by J. J. McAvoy
“Good.” Smirking I nodded as I directed. “Turn a little. Yes, like that,”
Taking a few of the pillows from the couch, I hovered over her as I positioned her hips and hands. Her lips clamped down and she tried not to look at me, and because I couldn’t help myself—because I desperately craved her attention—I tapped her chest.
“Where’s your giant diamond?” I teased.
She looked up to me and her eyes were like gemstones. Reaching up she touched my bare chest and allowed her hand to settle directly over my heart. “I put the most precious thing in here for safe keeping.”
I looked down at her hand. “Was that wise?”
“Undoubtedly,” she whispered as her voice forced me to look at her again. “You’ve kept it over and over again, even when I forget, even when…when you have no one with whom you can share the pain with…when you were alone. I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same.”
There she went again…making me weak…making me feel as if we were saying hello and goodbye all at the same time.
“Stay still.” I took her hand off my chest and kissed it before I placed it back over her waist. Getting up off the couch I moved back to my place and sat down.
Looking up again I found her staring at me with a deep, burning intensity and while part of me enjoyed the fact that she knew, that she felt it too—how deep and bottomless our hearts were—another part of me couldn’t bare the magnitude of that reality, I wanted to distract her, us, so we could be as we were now, just Malachi and Esther, not centuries old lovers. But she spoke before I could preserve the moment.
“We were never on the Titanic.” She wasn’t asking because it wasn’t a question. She was, whether she wanted to or not, remembering.
“No,” I said softly as I drew her from her feet to her face because every detail was engrained in my mind and…I couldn’t bear to just stare at her.
“So I can still blame James Cameron for making me sob for whenever I hear My Heart Will Go On.”
“And Celine Dion.”
She giggled softly. “Right. I’m kind of shocked you know the movie or the song.”
“Why?” I asked as I traced the curve from her legs to her hips.
“You said you locked yourself away from the world, right?”
“No,” I corrected. “I tried to. It was a constant struggle with myself. Sometimes I couldn’t bear the silence of being alone so I’d go out hoping to find you and just get it over with. I’d listen for your voice and look for your face, in music, art, film, until the fear caught up with me again and I’d lock myself away once more. Sometimes I was determined and yet the world we live in now makes it almost impossible to avoid certain things. Music plays when you get in an elevator or walk down the street. Most times I was torn, wanting more, fearing more.”
“Meanwhile I was…I was oblivious.” She fought back a sob. “Why is it I never remember?”
“Maybe you aren’t supposed to,” I told her honestly, now drawing her shoulders. “Maybe it’s me. I shouldn’t remember either. But I do and it screws everything up.”
“Or maybe it’s me and I’m supposed to remember sooner?”
“Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe into infinity.” I smiled looking up at her collarbone before drawing again. “We could guess and speculate but it doesn’t change the fact that I do remember and you do forget. It’s how it is and how it wi—”
I froze as my grip on the pen tightened.
“How it will be next time?” She finished for me as I started to draw again. “That’s what you were going to say. You don’t believe it might be different this time?”
“You still found me as I tried to hide, and I fell in love with you despite my efforts not to love you. And your memories are coming back. For there to be a difference there must be a change and nothing between us has changed.”
“Malachi.”
I didn’t reply.
“Malachi, look at me.”
Sighing, I looked and she smiled though her eyes were glazed over with tears she wouldn’t let fall.
“I’m never giving up on us. No matter the odds, don’t give up either. Promise me, promise you’ll believe we’ll make it this time.”
I couldn’t make that promise because I didn’t have that belief. I just wanted to enjoy these moments. Our final moments.
“Promise me,” she said again, and when I didn’t say anything she got up and kneeled in front of me. Her cool hand touched my face. “Promise me, Malachi.”
“I promise.”
“Again.” She placed her forehead on mine.
“I promise,” I said as I set the sketchpad down beside me.
“One more time, for luck and so it’s not a double negative.”
Chuckling I put my arm around her back and pulled her until she was in my lap. I nodded. “I promise…I swear on the most precious thing you’ve ever given me, I believe it.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck and with her nose barely touching mine she said, “I knew you were in pain. I even thought you were in love with someone else, and yet I still fell in love with you. I love you, Malachi Lord. Pain or no pain, past or no past, knowing or not knowing, I still love you. I want you.”
“You’re crazy,” I laughed.
She pouted and before she could say anything, I confessed what I’d wanted to tell her the moment I took her hand at the museum. “Esther Noëlle, I don’t love you just because I have always loved you. I love you because I fell in love with you—”
She kissed me before I could get another word out and I helplessly kissed her back. Nothing…There was nothing else to do except love the woman I loved.
19. SOUND OF THE HUMMINGBIRD
MALACHI
“Your choices are Mr. & Mrs. Smith—”
“REJECT!”
She said it so vigorously I had to look away from the television and over my shoulder at her as she came into the room with a tub of popcorn. She glared at the screen as if the actors had personally insulted her, and when she caught me gazing at her she relaxed. “Sorry, I know it’s stupid but I was a huge Brangelina fan. I know what they did to Jennifer was horrible but I was like, when soulmates get together what can you do? Now they’re getting divorced and the rose-colored shades are off.”
“Ohhh…okay then.” I nodded as I switched to the next movie.
“Crap! I forgot the wine.” She rushed back to the kitchen. “White or red?”
“Either is fine,” I replied then called out. “What about The Great Gatsby?”
“Also rejected! I hate The Great Gatsby!” She hollered from the kitchen. “Daisy is the absolute worst and in a whole book of horrible, vain, narcissistic people that’s saying something. But then again, looking at the author himself I can understand why everyone is viewed through such a lens.”
I shook my head. “What happened to just put on anything?”
“Anything is fine, just not those two,” she said as she came into the living room with a bottle of red wine in her hands.
Sighing I clicked random and read the first two titles that came on screen “What about In Your Eyes or The Hummingbirds?”
I waited for her to find some reason to reject them both but when she didn’t I turned back to her just as the bottle slipped from her hands and spilled all over the carpeting. I rushed forward as she fell back.
“ESTHER!” I fell to my knees and placed my hand on her head to keep it from slamming into the side table as she fell.
“Ma…lachi…”
“Shh,” I said as she trembled in my arms. Her jaw locked as her eyes struggled to stay open, which I knew was only going to make it worse. “Don’t fight it. It’s okay. You’re okay. Remember, you’re okay—”
Her eyes shut and just like that she was sucked into whatever memory it was that she was trying so hard to repress. Her face bunched up and her body slowly turned in my arms as if she wanted to roll herself into a ball.
“You’re okay,” I told her again because there was
nothing I could do. Nothing but lift her up and cradle her in my arms as I carried her back to the bedroom and laid her on the sheets. I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead for a moment before I pulled the sheets over her.
Watching her, I fought the thoughts that unfolded within my mind, I fought a losing battle because each time she grimaced I wondered: Why had I come back? Why hadn’t I kept running? Why had I done this to her?
“Tlah…”
It was the only word she spoke before her body went limp and it was all I needed to hear to know where she was and what memory she was in. Taking her cold hands in mine, I kissed them.
“I’m here, Yaretzi.”
ESTHER
1518 Huey Tocoztli, (2nd May) – The Road to Tenochtitlan, capital of The Aztec Empire.
“Weetz-ee-loh-POSHT-lee. The God of the gods,” I said as we reached the top of the grassy hill which overlooked the great city and the blue waters that surrounded it on all sides. A shade of the green layer grew over the earth so that each man could farm for themselves. The only paths came from the north, south, and west. “They say he came in the dreams of the elders, of the high priest, and showed them the city that lived on water amid the prickly pears that grew amongst the rock—the city which would become Tenochtitlan. And his home would be in its center.”
I pointed to the only land within the city which did not have grass, trees, or mortal life. The land had been stripped of these things for he did not need to farm. He did not eat corn or tomatoes, nor drink the water and sweet honey of the earth. He instead ate flesh and drank blood.
“Yaretzi, have you ever been inside the Great City?” asked Citlali, a girl of only ten summers old—half of my age who had a curiosity that could fill the skies. Her black hair fell barely past her back while mine was so long it almost touched the ground.
“No,” I answered her question as I took her red-brown hand. “We are Macehualtin,” I reminded her. We were not worthy enough to go to the Great City.
“Macehualtin today, but the sun will rise when I, Quauhtli, son of Matlal, shall awaken as a Cuauhipiltin.” Citlali’s eldest brother lifted his clubs to the temple and hailed the sun.
Quauhtli was the best warrior in our village. His hair was shaved on the sides, and the marking of his fathers showed upon his blood-brown skin.
“Cuauhipiltin…” I whispered the word. I’d never seen such a warrior but I knew of them— warrior among the warriors, a title only the emperor could give, and only to one who’d proven himself most worthy.
“Not if the emperor can never see you,” his sister made a joke of him and before he could even begin to return the favor, she broke from my hand and ran towards the trees.
“Citlali, wait!” I yelled running after her. Her black hair was picked up by the wind and spun all around her as she ran and laughed and disappeared into the forest towards the village. “Citlali!”
Twigs broke under my feet as I followed her and I worried that she’d get lost as she always did. But she had not made it far and had fallen to her knees as the warriors who wore feathers upon their heads and spears in their hands marched towards the Great City.
Rushing to her, I wrapped my arms around her and was about to bow my head as well when I heard the chains. Not one nor two, but the hands of all ten warriors were in chains. I followed the brown links until it reached the skin of the largest man I’d ever seen. So large that he blotted out the sun as he walked past me.
“Down.” Quauhtli rushed beside us and kneeled as he pushed my head down to look at the ground. “They have captured Tlahuicole.”
“Who?” I whispered.
“The Great Warrior of Tlaxcaltec,” he said as if I should have known. “The emperor will make them all—”
“FREE!” A warrior I could not see yelled until the whole forest was covered in screams.
“Run!” Quauhtli yelled as he rushed into a battle that had formed while my head was down.
Warriors like the large one came rushing out of the bushes, striking down the warriors of the Great City.
“Citlali, come,” I called. But fear gripped her and she would not move. But it did not matter for soon I could not move as I found a sharpened bone at my neck.
“No move.” I felt the bone bite into my skin as he looked at me with. The black around his eyes made his eyes dark yellow. It was like looking into the eyes of a tree snake.
“Shhh,” I whispered as I put my hand over Citlali’s face to blind her from all of this and to keep her calm. I wished someone could have done the same for me as I watched the green grass grow red.
“Ahh!” The large man screamed out as he swung his chain like a club to beat the man down, and the man did not come back up.
The large man, the Great Warrior, Tlahuicole, with chains still hanging from his neck and hands and feet, looked into my eyes. I knew those eyes and that scar which ran through one of them. He did not move as he stared at me and I at him. His eyes squinted as though he was not sure what to make of me.
And so, I spoke first, “In this life, it will be the last.”
His eyes widened and I knew then that he was who I knew he’d be. His lips parted to speak and yet it was another voice that came out.
“More come!” One of the warriors yelled as they kicked Quauhtli into the tree and raised their hand to strike him.
“NO!” Citlali, who I’d forgotten was in my hands, screamed and broke free. She grabbed one of the shards from the ground and threw it to the warrior’s face.
When the warrior at my neck moved his weapon from my neck to throw at her. I ran to her, hoping to push her out of the way, but instead I covered her body with my own and waited for the pain that never came.
Suddenly a shadow came over us and when I looked it was him. He’d grabbed the spear by the bone and blood dripped down at his arm.
“Tlahuicole!” One of the others yelled. Yet he did not speak. He nodded his head for them to leave but they refused. “Tlahuicole,” the man called once more but his voice different, warning him.
Tlahuicole did not speak, he did not move and so they, his own people, rushed to his chains and tried to pull him by force, and his fury turned towards them, to the confused the warriors of the Great City.
“Run, home,” I said to Citlali as I brushed her hair from her face. She cried and so I pinched her arm as hard as I could. “Run!”
She hugged me then ran into the bushes, her hair being the last thing I ever saw of her. Part of me hoped she’d turn back so that I could see her one more time but she did not and all I could do was say into the wind and hoped it would carry to her ears. “Live long. Live well. Live under the sun little sister.”
“Leave him!” The snake-eyed warrior yelled and the others pulled back as more warriors ran from the Great City.
Tlahuicole stood in front of me and I gazed on as they retreated back into the bushes, thankfully into the west and not the east where Citlali had gone.
When I couldn’t see them again I rose from the ground and reached for him.
“NO!” Tlahuicole’s voice was deep, rough, and unnatural, like a voice unspoken until this very moment. I did not have time to ask why he’d spoken or why no had been his first word because I’d gotten my answer.
Reaching up to my neck at what I thought was a bug bite, I discovered a small dart. I looked to him as I pulled it from my neck and brought it to eye level to examine it. Then I glanced up to see the horror in his eyes.
“I’m fine…” There were two of him as the world spun. The green of the trees blurred and my body no longer felt like my own as I went back.
MALACHI
“AHH!”
She leaped from the bed, screaming in agony. Her eyes were wide and her body trembled as I grabbed her.
“Esther.” I brushed her curls off her face but she kept gasping for air. “Esther, love, breathe. Just keep breathing.”
“It hurts… IT HURTS!” She screamed as tears fell from her eyes.
“
No. You’re here.” I kissed the side of her sweat-covered face. “I’m here.”
“You’re…you’re…”
Just like that, she collapsed again my arms, and I wasn’t sure if I should exhale or not. She was in pain and I couldn’t save her from it. There was nothing I could do but just be here. So, I wrapped my arms around her and took a deep breath as I held her. “I’m here. You’re here.”
ESTHER
1518 Huey Tocoztli, (4th May) - Tenochtitlan, capital of The Aztec Empire.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
What is that?
I tried to turn away from the water that was dripping onto my eyes but even when I turned the water followed.
“You must wake.”
At his voice I did, and I had to rub my eyes for they were sore, but not because of the light. There was barely any light, instead we were in near darkness, and the only source of light came from the front of the…
“Where is this?” I asked sitting up on the deer skin.
“Near your Temple,” he said as he shook the water off his hands and moved the bucket to the side so that he could turn towards me and cross his legs as I’d crossed mine
“Temple? Only the…” I said still confused. I felt groggy and tired as I slowly looked to him. He stretched out his hand waiting for mine and I gave it to him.
“In this life, they call me Tlahuicole.” He turned my palm upwards and examined it. I did not like my hands, they were dirty and my nails were ripped and fingertips scabbed over. I wished to pull my hands back in shame but he would not let go. “What do they call you?”
“Yaretzi,” I replied when he placed his palm on mine. “They call me Yaretzi. Why do you speak like…uhmm…?”
With my other hand I reached up to my heart as it felt like it was being cut from my body.
“The mother in this life named you well,” he said softly. “Yaretzi, you will be loved forever.”
“Tlahuicole…what…what is happening?” I asked gripping tightly onto his wrist.