Mariah sat, worrying the bag as she awaited his return and judgment. When he returned it was as a storm, absolutely furious. She sat with her eyes downcast, waiting, as he smashed a chair into a bookcase, ranting in Greek. He continued, destroying one of his tables and even pummeling one of his beloved statues. Fearful that he would go too far, Mariah set the bag down and went to him. The moment she laid her hand on his arm, the fight seeped out of him.
“She’s gone,” he said. “Probably died within a few hours. What happened?”
Mariah straightened her shoulders, prepared for whatever might come. “I was journeying, as you instructed. She touched my shoulder and I … startled. I threw her across the room and then fled.”
“Foolish, idiotic girl.” He scowled. “I warned her, I warned them all to stay away from you, that you were dangerous. I knew she was jealous of you, she never could understand why I picked you over her.” He dropped into one of his chairs, running his hand through his hair. “I’ve been lax with them. They have forgotten how very powerful we are. Don’t worry, mi corazón, I will see to it that it doesn’t happen again.”
Chapter 8
The labyrinthine caves stood silent in the darkness as Mariah wandered them in her ethereal state. It was less painful to search for the mineral Sophus wanted at night. During the day she constantly encountered the many women who lived in his caves, more than she’d ever realized. It was overwhelming, especially now that all but Iráma and Wuchii went out of their way to avoid her. More disheartening, though, was to know that so many had chosen to give up their lives and commit themselves to this living death as a means of escaping their pain. What pain had Mariah been trying to escape? She couldn’t remember. Perhaps her friends knew, but if so, they wouldn’t tell her until Sophus again left. That seemed unlikely to happen any time soon; he hovered over her like a hen over her chicks.
Mariah scowled as she climbed some stairs. A chill swept over her followed by a bout of vertigo. Leaning against the wall, the shadow of her past-self caught her eye as it tumbled down the steps. She cringed with the remembered pain as the image of her past came to rest at a landing, her thigh badly broken. With the strange flow of time, past-Sophus appeared almost immediately to rescue her past self from a slow, cold death. Surely he hadn’t arrived that quickly? It would have been far too coincidental.
Not that death was unusual here. It was yet another of Sophus’s cunning tricks. It was known that no one ever returned from their journey to this place, for they were not allowed to leave. The one and only entrance was well concealed, and only she, Sophus, and Iráma knew where it was. Mariah couldn’t leave until she understood why she had come originally and Iráma had no desire to go.
Mariah found it odd, though, that so many of the women here believed that they could leave any time they wished. They thought they needed only ask and they would be free with the stipulation that they would not be allowed to come back. And yet ….
A memory-shadow of a silver-haired woman stood before her as Mariah asked, “Have any ever returned?”
“Only one,” the woman replied, and the memory faded. Mariah paused for a moment. If it was a memory, why had she not been transported to the location, as had always happened before? She shrugged. It was all so strange anyway, who even knew?
Passing a statue of an archer, Mariah entered a much older section of tunnels. She remembered this one. Sophus had walked her through most of it when she had discovered that she couldn’t go to new places. He’d said that this was one of the first he’d made, and had droned on about architecture. Perhaps, when she was centuries old, she’d care about such dry topics, but she very much doubted it.
At the end of the hall she saw a light coming toward her. Not wanting to startle whomever was there, Mariah slipped back behind the archer and waited. The light moved slowly forward and Mariah was startled to realize that she didn’t hear a heartbeat. Curious, she peered down the hall and saw a woman, perhaps in her late thirties, walking toward her. The woman wore long, dark hair in an intricate braid and was dressed in clothing that was clearly Wayuu, and yet was not anything like what Mariah was accustomed to.
As she neared, the woman stopped and looked directly at Mariah, a hopeful smile on her sad face.
I see you, waré. Why do you hide in this place?
Mariah stepped from the shadows toward the woman. Who are you?
I had hoped you were in the now, but I see that you are not. The woman looked back the way she had come. This is a lonely place. Even in my dreams, I am alone here. But I suppose there is a sort of peace in loneliness and hopelessness. The peace of having given up utterly. And yet, still I come here and walk the world of dreams. What do I think I will see? The future? What can I do with that? The past? Here she laughed bitterly. What use have I of the past?
The woman shook her head and held out her hand. The little black and gold bird fluttered down and landed in her palm, and together they faded away.
Mariah opened her eyes and found the small red stone bird resting in her palm. “Who did you belong to?” she asked, stroking it. Just another question to add to the list.
Unable to get Wuchii or Iráma to talk to her about her past while Sophus remained nearby, Mariah passed her free time rifling through everything in her chambers, touching them, trying to gauge if a thing had once held value to her. And it was truly everything, from the door, to the rug, to the table, to each garment in the drawers and shelves in her closet. She learned many interesting things this way; the newly carved wood of her chair still thought of itself as a tree and would appear to her as such in the dream world, whereas the door, which appeared centuries old, was the same heavy door no matter how she looked at it. In the dream world, however, the door stood always closed, unless she looked directly at it, in which case it opened, awaiting her passage.
Other things, like the rug, did nothing more than be a rug. The clothing, like the door, seemed as though it couldn’t decide if it was being worn or folded and still. Mariah continued on, methodically checking each item. The pitcher and basin. A bowl. Each bit of jewelry. The furniture. Some of it showed her history, like the passing of ghosts, but most did not. Surely she had not come here empty-handed. There had to be something here of hers, something that would help her remember more of the man from her dreams.
Miguel. They’d had feelings for each other, of that she was certain. Though how deeply those feeling ran and what had become of them teased her like an unread book. And, perhaps, she would learn more of the blonde woman who’d come between them.
Today, as Mariah returned to her chambers after an insufferably long time with Sophus, she decided she would begin on the vast closet. The room held dresses of all fashions and colors, some that Mariah was almost afraid to touch for fear that they would crumble. She began with the ones nearest the door. Some gave her glimpses of women; others had never even been worn. Some danced, and one — Mariah pulled away in shock. That one a woman had died in, her pain and fear still infused in the cloth.
Mariah pulled back from her single-minded focus for a moment. Surely anything she brought wouldn’t be so old. Reining in her senses, she rifled through the clothing, hoping to find more recent styles and cloth. Finally, she came to the section that held the dresses that she wore. She’d found nothing. Frustrated, she leaned her head against the shelves and spread her senses again. The smell of impending rain teased at her, and long grass faded into view at her feet.
No, she thought, pushing back against it. I need to be here. I need to see what is here. And she was back in her closet, watching herself lean against the wall. It was getting easier to control her location. Looking around, she tried to see past what she saw in the physical world. The colors of the dresses lost their vibrancy as she focused on the things she cared about. Then she saw it: the bright toe of a boot, hidden behind a false panel. Excited, she snapped back to her body and rushed to the wall, sliding the hidden panel away to find a worn pair of riding boots, a neatly folded set
of men’s clothing, and a greatcoat. Hardly daring to hope, she scooped up the lot and dumped it onto her bed.
She sat on the bed and decided to try the boots first. They spoke of horses and dirt and travel. Of course. They’re boots, she thought, setting them down. But memory tickled at her, and she felt reluctant to let them go. They’d been given to her, made without her knowing. They had been waiting for her to find them; a surprise and an act of love.
When nothing else came, she moved to the greatcoat, holding it to her and taking in the scent. It smelled of her, and horses, yes, but also beneath that, much older, was the scent of a man. Pushing away the newer smells, she held it close. The worn, heavy cloth was rough against her skin, and the colors faded. Closing her eyes, she could almost see him there, in his well-worn coat and boots, his black hair escaping from its queue and his smile playful. She willed the image to be solid, really there in the dream world, but it slipped away. Just a memory. Unwilling to set the coat down, she slipped it on, its soft, sturdy warmth like his arms holding her. Mariah leaned back against the wall, curled up in the over-large greatcoat, and reviewed the memories she’d recovered so far. With each pass she became more and more certain that she was in love with this man.
But where are you, and why am I here? she again wondered.
A knock came at the door and, for a moment, Mariah feared it was Sophus. The warmth of the coat reassured her, as she registered the heartbeat before the door opened. It was Wuchii.
“Come in, come in,” Mariah said, gesturing the older woman over. “I have just been reminiscing.”
“About happy things, I would hope,” Wuchii said, pulling a chair to the bed and sitting.
“I think I am in love,” she said with a conspiratorial whisper, gesturing to the greatcoat.
Wuchii made a face. “That thing looks absurdly warm.”
“Warm like an embrace,” Mariah said, pulling it snugly about her. As she did so, she felt a weight in one of the pockets that she hadn’t noticed before. Reaching in, she found a small leather pouch lined with silk. Anticipation clutched at her gut as she opened it. She looked at Wuchii. This was something important.
“What do you think is in it?” Mariah asked.
“Open it and find out,” Wuchii said, leaning forward with excitement. Mariah upended the bag and a small pile of mismatched coins tumbled onto her lap. She recognized some, but most were from foreign countries. On closer inspection, she realized they were all, save one, foreign.
“Arras.” The word came to her.
“Thirteen of them,” Wuchii noted. “Is that a significant number for the Alijuna?”
“Thirteen arras ….” Mariah’s heart lifted with joy, and she thought she might float to the ceiling. Bursting with the need to tell her despite the possible danger, she whispered, “The thirteen arras — they are a bridegroom’s gift to his bride. Miguel is my husband!”
Wuchii beamed at her.
“You knew!” Mariah laughed as Wuchii nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We decided that it would be best if you remembered things on your own, in your own time.” Wuchii sat back. “We’ve learned that trying to tell you anything is like hitting your head on a rock to get it to move.”
“You could have told me this,” Mariah said. “What else do you know that you’re not telling me?”
Wuchii hesitated, then shook her head. “You will remember in time.”
Mariah lowered her voice, willing to take the risk. “I need to know, Wuchii. Is he still alive? Why did I come here?”
Wuchii sighed. “He lives. You came here seeking Sophus’s help to rescue your husband.”
Mariah sat back to digest this bit of news. She’d come seeking Sophus’s help to find her husband, and had found it necessary to become an immortal to do so. Yet she had nearly forgotten him, her very purpose for being here, and no one had seen fit to help her remember this. Not Sophus, not even the Wayuu. Why? Sophus probably had no real interest in helping her if he could get away with it, but why the Wayuu as well? They were her mother’s people, and she had counted them as family, yet she was held apart from them. Mariah had not missed the “we” in Wuchii’s explanation. A group had decided it was best to take the chance that she not remember, but in favor of what?
And then there was the question of why she had needed Sophus’s help to find Miguel. The only reason she could think for seeking a vampire’s help would be to confront another vampire. Could she assume, then, that Theron had her husband? It made sense to her. And if Miguel, too, had become a vampire, that would explain why she had chosen the same.
Mariah continued to worry at the questions in her mind, spinning in circles. When she finally came back to an awareness of where she was, Wuchii was long gone.
She looked again at the pouch with the thirteen arras. A memory stirred.
“Tell me about this one,” she asked, holding up a random coin.
“That one?” Miguel flopped onto the couch beside her. He took the coin, draping his arm across the back of the couch, and she snuggled in next to him. “That was change from this amazing kebab I ate in Egypt. I remember the woman who served it had the most amazing green eyes —” He cut off as she elbowed him playfully. He took the bag from her and rummaged through it, pulled a different one out, and chuckled. “Now this one is a much better tale. We were stopped in Calcutta ….”
Mariah smiled. She didn’t remember the story he’d told, just that by the end they were both breathless with laughter. Eventually he’d told her the origins of each of the twelve coins; each from a different country he’d sailed to before his fateful decision to stop in Maracaibo. She sat, running her fingers over the soft bag, as her mind drifted away.
She stood in a field of flowers some distance north of Maracaibo as the wind blew gently around her, caressing her with the scent of impending rain. She loved that scent, familiar and comforting. Dumping the coins onto her lap, she looked at them with her strange double vision. She could see the real, physical coins lying on her dress in gloomy light of the cave, their edges and markings worn and scuffed. At the same time, however, she saw them as they once were: new, shiny, and valuable. Perhaps she saw them that way in the ethereal world because that was how they were to her: beautiful and priceless.
She tucked the spirit coins into a pouch on her waist and began walking. Mariah had explored her dream world for months now and didn’t have any particular location in mind for today. There was the fire, off in the distance. It appeared closer now than it had before. Or perhaps bigger. Mariah shuddered and turned from it, wiping her hands on her skirt.
Where else could she go? Seeing things from her own past had become reflexive as her memories became easier and easier to unlock in the dream world. Sometimes, she could even see the recent past of people she knew well, almost like listening for an echo. When she concentrated, she could watch things as they unfolded. The thought of being able to spy on someone, entirely undetected, was intoxicating. She could know where Sophus was, what he was doing, if she was safe from him, and he’d never know. Mariah was determined that he not learn of this ability as he would surely want to use it. Fortunately, despite her efforts, she remained limited to places she’d physically been.
As she thought, she moved with the strange dreamlike quality she’d grown accustomed to. She now stood before her childhood home, as the ghosts of memories flitted past. Here she was a small girl waiting for her father to return home, there she was reading a book in the warm sun, and there she watched as a ghost of Miguel helped her past self out of a carriage. She walked toward her favorite place in the gardens. Fond memories, all.
Except there, where that treacherous blond snake — Elisa, Mariah spat the name— had confronted her. The sky overhead grew gray as she recalled it, threatening to rain as it had that day in the past. Annoyed, Mariah turned away. She did not want to waste her time thinking about Elisa.
But that event had been a turning point. From it, Mariah had learned
of her Wayuu heritage and … Mariah struggled a moment to grasp the memory. She was in her room with a beautiful, silver-haired Wayuu woman. The woman looked at her as though she could see her, as though she wasn’t just a memory.
The dreams, the silver-haired woman said. You started on the path toward the dreams.
Who are you? Mariah asked, excited at the prospect of meeting someone she could actually talk to. The ghost she’d seen in the halls had seemed to be aware of her, but they couldn’t interact. Perhaps this one could.
The other woman hesitated, looking sad. You may call me Kasha.
Mariah was elated. You can see me! What is this place? Does it only show the past? Who are you? Do you know the ghost woman who wanders the halls?
With great effort, yes, I can see you here, and speak with you, Kasha said, a warm smile growing on her face. This is a place of dreams and spirits, an in-between place, between life and Yoluja, the land of our fathers.
So the woman I’ve seen — is she a ghost stuck here? Mariah asked.
No, it is more like looking through thick glass. You can see her and, to an extent, she can see you through time. It is easier to look back. One’s vision is always clearer looking back, but looking ahead can be … disorienting.
Can you show me? Mariah was eager; she could deal with disorientation. How bad could it be?
Kasha shook her head. Not until you are ready. Not until you understand what you’re asking for.
Though the woman spoke kindly, the condescension grated against Mariah. She wasn’t a child. Who was this woman to treat her as such? As though she knew Mariah’s thoughts, Kasha grinned.
You will always be a child to me, chica.
Aeonian Dreams (Zyanya Cycle Book 2) Page 7