Chapter 17 Anassa
The waves part like a curtain, a crimson horror gliding out of them, reaching for Claret.
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 were warned 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, to act 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 makes me able 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.
As if whatever power made them swell before is counteracted by this very light.
‘Ah, the Shepherd’s brilliance and benediction are now upon us.’ The Bard stops and turns around, relief painting a fleeting smile on his face. ‘My ladies, we have weathered the worst. Soon, you will be right where you belong, and I can move on to more pleasant things.’
I should not feel furious at his words, his condescending manner, the way he makes it clear he would be glad to rid himself of us, of me.
Wrapping myself tighter in my cloak, I decide to dismiss insults real and imagined, and take in my surroundings instead.
The sand beneath my feet feels harder now, dried and more brittle, as if I’m stepping on a carpet made of vellum or a rolled-out parchment.
The colours of the waters flanking us have changed, foamy blues and angry whites giving way to deep turquoises and sapphires.
As we keep going, tall reeds erupt from their still, mirror-smooth surfaces, feathery stems rising in numbers until there is no more water to be seen amid their stacks; until we’re walking through a golden field of grass.
It’s beautiful – I wonder whether Claret finds it beautiful as well, whether this drier terrain helps put the pain the waves awoke behind her.
With the cloak’s hood down, her hair is no less golden than those reeds surrounding us, a cascade of curls reaching down to her shoulders.
It does not evade me how perceptions change, like the landscapes of this world; how a person can gradually go from demon to a tenuous ally, to someone I seem to keep following to my ruin.
Claret suddenly stops, signalling me to do the same. ‘Snakes,’ she hisses, pointing her knife’s end to the scarlet shadows weaving between the reeds. How did I miss them?
The Bard chuckles. ‘Now, now, don’t get hysterical. These are merely ribbons of silk, harmless bookmarks, hungry to mark their place in a new story. They won’t attack you.’
‘There were many men back in my court,’ Claret draws each word out slowly, like blades buried in honey, ‘who also made a point of mocking me for what they thought were womanly reactions. They all sang a different tune before the night was over.’
‘You’re an odd one, figment. Not long ago, I saved your life and yet I do believe you’re threatening me, rather than thanking me.’
Claret raises her knife in a way that says the time of threats is over – blood will be spilled if I don’t intervene. Husband or not, he deserves a better fate.
And we have far too few allies to slay them.
I walk up to Claret, grabbing her wrist. ‘This long walk has been exhausting,’ I say, pushing her knife-holding hand down, hoping she understands. ‘Tempers are flaring, words are being exchanged, but words are nothing, nothing we cannot yet take back.’
With a grunt, Claret lowers her knife. I let her go.
The Bard walks on, oblivious to the fact that I just saved his life.
We proceed in silence, the seven-pointed star looming closer with our every step. After a while, the torch goes out, as if acquiescing that its feeble light is no longer needed. The beds of reeds surrounding us wither and crumble, leading to a smooth expanse of land.
Everything is so bright, it feels like a mirage at first.
A mighty arch rises in front of us, shaped from sand and stone, crowned by that brilliant star.
It feels like yet another door that should lead to a new realm, only this one is open, inviting.
I cannot see beyond it; the light is blinding.
On one side of the arch, the statue of a leopard looms, so lifelike that I take a step back, fear fluttering once more inside my throat, remembering that cat-like apparition on the black beach.
But both the Bard and Claret march ahead, so I set my fear aside and follow, my eyes never leaving the leopard.
Its hide seems to be made of gold, or parchment, or indeed sand.
Its black spots swirl like markings on a letter, in a script I cannot read, yet can innately comprehend.
Focusing on the moving spots makes my head hurt; it fills my arms with goosebumps, as if whatever birds I hold inside are pecking furiously at my skin, eager to carve a path to freedom.
And it’s because I am so focused on this leopard, on the left side of the arch, that I miss the other leopard on the right. The real one. A moving, breathing beast that trots in our direction.
‘You are safe now, my children,’ the leopard purrs, but all I see is sharp, sharp teeth.