by Mandi Lynn
Brielle sits farther away, watching them like a mother might keep an eye over her child in a busy market. Edwin also watches the girls but rolls his eyes at their games. Conor, Jackson, and Theo stand on the other end of the lagoon, passing jokes between them.
“I’ve been speaking with Hadley. She’s told me as much as she knows about the lagoon, but when I ask her about you, she gives me no answer. She says it’s not her story to tell,” Giles tells me.
I look at Hadley again and see that innocent smile I’ve known day after day for years—the one that doesn’t age. She plays like a child and looks like a child, yet when she speaks, she’s so much more than that.
“My story isn’t one of great joy,” I say to Giles.
“Are any of ours?”
I don’t retort. We’ve all had our lives stolen from us. Some more than others. I’ve learned it’s better to live in a happy ignorance than to ask the others about their human lives. I stopped asking after Brielle. Her story haunted me, not in a way to cause me anguish, but in a way that I can’t look at her without seeing the pain she still faces. Some days I study Brielle and see her happiness, but then it is as if she removes a mask and the world has slammed a door on her soul.
“Do you believe we have powers?” I ask Giles.
He seems put off by my question. It takes him many attempts at forming words before he is able to put his thoughts together. “All these years I’ve thought of it over and over. I’ve watched Hadley speak to the humans in town and watched their confusion when they couldn’t see the source of the voice. But I’ve also watched Edwin walk through town as the humans clear a path for him to pass by, as if he’s one of their own. They don’t walk through his body like they may for you and me. And Brielle—well, she still hasn’t discovered the full potential of her touch. She refuses to leave Phantom Lagoon, but I believe that she has the ability to touch, if only she tried again.”
I nod my head. These are the same things I’ve observed, but part of me didn’t think or want it to be possible. The ability to connect with humans makes all this—being an Essence—so much harder. How are we expected to leave our human lives behind if we retain contact with them, even if only in a small way?
“I believe it has something to do with love,” Giles says.
“What?”
He takes a breath like he wants to pitch an idea to me. “Love. Hadley was in love with Valen. Brielle loved her daughter. And Edwin, he may not speak it, but he loved his wife—Lilly. She died from the flu when Hadley was eleven. She was his everything, even after she passed away—though he didn’t handle her death well. To Lilly though, he was just her daughter’s father, but Edwin was willing to give her the world.”
“But don’t we all love someone?” I ask, challenging his idea.
“Some more than others.” He doesn’t back down or shy away when he speaks.
My question seems to empower him more.
“Hadley said you’ve spoken to a human before—once—but you thought it had to do with emotion. Love is an emotion.”
I look at his eyes, see the small purple hue of his stone that hangs across his chest in leather, and wonder what it is he is trying to get at.
“Who did you leave behind?” he asks. His voice is gentle now, so much softer than it had been seconds ago.
He knows the subject is a bruised and still healing place in my heart. And I feel my body weigh itself down as soon as the words hang in the air.
“He isn’t a concern,” I say.
“Yes he is. Because I see it in your eyes. You’re broken in the only way a heart can be when it’s left to heal with jagged edges.”
All this time I thought I had pushed Garren away. I told myself that he was gone forever and how it didn’t matter whether or not he loved me once or loves me now, because I’m here and he isn’t. I was supposed to make Phantom Lagoon safe from humans, and that is all. I’m not supposed to be heartbroken. But Garren’s name hasn’t been spoken aloud in decades, and with the name haunting my mind, the wound is as fresh as ever.
“What happened?”
Giles speaks kindly and it makes me want to run away all the more. How dare he do this to me? When I was moving on and forgetting, he breaks open the wound again.
“It was before Phantom Lagoon. I fell in love with a man, and now he’s gone,” I say. My voice is hard, and the words don’t feel real. I had gone years, decades, without speaking of Garren, and now I’m being forced to do it again.
“Was he human or an Essence?”
I think back to when I had met Garren. He was most definitely human, but I don’t know when I first began to love him. In truth I didn’t fully realize my feelings until we were separated, but that seems like such a small fact.
“He was human,” I say, but it’s a lie. He’s an Essence, and he’s here somewhere, but I don’t want to pretend like he’s coming back. So I lie and I pretend like the person I love has died some time ago.
Giles nods his head like this makes sense.
“Did he love you also?” he asks.
I try to keep my face calm with this question, because it is the same one I used to ask myself every night until I was able to push Garren from my thoughts.
“We became separated,” I say, ignoring his question, pretending like separation is the only natural thing to occur when an Essence is in love with a human.
“But it’s love, that binding love that lasts forever—that’s the love that gives an Essence the ability to connect with humans,” Giles says.
“So you’re saying I don’t love Garren anymore, because I was only able to speak to a human once and never again?” My words come out quick. I didn’t mean to say Garren’s name for him to hear and it sounds so foreign in the air.
Giles opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it.
I turn to leave, humiliated by my own openness to speak about the one thing I wanted to keep to myself, but Giles takes hold of my arm.
“Maybe humans can’t hear you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t connect with them another way.”
My back is turned to him. His grip on my arm isn’t strong, but I don’t feel the need to pull away just yet. I want to walk off and leave the subject behind, but curiosity creeps in the night as he speaks.
“The only way to know for sure is to test it.”
“Giles,” I say, turning to look at him. “I’ve gone into town time and time again to no avail. They can’t hear me, touch me, or see me. I understand your theory of love and connection, and it may be true, but I’m not part of it.”
He watches me with sad eyes. He’s lost his fight, but it’s a fight I wanted him to win. In my heart I feel he must be right about love and how it gifts us the ability to communicate with humans, but it’s a gift I’m not a part of.
Giles releases me, dropping his arm to his side. I watch him for a while, feeling as if I’ve somehow broken him in a way.
“I believe you though. I see it in Hadley, Edwin, and Brielle. I see the love there,” I tell him, joining the others in the heart of Phantom Lagoon.
The night is still cloudy as everyone settles into what we consider sleep. It’s not when our bodies rest and rejuvenate, but when we surrender to another day.
LX.
Hadley and I walk through town like we do most every day. We watch faces as they pass by, observing what we can. Hadley and I, we notice different things. To Hadley these buildings she’s grown up with are home; they are what she had seen during her childhood.
Time has passed, but the dress Hadley wears now isn’t all that different from what the other women wear. Their dresses are full in skirt and cinched at the waist, but the colors are duller than what I’m used to; their hair pulled back in knots rather than braids. In a way I miss my peasant clothing from my time. Compared to the lavish clothing I wear now, it was just a rag.
But that was my human life, and some moments I feel as if that life were just a dream. Yet I wear the gown that had once wr
apped around Clara as she died in my arms.
“Is that Brielle?” Hadley asks.
We both stop walking and the humans around us continue, passing through our bodies without knowledge of our presence. Hadley’s voice can be heard, but with all the lost chatter in the streets, no one stops to listen.
“Where?” I ask.
Hadley lifts her arm, pointing to a small building opposite where we stand. Brielle hovers at a doorway, her hands resting at the frame as she hides herself, only her head peeking in. With her back to us, I’m unsure if it’s actually her, but when she turns, I’m certain it is Brielle. Her face is worn, making her age seem more so. Her hair falls across her shoulders in abandonment, the lines of her face drawn across her mouth and eyes. She lets go of the door frame and leans against the outside of the building for support, clutching the stone that rests against her collarbone on a leather cord.
“I’ve never seen her in town before,” I say.
“Should we make sure she’s okay?” Hadley asks.
Even from the distance I can see Brielle struggling to maintain whatever small composure she has found. After clutching her stone for a handful of breaths, she turns again to look into the building, completely unaware of the rest of the world around her.
“I’ll speak to her,” I tell Hadley. She moves to protest, but I don’t let her. “You can’t speak very much with humans around. Let me talk to Brielle alone.”
I can tell Hadley wants to stay, but she nods her head in agreement and walks away without looking back. When I see Brielle again, she is still peering into the building.
“Brielle?” I say in a soft voice.
She’s startled by the sound of her name and turns quick, hiding from whomever she is watching inside and bumping into me.
“Luna,” she says, still trying to gain some sort of calm.
“What are you doing?”
She rubs her dry eyes like there might be tears. “My baby sister is in there.” She tries to smile at the mention of her family, but by the end of the sentence her face has fallen.
I twist around her to peer inside. The building is even smaller than it appears from the outside. It reminds me a lot of the cruck house I grew up in. There are no rooms like many of the new houses being built over the years. This one only has a singular room with a bed, table, chairs, and what looks like a small wood oven with pans and skillets strewn about.
A woman rests in the bed with a man aiding her. His hair and beard are speckled with gray. One hand curls around the woman’s face, stroking her cheeks, while the other is wrapped around the woman’s fingers. She doesn’t open her eyes, but even then I can see Brielle in her sister. She looks older than Brielle, with a long mane of gray that floats over her pillow. Her face is sunken and shallow, and even though she’s pale, I can see how overheated her body is as she sweats.
I turn away, facing Brielle where she leans against the outside wall of the building.
“She’s dying,” Brielle says. Her voice contains little hurt. As she speaks, it is more fact than emotion. It’s as if she’s spent all morning facing this one known concept—her sister dying—and somehow she’s become okay with the idea of her family passing on without her. “That’s her husband in there. She’s had a fever for a while now, and they don’t have the money to see a doctor, so he’s just trying to make sure she is comfortable.”
“Brielle.” I move to put my hand on her shoulder, but she shakes her head.
“I’m okay. She’s lived a long life—sometimes I think it was to make up for the loss of my life. That is why she’s lived so long. I’ve been watching her. She was only nine when I came to the lagoon.”
“How long has she been like this?” I ask.
“She was sick yesterday but not nearly as bad. I came as soon as the sun rose. I just didn’t feel right. I needed to make sure she was okay. She was like this when I came. I haven’t heard her speak—she’s just been trying to sleep, shifting and turning. The fever’s getting to her.”
Brielle turns to look in again, her eyes always tentative for something, a sign that maybe her sister is leaving. A fear is in the air, a fear that maybe her sister will pass in the night when Brielle is unable to say her goodbye. It makes me worry that Brielle will become so wrapped around her sister’s passing that she’ll lose track of time and forget to return to Phantom Lagoon before sundown.
“How long are you staying here?” I ask.
She looks up to the sky and I can see the hurt there as she measures her time. The sun hasn’t begun to set yet, but it rolls across the sky in threatening power. When Brielle turns to watch her sister again the conflict is painted across her features.
“As long as possible.”
“Okay, just … don’t forget,” I say.
She nods her head, grief striking her like venom. No matter how true or important my words are, Brielle doesn’t want to face that part of reality just yet. In this moment she is here for her sister, and that is all.
When I leave, Brielle is watching her sister, never making a move to step away or leave.
~~~
I’m unable to find Hadley in town. I wanted to ask her about love and whether those were the feelings she still harbored toward Valen. Though I search for her, I come up alone.
The question seems so irrelevant now. Of course she still loves Valen. Love isn’t something that simply dies or flickers away. It’s always burning, even if the tone of the flame changes. One can love another as family or as a lover, but it’s still love. So, even if Hadley only loved Valen as family or a friend, that was still a love which allowed an Essence to connect with humans.
In truth I want to ignore Giles’s theory of love and connection. It makes our life and rules appear as a fairy tale, but deep in my heart, I do want love to be what drives our ability to interact with humans. But it worries me also. Because if I can’t be seen, heard, or touched by humans, does that means I’m incapable of love?
I wander the paths of the cobblestone streets, escaping the town that is so full of life. Instead I find a cemetery. The fence is wrought iron, coiling into a point. There’s no gate, just an opening in the fence that I step through. The grass inside is unkempt and abandoned, leaving weeds as the only greenery. The graves of the dead litter the ground and what I had found as a human site of mourning is something that is only a dream to an Essence. To be human is a blessing, because then at least I could be granted mercy in death.
A man is at one grave. He is young and leans forward, using the hard stone for support. He cries silently to himself, never truly revealing his pain. As I step forward, I see a flash of red in his hand. After a few moments he uncurls his fingers and crushed rose petals fall to the ground.
“Sir,” I say, but he doesn’t hear me.
Giles told me to test my abilities, but there might not be any to discover.
“Can you hear me?” I say louder now, yet still he doesn’t turn. All I can think of is how, if Hadley were here, she’d speak to this broken man and provide some comfort. Maybe she would act as an angel, telling him that his loved one is somewhere in Heaven, finally at peace.
“It’s okay,” I say, but I know he can’t hear me. And that’s all right. I lift my hand, watching this man, seeing every bit of pain he feels. I don’t know who he’s lost, but all I’ve ever seen in my human life was death, and it is so familiar.
I kneel down beside him, reaching out my hand. I have a small hope in my heart that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to touch him and make a difference. My movements seem so awkward in the air until I’m close enough to touch him. But just the same, I pass through his skin.
There’s a warmth though. It’s foreign in a way that scares me, but instead of pulling away, I find myself going toward the man. I concentrate on the position of his body, the way he breathes and somehow, in one last fluid movement, my body becomes one with his. Life and feeling erupt from my core in a beautiful show of senses. I am within this man, feeling the ground he
kneels on, the cuts from the rose’s thorns which have torn into his flesh, the gravestone he rests his forehead against.
Anna, I can’t. Not without you. Don’t make me do this without you.
His emotions seem too much. They cloud my own thoughts and scream out. I hear a distinct pulse of blood that I don’t remember as a human beat. But when I was human I also didn’t take time to feel the ground beneath my feet—it was all too familiar then, so many things I had taken for granted. Now all these senses seem so rich, so full that it’s just too much. His heart beats as if it’s my own.
The man I don’t know buries himself in grief. Tears run down his cheeks. I’m on fire with how feverish his emotions have grown. Sweat covers his hands and mine. The tears that come cool us and mark trails of relief down our face. As he leans against the grave I realize it’s not only from grief, but from sheer exhaustion.
“Please,” I say in the back of his mind.
Something changes then. The man is able to focus on something other than his grief when he hears my voice.
Anna? he says, but there isn’t any hope in his thoughts.
I want to tell the man yes, but it seems too cruel to lie. No, I say. But the words are only in his mind, the mind that I also occupy.
Memories flash through his consciousness. They come in erratic moments, the beat of each memory changing and progressing. A young woman smiling, laughing, crying. She has a small face, golden hair falling down her shoulders. Tears of happiness flow as she holds a bouquet of flowers on her wedding day. The same woman—Anna—older, holding a small infant in her arms. Anna in the grass, playing with a toddler just learning how to walk. Anna lying in bed, so sick, too young to be sick.
Where is she?
I don’t answer. We just both stare at the grave that reads her name.
Is she okay?
I can feel his loud heartbeat—too loud. With each passing moment her face flashes through our minds. Smiling, laughter, crying, pain—Anna was in pain.