She had no recollection of her own life before that age either. One day she just realised she was alive.
The temptation to share – to reveal her strange past – to this new sister of hers was almost painful to resist, but she stopped herself, remembering Johannes’ warning.
“I am sure I did. I just can’t remember.” She finally replied in a whisper.
“Oh, yes, of course, the accident. Well, you are doing a fine job with Henri. Look, he’s already snuggling into you.”
Annarita gave her another reassuring smile, before slumping down into one of the softer chairs at her side.
Tiegal returned the smile, keen to experience the intoxicating smell of Henri’s skin now she had him so close to her. Careful not to alarm Annarita, she buried her face into Henri’s hair, so she could plant a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“Hmmm…” she let a satisfied murmur without thinking.
“He smells yummy doesn’t he?” Annarita looked delighted by Tiegal’s reaction.
Still, her words made Tiegal stiffen, momentarily wondering if she had underestimated human abilities.
“You can smell him too? His scent: chocolate strawberries?”
Annarita’s eyes widen with curiosity.
“Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that exactly, but yes, I guess it does smell sweet and satisfying.” She laughed then, a tired, croaky chuckle; a sound that made Tiegal feel warm inside. Somehow, she knew their conversation had already given Annarita a much-needed energy boost.
“You are something special Tiegal. I can see why my brother has fallen so hopelessly in love with you.”
The way Annarita looked at her, with such grateful contentment, confirmed to Tiegal what she had secretly been hoping, that Johannes had been right about bringing the two of them together. They both needed this special female companionship. Annarita h
ad lost her mother and Tiegal had been deprived of the experience of being loved by one. She only wished they had not been forced to lie to Annarita about why she had ended up near their farm, all on her own, in the first place.
“I love your brother too, so much. He is all I have ever wanted.”
Tiegal rocked Henri from side to side, enjoying the sounds of his baby lips smacking against his thumb as he sucked at it intermittently.
She knew Annarita wanted to say more, to seek clearer answers to the reasons behind Tiegal’s presence, all these things that didn’t make sense to her. The questions that Tiegal could hear running through her new friend’s tired, mind that were probably driving her crazy.
It didn’t seem fair to keep lying to her with stories of a boat accident on the river that had left Tiegal confused and unsure of where she had come from. And yet, equally she knew it was not reasonable to burden a girl who had already suffered enough shocks in her young life, with the futuristic phenomena that had both created her and had led to her journey over here.
“Does it upset you that we hid away in secret at first?” she dared, at last, unable to bear listening to the anguished concerns in Annarita’s head.
“I don’t know. I think it did at first, if I’m being honest, because I know how much Johannes hates people lying. It was just so unlike him to be so secretive.”
“He didn’t want to burden you,” Tiegal protested, quick as ever to defend him.
“I know that, and I do understand that now, but I still find it hard to believe he hid you away for so long. Does he really think I am so untrustworthy?”
Tiegal shifted her arm to the left to rest it on the arm of the chair. Henri was heavier to hold than she had imagined.
“He thinks the world of you. He just wants to protect you.”
“And protect you too,” Annarita added.
She knew it wasn’t an objection, nor a competition for Johannes’ love, that made Annarita’s voice sound so strange. Yet there was something in her tone - an unusual tremble - that Tiegal struggled to place along her limited knowledge of the human emotional spectrum.
“Is there something you are afraid of Annarita?”
The awkwardness in the silence that followed this question was palpable. And yet the clarity in the words inside Annarita’s mind was like crystal chiming in Tiegal’s ears. Annarita didn’t believe their story. She knew that Tiegal had somehow come here from another world.
An impulse to run away burned inside her but she bit her lip down hard to stop herself from standing up and waking Henri. It seemed they had all been playing a game with each other; pretending to hear and accept stories that didn’t make sense.
“Tiegal you look pale all of a sudden. Do you want me to take Henri from you?” Annarita offered.
“No, no, I’m fine. I like having him here. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Which was what again?” Annarita responded, her eyes looked vacant and lost as she tried to find a way to stall answering Tiegal’s question.
“I asked you if there was something you were afraid of?” She tried again.
Five long seconds of silent contemplation passed between them before Annarita finally stood up from her chair, her arms folded.
“Okay, yes there is something. I am terrified that you will vanish again. And that if you do, it will break my brother’s heart.”
If there was one thing Tiegal had learned since being in this world, it was that being around people all the time was exhausting. It had been easier when it was just two of them in the cabin, or even, when she was on her own during the day. But now they had moved into the farmhouse, she felt exhausted by the constant emotional exchanges between everyone living here. There were only four of them, five if she included the baby. Annarita, her husband Frederick, their baby Henri, Johannes and her - all individuals constantly filling the house with highly charged voices.
The current exchange she could hear between Johannes and Annarita downstairs was making her feel sick, knowing that it was her presence that was causing such discontent between them.
If she had been braver, she would have waited outside for Johannes to come home this afternoon. She could have warned him about Annarita’s revelations, that their plan to conceal her true identity had failed. But instead, she had buried herself under the comfort of the bed covers for the afternoon, refusing to face this new exposure.
Hiding herself in their bedroom had seemed the safest option – to give Johannes time to talk to his sister on his own - but now she wondered if that had been a cowardly move on her part.
There was no point avoiding the fact that Annarita and Frederick knew she was from a foreign world. A fact that made it hard to process that they had still let her move in with him despite this secret knowledge. Now, she just hoped Johannes would not let his emotions get the better of him, like suggesting they do something outrageous such as running away. He certainly sounded exasperated with the news that they had been outed. It was obvious by the way he was stamping his feet downstairs.
Careful not to make her movements known, she forced herself to move off the bed. Luckily, she had detected the floor’s weak points on her first night here. She knew how to move across it in silence. Her heart pounded in her chest as she opened the door. It was Johannes’ voice that boomed out the loudest and she could hear the anguish all the way up the stairs.
Go to him!
She willed herself. Her right foot moved forward, ready to take the first step downstairs, to where the rest of the household was engaged in a heated discussion. But she stopped in her tracks at the sound of fury coming from Johannes.
“You did what? You asked Elna if she thought we were lying about where Tiegal came from? Why would you do that? Where is your loyalty?” Johannes shouted.
“Oh Johannes. Come on now, you know that Elna wouldn’t have wanted to cause trouble intentionally. We all knew there had to be more to this story,” Annarita reasoned.
“What? Why are you defending Elna now? You didn’t even like her that much when we were together!”
“I did like her Johannes. I just didn’t want you to be held down by some stupid pact our father had made all those years ago. But then when Elna came back here, I could see she was in obvious pain. And then there was that awful day in the bush. She was so upset, as you know, so I spent some time with her afterwards, to make sure she was okay. I wanted to know what was going on with you.
“But I did think she was crazy at first. She told me how you had seen a girl in a bubble across the river, who somehow appeared and then just disappeared, and that it was your reaction to seeing her that made her leave Hopetown.”
Tiegal heard Johannes’ growl and then Frederick’s heavier footsteps walking across the kitchen, his deep, gentle voice pleading for them both to calm down.
“Hey, keep your voices down. You are going to upset Henri. Let’s just talk about this clearly, and start afresh, from the beginning. No more secrets!”
But it was too late for the moment to be taken back. Hearing Annarita’s words had sent a shock wave of pain up and down Tiegal’s body. It hadn’t occurred to her that Annarita and Elna had become closer, or that they had since become friends. This changed everything. How could she and Annarita share a bond if Elna had told her that she and Johannes had lied about where she came from?
It’s my fault! She reprimanded herself, pressing her right foot down hard on her left in frustration.
I should have tried harder to be Elna’s friend. I promised I would!
“But you didn’t try hard enough!” Tiegal whispered angrily, reprimanding herself both silently and audibly.
No wonder Elna exposed us and our lies. How could I blame her for that? She hasn’t seen me since the day Kagiso died. She wouldn’t know that I have tried to get close to her many times but every time I did, my fire started burning out of me again.
A solid lump lodged in her throat making it harder for Tiegal to breathe. Her body seemed to
be reacting to her emotional distress in a dangerous way. The skin under her fingernails burned pulsations of angry fire. The suddenness of it made her flinch. She shoved both her hands into the caves of her armpits, clamping her arms down over them, already aware of the smell of smoke emanating from them. This was the other extreme of her emotional energy, where all her fears and loneliness threatened to escape in an excruciatingly visible display. She had to hide this. Even Johannes may reject her if he saw she contained a darker energy inside her.
Calm down! Breathe!
She scolded herself inwardly, desperately inhaling the air around her in a bid to control her breathing again. The sound of Johannes’ footsteps pounding up the stairs towards her made her heart beat even faster. Squeezing her eyes shut, she silently pleaded for him to retreat back to the sanity of a normal, human, family argument. It had to be preferable to him getting any closer to the strangeness of her body.
“Tiegal! What are you doing here like this?” Johannes’ hands clamped over the tops of her arms. She shrugged him away, scared that he would feel the heat coming out of her or that he would see the wisps of black mist swirling inside the huddle of her frame.
“Please…” she managed. “Just leave me for a bit. I want to be alone.”
“What? Don’t be silly. You hate being alone. It’s all a misunderstanding that’s all.”
“Johannes. She knows who I am. Annarita knows we lied to her.”
“No, no, you must not think like that,” he whispered in her ear, leaning into her. It was getting hard to keep her hands tucked away. The heat was becoming unbearable. But she did not dare to unfold them, not while she was releasing some part of herself, that she had not known existed before now.
“Look, Tiegal, come on, she just heard a story that no one would ever believe, and she connected the two together, thinking it was you and…”
“She knows it is true Johannes. Elna knows it too!” She managed to interrupt in between her gulps for air. Even though her eyes were still closed she could imagine his expression clearly, and the deep frustrated frown he wore when his search for the right words to say to her failed him.
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