by Mandi Lynn
All I can remember is falling in the water. I thought I was going to die, but this world that I’ve entered doesn’t seem like death at all.
“What did the rising sun look like to you before?” Mystral asks. Her voice is kind, quiet.
I look out at the water and beauty. Hues and tones I don’t have a name for flash before my eyes, and finally I understand what I didn’t see before.
“Those are called colors.”
Mystral’s voice is happy. Her words are a lullaby to my ears, and even though I’m not looking at her in this moment, I know she is smiling.
“You’ve never seen them before, have you?”
I shake my head, absorbing the brilliancy of color. They spray across the sky in a gradient, glowing like there will be no tomorrow and that they must celebrate their brilliancy right this moment.
“It is because you have transformed. The water of Tiboulain is magical. It took you away from the pain and gifted you this sight.”
“Can everyone see color?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “You couldn’t because of your birth.”
“What do you mean?” I turn back to Mystral and try to understand her words, but she shakes her head.
“You were born on a day of darkness, when the moon covered the sun—a solar eclipse. Born blind, but the moon gave you a gift—sight—but vibrancy was not part of that gift. These colors before you have names. You may not know all of them now, but they will come to you. The blue is the sky of day. The yellow is the glowing sun, and the brown is the soil of the earth.”
“I don’t understand,” I tell her.
“That’s okay. You have eternity to find the knowledge you seek.”
“Eternity?”
“It’s what we are given—it’s what we are.”
She smiles a kind grin. Her voice floats away and she is done speaking. She slides her body forward in small, slow movements making her way toward the pool of water that lies between us.
“You are my passage to eternity, Aida de Luna. The helper of the moon. You belong to the universe—we belong to the universe.”
As she crawls forward, I see her aging. Her dark hair grows and grays as it touches the ground. Her face changes, as wrinkles mark her smile; her body thins and weakens until finally she touches the water.
Mystral skims her finger in the liquid and I see her slip away to some eternity beyond sight. Her body turns to ash in front of my eyes and with an unknown grace, the water takes her away.
~~~
Fear should not be the emotion that instills me, yet that is what overcomes my body once Mystral disappears. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her disappear into the water, but this time it seems all too final. Nothing is left of her presence except the ashes in the air that were once her being.
I look around Tiboulain. It seems so familiar, but it is another world—another lifetime. When I look closely at the surface it appears damp, a soft gleam of moisture covering its façade. I run my fingertips over it, concentrate on the point of contact, but when I close my eyes it’s as if I’m touching nothing. I wrap my fingers around a stone and squeeze, but again nothing. I open my eyes and bring the stone close. Its surface is a dull gray, darkening in spots where water has pocked its surface. The rock is as solid as anything else in this world, but only my sight tells me it’s really here. I toss the rock and it makes a thud as it hits another larger stone farther away.
The sky around me is still roaring with color, and that’s what I don’t understand. All my life I had never seen any of this, but now it’s found me. Not only the sights, but the names just as Mystral had spoken to me. When I see the sun peeking over the horizon, I see yellow, flaming out to orange. The colors mix and diffuse into greater things—purples, pinks, blues.
And as much as this beauty astounds me, it makes me fearful, for what is unknown, for what doesn’t make sense, and for what confuses me. All at once this new world has come to me when I didn’t ask for it. I’m in a new life that doesn’t make sense. I can’t remember how I came to Tiboulain. And somewhere, without me, my family lives—or dies.
I crawl forward, and my limbs shake. It’s not reasonable; I’m not cold—in fact I don’t feel a thing. Warmth, cold, all sensation is lost to me; and that loss is what brings on the anxiety that rips through my core.
I near the edge of the pool. It is just big enough that someone could unknowingly fall in—breaking a bone in the process maybe. The memory of how I came to the water eludes me. I don’t remember falling in the water; I don’t even remember how I got here.
I lean my head over the edge, peering into something that kept me safe from the pestilence. My hand reaches forward and touches the surface, ripples of water echoing over it. When the surface stills, I see my reflection. A young woman stares back at me, her face stunned to find this new world. Her hair is golden, braided in loose waves about her head. When I look at her face I see beauty in her features, but also the utter fear that possesses her being. She is tired; she is alone, and she is me.
Dark circles encroach my eyes. I am the picture of death, but youth haunts the glow within my skin. And then I see what everyone else saw my entire life. My eyes are dominant, calling attention where it is unwanted. The irises lack color. They are silvery-white in the morning sun. They possess a metallic sheen that both amazes and horrifies any who look upon my being.
I am the witch I’ve been accused of.
XXIV.
The islands stare back at me. They aren’t anything like I remember. Pomègues and Ratonneau, the largest islands of Frioul Archipelago, have stone buildings on their land. What was once undisturbed is now invaded. A bridge has been built between the two pieces of land, connecting them in some sick display of uniting what should be left alone.
Standing on Tiboulain, I’m left only to wonder how much time has passed. Surely a bridge like the one I see now couldn’t have been built within a short span of time. The pestilence created too much chaos for this to happen overnight.
The cloth of my kirtle snaps itself in the wind. The fabric is worn and old. It has dried in the rising sun, leaving the material coarse and threadbare, ready to rip at the smallest of movements. It hangs off my body in a sad display, the color almost completely diminished. If I look close enough, it was once a brown that has faded to a lighter tan, now blending with the tone of my skin.
The waves of the island surround me. Water crashes against the rocks and splashes against its sides. Otherwise the morning is silent, yet the screams of the ocean ring out in my ears, begging me to leave. Tiboulain is small with nowhere to escape or hide.
All that can be seen is a rough, rocky surface that makes for an uneven land difficult to navigate. Crevices in the rock hide empty promises for shelter, none of which are large enough to hold a person.
It isn’t until I reach the other end of the island that I see a small rowboat. The wooden hull is starting to rot as its bottom sits in a small puddle of water between jutting stones. The boat rests just feet from the crashing waves of water as if someone had carried it inland, so it wouldn’t get washed away. There’s a rope to tie it in place, but despite the fact that it could have been secured to many surfaces it lies untouched within the boat.
I look around, almost expecting the owner to come out of hiding and scold me for being in its proximity, but no one ever does. Instead I push the boat, steering it into the water, careful that the rotting wood doesn’t brush up against the rough stones that had trapped it on the island. Despite its small size, the boat weighs just enough for me to struggle with its transport. With a final shove the hull touches the surface of the water and floats with an ease and poise that I never expected an old vessel to bear.
I’m far from the world I once belonged to. Somewhere behind Frioul Archipelago lies my home, Marseille, and for some reason, this scares me.
~~~
I’ve commandeered the boat which shifts and glides through the water. It lulls me into a trance that I will
never understand. Tiboulain shrinks away behind me, only a diminishing memory. The images of Mystral disappearing replay themselves in my mind, speaking to me in a coded language only I can decipher. I remember trying to rid myself of her in the village. Somehow, in the end, she captured my curiosity and I was a fool who came to Tiboulain at her bidding.
Marseille rises out of the horizon, but it doesn’t look the same. Just like Pomègues and Ratonneau, Marseille has also changed, grown almost. A barrier lines the ports of Marseille, a great wall rising above all else. Faraway I can see ships, appearing so small in the distance, docked in the bay.
As the hours pass, the sun travels across the sky. The rays find my skin, and as I row, all I can do is watch as my home comes into view—a home I don’t recognize.
~~~
The docked ships grow as I approach. They are so much more than the meager merchant ships I grew up watching, sailing in and out of the bay. I remember memorizing the ports as I grew, always amazed by the size of the great ships that carried goods from exotic places. The largest ship had three sails that branched outward when the wind caught flight, but the vessels in front of me now make those ships of old pale in comparison.
Even from a distance the ships in the harbor appear to be two, maybe even three, times the size of the ships I had seen in my childhood—their sails more intricate, far larger. They tower over the land and I watch as men unload boxes of goods from the ships’ hulls.
As I draw closer in my small rowboat I feel myself growing small, almost unimportant. I can be so easily crushed. My boat is manned by nothing but a paddle. Waves crash upon the ships before me but don’t sway. Out in the open I thrash around in the unruly water. The sea could so easily swallow me, and it would never be known that I was here; yet if these grand vessels were to sink, part of me feels it would be a great loss to many.
My heart beats inside me. The oar of my boat rests in my hands even though I cannot feel the weight of the wood. I float and drift in the sea. The stark colors of day eat away at me—the bright sky, the hovering ocean. It is all shouting for attention where my eyes were once blind, but it all just confuses my heightened sense of sight. The sails of ships blow in dull tones, but far behind them rests the heart of Marseille. It lies behind a stone wall that towers high above any person.
I watch as people leave their ships carrying crates and enter the town through a gate in the stone wall. Men guard the passageway, acting as a checkpoint and I realize it’s useless for me to attempt to enter. With a shuddering breath I lift an oar and steer myself from Marseille.
I row myself to a beach I had known. It was a place I never had to hide from others because I was the only one who knew of the secret beach’s existence.
My arms struggle against the current of the ocean, but I push forward. As I glide over the water, I remember Mama and how sick she was with the pestilence and I wonder if she’s still that way. When I left Marseille it was a dark, dying world, but when I look at the people walking across the docks, even from a distance, I see they don’t bear the weight of the pestilence.
A false hope burns inside me. I see the Bird leaning over Mama, putting her through extensive procedures to rid her of the pestilence. Could it really be over, just like that? Bernie died of the pestilence; everyone was dying, and it doesn’t seem possible that it could have ever ended so soon. There were buboes, blood, the smell of rotting flesh—all of it gone; it doesn’t seem possible.
I allow myself a moment to believe Mama is still alive, that she was one of the many who overcame this pestilence and prospered. That somewhere hidden within Marseille, I’ll find her at work in our cruck house. But the longer I scan the landscape, the more my hope is denied. Nothing is as I remember.
The world now open to me doesn’t seem real. I’m not a part of it.
XXV.
The village had been burned with fire. The air was still hot with death. Everywhere I looked, there was rot and ruin. Buildings appeared as if they might have just been torn down; people sagged against their own weight on the side of the road. Even the tame animals that once trotted through the streets couldn’t be found.
Once upon a time the churches here tolled their bells to signify death; now there is a frightening silence. There were too many deaths to support, too many funerals, so instead they did away with tradition. Bodies were thrown about as lives was lost, like life was a simple piece of thread that finally gave way to a great weight.
Burials became nothing more than a dumping ground for dozens of dead. Large graves were dug, big enough to fit what seemed like hundreds of bodies. The living would line up the departed, laying the deceased in rows, shoulders touching. It was a sick display and disrespectful to the dead—not giving proper funeral rites—but it was the only way to rid the air of so much death.
Priests refused the dying their final rites, fearing their own demise in the wake of the pestilence. Those once admired locked themselves away from the world, being nothing but the selfish human beings they are. Days, weeks, months passed and uncountable lives slipped from the world. Death became a common sight. It was a mere miracle if someone survived. Why did I survive? Why them but not me?
Life didn’t make sense, because it wasn’t life. It was a timeline of waiting, watching, seeing when death would come to their doorstep and take them away. The world wanted to tease them, to taunt them, to see how close death could get to them without actually killing them. Death would start with the ones they loved. A brother, a sister, a mother, a father—all dead, but not them.
Life was a cruel torture.
That’s what it is—or at least what it used to be.
~~~
When I finally dock the rowboat the beach is small, the sand extending only a few feet out, but the waves come to rest at its shore in a gentle rhythm. The quiet here is a great relief. There is only the gentle patter of water against rock and the whisper of wind between trees.
Stepping onto the beach, I pull my boat from the water. The small vessel groans and creaks as I carry it to the land and I feel as if it has seen its last voyage. I release the wooden nose and let it rest against the sand, watching as the stern continues to be licked by the waves of water.
I abandon the vessel on the beach and see how, even in my secret place, my world has changed. When I came here in the past it was always so secluded, but now, off in the distance, I see what looks like a village. Footprints are scattered on the beach, impressions of a world separate from my own.
I follow the path I had always used to travel home. The ground at my feet is stamped down and worn. As I separate myself from the small beach I encounter grass, with trees not too far away. The colors glow and reverberate off themselves and I wonder if these trees had always been here or if my eyes had been blind to their beauty before.
People stare as I approach, so I make sure to hide my eyes. They go about their business, carrying baskets, talking to each other, but when they see me their eyes scan my figure. My clothing is rotten looking in comparison to theirs. One woman has what resembles my kirtle, but the skirt is too full. Her dress is a red velvet that flares out at her feet, but the bodice is tied close to her chest with strings. When she looks me over she appears repulsed and keeps her distance, as if she can catch the distaste that I carry.
I try not to notice the gazes that bore into me. These people appear as nobles in their lavish clothing, but they are doing chores. A woman walks by with a basket of bread, yet nothing about it seems to appeal to me. Another much younger girl skips by, singing to herself the list of chores she must do by day’s end. Her dress is beautiful, with stitching all about the bodice, but I can’t imagine a nobleman sending his child to do chores alone—that’s what the servants are for.
“Miss?”
I turn at her voice, finding her finger tapping my shoulder.
“Who are you?”
A young woman, maybe just a few years older than me, stands close to my flank. As soon as she sees me, she steps back. Her ey
es are scanning me, looking me over. The bottom of my skirt is ripped and so are my sleeves. I’m nothing but a beggar to her and I expect her to shun me, but instead she looks at me with fear.
“What?” she says. Her dress is a lovely pink, the color of the blossoms on a cherry tree.
When I look at her bodice, all I see is how tightly the fabric is bound to her skin and I wonder how she finds the air to breathe.
“Your eyes.”
That’s when I realize she’s staring. I avert my gaze elsewhere, trying to find an escape.
“Was there something you needed?” I ask in the steadiest voice I can muster.
“I just … I don’t recognize you. Are you a traveler?”
When I look at her she flinches. I am still a monster to these people. While their irises glean golden brown, green, or blue, mine are a white and ghostly silver. I imagine what it is like to be a stranger looking into my eyes, seeing one’s own reflection when I’m looked upon.
“I’m looking for my mother,” I tell the woman.
I see her ease into our conversation, growing familiar with the strange quality of my eyes. She doesn’t study them as she had before, but I can still feel her questioning glances as she tries to make sense of my clothing.
“Maybe I know her?” the woman says, turning her chin like a tame dog does when spoken to. “What’s her name?”
“Celine Leland.”
Her lip puckers and for the first time I notice the small bottle she holds. A clear brown-tinted liquid rests inside the glass, but nothing marks what it is. It’s small, just barely bigger than her hand, but she clutches it to herself, as if it contains the world.
“I don’t believe I know anyone by that name,” she mumbles the words to herself, still reviewing names and faces in her mind, trying to find a match. “Leland? I don’t think there is anybody who bears the name. Did your mother live here?”