Lost Nowhere: A journey of self-discovery in a fantasy world

by Phoebe Garnsworthy

  Before she opened her eyes she was greeted with ghastly chills from the North, colder than before. In the short period that she had been gone, a strong shift in the weather had erupted. The trees looked barer, no flowers were in bloom, and any that were once alive and thriving were sad and droopy. She felt like the soil in the ground was dryer and the buzzing noise of animals, birds and insects that were once alive, were now silent. How long have I been away?

  The beautiful palm trees that once lined Jade’s castle in perfect symmetry were no longer there, and an empty shell of rubble, dried out twigs and rough pebbles were in its place. The giant crystal ball fountain was still intact, with Crysanthe and Zavier holding each other tightly, no movement at all. The water in the sphere looked contaminated, as pieces of algae and slime covered along the sides. Lily held her protective bubble around her body and cast the spell of invisibility to hide her movements.

  She walked up to the sphere, and touched on the glass. The case of water felt warm in contrast to the cold land upon Lily’s feet. She pressed her cheek up against the fountain and imagined the wire between her forehead and Crysanthe’s. She would use her mind to communicate with the mermaids.

  “Crysanthe, it is me, I am here.”

  The mermaids did not move in the slightest. There was no response, no movement. Nothing. Crysanthe’s head had rested on Zavier’s chest and their arms were embraced in a comforting grip.

  “CRYSANTHE! ZAVIER! It is Lily, I am here with you!” she tried to yell louder.

  No movement, nothing.

  Lily felt herself begin to panic, and she tapped on the glass hurriedly, humming at the same time, trying to move vibrational frequencies from her body through the water inside the sphere. But there was no movement from the inside that she could see. And she rested her forehead on the glass, allowing tears to sweep down her cheeks. Are you still alive? she asked.

  Don’t you remember? We never die, we are just reborn into another life. She heard a voice inside her head, but it didn’t sound like Crysanthe nor Zavier, and Lily wondered as to whether it was her own voice, telling herself a story she would like to hear. Or was it the truth?

  Lily pressed her skin against the fountain that was being guarded by uniformed gnomes. Lily knew they could hear her but she didn’t care. There was a sense of calmness still settling inside of her from the meetings with Jacques and Violetta. As she looked to the top most point of the crystal bowl, she had a strange feeling of familiarity. She had stared at that exact point of the bowl before, not only stared, she had a feeling of an entrapment, of a struggle. The vision at Karisma’s! And immediately, the lightning sparked as a voice from above, she knew what to do.

  Lily’s hand floated up beside her, allowing her initiation ring to shine dominantly. The tiny compass in front of her eyes represented the magic that had manifested itself into her world without her knowledge. The way it fit so snugly around her skin that when she squinted her eyes, the edges blurred, exuding the illusion that perhaps it had been there for longer than she realized, perhaps right from the day she was born she held the power. And instead of knocking the silly ideas from her head, this time Lily listened, and agreed, and respected the notion. She rubbed the crystal on the surface and thought about what it was she needed to do. And a hopeful image of the crystal fountain shattered in her mind, and a waterfall came gushing through the field, carrying the mermaids back to their ocean.

  Lily stood strong upon the ground. She envisioned her feet on the grass grow roots and tear deep beneath the soil below. Threading through the rocks and dirt, her roots grew, until she connected with the other lines from the plants around her, and the spider web below of a thick tangled net supported her vision. She whispered to the ground, through her feet, into the vines and asked for strength. And still the vines grew down, they created a caged lattice that held the fire inside the core of the world. And the warmth and light from the fire seeped up through the wires, like a fast moving electrical current, sizzling as it moved. The energy sparked through her body, pressing out through her ears, her eyes, and her nose with each breath. She was alive, charged with electrical vibrations, from the core of the world, with the joint energy from every frequency that was around.

  And when she opened her eyes, the land of Tehar was completely different, the world of Sa Neo, unlike anything she had witnessed before. The crystal ball stood intact, but the inside of it swirled with dark matter. The mermaids were unable to be seen against the lighter grey backdrop. The white and black edges blurred together, molding into one. She couldn’t see. All that she could see was a circle. A fuzzy lined circle. Nothing outside, nothing inside. She knew what it contained; it was the case that held the mermaids, the one she needed to break. It needed to be smashed, shattered, so that they could go on living.

  She opened both palms of her hands wide to face the ball, slowly, allowing the fingers to bend, so that she could feel the energy of the ball take weight into her palms. And then, she spoke. “Sa Neo, tel eb mar o ekyu.”

  The words seeped from her lips effortlessly. She did not know what they meant but she knew they must have been right, for the vibration of sound moved beyond her control.

  She repeated the words three times while she thought of the light that she held inside of her. The one that started from her heart, moved up through her head, and shot back down to the ground, into the web of chained roots below. And she watched as light pierced through the tips of her fingers. But instead of the light piercing through the center of the bowl, shattering the splinters of glass like the lesson from Violetta, it insulated the circumference, cushioning the sphere with a layer of glowing purity. But she did not hold enough force, and she could not smash the glass.

  She sprawled open her fingers and imagined holding the ball in her hand. She could feel the entire sphere weigh heavy on her fingers, and the world that trapped the mermaids inside was waiting to be acknowledged. So much power was taken, so much responsibility was given. And for a flash moment, she thought about giving up. Her arms began to weaken, the weight was too much, and it crushed her bones to the ground. She could feel them want to surrender. Her mind preferred the attachment of failing. But she could hear Karisma in her ear, telling her to clear her mind and to focus. To not think. To just do. And slowly, very slowly, she raised her arm back up. And the reflection of the bowl lifting her hand was mirrored on the ground, a raw sound of ripping concrete as the crystal ball fountain levitated toward the sky. The base of the fountain crumbled loudly, resonating through the air as it broke free from the soil, which rested on the land of Tehar.

  She lifted it high over her head, higher than the trees, up, up, and above. Her hands moved swiftly toward the ocean, motioning for the bowl to move over, and it did. And then with great relief, she let it go. The murky layers of swirling water inside the sphere began to subside, and the outline figures of Crysanthe and Zavier were once again to be seen. The giant crystal ball hovered over the water with Crysanthe and Zavier inside and Lily could foretell the future events. The ball would shatter into thousands of tiny pieces once it hit the rocky surface of the ocean floor, and the mermaids would swim back into the world of which they came from. But it did not touch the simmering bubbles of gallant waters beneath, and it stayed floating in the air, above Lily’s head. She held her grip tightly to the ball once more, and with all her energy pushed it down to the ground. But it did not move, and instead, it reluctantly started to hover back toward Lily, toward the land. And in the shiny glass sphere of reflective windows, she could feel the horror once more.

  Lily saw the claw-like fingers first before she saw Queen Jade. And they pointed to the bowl, a dark green smoke pushing through from her wrinkly hands. She was trying to take back the control and she was succeeding. The crystal sphere floated back toward the fountain, over the pebbles, and onto the dirt. The great sorcerer was too powerful against the young girl. And as hard as Lily tried, she had to let it go. But as she did, the sheer force of the two having pushed t
heir energy together into one, forced the crystal ball to collapse.

  In extreme slow motion the ball shattered into miniature pieces of finite glass, spreading far and wide over the entire field of dirt-ridden land, the pebbled beach, the forest and the ocean. Inside the sphere, the bodies crashed down too, and both Crysanthe and Zavier closed their eyes to commence their never-ending sleep. Queen Jade shrieked a high- pitched scream, swaying her head in disbelief of having been overridden by the foreign girl.

  A scowling flood of tears poured from Lily’s eyes as uncontrollable waves of sadness washed over her stance. She stood frozen, unable to move, barely able to breathe. The cold wind whipped her wet face, and it howled as it flew past her ears, a spinning turmoil of touch and sound. It was overbearing. But strangely, she began to like feeling the pain. It helped to deter her mind, and in the moment of feeling ever so lost, and so insignificant, she somehow felt more alive than she had ever felt before. Her eyes rolled heavy with madness, the spinning of glass around the sky disoriented her mind. And before she could focus her attention back to defeat the evil empress, a golden net floated above sweet Lily. The thick gold-plaited chain lifted high in the air and stretched out far and wide, directly above where she stood. And as the net fastened down to the ground, the sheer weight of gold crushed Lily’s head. The powerful force knocked her down hastily, she could not hold herself up anymore and she collapsed.

  Lily understood what was about to happen next, she had seen it before, in the vision. She knew how it could play out and for that reason; she felt no fear. She accepted the situation exactly as it was. For everything that it was and was yet to be. She did not refuse, did not object, and she released any ounce of energy that was in denial. And she closed her eyes and continued to breathe.

  But instead of seeing the restraints around her body that existed in her reality, she imagined the energy of the lights bouncing below. Like the first day she walked under the house and the crystals all lit up, guiding the way. They were doing it again. And she saw herself as a buzzing glow of energetic light too. The light inside of her stretched out into an infinite space, and then it squashed back together, into a tiny miniature ball, smaller than anything she had ever seen before. She focused on another beam of light, as far away from herself as possible, and she thought of how a magnet can pull something from afar, she pushed herself there, with the hope to connect. And slowly, very slowly, she felt herself float closer to the light. And when she opened her eyes, she was no longer crushed on the ground beneath the net on the shores of Tehar, but she was standing next to Violetta, looking out onto the land of Neveah.

  “Did I tedimeta?” Lily asked Violetta, as she looked down to her body, which had transported itself as well.

  “You did not need to tedimeta,” Violetta replied, staring straight ahead into the horizon at the white chalk-like cliffs.

  “I did not?”

  “You did not.”

  Lily looked to her body again. It was intact perfectly, only now she was wearing her nightgown she wore when she entered Sa Neo.

  “How am I here?”

  Lily looked to the white snow covered land that encompassed her surroundings. There was nothing to be seen for miles except the white mass of snow and faint contrast of smooth grey sky.

  “You shifted dimensions. You changed your consciousness. It happens all the time.”

  The white-chalk horizon slowly faded, as though the wind was carrying it away from the girls. It continued to move further away, dispersing the edges into the cloudy sky. And it wasn’t until the sky had turned into a thick, clouded mass that Lily realized that perhaps the sky wasn’t moving at all, perhaps it was she that had moved.

  “It happens all the time?” she looked up to the beautiful empress, asking the question, knowing perhaps Violetta would be able to explain more than just her question. But alas, once more, the familiar sense of calming noise blanketed Lily’s mind like a warm watered bath. She felt relief, and a strong sense of already knowing the answer to every question rang clear inside her body.

  “Yes. Give me your hand. I will show you the way.”

  Lily opened her right palm to allow Violetta to take hold of it. But instead, her left palm opened and a hand went into that one as well. And she was standing with identical marginal cutouts of herself, all holding hands in one great big row. From one side to the other, the line of Lilys continued, stretching out past the edges, continuing on for an infinity as far as she could see left, and as far as she could see right. And Violetta was standing in front of Lily, with her hands down by her side. Lily was holding hands with only herself.

  The beautiful queen stood strong in front of Lily. Her purple eyes perfectly framed with her long thick black eyelashes. And Lily looked deep within her eyes, in calming silence, she allowed her mouth to open and the words to roll out although she did not know where they had rolled from.

  “Am I still on the ground in Tehar?” Lily asked, knowing this kind of question was usually one to send the doctors to fill prescriptions. But she wasn’t scared with Violetta, she knew any question that she carried would be brought to the surface with patience, and answered without laughter. And before she could start to feel the fear of thinking so foolishly, the powerful empress confirmed her thoughts to be true.

  “Yes,” she said, although no movement was visible. The noise was loud, and the sound of Violetta’s soothing song of affirmation seemed to echo in the many cutout Lilys that lined up beside her. “Yes,” she repeated. Knowing that Lily’s mind was ticking to keep asking more questions.

  Lily imagined herself still stuck on the land of Tehar, inside the golden net that weighed her down to the ground, crushing her bones, her mind, and her toes. And then she floated back above her own body that held so tightly the hands of the others.

  “How can I be there and here as well?” She wondered, still not satisfied to accept all that there was, all that there is, and all that there ever will be.

  Violetta moved her eyes around the white space, looking to each of the other Lilys who held her hand so tightly, and stared with awe at the sight of the beautiful queen.

  “You are everywhere,” she replied, the sentence echoing through the girls all around, reminding Lily of the truth that she already knew.

  “And Crysanthe, is she dead?”

  Violetta shook her head slowly, no emotion in her face and her soft purple eyes, calm.

  “She is still swimming under the ocean.”

  The image of Crysanthe waving from afar flashed into Lily’s mind. Her skin glistening from the water, a thick crown of crystals covering her head. She felt so real, and so radiantly alive that believing Violetta seemed easy.

  “And you knew about the mermaids?”

  “I know everything.”

  The chalk-like cliffs from afar moved closer, closing in on the two, and gradually eliminating the cut outs of Lily, one by one. But the distance between the horizon and the girls stayed intact. They continued to travel in a long drawn-out line, moving at a great distance and yet not moving at all.

  “Come. It is time for you to go back to your father.” Violetta held her hand out to Lily while both of them stood by themselves in an empty space of white nothingness.

  “But, if I am everywhere, aren’t I already there?”

  The queen smirked with a satisfied look. “Yes. But you want to be present with him at this time. I know you miss him.”

  The memory of living with Father felt almost odd to her now. She was a completely different person than how she was before she had arrived in Sa Neo. But the love that she felt for her father burst through her thoughts. As though each cut out person that she had once held hands with was still visible, she could feel they all shared the same vibrational field. The overwhelming desire to visit her father engulfed her essence, and upon being told that was where she was meant to be, she agreed that it was so.

  “Can I come back here?” she asked, looking around the room for recognition, searching for
the land that she once knew. But it seemed distant now, as though she had already left Sa Neo.

  “A part of you will never leave,” Violetta replied, as she pointed to the ouroboros necklace on Lily’s neck.

  “The white will bring you back to Neveah. And the black pearl, to Neosa.”

  Lily bowed her head in gratitude. “Violetta?” she asked, wanting to voice the question inside that burned from the moment she ever laid eyes on the ouroboros. “Is the serpent really eating his own tail?”

  The corners of Violetta’s mouth stirred upwards lightly, as though she was going to smile proudly, and she titled her head with admiration for Lily’s question, ready to answer.

  “Lily, you are right, the truth behind this symbol is far greater than many think. The serpent really isn’t eating its own tail.” The image of the ouroboros appeared floating in the sky as Violetta spoke, the slithery skin etched in gold. “For you see, he does not know outside of his own being. So the tail that you and I see him eating is different in his reality. And it is his reality that only exists to him. There is no world outside of his tail, so his tail is not his tail. And yet his tail will continue to exist somewhere else.” The serpent swirled, munching on its own tail, as though it had no idea the two were watching him. “Now, take a deep breath. And close your eyes.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE