by Ruhi Jain
“Cal, what do you think of the dress? It is good enough?”
“Of course it is Valery. Your fashion sense is impeccable, as always.”
“If you keep complimenting me like this, one day you’ll run out of them.”
Brell could hear them talking a few feet away from her, but she tuned them out, thinking about Timmy. She had this nagging sensation that she would soon see him and her tail tingled at that thought. She moved closer to the doorway to clean the edges of the wooden hinge that was shaped like the fleur-de-lis when someone who entered the room in an extreme hurry bumped into her, causing her to fall backwards.
“Woah. Steady there.”
A strong pair of arms pulled her up and one again she caught herself in front of the perfectly chiselled, familiar face. Lukas gave her one long meaningful look before marching up to Callum and Valery, and then bowing.
Barely had a minute passed when Lukas pulled Callum aside and whispered to him, before Brell felt Callum call out to her.
“Red is in the east side of the castle, making his way to Timothy!”
Chapter 26: Emotions
She slowly got up, her heart pounding and made a steady exit towards the door.
“You there, girl in the ponytail, come here.” Brell cursed under her breath and turned around as Valery pointed to a stack of clothes.
“Leave them in my room on the bed.”
Callum looked like he was about to object.
She quickly picked up the clothes and rushed in the opposite direction she was supposed to go. Now it would take double the amount of time to get to Red. Flinging them on the bed, she scurried out to the east side of the castle and contacted Callum.
“Which area on the east side?” She almost screamed.
“Lukas thinks he is going to the ninth floor, and —”
She didn’t listen as she hurtled up the floors through the passageways. The moment she came onto the ninth floor, she saw a flash of red disappear around the corner. Swimming after it, she pulled out one grey crystal from her bracelet, simultaneously noticing that her bracelet was beginning to glow faintly, put it in front of her and began repeating the words she had created the previous night, fervently hoping the magic would let her rhyme a word with itself:
“Grant me invisibility on my wish
and make me appear when I wish.”
Slamming her teeth into the crystal, she watched as the mist curled around her tail and slowly climbed up to her head. For a split second, she saw the crystals on her wrist glowing eerily, indicating her brother was nearby and then she saw nothing. Moving her hands in front of her, she couldn’t see them, and neither could she see her tail. She was invisible.
Rounding the corner, she peeped from the side of the wall and stifled a gasp.
A huge slab of stone wall which had been there before had melted away, revealing a narrow passage lined with guards on both sides and at the end of the passage, was a stone door with a carving of a human infant on the top. Red was making his way through the guards, his grey beard swaying in the water. The guards didn’t even notice her swim above their head.
She waited above the door, watching small Thomas Red slowly come towards her. Her ears were ringing and her head was spinning with excitement. She was going to see her brother. Finally.
He paused in front of the stone door, and placed his palms on the door, muttering illegible words. The stone door was unlike anything she had ever seen. It had inscriptions in a strange language covering the whole surface. Some were engraved deep in the stone and some were superficial. Some in bold, large letters and some were thin enough to be mistaken for cracks. But as Red chanted those words softy, she saw all the engravings disappear, the deeper ones taking more time than the smaller ones. They must be spells to keep the door locked and the room inside, safe. The knob glowed golden. The heavy, thick door creaked open and the moment he entered the room, so did she, just above his head.
The insides of the room were furnished luxuriously with the most beautiful wooden furniture she had ever seen and exotic flowers of different hues. A huge grandfather clock was at the east side of the room, swinging its pendulum with elderly authority. The arched ceiling had the painting of the sky at night, with small pin sized lights as stars. As she watched, the stars twinkled with what she could only describe as magic. The room was huge and dark with soft light falling over a gigantic peach bed right at the very centre of it. Cashmere peach netting flowed from a point at the ceiling and billowed all around the bed like a cloud. Tears began to blur her vision as she tried to look further. Through the translucent netting, she could see a small figure huddled in the satin sheets, a human Brell had been longing to see, a human she almost broke down at seeing: Timothy.
His brown hair was slightly dishevelled and his soft blue eyes peeked at Red from between the sheets.
“Hi there,” Red said, coming to his bed. “How are you feeling?”
She couldn’t take her eyes away from Timmy as he burrowed himself deeper within the sheets, his eyes still holding Red’s. She searched his eyes to see if they were pained or confused or worse, scared. But they just seemed blank. He was quiet for a whole minute.
“The others say I shouldn’t talk to anyone except them,” he finally said softly, hesitantly. It was the first time she had heard his voice in five months.
“Well I’m not like the others,” Red said in a very calming voice. “And you can talk to me.”
“What are they going to do to me?” Timmy whispered making himself more visible.
Red placed his hands at the edge of the bed. They were rough and gnarled, like a withered tree branch. “They are going to take good care of you, and then you will be free.”
“I’m scared.”
Brell yearned to reach out, hug him, caress him and tell him that he was going to be fine. She wished she could do anything except just stand there and watch him!
“I’m going to do something to this room, and I don’t want you to move.”
He nodded, and watched as Red made his way to the walls of the room. He spread his fingers so it was inches from the walls and then muttered words Brell didn’t recognize. As he kept muttering, his voice became deeper and hoarser until at the very end, he began coughing violently.
Golden lines running vertically and horizontally across the room glowed briefly, forming a golden cage for a second before vanishing. Red was panting, probably from the exertion of using so much magic.
Red turned back to Timothy. “I’m going to return in twenty minutes to check up on you.” He was about to leave but then turned around and said, “Little boy?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be afraid.”
Red went away from the room and the moment he closed the door Brell swam up next to the bed and whispered under her breath.
“My wish is to be visible.”
The moment she could see her hands, she clamped them tightly over Timmy’s mouth.
He yelped, but her hand muffled the sound. She turned him around and gazed into the forget-me-not blue eyes which looked at her in confusion.
“Shhh… Timmy. It’s me!” She slowly removed her hand. “It’s me, Brell. I’m here now, you don’t need to worry. You’re going to be fine, honey. I’m going to get you out of here.”
He scrambled back, and pressed himself against the headboard. Brell couldn’t understand his reaction. Why wasn’t he happy to see her?
“My name is not Timmy,” he whispered, drawing the sheets around him like he was trying to protect himself. “It’s Dan. Who are you?”
Chapter 27: Memory
He wasn’t rail-thin anymore. He looked healthy for the first time in a long time, finally getting the nutrients he had been deprived of at the Hopkins’ farm.
Brell reached out to touch him, but he flinched and she pulled away. This couldn’t be happening…
“Timmy, now is not the time to play games.”
“I told you, my name is Dan.”
&
nbsp; Oh, no… no…
Her face fell into her palms in anguish. She wanted to shield herself from what she knew was coming. When she spoke her next words, she had to force them out. Each word burned her throat as if they contained poison.
“What do you… remember?”
“Remember?”
“Yes, what do you remember?”
Timmy frowned, wiping his hand over his forehead.
“I woke up two hours ago, I think, and I don’t remember anything before that. There was a lady next to me in a white coat and she told me my name was Dan, and that I was in a hospital and that I was special. She told me that she and the others were going to take good care of me, and then they would set me free.”
“What else did she tell you?” She fought hard to keep the tremor out of her voice.
“She said she found me at the entrance of the hospital, and that I was hurt. She said they healed me and now I have to become healthy by doing what the others tell me to do.”
Brell looked at the netting, she stared at her hands, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. He had tried to escape, and today Zeldae had wiped out his memory to prevent him from doing that again. Why hadn’t she tried to come to him before?
“Who are the ‘others’?”
Timmy looked at her. “Are you one of them?”
Steadying her breath, and trying extremely hard not to sob, she thought of an easy explanation. But her fear of losing him had already taken place and her mind was clouded. Her mother used to say, ‘We don’t realise how important memories are until they are lost’. In that moment, all her memories with Timmy came crashing down; mostly the happy ones but also the painful ones. But he would never remember them. He would never remember her. All that we have, all that makes us who we are, are memories. Nothing…but memories.
“I am an examiner. I need to know what all they told you because it’s my job to see if you remember everything they have said. If you can recall it, you will pass the test. You do want to pass, don’t you?” She felt stuck in the worse kind of nightmare — where the ones you love don’t know you anymore.
He nodded.
“If you tell the others about me, I will tell them you failed the test. Is that clear… Dan?” her lips quivered as she spoke.
“Yes.”
“Good. So far you have passed. Now my next question. Who are the ‘others’?”
“The people who come every half hour to check on me. The last one came at noon. They wear white coats and they have tails.”
She glanced at the clock and noted it was 12:15, so she only had fifteen minutes to work.
“Good. What all have they told you to do so far?” She squeezed her trembling fingers together to stop them from shaking.
“They told me to have a lot of this.” He held up a pale blue bottle filled with a dark bistre fluid. “And also to eat the food they give me.”
“What do you think is that fluid Dan?”
“It tastes like chocolate. When I have it, I get a lot of energy and my heart begins to beat faster, for some reason.”
Brell’s heart sank hearing all this. She hated the way he looked at her, as if she were a stranger. “Do they take good care of you?” She asked softly, her voice on the verge of breaking.
“Yes, at least so far they have.”
Brell nodded, suddenly finding a lump in her throat she could not get rid of. She got up. If she stayed any longer she would burst into tears right in front of him. Shudders were already beginning to rip through her body.
“Do you remember what I told you?”
He nodded. “You are an examiner.”
“And what must you not do?”
“I must not tell the others about you because then I will fail the test, right?”
“Right. I was never here. Repeat it.” She whispered, feeling herself unravel from within.
He looked up at her. “You were never here.”
She knew his blue eyes so well that it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything to anybody about her. She swam away from the bed and to one of the dark corners, where she made herself invisible again, and then swam up to him, landing such a soft kiss on his forehead that he might have mistaken it for a ripple of water.
He was still staring at the corner. She wished he would just smile at her, one smile that would make all her pain, sadness and sacrifice seem worth it. But he didn’t even remember her.
The door opened but instead of Red, a mermaid in a long white coat came in the room, holding a clear bottle of mud brown fluid.
“Hello, Dan,” she said professionally, placing the bottle near him. “How are you feeling?”
He was wide-eyed, still looking at the corner Brell had disappeared to.
“Fine, thank you.” His manners were still in place. He hadn’t forgotten everything she had taught him.
She just hoped he wouldn’t mention her. The door opened again and four other mermaids in white coats entered, each holding a different item: clothes, toys, food and a book.
As the third mermaid entered, Brell slipped out of the door, floating above the mermen’s heads and swimming back down the nine floors. The moment she was in the storage cupboard, she burst into tears, sobs ripping through her chest. Her vision blurred and she could feel the hot air rolling down her cheek.
He didn’t remember her. He didn’t remember her at all. She rocked back and forth, her hair becoming a mess and spilling all around her. She had come here just for him, and his eyes barely registered her as a person he recognized. She didn’t think she could ever feel such pain after her parents’ death, but now she knew she could. For somebody you love to forget you is just as painful as them going away.
Oh Timmy, why? Why? Why did they have to do this? The tears gushed down her face in rivers. She buried her contorted face in her arms. They were going to make him healthy and then they were going to kill him… they were going to set him free from the sea.
She didn’t notice the door opening but she felt someone sit down beside her. Lukas. He didn’t say a word; just put his arm around her shoulder. A second later, she buried her face into his shirt, sobbing. His arms tightened around her and they just sat there for a few minutes.
“She r-removed his memory,” she whispered against his shirt, her voice breaking every few words. “H-he doesn’t even remember me. I’m a s-stranger to him, Lukas.” She broke down again.
He tucked her head under his chin. “You don’t know that,” he murmured. “His memory is not gone. It’s impossible to remove someone’s memory with magic. Memories are more powerful than magic can ever be. His memory is just… locked up.”
“Huh?” She pulled away to look at his face.
“Zeldae must have hidden his memory in a part of his brain which he can’t access. It’s not gone.” He ran his fingers over her tear stained cheek, wiping the tears away. “It’s still there. He just doesn’t know it yet.” What he said slowly seeped in.
“You mean there is a way to get it back?”
His eyes seemed strained. “There is a way. But it requires very strong magic… magic as strong as Zeldae’s.”
“I can practice, you know.”
“I know.” He said with a small smile, but she sensed in his voice that it was impossible. “You’re the strongest person I have met in my life Brellitine Grever.”
“Yeah, and I’m a sobbing mess,” she said, but he was perfectly serious. She put her head back on his chest and breathed in, realizing the rhythm of their breaths was the same. “I feel like I’m running just to stand still.”
“There has to be another way,” she added after a few minutes of silence.
“If there is, I promise you that I will help you find it.” He shifted so that he could look right into her eyes. “I promise.”
She nodded. “He has forgotten me. But he will never forget this place. It will always haunt him. That’s also what I am so worried about.”
They were silent for a while. But it wasn’t
an awkward silence… it seemed so normal. Peaceful.
“You should know,” he said urgently. “That hurt doesn’t always go away as fast as we want it to. It’s a stubborn thing. It takes its time. And if you try to push it away it will only hurt more.” He brushed his hand over her cheek. “But what you can do is focus on things that make you glad that you are alive. Things that make you happy.”
“Daisies.” That was the first image to pop into her mind. “Fields full of ‘em.” She whispered. “Rainbows. Sunshine, not through the water, but on land. When it warms you up, it’s the best feeling ever.” Suddenly, she didn’t want to stop. “Clear umbrellas on days with slight drizzles. The tingling feeling on my skin when it warms up after being frozen by cold. Raindrops falling on my face. Dancing with my feet hitting the ground. Dancing in the rain. The feel of a soft blanket. A good night’s sleep.” She almost smiled. “What are yours?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What are the things that make you feel glad that you are alive?”
“I was actually just listening to you. Let me think.” He took almost a full minute. “Watching the patterns made by the sun through water dance across my skin,” he said in his husky voice. “Red coral. Swimming till my tail hurts. Laughing.” He smiled. “Being tickled. Stretching my arms. Anything that is bluish-purple-black in colour —”
“Like a bruise?”
“God, you spoiled it!” He laughed. “But I haven’t finished yet.”
“Go on.” She smiled.
“My most recent addition to the list… you.” He said simply, gazing at her.
“Me?” she mumbled, awestruck. Their faces were really close to each other. So close that she could feel his warm breath against her skin.
“Yes, you.”
She was suddenly aware of his warm arms around her, the smell of the sea and waves, of the way his eyes were both tender and fierce.