Awaking first from the sweet silence brought about by the crackle of flames, Clementine noticed something gently glowing in the distance.
“What is it?” the fox asked upon awaking and seeing Clementine’s expression.
“There is a light,” she said. Somehow, somewhere in her depths, she already knew what it was. She stood up and headed towards it. The fox followed.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” he asked.
Cutting through the night like a prow through calm waters, Clementine came to—nestled between piles of gray leaves—a duo of blossoming violet flowers. “Hyssops,” Clementine said as the fox studied their glow. “I was told they symbolize sacrifice,” she continued.
“I… I think that from where I come from,” the fox began, “hyssops are used as antiseptics, as medicine for lepers. Someone… someone I love, used to make tea from them.”
“Foxes drink tea?” Clementine asked.
“It’s odd,” the fox said, ignoring her. “So potent a color and so close to the border.”
“It must be strong,” Clementine said. She admired the flowers for a moment longer before returning to the fire. She pulled Meditations out of her jacket pocket and after pulling out and stuffing the handkerchief into her pocket, began reading to herself.
The fox remained near the hyssops for a moment longer, observing their numerous bells, petals and stigmas. While smelling them, a feeling of warmth surprised him as it ran down his back. “Odd indeed,” he said and luminescence floated out from within them forming into a pair of faces: a man and woman, both in their late thirties. They smiled at the fox and merged to become the face of a beautiful young woman with auburn locks.
“I remember you,” the fox said.
“I hope so,” the woman replied.
“You…”
“Yes?”
“Your name…”
The woman smiled.
“Delicata,” the fox spoke, growing in size. His color too became vibrant.
“You mustn’t forget names, dear,” the woman said. “Your memory keeps the dead alive.”
“The dead,” the fox repeated with melancholy. Slowly, he shrunk.
“The Gray Lands beyond will sap your past,” the woman spoke. “Keep the girl safe and your memory shall flee gradually not all at once. Keep pace and seek the Soundsmith.”
The fox nodded.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“I am,” the fox paused to collect his thoughts. “My name…Gideon?”
“Don’t forget,” the woman spoke. “The names and the colors.” The luminescence grew faint and began to wane.
“Wait,” the fox said. “Where are you? Where…”
“I am among friends,” the woman said before her face became that of the man and woman from before. They smiled at him before fading. The fox stared at the purple of the hyssops trying to recall something from mere moments ago but failing to do so he made his way back toward camp.
“Do you always carry books with you on adventures?” he asked Clementine as she read.
“I carry Meditations with me everywhere I go,” she said. “It keeps me company.”
“A book as company? That’s a first.”
“I’ve come to know that a book gives more assurance and support than a person can,” she said. “A book is a silent friend: it keeps me busy, makes me feel less lonely.”
“There is nothing worse than the empty feeling of lonesomeness,” the fox said, turning toward the flames. “Someone once told me that reading is a revolutionary act.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “I think it more relaxing and calming than revolutionary.”
“It takes courage to read, to learn, to know,” the fox said.
“My dad used to say that,” Clementine said, turning toward the fire. “It was nice when he taught me things, told me fables or read to me. I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t really care for those small things back then. I thought it was just him telling me about something that he read in a book.”
She smiled to herself.
“Once, I spilled maracuja juice—it’s sort of like a passion fruit—all over the kitchen floor. I was so scared. I made a mess, wasted juice and now I had to clean it all up. My dad heard the noise and came in to see what had happened. I don’t know why, but I thought that he was going to yell at me. He didn’t. He just said, ‘Well aren’t you going to clean that up?’ I was so surprised. I asked him if he is going to punish me for the juice, for the broken glass. He just smiled. ‘Punishment should only be given for evil deeds that we intentionally choose to do, never should one be punished for accidents, for fate,’ he said. I think about that sometimes. I think about how naïve and absurd that sounds. And yet his words make me feel content.”
The fox looked at her, silently.
“My parents, through their calmness, were able to take any situation and present it to me in a way that would make me think about it, make me analyze it and learn from it. They helped me understand, but now, without their guidance, it’s difficult to understand anything.”
The fox looked at Clementine as if he saw her for the very first time; he studied the yellow of her shirt and the green of her jacket, noticing a faint light emanate from her pocket.
“You know Mr. Fox, it seems to me that people drift through life telling each other that they know what they’re doing. They lie to themselves all the time. My parents were the smartest people that I’ve ever met and yet, they too had no idea of what they were doing. ‘Do what feels right and brings no harm to others,’ they used to tell me.”
In the silence of her pause, the fire seemed to crackle louder.
“I know it’s odd to have a thirteen-year-old think and feel like I do. Ila and the others make sure that I know that,” Clementine turned from the flame to the fox, catching him off guard, forcing him to look at the fire. “It’s a strange place to be in, this void between back then and soon enough. Even though I sometimes regret it, I’m glad to be me. I’m what my parents left behind, I can’t be ashamed of myself, it’s like saying I’m ashamed of them.”
Clementine turned toward the fire and for a long time they watched the poetic dance between the ravenous flames and sizzling wood. She yawned.
“I know it’s rude to ask,” the fox began, “but your parents, did they pass?”
“You mean died?” Clementine said. “Marcus Aurelius calls it death. He wrote in book two, ‘How all things quickly vanish, our bodies themselves lost in the physical world, the memory of them lost in time.’ I think he has a point; we should call things as they really are. Death is death. As for my parents, I don’t know if they’re dead. I just know that they’re gone.”
The fox looked at his paws and, as if trying to recall a lost memory, said, “I think that you remind me of my mother.”
“You think?”
“I… I know that you remind me of my mother,” he said.
“What was she like?” Clementine asked.
The fox’s eyes grew miserable. He turned back to the flame and said, “I… I don’t remember. It’s odd. My thoughts, the memories I have—I had—I feel them fading with each passing moment. I have a very faint idea of who I am… I… I can’t remember my name, Clementine.”
Gently, she placed her hand on his back.
“I remember flashes of black light,” he continued, “echoes of distant screams, a chase, and someone’s death. There is a memory locked away in me that is too painful to think of. I feel as if yesterday I knew exactly whom I was and today I’m garbed in doubt. I fear that tomorrow I may be a completely different person.
“The memories that I still have, the ones that do burn bright somewhere inside, are those of my mother. I can’t remember her face but I know that she was kind and good hearted. I know she grew ill, a sickness she called the long arm,” the fox paused, remembering something else, something that excited him. He grew larger. “You can only catch it from a prolonged exposure to the Other. It�
�s a vile illness where your own thoughts tear you apart. The long arm is that which we do not see but which we always feel, our conscience.”
For a moment, his voice grew confident. The memory of the long arm birthed other recollections and as they surfaced, he spoke, “I remember a woman.” He paused, and as if speaking to himself, he whispered, “You mustn’t forget names.” He grew larger still. “Her name was Delicata. We were engaged. I… I need to hold on to this memory, but her face, it too fades.”
He paused and looked at his paws before saying, “I’m becoming an animal, a beast and it all began with the boy who wasn’t a boy. Clementine, I think…” He looked at her. She had fallen asleep without knowing it, her head resting against the tree. The fox smiled.
He noticed Meditations as it lay open at her side. Curious of it, he sat beside it and skimmed through the pages with his paw. Throughout the whole text, he saw highlights and notes in the margins. While flipping through, reading a note here and there, he stopped on book five where written in heavy black ink, sat a note, “Have you ever seen a vulture on vacation? Or an ant on a pleasant sea voyage? Perhaps a pangolin snuggling into a blanket, doing nothing all day? Neither have I.”
The fox smiled, flipped to page one and began reading by the firelight. He read until the fire died out.
Chapter Nine
Through the Threshold
“Why is there nothing here?” Clementine asked.
The fox walked up beside her to see stretching out before him a great swirling blur: the forest faded into the hazy grayness while an infinitely tall wall of smoke stretched east to west. At ground level, the grayness sparkled. Wisps of color flowed into it. Looking upward, the fox saw the swirling grayness turn to solid blackness, infinitely expanding into the sky.
“We’ve arrived at the border of Mundialis,” the fox said, looking east to see the shadow stretch and vanish into the horizon. “I’ve only been out here once and once being already too many times to be on the edge of despair.”
Clementine stared into the swirling grayness and somewhere, deep in her mind, she heard the distant voices say, “Follow us.” Hypnotized by the haze, she took a step forward.
“Clementine,” the fox’s words brought her back. “Are you sure you want to do this? Once we go in, we can’t come out until we reach the Soundsmith, and even then, we might not come out at all.”
“The very proximity of decay lends a special beauty, a courage, to the fruit,’ Marcus Aurelius wrote,” she said. “Am I sure? I’m nervous, but I’m sure.”
“All right then,” the fox said. “We need to walk into it simultaneously, otherwise we will be separated.” Clementine nodded and they walked into the swirling grayness together. In a blink of a moment, Clementine found herself alone in complete darkness.
“Mr. Fox?” she said and, as if in a vast cave, her voice echoed throughout the blackness.
“What are you doing here?” a rugged voice called out from the night. She blinked and three figures surrounded her: a figure of black, a figure of white, and a figure of multiple colors.
“Übel,” a chant echoed from somewhere far off.
“Hello?” Clementine said. The figures continued to stand still, featureless, resembling distant silhouettes. Clementine took a step and they moved along with her. She moved left, they moved left. She moved right, they moved right, always keeping the same distance between her and themselves.
“What do you want?” Clementine asked. From out of the multicolored figure walked out a figure of a boy made of what looked like television static. The boy spoke in a direct and deep voice, his words taking shape on his body in the form of demented shadows. Clementine watched intently.
“A long time ago, there traveled three: a goshawk from the west, a fox from the east and a storm from the north. The storm was drunk on the music of thunder and the showmanship of lightning, and as it danced its way through the land, it tore trees, demolished dwellings and swelled streams.
“Hearing the storm’s power from a low clearing, the goshawk changed course from east to south, thinking she will not run into the rambunctious storm. Seeing the storm’s might from a high hill, the fox changed his course from west to south, thinking he will not run into the boisterous storm. As they traveled south, they came, from different ends, upon an abandoned cabin. Seeing the storm draw near, they entered the cabin: the goshawk from the east and the fox from the west.
“Upon setting foot in the cabin, the goshawk and the fox met.
“Hello, sir,” said the goshawk.
“Hello, madam,” said the fox.
“And just like that the two of them were acquainted. The goshawk complimented the fox on his fur. The fox complimented the goshawk on her feathers. Of compliments, there were many, and yet each of them had but one thing on their mind: wondering how the other tastes. Soon, they spoke of their own beauty and talents: the goshawk of her fine wings and flying thrills, and the fox of his tail and clever skills. While they danced the waltz of flattery, exaggeration and hunger, the storm neared the cabin. It did not take long for the goshawk and the fox to tire of their charade of manners, and in a flash, they were upon one another.
“Give up now vermin! My talons are the most powerful in the entire west,” the goshawk said.
“Give up now feathered pest! My jaws are the most powerful in the entire east,” the fox said.
“As the goshawk and the fox fought, the storm pirouetted down upon the cabin ending them both. Not their senses, not their skills, not their beauty, might and wills, saved the goshawk and the fox from the apathy of a dancing storm.”
The shadow images on the boy’s body began to change. The silhouettes of the dead goshawk and fox became that of a girl and a man. The static boy stepped back into the multicolored figure and a great sound of laughter echoed all around, shaking Clementine. Frightened, she ran, and they accompanied her. No matter where she went the three figures remained by her side.
“Leave her,” a stentorian voice said and instantaneously the three figures melted away into nothingness. A dim gray light grew flavescent above her and out from it emerged a great shadow appendage resembling a gaunt twisted arm.
“Freak!” Ila Umer’s voice shouted from somewhere.
“They left because you tore them apart,” Dahlia Teadmatus voice said.
“We never loved you,” Clementine heard her mother’s voice: different, muted.
“A nuisance is all you’ve ever been,” her father spoke.
Laughter of classmates grew louder, their words vilipending her as they filled the void: “Know-it-all Clementine! Daughter to a whore! Daughter to an ass! Sister of a gnat! Worthless! Horrid! Sad!”
Clementine looked around wide-eyed. Anxiety, like a weed, ensnared her heart. The voices and laughter stopped, replaced with loud sobs. Clementine recognized them. They were her own. A deluge of sadness and loneliness flooded her and she turned cold. Memories of sitting in her room alone returned. Memories of wet tissues, soaked sleeves and pillows, on whose comforting hugs she relied to fall asleep, forced themselves back into her mind. She tried so very hard not to cry, but it was of no use, the tears streamed down her cheeks on their own.
Memories of Dahlia yelling at and hitting her. “You’re a rat!” Memories of being told how worthless she is. “Trash and garbage!” Memories of being locked out of the house and sleeping on the porch, of being told to “Shut up!” by her classmates, memories of self-pity and hope, of daydreams and wishes that ended with the bleak reality of loneliness. “Get over yourself!”
The laughter of faceless voices joined the sobbing in a symphony of sorrow.
“Know-it-all Clementine! Daughter to a whore! Daughter to an ass! Sister of a gnat! Worthless! Horrid! Sad!” Her feelings frayed, she felt numb and exhausted, on a brink of collapse. Looking up, in a desperate attempt for aid from beyond, she saw the appendage inching toward her, indifferent to her fate.
“Take me,” she whispered, “I don’t care anymore.”
“There you are,” her parent’s voices returned. No longer harsh, muted and cold, their tone was comforting, genuine and warm.
“Do not worry, my dear,” her father said.
“Ignore the voices,” her mother said.
“They won’t stop,” Clementine whispered.
The teasing tore at her emotional innards. “Know-it-all Clementine! Daughter to a whore! Daughter to an ass! Sister of a gnat! Worthless! Horrid! Sad!”
The laughter echoed in her ears.
“I can’t take it, Mom,” Clementine said, falling to her knees. The weight of intangible laughter and teasing grew solid, and like a stone to a snail, it crushed her, drained her.
“Ignore it, Clementine,” Alice and Bell’s voices said.
“Why did you leave?” Clementine screamed as tears enveloped her eyes. A deep feeling of worthlessness clenched at her being and she felt like a crumpled piece of paper thrown into an inferno. Her body grew weak and she felt a deep need to be alone, to escape. She lay down on the ground and covered her ears, but the teasing and laughter were too loud.
“We know that you can ignore it,” her father said. “Be strong. Be like Marcus Aurelius.”
She looked up, saw as the withered arm reached for her and from somewhere deep down, a new strength awoke in her. She grabbed Meditations out of her pocket and swatted at the appendage. As she stood up, the arm touched Clementine and a beam of color sprang from her. The light from above dimmed and a dozen arms rushed out of that dimness. Like leeches, they began to drain her color. She swatted at the nearest appendage and it withdrew upwards, replaced with a dozen others.
“No book shall save you,” the voice said and an arm swatted Meditations out of Clementine’s hand. As the white book struck the darkness, dozens of arms rushed at it, covering it in shadow.
“In every contingency keep in your mind’s eye those who have the same experience before you and reacted with vexation, disbelief or complaint. So where are they now? Nowhere!” the voice said. “Even Marcus Aurelius knew of the complete and utter defeat. Defeat that you should embrace.”
The Auburn Prince Page 9