My eyes flutter open. I am assaulted by cerulean skies glistening with the splinters of shiny stars, reflecting all the colours of Iris’ bow as they slowly melt and fall. This not-quite-rain, not-quite-meteor-shower lands on my eyebrows, my cheeks, the tip of my nose, coating me with its sweetness as if preserving me in honey. Sweetness, such sweetness! The sudden feather of my heart soars higher, about to take flight. I open my mouth wide, welcoming this sweetest rain, laughing as it tickles my eyelashes. Propping myself up on my elbows, I marvel at once again being unharmed. Unharmed and … in a meadow, wildflowers stretching as far as the eye can see. In front of me, not so far away, a rocky hill. Did we fall from up there? I laugh. How am I alive?
‘I don’t believe I’ve heard you laugh before. It’s quite unsettling.’
Anassa’s voice takes me by surprise – but of course she’s here too! Why wouldn’t she be? We fall together, crawl together, fly together. Bonded together by the Weaver’s expert hands, one claret thread and one coal black, making our own macabre tapestry of mayhem and murder.
‘What are you speaking of? What tapestry? Did you hit your head during our fall?’
Anassa’s eyes are wide and green, so very green. Can green eyes see my thoughts? Or did I speak out loud? ‘Ha! I’m fine! It’s this rain; it makes me think of sweet, sweet, sticky things.’
She shrugs, her narrow shoulders rising like ravens’ bones under her open cloak. Brittle, brittle bones. I couldbreak them with a hug. ‘It rains constantly, back in my … realm. This light drizzle is nothing. The skies are even blue. Perhaps this place doesn’t hate us.’
It dawns on me that she’s too sombre for my liking. Those pouty lips could do with loosening up. ‘Don’t you feel different here?’ I ask, struggling not to giggle. ‘From the rain?’
‘You’re the one acting differently.’ Anassa approaches carefully, as if I might burst into flames. Ha! That would be a glorious sight, golden light, ancestral right. ‘Are you hurt? May I?’
‘May you what? Touch my head to see if it drips? No spilled pomegranates here, not like Agamemnon’s; mine are all still trapped inside!’ I knock on my forehead for good measure. But my words don’t seem to soothe her, and that makes me sad, so I nod yes, she can touch my head.
Anassa’s blackened fingers trace my forehead, my skull. She even checks behind my ears, on the back of my neck – and then, for some peculiar reason, her long fingers stray further down, patting my shoulders and my cloak, reaching my waist. I wiggle, bursting into laughter, her touch so ticklish, so inquisitive, like little blackbird beaks pecking, pecking. Sticky warmth spreads in their wake, and suddenly I yearn to toss this cloak aside, to only clothe myself in rain.
Anassa takes a step back, her hands quick to retreat into the folds of her own cloak. ‘You seem unharmed. I wonder if our cloaks protected us from the fall, when that horrible tunnel …’
She shivers. And then it hits me – our cloaks. She’s still wearing the hood of hers.
I reach out with both hands. ‘Anassa, you need to feel this rain on your head. It will melt your gloomy mood, I promise! Taste it, like that!’ I open my mouth, swallowing sweetness. My head is heavy, like when I drink unwatered wine. Everything is so soft, my fingers on Anassa’s cloak as I lower it, her hair while rainbow raindrops fall –
‘Stop it! What are you doing?’ The little raven slaps my hands away. I would pluck her feathers one by one and use them for a pillow if I was not so busy basking in this softness.
I step back, and back, and back, walking backwards from Anassa until she gets all blurry, and then I start spinning round slowly, a dance with just myself, while my toes luxuriate in the tall grass underneath and my hands are raised like sails as I am soaring to the sky …
And then I hear it: a laughter. It’s small and dainty, daintier than a daisy.
Anassa joins my dance, her head tossed back, her rain-kissed lips spread into something I did not believe them capable of: sincere, ecstatic laughter. She nudges me with her shoulder and starts swaying next to me, hands fluttering to her side as if swimming in a secret sea that parts only for her. Greedy sea. I reach out and steal Anassa’s fingers back, lacing them with mine, sticky, sticky, cold at the blackened tips, and she does not complain, only laughs again, so I swirl her and I swirl her and her private dance melts with mine, slowly at first and then faster, spinning around in the softness, until our knees grow weak and we fall down on the grass, still holding hands. We breathe unsteady breaths, punctured by rain.
‘Oh,’ she says, her cheeks so flushed they make her scar glint silver. Pretty scar! Will it taste like lightning if I lickit? ‘Oh, Claret, have you ever experienced anything more exquisite?’
‘No,’ I whisper, huddling closer. She smells like a burning forest that has just been saved by rain, like pine and promises. I remember her trapped in that cave, screaming and crawling with me as the Erinya chased us, clearly after me, yet so willing to hurt her too, to get to me … Something inside me snaps. It could be my heart. I bet it’s soft enough by now. ‘Exquisite,’ I agree, my forehead touching hers. I can reach her, with both of us lying like that. Her skin is hot and cool at the same time, buzzing with the beehive of her many, many thoughts. I could almost taste them, scoop them out and –
‘Cla-ret,’ she says so very slowly, ‘your nose almost stabbed me in the eye.’
For some reason, we both find that so hilarious we laugh ourselves to tears.
‘It’s not … my fault … you don’t have … a nose of your own,’ I manage between cackles. Mood swirling with mirth, I pin her down and straddle her, pinching her tiny, tiny mushroom of a nose to prove my point. She squirms and squeals, which makes me laugh even harder.
But then my laughter fizzles out. Because my knife is in Anassa’s hands, and its blade points to my throat. I blink, trying to comprehend what’s happening, this damn rain making me too soft and slow, all my muscles like molasses. I don’t react fast enough – and she pounces. With a push she tumbles us around, until I’m on the wet, wet grass and she’s on top of me, perched like an onyx-plumaged omen, my knife’s blade glinting rosy bright, a sliver of shining sky. Will she push that sliver on my neck, let the sweet, sweet rain wash my blood away?
And is it fear or longing that makes my breath hitch?
‘Not as fun when you’re on the other side of this, is it now?’ The glint in her eyes puts the whole meadow to shame, and I can’t tell if I should fear her or admire her.
Or strangle her swan neck with my bare hands.
‘Did you plan this all along, sneaky Anassa?’
‘No … Yes.’ She shakes her head and the movement pushes the tip of the blade into my skin, drawing the tiniest bit of pain. Perhaps the tiniest bit of blood, but I don’t care. Even that pain is soft. ‘I thought I shouldn’t, not after the cave. But when I searched you for injuries earlier … It felt good, knowing that I’m the one wielding this for a change.’
Ah. That explains her roaming hands before. I’m impressed. Disappointed. Befuddled at my lack of care. I arch my neck. ‘It’s only fair. I’ve tried to kill you thrice. Take your chance.’
The forest of her eyes parts at my words, irises lightening like sun-kissed leaves. ‘Thunder met and thrice a threat …’ she mumbles, which makes no sense to me at all, so I stay quiet, waiting to see what she’ll do next with my knife.
