I remembered lying awake, staring up into the dark blue waters from the ocean floor before every death. And each time my eyes opened, my lungs burned in the fight for air. Although I sometimes fought it, there was never any more air inside the sealed casket. Most times I had given up, feeling defeated, wishing for the gods to take me for eternity and never bring me back.
It didn’t matter, the magic still pulled me back from the other side just to kill me. I must’ve died thousands of times in that coffin, alone, each death a slow and quiet one—a sweet suffocation.
When Mother’s voice came again, I maintained a rigid gaze on the horizon, trying to shut her out. Hearing her was the least of my worries.
I was wounded with no clothing, the unknown on the other side of this cliff, and a past life so far away yet as clear as if it had happened only yesterday.
The lady had left packaged food in the basket, but I felt sick each time I thought about eating it. Throughout the night, I reminded myself that she had saved me. If she wanted to harm me, she had plenty of chances to do so. However, I still couldn’t find it in me to trust the only one who was immune to the curse inside my face. The one who was born from my sketchpad. The one who’d sung to me, her voice like a celestial embrace. The one who’d spent hours by my side, reading to me.
No, I couldn’t trust her, but perhaps one day I could.
But what if she didn’t return?
Each morning, I managed to make it to the ocean. Saltwater healed my wound quicker, but the effort it took to make it to shore weakened me and left me to sleep for the rest of the day. My body felt like someone had drained me over the last hundred years. And I suppose this was true.
I searched the cave for my gloves and found them beside my dry clothes.
While slipping them on, I caught sight of the cut from when I had ripped the knife from the lady’s hand. I ran my thumb over it, a deep, angled slice from my index finger to my wrist, and I remembered how her breath scattered across my lips.
It hit me then.
My envelope. My cigar tin.
Fear consumed me as I snatched up my pants and clutched the pockets, only to find them empty. I spun in the cave, scanning the sand. I grabbed the blanket and shook it out. I searched the basket, but it was nowhere to be found.
I stood wide eyed, heart in mouth, until I collapsed, the earth catching my bottom.Fourteen years, ninety-nine books, and I dropped my head in my hands, an onslaught of regret rushing into my chest.
“Dammit, Mother,”I cursed. If I had the energy, I would have thrown my fist into something, but there was nothing left in me. So, a tear slipped down my cheek, and my vision was blurry when I looked out into the ocean again, utterly helpless. I bit my lip, tasting my heartache.
A fishing spider darted across the cave’s wall and grabbed my attention; eight eyes, a chestnut body, and black rings around its legs. The creature dipped half its body into a crack and turned, frozen and facing me.
We stared at one another. Her curious, me defeated.
It crawled up the bend and hung from the roof, hovering there until the spider released its web and landed on my head. I sat with a statue-like posture, feeling its legs trickle down the side of my face until it sat on my shoulder.You’re safe here, I wanted to believe she was saying.Everything will be all right.
A gasp mingled in the air, and my gaze steered toward it.
I hadn’t heard the lady coming.
I collected all emotion with one swipe of my palm down my face, and there she was, in a fur coat, frozen in place with horror in her eyes.
A black bag hung from her shoulder, and she reached her fingers into it, withdrawing a shoe, her eyes narrowing at the spider.
I jumped to my feet and caught her tiny wrist with my gloved fist.
She was standing so close I could feel her body warmth.
It wanted to pierce through her clothes and touch me.
She was breathing hard, too, and I couldn’t help but watch how her breasts moved each time she took a breath. I wanted to know what it would feel like with her chest beneath my palm; when her lungs caved and when they would fill again; other memories I would see of the girl I’d drawn so many times before; the picture that had a voice, a warmth, a gentleness; the wild that was her heart.
I swallowed, clutching her wrist in my hand.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice strangled from fighting back the staggering pain in my side. It was a voice I hadn’t used often, and if Mother had her way, it wouldn’t have been used at all.
The lady’s green eyes squinted at the spider on my shoulder, and she tried to pull her arm from my grip, but I would not let go. The spider clutched on to me, digging its skinny and fragile legs into my skin as if it knew I was its protector.
Her ill-tempered eyes sailed to mine.
