I expect her to lash out, threaten to cut it with her knife, assert her fierceness even as the odds are stacked so high against her. Instead, she drops her blade, rushing towards that girl-shaped wave. ‘Claret, no, hold back,’ I say, tugging at her arm. She doesn’t even spare a glance at me.
‘My sweet girl,’ she manages amid her – sobs?
I’ve seen more than my share of terror since I drank the witches’ brew. Great limbs of trees tearing through my castle walls; a creature made of solid shadows trying to drown me; a cave with walls of blood and broken echoes of my voice, squeezing my breath out of my ribs; all my regrets being grafted on my skin. Yet nothing could prepare me for the anguish Claret’s cry awakens in me – because there’s nothing sweet about that liquid limb that reaches out to her. About the wall of water hovering behind it, ready to pounce and carry and devour. Still, my companion’s usual sharpness is nowhere to be found, her eyes glazed over with a grief as terrible as hope. This time, unlike every tribulation we have faced together, our joined hands do nothing to dispel the sylphlike spectre’s hold on her. One more step and she’ll be lost, crossing over the threshold we werewarned against crossing, leaving the tenuous safety of sand behind.
And I am struck with the overwhelming need to save her, the panic as a flock of birds claws at my scalp from within, forcing me to think fast, toact now.
Falling on my knees, grabbing hold of her hand with both of mine, I try to keep her from surging on to certain death. Still, I’m not strong enough; Claret is stubborn as she is solid.
‘Quick, help us,’ I beseech the Bard. ‘The waves, they almost have her –’
He turns around, his face filled with fortitude, and in this moment he bears such resemblance to my husband that I forget to breathe. Dashing to my side while maintaining careful strides, never approaching the sand’s end, he waves his torch at the scarlet spectre.
‘Begone, you foul sea-sorrow! Get thee back to Lethe’s depths. I have been granted passage by the Shepherd to escort these two. Wilt thou dare incur her wrath?’
The girl-like wave retreats, grabbing a lock of Claret’s hair. For a terrifying moment, I think even this touch will be enough to trap Claret forever, dragging her to a deep, watery grave – but the spectre melts away, shapeless once more.
Claret’s resistance on my hands subsides. Her shoulders shake.
I stand up, letting go of her reluctantly, knowing she’d rather not be witnessed in this state. Careful not to get too close, I reach for her knife, pick it up and offer it to her, to show that I am fully on her side – that there will be no further plotting, on my end. That amid all the horrors that surround us, I pledge to not be one of them for her.On the knife’s blade, I catch a glimpse of bloodshot eyes, brewing with a new, raw kind of pain.
‘My lady,’ the Bard starts, his voice so soft it prickles on my skin, ‘we cannot linger at these shores. The spectre that approached you, it was a child, yes? A child that lives no longer?’
Claret gives the tiniest nod. A ball of lead lands in my stomach; she had mentioned a murdered daughter, one slain by her husband. I clench my fists. I mustn’t touch her now.
‘I understand you do not know me,’ the Bard says, ‘but please believe me when I say I know something of your pain. This is the mission of this place: to reflect our greatest losses, our innermost regrets, on to these waves. Best not to look at them, for they will carve into your soul, bit by heartbreaking bit, until you find no reason not to drown. I’ve lost many a good story thus.’ He pauses, waiting for an answer that won’t come from Claret. ‘Very well, then. Onward we go.’
He turns around without acknowledging her – or me – further.
His speech, more than his indifference, shakes me. How could he know the pain of losing children? Once more I question whether I’ve forgotten something monumental from my past life, like giving birth to smiling babes only to cover them in shrouds. Yet he insists on talking of his pain as if he shoulders it alone, and of me in such dispassionate terms … His every word a stone, lined upon my wall of doubt. His every word a hint that nothing in this place is as it seems; that somehow, against everything I could have foreseen, there is only one companion I can trust.
‘Claret?’ I whisper. ‘Are you –’
She whirls back, curls flying, knife firm at hand. The strand of hair the spectre touched falls limply on her cheek, a twisted thread of unshed tears. ‘You heard the … Bard. Let’s go.’
Venom coats her voice – and though I know I’m not the cause of it, I do not wish to be its target. So I say nothing further. I let her lead the way once more, focusing on the red colour of her cloak as we make our way across the endless wall of waves, silent and vigilant.
My own ghosts, the ghosts of Duncan and his children, the innocents I brought to slaughter for my husband’s sake during that night that feels so long ago, whisper to me from behind the waters. Taunting me with their wails. Spectres of bloody daggers flicker right and left, steel lining my vision. I know better than to offer them my attention. What I do not yet know is what makesmeable to resist – whether finding the fortitude to ignore their ghostly torment suggests I’m of a stronger ilk than Claret, or that I’m in possession of a much, much colder heart.
But I find solace in the fact that she can’t see them either. That, while carrying the grief for her lost daughter, Claret won’t notice what my ghosts are yelling: that with my actions, with my crimes, I may have caused another mother’s heart to drown in grief.
After a stretch of time too great for words, the swell of waves lessens like the retreating tide; the ground elevates until we’re walking uphill. With my gaze so firmly set on Claret’s cloak, I don’t notice it at first. It happens slowly, but it happens.
The waves go from being monstrous open maws,towering high above our heads, to slightly over forehead height. Then, to shoulder height. I could peer over them, but still I do not dare to turn my head fully in their direction. My whole world is Claret; my path is that of Claret.
‘Careful, now,’ the Bard whispers. ‘While inching closer to the shores of safety, we are not yet untouchable; the waters still have teeth. Remain alert. Don’t let your gazes wander yet.’
‘We are not idiots,’ Claret grumbles. ‘Are we, Anassa?’
Her words take me by surprise. But since we are not holding hands, short of turning around, which would allow her gaze to wander, she has no way of knowing where I am. Perhaps,perhaps,she’s worried. ‘We are many things,’ I say eventually. ‘Idiots is not one of them.’
I hear her exhale – with exasperation or relief, it’s hard to tell.
‘Women … On paper or in flesh, why must you all be so …’ Whatever nonchalant remark the Bard was about to throw at us, dies unuttered in his throat.
Once I blink several times, I can see why.
There is a brilliant light ahead, a seven-pointed star that hurts to look at. And in its light, everything becomes coated in a warm, resplendent glow.You are safe now,my children,this light purrs, a voice that’s not a voice but still burrows in the marrow of my bones, setting my teeth on edge. I feel the strangest tug of fear, as if this chaos inside me that is dark and feathery and wise awakens, croaks thrice in warning, urging me not to let my guard down. Yet what am I to do, when my companions don’t seem as perturbed? Even the world around us mellows. The waves, currently at hip height, immediately fall flat, transforming into harmless, lifeless ponds lining our path. Asif whatever power made them swell before is counteracted by this very light.
