Release

  “Why do you always think the worst?” she heard him mutter in front of her.

  This response did surprise her. It was unlike him to be so blatant in his criticism of her. Pulling her hands out to rest on her lap she breathed a sigh of relief as the burning sensation under her arms subsided.

  “Are you okay? You’ve got a strange colour around you and your face is pure white!”

  She could hear how laboured his breathing was, how the panic was setting in.

  “Annarita! Come! Now!” He screamed his order for his sister’s help. She tried to protest but she couldn’t find her voice. The last thing she wanted right now was for Annarita to see her like this, how she was revealing the worst parts of both her worlds, this magnified jealousy emotion that seemed to have manifested itself since becoming human, and the residue of her original make-up.

  But her new sister was at her side before she had a chance to object to her presence.

  “Tiegal! You look terrible. We need to get you back to bed,” Annarita insisted. Hearing the warmth and acceptance in her voice instantly settled her. She managed to flicker her eyes upwards to meet Annarita’s concerned gaze and nodded her head to show her grateful assent. The sensation of hands holding her arms and of being lifted off the ground, then moved through to the bedroom and gently lowered onto the bed, felt surreal in its swiftness.

  “I don’t feel too good,” she managed to whisper, searching for Johannes despite her limited visibility. She was so weak she didn’t even have the strength to open her eyes fully. His warm hands were on her cheeks before she could say anything else, the things she needed to let them know. She was in danger, and her body was losing its energy.

  27.Vibrations

  Her need for a deeper energy reserve was like a thirst she could not quench. For two days now her body had vibrated at a constant and visible high frequency. It was impossible to move from the bed. She had tried many times, but she would simply fall to the floor, laying in a helpless, shuddering trance.

  Both Johannes and Annarita – and even Frederick – had brought her food of every variety they could think of, but nothing offered her the rejuvenation she needed.

  There were a number of reasons she could attribute to the change in her physical state. None of them she was prepared to share with her family. How could she tell them that she would not survive with them for much longer? That she would soon have to choose between love and emptiness, between life and death.

  “Hey, are you awake? Can I come in?”

  It was Annarita. She was never far away. Although she did not have the strength to project her voice, she managed to make a noise that sounded welcoming enough. She heard Annarita’s soft footsteps approach the bed.

  “I’ve just bathed Henri and he is having his afternoon nap, so I wanted to see what I could bring you. You still haven’t eaten anything today.” Annarita’s voice was a sing-song chirrup. An ill-disguised attempt to sound cheerful despite how terrifying the scene before her must appear.

  “What colour am I now?” Tiegal stammered.

  “Erm…you look good actually. Not as dark as before.” Annarita’s response was too quick.

  “Tell me the truth. Please.”

  Before Johannes had removed the dressing mirror from the room, she had managed to catch a glance at her reflection a few times. That’s how she knew that what was left of her colour energy had risen to the surface as a constant vapour that circled her fragile body. The last time she had seen her reflection she was surrounded by a dark, grey mist. The sight had made her scream, a release of emotion that had so exhausted her that she had not been able to wake up for hours.

  “Oh, Tiegal, sweetheart. You are still looking a bit grey, but don’t you worry. Johannes has taken a trip over to see someone he thinks will be able to help you.”

  This news made her flinch. She knew where he had gone. As much as he tried to hide what he was thinking when he was near her, it was impossible for him to break the connection she shared with him in this way, low energy or not. She had never been able to access someone’s thoughts, and their intentions, the way she could with him.

  “Why does he think she can help?” she managed to ask, closing her eyes to preserve the little reserves she had so she could talk to Annarita.

  “Erm, Johannes thinks she is the cause of it all.”

  Annarita was being careful with her words. Tiegal could detect her reticence, how she feared upsetting her new sister again by mentioning any connection to Elna.

  Just hearing how tortured Annarita was about the part she believed she had played in Tiegal’s breakdown was torturous in itself. As tired and frightened as she was, she owed it to this beautiful soul, who rarely left her side, to help rid her of this unfairly imposed guilt.

  “This is not your fault Annarita. You have given me more energy than you can ever know by being my sister and by welcoming me into your family.”

  “Oh, but it is my fault dear Tiegal. I never should have said those things to Johannes about you driving Elna away when you arrived here. That wasn’t my concern at all. But I can imagine it would have sounded like I was angry. I just wanted to know the truth, to make sure that you were both safe. I want you to believe that. You are a gift that came to us, and especially to my brother, at a time when he needed light more than ever.”

  The heartbreak in Annarita’s voice was enough to force whatever human energy Tiegal had absorbed to rejuvenate, just enough that she could turn her head to her sister and reach her right arm up from its dangled position over the side of the bed. It was time for her to explain herself, whilst she still could.

  “Don’t overexert yourself Tiegal!” Annarita warned.

  “Sister, please, let me talk while I have enough strength. I want you to know something about me. Where I have come from, who I am, and what I may become.” She paused to catch her breath and then, when she felt her breathing was steady enough, she continued her carefully rehearsed speech.

  “The world I came from did not allow its people to connect, to form bonds, or to love one another. You do not have family in Tandro. Your purpose is to protect your own self, your own island, and not to let anyone else enter it. My ruler, Atla, was part of a group of scientists who made a decision to start a new society; a new world, within a world that had been destroyed. This all happened at a time in my past, before I was even created, but at a time in, well, I imagine a parallel version of your future.”

  “Sorry, I’m confused? So, you are from the future on here, on Earth, or from somewhere else?”

  “I’m not sure. I feel that my world is not this one in the past but that it is a version of this world, but in the future somehow, two hundred years from now.”

  “Okaaaay, well…”

  “I know Annarita. It stretches beyond anyone’s imagination.”

  “But I still believe you Tiegal. I can see you and all your colours. That in itself is enough for me to know that I have to also let myself believe in the things I cannot see too.”

  Tiegal exhaled her relief. “You have no idea how much that means to me. Do you want me to tell you more?”

  “Yes, please, I want to know everything there is to know about you,” Annarita pleaded, holding tightly on her hand.

  Tiegal nodded and took a deep breath. It was a long, complicated story but she had to make it concise and somehow believable to Annarita. Even she found her own story implausible if she thought about it too much.

  “There was a time, long before I was created, when a catastrophic war finally ended on our world. That’s when everything was destroyed. Only the ones who had the means to hide and survive did. And only they could choose how to start it all again. And that’s what they did. They designed Tandro out of the only habitable archipelago of islands on the planet. And from there, they made the new creation process: the children of diamonds. Which is what I am!” She paused, only continuing when Annarita squeezed her hand again.

  “No one made me out of love the way your p
arents did Annarita. I may have developed in a creation pod, a cocoon suspended in water, not too dissimilar to a womb in a mother’s fluid, but I am really just a whole bunch of energies from many others. From Tandroans who competed and won a series of challenges we call a Jarm Match. It’s the greatest honour on Tandro, to be one who contributes parts of their carbon to further the evolution of our species.”

  She waited to see if Annarita would walk out of the room in disgust at hearing such lies, but instead she was met with an expression that conveyed a quiet acceptance.

  “You know how Johannes told you I could hear your thoughts?” she dared.

  Annarita nodded.

  “He did tell me that. I have to say that one did scare me - and Frederick - quite a lot!”

  “Well, don’t worry too much. Those powers have diminished considerably since I have been here. It’s only Johannes that I can still hear as if it is my own thoughts in my head.”

  “That must be because you are so connected to each other! And maybe that’s why you didn’t realise that I already knew you had made up the story about an accident? I wondered why you had not already worked that part out when Johannes told me about this gift. If you could read my thoughts?” Annarita suggested.

  “I didn’t even try to read your thoughts too much when I first met you. I was enjoying how human I thought I was becoming. I was so excited to think we could be sisters and friends. Companionship like that is not encouraged where I am from.”

  “But why? This is the part that I just can’t understand. You are an abundance of love! It pours out of you. I can’t imagine how you could have come from such a world. You have must have felt so lonely.”

  Annarita’s hands felt warm to touch. Her words, even more so.

  “How wise you are, and so very like your brother. It still amazes me how open your hearts and minds are – both of you. Your mother must have been a special lady.”

  Annarita’s eyes glistened with pools of tears.

  “She was. You remind me of her. I can’t explain why.”

  “Johannes said the same thing. He also thought, at one time, that I reminded him of Elna,” Tiegal dared.

  “Okay, well, now I am glad you have mentioned that.” Annarita rolled her eyes at her.

  “The elephant in the room?”

  “Sorry? I don’t know what that means?”

  “It means, at least in my world, the mistake everyone fails to notice. Well, that is what it is supposed to mean but I prefer to think of it as the obvious truth that no one wants to acknowledge.” She waited to see if Annarita would object to her placement of this expression in their conversation. When she saw how confused Annarita looked she quickly clarified:

  “I don’t think of Johannes and Elna as a mistake. Please don’t think of me like that. Even though I know I must appear to be jealous about her to the point of destruction.”

  Annarita let out a sad sounding chuckle.

  “I don’t think of you like that and I don’t think of Elna as a mistake either.I just know that the people you meet in your life have a message to share with you and you should embrace that.”

  Tiegal twisted her head to get a better look at her new sister.

  “Where did you get such ideas from?”

  Annarita shrugged her shoulders.

  “You! It’s like ever since I met you, I have this whole new way of thinking. It’s like you and this energy of yours is so compelling that I have absorbed it too and I just think differently. Frederick has noticed it too and he loves it. He says I am like the old me again. Before all the tragedies. But an even better me, lighter, happier and more open. It’s like you are my friend soul mate!”

  “Your mirror?”

  “Yes! You made me see myself differently and what I was capable of thinking and seeing,” Annarita exclaimed, blinking excitedly as she rushed her words out.

  “But that’s not what we were talking about Tiegal. Now, I am going to point to this elephant in the room idea you talk about because I want you to stop feeling guilty about Elna. I know it’s not jealousy that is making you so sad about her. It is what you still believe you caused by appearing in front of them when they kissed that day. That you feel responsible for their break-up and even for Kagiso’s death. And even crazier, you feel guilty that you love Johannes and that he loves you, but Elna is the one who is suffering because of it. Am I right?”

  “Every word,” Tiegal admitted, no longer able to keep her gaze on Annarita’s. All these revelations and confessions were making her feel dizzy again. Luckily, Annarita was full of enthusiasm and happy to lead their conversation.

  “Okay, good, so now I can tell you the truth. Will that help relieve you from this burden you have placed on yourself? Will it set you free?”

  Tiegal nodded. She could not believe how similar their thinking had become. It was almost as if Annarita had absorbed some of her own thoughts – was looking after her energy for her while she recovered – and was now holding a mirror to her through her words.

  She was not even speaking in her usual way or using words that were common to her area and experience. It was like she had become her echo!

  “Here it goes. So, Elna and Johannes shared an early, first love. Not even that, but perhaps more of a familiar, easy, connection. Is that something you can understand at all? I know it may be difficult if your world did not allow connections at all,” Annarita asked carefully.

  “No, I do understand that. My friend Rinzal and I shared an easy connection. I used to worry that he felt things for me in a deeper way, which was also forbidden, but I held back from it because I knew it would hurt him if my dream prophecy came true. That I would eventually find the male I had been dreaming about – your brother as it turns out!”

  She gave Annarita a shy smile, which quickly turned into a yawn. It made her think of Rinzal even more. It was easy to conjure an image of him rolling his eyes at her, and to imagine what he would say to her if he could be part of this conversation now. No doubt something on the lines of:

  “And you thought it was difficult being a Tandroan! Look at you now then! You have almost extinguished yourself by burning all your energy with these human emotions.”

  “I did always like Rinzal’s smell,” she explained to Annarita, “which to me, is so important. But…there is a good scent and there is an intoxicating scent – and that is what Johannes is. I can’t get enough of him.”

  Annarita clapped her hands in delight.

  “Exactly! So, you see, perhaps then these earlier experiences have shaped you and made you ready and prepared to meet your perfect connection - which you have!”

  Her words sounded like a hum of a memory, of sunbirds vibrating their wings outside the windows of her prison cabin on Tandro. What Annarita spoke of lay at the heart of her personal philosophy and yet she had not even spoken these words herself. It had taken meeting both her soul lover in Johannes and her soul best friend in Rinzal, for it all to connect together.

  Tiegal felt ready to take over now.

  “So, maybe the people who come into our lives shape us. Like a diamond cutter shapes a rough stone and transforms it into a multi-faceted light reflector. One that sparkles with brilliance. In the same way, our love interactions will shape us too! And even if some of these connections are broken, like Johannes and Elna, or me and Rinzal, as our paths diverge, their influence on us will never leave us? It is as though they have given us a memory that transforms us into who we are – human or Tandroan!” she declared.

  “Well, I don’t know anything about how diamonds are shaped or cut Tiegal, but somehow, I can see what you are saying. You were made from the energy of diamonds, and the connections you made both in your world, and here, have shaped you into this amazing light in our lives.”

  Annarita shook her head as if she were surprised to hear the words coming out of her own mouth.

  “I am not so bright now! I am grey, and black, and weak,” Tiegal pointed out.

  “But ma
ybe that’s because you lost something when you heard Johannes and I arguing. Perhaps that kind of talking between people frightened you because it is so different from how you lived amongst your people before? You said you were supposed to protect your fire and your island and not let anyone enter it? Well, trust me, when you live in a family, as we do, it is impossible not to cross each other’s islands and, yes perhaps we do pour water on each other’s fires when we get angry with them. But, you see, we just as soon hand them some more logs and we help them light it up again when we show them our love.”

  They both turned their heads at the sound of footsteps outside the door.

  Johannes beamed at them both from where he stood at the entrance to the bedroom.

  “My two beautiful girls! What have you turned each other into? I can’t tell who is teaching their diamond philosophy to whom? But it’s beautiful all round. And, Tiegal! You are getting your pinker colours back,” he enthused, clearly delighted by the scene that he had returned to.

  Tiegal watched as Annarita held her hand out to him, beckoning for him to join her at the bedside.

  “I think she is getting her energy back. We just have to keep showing her how much we want her here.”

  Johannes frowned at that. “You don’t need to tell me that Sis. Tiegal knows she is the world to me.”

  Tiegal widened her eyes, feeling strong enough to keep them open for long enough to maintain her blurry gaze over them both.

  “You two are funny. I sometimes think it would be easier if you could both hear what the other really thinks. Annarita didn’t mean it as a criticism,” she pointed out.

  The sound of startled awakening resounded from the hallway where Annarita had placed the crib. Henri was awake and ready for attention.

  “There is my calling! It’s time for you both to have some privacy anyway. I will start making us some supper once I get Henri settled,” Annarita promised as she lent down to give Tiegal a kiss on her forehead.