Lady of the Wasteland

by Jon Jacks

  Viviana could imagine the gears grinding away inside his head: ‘Well, if she’s got the kind of parents who are going to teach her a lesson…’

  Not that she did, of course. They had their own lives to lead.

  They were hardly a good example for any growing kid to follow.

  Sure, when the cops took her back home, they’d put on all the necessary theatrics to persuade the authorities everything was now in safe hands: the ‘just you wait, my girl!’, the shocked, furious faces, the order to go to her room.

  ‘Will they be home?’ the officer asked. ‘Your parents, I mean?’

  ‘They’d normally be at work,’ Viviana lied, knowing that that was what the officer wanted to hear, ‘but mum helps out the local pensioners on a Tuesday, while dad’s…well, it’s his monthly hospital visit…’

  She grimaced almost fearfully, like she was fighting back the tears, like she hadn’t wanted to be forced into admitting her dad wasn’t well.

  Yeah, she thought, satisfied: that should explain why the lazy-good-for-nothings are sitting at home.

  *

  As they waited for her parents to answer the knock on the door, the officers gave the house a look Viviana instantly recognised.

  Not much of a house, it said.

  Not much of a neighbourhood.

  No one came to the door to answer the knocking. The house was completely silent, which surprised Viviana: although her parents might be arguing about who should answer the door, she would have expected to be able to hear the television.

  Nothing, bar a meteor strike, could tear her parents away from the television, provided they had their drink and smokes conveniently to hand.

  The woman police officer, the one who'd chased but had failed to catch Aden, turned to Viviana.

  ‘No one seems to be home: you do have a key, right?’

  This was the officer who had originally been close to gaining on them when she and Aden had first fled the arrival of the police car: ‘He might as well have just vanished,’ the officer had complained to her partner, explaining how Aden had eluded her, ‘the way he just suddenly wasn’t anywhere ahead of me!’

  As Viviana opened the door, she cried out to let her parents know she was home, secretly hoping that – despite the unlikelihood of it – they were out.

  Her parents were an embarrassment.

  The downside of them being out, of course, was that the officers might decide to take her down the station after all.

  ‘Dad must have had to go into hospital earlier than usual,’ she said mournfully. ‘If he was in a really bad state, mum would have had to take him too…’

  The officers paid little interest to what she was saying. They were, rather, staring curiously about the house, their bewilderment increasing with everything they saw.

  They exchanged suspicious glances, slight nods of agreement.

  ‘How long have you been living here on your own?’ the female police officer asked Viviana.

  *

  Chapter 9

  Even as she was shown to a cell in the police station ‘just until we find someone who can take care of you’, Viviana was still protesting that there must be a mistake, that she had seen her parents only that morning.

  ‘They must be out,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not even capable of living on my own!’

  Not, of course, that her parents actually did much when it came to providing for her, taking care of her. But they did exist, she knew that for sure; how many times had she wished the ground would just open and swallow her up whenever her friends had met them?

  The cell was far from being comfortable, the bed narrow and hard. But the officers were going out of their way to be kind to her, even sorting out a clean blouse and jeans for her to wear, ‘spares we had in our lockers.’

  Making herself as at ease as she could on the bed, reading a book provided for her by the desk sergeant – some kind of police thriller, naturally, its bookmark a dried and pressed lily of the valley – and having reassured herself that the police would soon realise they’d made a mistake (as soon as they’d checked their records, as soon as they’d asked around) she gradually found herself drifting off, her eyes heavy, the book unsteady in her hands. A number of times, she awoke from a near complete slumber with a sudden, fierce jolting of her entire body.

  Half awake, half asleep, everything about her seemed unstable, her bed unevenly balanced, the confining walls constructed at bizarre angles.

  And in that half life, neither in one world nor the other, it dawned on her that the police wouldn’t find her parents.

  Her parents didn’t exist, did they?

  They were just a false memory.

  Who am I? she wondered, letting the tears fall.

 

  *

  The blooms of the lily of the valley hang upside down, like falling tears of sorrow, like the memories of yesterday.

  And the tears of our memories fall into a far off spring.

  Yes, she remembered once being told that.

  She walked once more along the immense, intertwining root, each branch like a meandering, rolling pathway.

  Serpents, as silvery as moon beams, rushed past her, heading both up and down. The ones heading away from the spring, however, carried within their mouths glistening drops of dew. The ones heading down were returning for more.

  She recalled being told about this too. But she couldn’t recall why this was so.

  Like the dragon, they must be devouring our memories, our past. Soon, there will be nothing left.

  The roots shook, quaked, as they had earlier when they had let a rain of frozen shards fall. This time there was no ice, the coiling stems here being darker by far than they had been before, the roots stretching ever lower, ever more into the depths of true darkness.

  Amongst the irritated roaring of the trembling roots, there was also a furious growling, the snap of vicious snarls. The closer Viviana drew towards the irate howling, the more the branching roots around her quivered and rocked.

  The dragon wasn’t eating the roots. He was rolling, charging, leaping.

  He was fighting a knight in glisteningly white armour.

  *

  Chapter 10

  The knight was losing, Viviana was sure of it.

  He was trying to hold his ground, surely, but it was only through foolishness rather than because he was close to victory.

  The dragon could have been toying with him, so assured was it of defeating this pathetically inadequate foe.

  The knight had to be the bear, Viviana realised, even though it was difficult to be sure as his helm’s visor was down, shielding his face. Like her, he would have come seeking a memory of whom he really was. And he had sought to destroy the dragon, before all his memories were consumed.

  She had untied him from his post, and now she had to rescue him from the dragon: was that really how these things were supposed to play out?

  Every now and again, it seemed as if the bear might actually win as, throwing himself bravely forward, he would land a number of fierce blows upon the furiously growling dragon: but as soon as they briefly parted, it was obvious to Viviana that he still appeared to be the one who had sustained the most damage, his limbs limp either from exhaustion or wounds..

  But how was she supposed to rescue him?

  Instinctively, she reached out for a passing serpent, one holding within its gaping mouth a jewelled drop of memory.

  ‘Stop!’ a voice behind her snapped commandingly; a woman’s voice, Viviana realised, as the newcomer added calmly, ‘The serpents are my servants, taking the Aurr to my holy well.’

  ‘Then can you please help my friend?’ Viviana asked, carefully placing the uninjured serpent back on the root, risking only the fleetest of glances back towards the woman, not wishing to take her eyes off the ferocious combat. ‘The knight – the bear – will die if we can’t stop the dragon killing him.’

  ‘He’s known to suck the blood out of dead bodies,’ th
e woman admitted, her tone still calm, unhurried. In the short glimpse Viviana had had of the woman, she had appeared to her to be hardly different from the woman who’d stood by the earlier well, although perhaps either considerably older or more famished. ‘Fortunately, your friend isn’t dead yet.’

  ‘Then how do we help him?’ Viviana pleaded.

  ‘Erm…I forget,’ the woman said, finishing her curt comment with a mischievous chuckle.

  At last, the bear was backing off from the dragon’s ferocious onslaught, but nowhere near enough to spare him anything but the odd injury he might have suffered otherwise: he was still frequently reeling from expertly delivered blows of huge claws, still floundering with his own attempts at retaliation.

  ‘You mean you’ve chosen to forg…’

  Viviana’s retort died on her lips as she caught and understood the meaning behind the woman’s knowing smile.

  ‘He has to accept his past, rather than fighting it!’

 

  *

  Viviana woke up on the cell’s uncomfortable bed.

  What had happened?

  Had the bear survived?

  If it had just been a dream, of course, that would be a stupid question.

  But was it a just a dream?

  She glanced down at the floor, looking for the book she’d been reading, the book she must have dropped.

  It lay upon the floor, splayed open with its back broken, a few pages having come loose, such that they were spilled across the floor.

  The pressed flower, the lily of the valley, was also there. Although it was no longer pressed and dried; it was alive, and bathed in a glistening dew.

  *

  Chapter 11

  She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the bear.

  Had she even come to the right conclusion, when she’d assuredly declared, ‘He has to accept his past, rather than fighting it!’?

  The old woman, whoever she’d been, had seemed to accept it as an answer: the vision, or whatever it was, had come to an abrupt end, after all.

  Yet had it been the right answer?

  Had it saved the bear? Or doomed him to failure?

  The dragon had been devouring the past: so how could the bear be accepting his past if he allowed it to continue eradicating that past?

  Was he supposed to accept the vanishing of his past? To accept his imperfectly remembered past?

  Some things we choose to forget: other things we forget through no choice of our own.

  Some things we’d be better off forgetting: those things that we allow to churn away inside us, regurgitating every past slight against us, even though it does us no good in the end, simply wears us out.

  Perhaps there wasn’t an easy answer to all this ‘vision thing’ or whatever it all wa–

  The door to the cell clanged open, interrupting her thought process. A policeman ducked his head around the doorframe.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor: a boy. Do you want to see him?’

  Aden!

  It had to be, the fool!

  What would have happened if he’d turned up here when the policewoman who’d chased him was still here? She would have recognised him and flung him into his own cell!

  ‘Yes please!’ Viviana declared excitedly, almost jumping up and off her bed.

  Maybe Aden, she thought suddenly, could tell them I really do have parents! He’s met them, kids at school have met them, even the teachers have met them–

  And so why do I think the police are right and my parents don’t really exist?

  Her face fell despondently as she considered this, her elation vanishing within an instant.

  Yet she was even more despondent when the boy walked into her cell.

  Because it wasn’t Aden: it was the new boy at school, Scott.

  *

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Viviana snarled directly in Scott’s face as soon as the policeman had left them alone together.

  She had considered telling the policeman that she didn’t know this boy: but that would have been a lie, wouldn’t it?

  She knew him from school, of course.

  But more than that, she was sure, surer than ever – she knew him from somewhere else too.

  He smiled, grinned like Viviana hadn’t really placed her face threateningly close to his.

  He glanced down at the lily of the valley lying upon the floor. He didn’t seem in anyway surprised to see it there.

  ‘I’m hoping to help you remember who you really are,’ he replied coolly.

  *

  Chapter 12

  Viviana stepped back, frowning bemusedly at Scott’s strange comment.

  And yet: she also felt a wonderful sense of relief.

  Could he really help her? After all, she realised, the trip – if indeed, that’s what it actually had been – down to where the dragon was devouring the roots of her memories hadn’t resulted in providing her with any clues.

  ‘Why do I sort of think I remember you from somewhere?’ she asked Scott, eyeing him suspiciously.

  He shrugged, gave her that irritatingly complacent grin once more.

  ‘We often get that feeling, don’t we?’

  She grimaced, a grimace warning him that she didn’t appreciate being mocked or played around with.

  ‘But yes,’ Scott added, unperturbed and unhurriedly, ‘in your case, yes: you should recognise me.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘From when, more like.’

  ‘Sure, okay: so when?’

  ‘Oh, centuries ago!’

  Viviana chuckled bitterly, shook her head to indicate her disbelief.

  ‘No, no: you’re not laying all this sort of rubbish down on me! I don’t want any of this we were lovers centuries ago type of thing.’

  Scott smiled once more, but this time it was one of amused agreement.

  ‘No, we weren’t lovers. Far from it.’

  ‘Far from it?’ Viviana considered this curiously. ‘So – we were enemies?’

  She was a little surprised when Scott nodded. She narrowed her eyes, glaring at him warily.

  ‘Soooo – does that mean I have anything to fear from you?’

  ‘If you did, it wouldn’t be very good for you,’ Scott replied, lifting and airily waving a hand in the air.

  Behind him, the cell door clanged firmly shut.

  *

  Viviana stepped back even farther from Scott.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want from me?’

  Scott airily waved his hands once more, this time in a conciliatory gesture. His smile, too, was one of those sickly grins desperately trying to say ‘trust me’.

  ‘I don’t want to harm you–’

  ‘You don’t want – but you might?’

  To her surprise once again, Scott nodded.

  ‘Well, I’ve got to say I admire your honesty,’ Viviana said with an anguished laugh.

  ‘I need you to remember who you are,’ Scott admitted innocently. ‘Otherwise, the whole world’s in danger.’

  ‘Hah, this whole thing just gets crazier!’

  Viviana shook her head, as if trying to clear her mind of its foggy stupidities, its clouding foolishness.

  ‘I’d have to put you down as a madman for sure,’ she added uncertainly, ‘if I hadn’t just seen you close a door without touching it.’

  Scott waved another hand, this time directing it a little towards the hard bench that served as a bed.

  The metal and wood flowed fluidly, no longer retaining its angular shape. It could have been mercury, it could have been varnish, defying gravity, curling up and through space.

  It whirled into new shapes: the shapes of two entirely new forms.

  And deciding upon this new design, the fluidity of the materials came to an end: and they solidified as chairs.

  *

  ‘What’s going on? Who am I?’

  ‘You’ve deliberately forgotten who you are: probably hoping to avoid me tracking you down.’
>
  ‘Are you saying I can do things like that?’ Viviana pointed to the transformed chairs they were both heading to and sitting down in. ‘I can do magic?’

  ‘I’m…I’m not sure anymore.’

  ‘Anymore? So, you mean I could do things like that?’

  Once again, Scott nods.

  ‘You must have created some way of helping you recall who you really are,’ he said. ‘A word, maybe, or an action: you would have made sure you haven’t forgotten absolutely everything!’

  ‘But none of this makes any sense: why would I hide from myself who I actually am?’

  ‘Because you knew I’d be able to easily track you down: I’d sense your presence, sense your knowledge of whom you really are. You couldn’t hide that from me – unless you yourself didn’t know who you were.’

  ‘So, how did you find me then: if I really don't actually know who I am!’

  Viviana was amazed she’d asked such a question: was it a question, really, from the person who she really was, the person hiding inside her?

  ‘The aura of magic: that’s impossible to hide! Especially when you were having to create false identities, even whole families. Besides, you even left a sort of calling card, and I can’t quite figure out why: why did you call yourself Viviana?’

  ‘That helped you find me?’

  Ahhgrrh! This was so frustrating! All this talk about ‘finding me’, even though she still had no real idea who she actually was!

  ‘But it was my parents who–’

  She paused, realising Scott was staring at her knowingly.

  ‘Who am I?’ she pleaded.

  *

  Chapter 13

  ‘Please, can’t you just tell me?’ Viviana begged.

  ‘It won’t work,’ Scott insisted miserably. ‘Think about it; if I were just to tell you, say, that you were Joan of Arc–’

  ‘No way!’

  Scott shrugged, a ‘see what I mean’ kind of shrug.

  ‘So I’m not Joan of Arc…’ Viviana pouted disappointedly.

  ‘See? Deep down, you know you’re not. But even if I told you who you were, you’d still feel that emptiness: because it would just be a name, not an actual recall of whom you really are!’