by T.A. Barron
Then a dark, lumbering mass of mist gathered in the distance. Shallia watched, her heart racing, as it started to rush toward shore. Toward her. The whispering grew louder and louder, drowning out the surging sea. She tensed. Should she leap off her perch and run back to the hut? But her fingers only clutched the stone more tightly.
The dark mass approached, leaning into the land. Great, writhing arms protruded from its face, reaching out, stretching toward Shallia. The whispering became a rumble, the rumble a roar.
Suddenly, the whole mass stopped. Mist hovered over the lone girl, embracing her, quivering slightly where its edges melted into the air. Yet the mist came no closer, never touching her, just as it never quite touched the beach.
At the same moment, the full moon’s light cut through the vapors. There, deep within the curled arms of mist, Shallia saw other arms: more delicate, more wispy, more . . . like her own. With elbows. And hands. And long, slender fingers. Fingers that moved! One misty hand, shimmering with moonlight, reached up to comb strands of flowing, silvery hair. Then a shoulder appeared, a neck, and a face—the face of a tall, glistening girl standing inside the mist.
Shallia started, almost tumbling off the stone. In response, the mist maiden turned sharply, placed her hands upon her hips, and gazed through the vaporous window that separated them. Her eyes, gleaming like starlight on the waves, fixed on Shallia’s. For an instant, the whispering ceased, as if the sea itself were holding its breath.
All at once, the mist maiden threw back her head—and laughed. Although Shallia couldn’t hear her voice, she clearly felt her mirth. In her own bones, in her own veins, in her own mortal flesh. And then Shallia, without thinking, did something she had not done for a very, very long time.
She laughed out loud.
The mist maiden nodded her head, raining moonlight on her shoulders. As she placed a silvery hand upon her chest, the whispering resumed, swelling into a sound like Maaalaaashhhaaa.
Slowly, her skin tingling, Shallia rose and stood upon her stone. “Malasha,” she repeated. Then, touching her own chest, she uttered her own name.
Shhhaaaliaaa, echoed the mist.
With a sweep of her hand, as graceful as a wave rolling over a reef, Malasha beckoned toward the beach. Shallia hesitated briefly, then clambered down from her perch. As she stepped on the coarse, wet sand, she left deep footprints in her wake. Meanwhile, Malasha moved in the same direction, always staying within the wall of mist, leaving no footprints at all.
Walking parallel to each other, the two girls followed the shoreline. Shallia sensed somehow that her companion could not leave the shroud of rippling vapors, just as she herself could not move beyond her own, more solid world. Yet even though mist and sand could never merge, they still could touch—almost.
Speaking no words, the pair wandered down the beach together. When Shallia picked up a spiraling conch shell, turning it over in her hand, Malasha bent to gather something of her own. It looked like a sinuous, glowing ribbon: a mist-serpent, perhaps, or some sort of plant made of air and light and half-remembered dream. Intrigued, Shallia traced the shape of a circle in the wet sand at her feet, whereupon her companion drew a luminous circle in the mist itself.
And, once again, both of them laughed.
Malasha turned and padded silently through the folds of mist, lifting her hands as if to feel some invisible spray. And Shallia followed, her feet slapping the shallow pools on her side of the boundary.
Suddenly Shallia spied a sea turtle laboring to dig a nest in the sand. As she halted, bending nearer, Malasha halted, too, leaning as close as possible to the turtle’s bright eyes and mottled shell. For some time, the mist maiden watched in fascination—as well as frustration. Shallia knew that her companion wanted to break through the wall of mist, to walk between their worlds. For Shallia wanted the very same.
All evening long, the two girls explored the edges of their shared shore. They leaped like dolphins in the moonlight, chased spinning stars of mist, strutted sideways with crabs, tried to grasp at moonbeams. And whenever one of them had a new idea, the other readily understood. With no words at all.
As the yellowing moon dropped nearer to the horizon, the evening light shifted. The undulating wall of mist turned from silver to gold, gilding the hair of both girls, and the wings of a passing gull. Shallia sat on a tangle of driftwood, watching the glowing mist and her newfound friend within it. The whispering swelled a bit, caressing her with soothing sound. She felt so different than she had only a few hours before. Glad—no, more than glad. Revived, in truth. Like a parched voyager, finally given water.
And yet . . . while she and Malasha had found each other, they couldn’t truly share each other’s lives. They couldn’t speak. They couldn’t touch. Over her shoulder, Shallia glanced at the setting moon. The trees lining the beach shimmered with golden light, no less than the mist. If rays of moonlight could pass between the worlds, why couldn’t she do the same?
Shallia sighed, filling her lungs with cool, salty air. Even as she exhaled, she saw Malasha tilt back her head and lift her chest, as if she, too, were sighing. Just then, a great whale spouted somewhere in the distance, drawing a deep, full breath of his own.
A smile slowly spread over the two girls’ faces. Though they could not share the same world, their worlds shared the same air. And so did they. For the breath of the whale, and the gull, and all the creatures of the sea—was their own breath, as well.
For a long moment they gazed at each other, breathing in unison. Their bond pulled stronger than ever, yet so did their longing for more. Then Malasha, wrapped in mist, took a step nearer. She leaned into the vaporous wall, pushing it aside, tearing it apart with her hands.
Hope and fear raced through Shallia, faster than a pod of dolphins leaping through the waves. “To me! She’s coming to me.”
The whispering of the waves grew louder and shriller. Malasha hesitated for an instant, then continued tearing at the barrier between the worlds. Anxiously, Shallia stood. Walking to the very edge of the beach, she reached into the mist, hoping to clasp the hand of her friend in her own.
All of a sudden Malasha’s eyes widened, her face contorted in pain. She clasped her foot and tumbled backward into the swirling vapors.
“Malasha!” cried Shallia.
No answer came but the rising whispers, even more shrill than before. The wall of mist shuddered, darkened, and started to shred. As Shallia watched, dumbfounded, the misty curtain melted away—vanished completely, along with her friend.
The whispering ceased. All that remained upon the waves were the last golden rays of the vanishing moon. Seconds later that, too, disappeared. In deepest darkness, Shallia stood alone on the beach. She called. She stomped on the sand. And then she fell to her knees, sobbing.
Every evening thereafter, Shallia returned to her stone, watching the waves until dawn. She saw no more mist, heard no more whispers. Yet night after night she continued her vigil. She no longer cared if her grandmother discovered her hideaway. Or if some angry wave rose out of the sea and swept her away. She cared only about finding again what she had known for an instant—then lost.
“Malasha, where are you?” she called over and over again to the sea.
But her friend never answered.
One night, as a crescent moon lifted, hooking the edge of the horizon, Shallia sat alone. She had already lost so much in her life. And now Malasha, too. Her fists clenched. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. She wouldn’t! But what could she do? She had no idea, except that she would pass through a sea of spike-fish—through the very mist itself—if that were the only way.
She bit her lip. Through the mist itself . . .
Slowly, she stood upon her stone, raising her arms to the sea. “Come for me, please! Take me to my friend.”
The sea, as always, gave no response. Shallia’s arms fell to her sides. Dejectedly, she turned to leave. Then, one last time, she glanced at the ocean.
In the dist
ance, a long arm of mist, as pale and slender as the moon itself, lifted out of the waves. Soon it was joined by another, then another. The wispy arms began thrashing about, raking the sky, as if whipped by a violent storm. Yet there was no storm, at least none that could be seen.
Suddenly a wave of mist lifted above the water, growing taller by the second as it rushed toward the shore, toward the stone—and Shallia. Just as it reached her, the great, shimmering wall arched forward, curling over her upturned face. Then it plunged downward, submerging her completely.
All at once the churning mist shredded into nothing. The air grew calm, as did the sea. But Shallia was not there to see the change. For her stone had been swept clean.
Shallia found herself sitting on a strange, soft hillside. A gentle wind, smelling of salt, tousled her hair. The ground, if it could be called ground, felt as moist as moss after a rain, and so supple that her hand could almost pass through it. Before her stretched a swirling, shifting landscape. Ridges rose and fell like foaming waves, canyons yawned and closed and opened again, and colorful clouds glowed like melting rainbows.
Then she noticed an eerie sound, rising from all around her. Its slow, sweeping rhythm reminded her of waves washing ashore. Yet this sound was deeper, richer—full of feeling, like a thousand voices chanting in unison. Like something she had heard in another land, another world.
Where, she wondered, had she heard that chanting before?
The air around her shimmered, as silvery shapes began to form on every side. Shallia leaped to her feet, unsure whether to stand or run, or where indeed she might go if she ran. Swiftly the shapes thickened into people, tall and somber. They stood in a circle, gathered around something she could not see. Softly they sang, adding their voices to the rhythmic song—a song that grew more sad, more longing, with every note.
One of them, a man whose cloak fluttered as gracefully as fronds of kelp, turned to face her. For a long moment, he observed Shallia. At last he spoke, his deep voice trembling like an underwater bell. “Child of the hardened world, I did not wish to bring you here. But my daughter, who calls you friend, did. And though I doubted the wisdom of doing so, I could not bear to refuse her.”
“Malasha?” Her bare feet sinking into the moist ground, Shallia stepped nearer. “You are her father?”
The man’s mouth pinched, even as the despairing chant swelled a little louder. “Yes. And her father I shall remain, even after she dies.”
His words struck Shallia like an icy wave. “Not again,” she whispered. “Please not again.”
The man lifted his silvery hand. Two of the chanting figures stepped aside, revealing a slender form lying on a bed of mist. It was, indeed, Malasha. Shallia moved closer. Her friend lay still, as lifeless as a shard of driftwood.
Gently, she lifted Malasha’s frosted hand—the very hand she had yearned to touch on the night they met. At that moment, Malasha’s eyelids opened a sliver. Yet the once-bright gleam behind them had nearly vanished. Blinking back her tears, Shallia squeezed the hand. She knew, as before, that she did not need to speak for her friend to know her heart. And, in any case, she did not know what to say. She could only stand, and ache, and hope.
But soon she could hardly even hope. Malasha’s eyes closed again, with the finality of the sun falling behind the horizon. The heads of the people in the circle fell lower. The steady chanting dropped slowly away, fading with the life of the young girl.
Shallia pressed her friend’s palm against her own chest. “Don’t die,” she pleaded. “I want you to live again. To breathe again.”
Breathe again.
Somewhere in Shallia’s memory, a whale spouted, breathing the same misty air as two newfound friends.
Breathe again.
Holding the limp hand, Shallia thought of how breath was not just air, and not just body, but something more besides. Something that could move between her own world and Malasha’s as easily as mist moves between water and air.
Please, Malasha. Breathe again.
The mist maiden’s silvery hair quivered, touched by the breath of her friend. The breath of the whale and the gull and the turtle. The breath that filled every sighing shell, that powered every rolling wave. The breath of the sea. The breath of life.
All of a sudden, Malasha stirred. Her chest shifted, then rose ever so slightly. Her fingers curled around Shallia’s own. Her eyes opened, glowing with the light of stars upon waves.
The chanting returned, surrounding them, embracing them. No longer despairing, it resounded with joy. At last, Shallia understood. The chanting, in this world, was the whispering she had so often heard in her own! She was embraced as never before by the music of this world, the music of the mist.
Shallia gazed at her friend. She knew that they would never part again. And she knew that, in the morning, the people of her village would find only a trail of fading footprints in the sand.
By a faraway shore on a faraway sea, the mist rises nightly from star-shining waves. Over the darkening sea it spreads, stretching thin, wispy fingers out to the land. And on this night, as on so many nights before, the mist reaches first to touch a single place, a single rock—the rock still remembered as Shallia’s Stone.
16: QUELJIES
I leaned my head against the tree trunk, still hearing the rhythmic swell of waves upon a faraway shore. In time, I turned to Hallia. “That was wonderful.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” She slid deeper into her hollow among the roots. “It was one of my father’s favorites. He felt a special closeness to mist, so very hard to control or contain.”
“Or even,” I added, “to define. My own mother used to say that mist was neither quite water nor quite air, but something in between.”
As Hallia nodded, the phrase echoed in my mind. Something in between. My mother had used those same words, as well, to describe Fincayra itself—on that day long ago in our meager thatched-roof hut. And what else had she called it? A place of many wonders; neither wholly of Earth nor wholly of Heaven, but a bridge connecting both.
Glancing down at my empty scabbard, and at the spot where the bloodnoose had plunged into my chest, I sighed. She should also have called this island a place of many perils. And choices—many of them clear one moment, then gone the next, like a reflection in a pond that is suddenly disturbed.
In the darkness, I leaned toward Ector. “Did you enjoy the story, young friend?”
His only answer was a series of slow, rhythmic breaths.
“No doubt he did,” said Hallia dryly, “as long as he was awake.” She yawned. “In fact, a little sleep isn’t a bad idea. Maybe you and I should do the same.”
“Yes,” I agreed, listening for a moment to the distant screeching sounds of the marsh beyond the sheltering trees. “But one of us should stay awake. I’ll take the first watch.”
“Are you sure?” She yawned again. “I could do it if you’d rather rest.”
“No, you sleep first.” I drew my knees up to my chest. “I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.”
She shifted herself, laying her head against a burly root. Minutes later, her own breathing was as slow and regular as Ector’s. I straightened my back against the trunk. To keep myself alert, I trained my second sight on a succession of objects—a jagged thorn here, a cluster of leaves there. When my attention fell to one of the small knotholes that lined the thickest branches, I started.
For the knothole, I was certain, had blinked.
I stiffened, staring at the spot. Again the knothole blinked—but no, not quite. It was more like a movement inside the dark spot, a shadow within a shadow. As I watched, hardly daring to move, a vague, shimmering light kindled inside the hole. It glowed subtly—the same dull orange as a fire coal on the verge of dying out. The light pulsed and wavered. I shivered with the feeling that this luminous eye was studying me.
“Ssssso,” hissed a thin, airy voice. “He thought he’d be sssssafe in here.”
Just as I seized the handle o
f my staff, another light winked from a different branch. “Say-hay-hafe?” it asked. “Who-oo-oo could be say-hay-hafe in su-hu-huch a swa-haw-hawmp?”
“No one, eh-heh, but us,” chortled a third voice. “Eh-heh, eh-heh.” It came from a branch almost directly over Hallia’s head. Although she didn’t waken, her fingers twitched anxiously as the quivering light touched her.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Not fre-heh-hends.”
“Not enemies. Eh-heh-heh-heh.”
“Jussssst. . . queljiesssss.”
I sucked in my breath. “Queljies? What’s that?”
“We ar-har-har the wa-ha-hatchers of the swa-haw-hawmp. Oh, ye-he-hes! No-ho-hothing misses u-huh-hus. We see-he-he it a-ha-hall. And we tra-ha-havel in three-hee-hees.”
“Like trouble,” piped one of the others. “Eh-heh, eh-heh, eh-heh.”
All three of the flickering creatures burst into sustained laughter. Their guffaws filled the canopy of branches, drowning out the voices of the swamp. My cheeks burned; now I felt more angry than afraid. I raised my staff, planting its base on a root beside me. The handle nearly brushed the thorns of the ceiling. “Do you intend to bring us harm?”
“Har-ar-arm?” sniggered one. “How-ow-ow could anywuh-hu-huhn har-ar-arm you mo-ho-hore?”
“More?” I asked. “More than what?”
“He’s already lost his way, eh-heh. And don’t forget, eh-heh, his sword.”
I froze. “What do you know about my sword?”
“Just that it’s lost, eh-heh-heh-heh. Like you! Eh-heh, eh-heh.”
“Sssssomething elssssse will be lossssst very sssssoon. Yesssss, quite sssssoon.”
“What?” I asked, turning to the wavering glow.
“Your life, that’sssss what.” The creature broke into a raucous giggle. “Sssssee what we told you? Trouble doesssss come in threesssss.”
A chorus of harsh, grating laughter washed over me, along with splashes of light from the queljies. At first, my anger rose again. I nearly lashed out—then thought better of it. Perhaps another tack might yield a better result. Mustering my patience, I waited until their laughter had faded.
