The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes

by Shelley Madden

  He felt his innermost pride shrivel and wither beneath the soaked sheet. In the distance, a gasp drifted from the doorway. The flames of desire were met with a frigid, unstoppable force. They crackled and spat, until at last, they were swept back into that dark, lonely place somewhere in his solitary existence.

  No matter how many people knew him, no matter how many people he knew, he was not really close to anyone, except Bice.

  “Mr. Steele, are you all right?” The nurse stammered. Her hand flew from her thigh, quickly stifling her gasp.

  “Just peachy.” He replied, as he flopped and jerked on the bed. “Please leave. Thank you anyway.”

  Time seemed to stand still, as he suddenly realized what it must have been like for the lost souls aboard the Titanic.

  His body slowly stiffened, as slivers of frozen ice shot through his infinite thoughts. He was drifting downward, spiraling toward an underwater stage. An ice-covered theater where no soul would hear him sing again. A podium of warbled sound, frozen forever between an unseen kingdom within a timeless era.

  He thought of the ruined lyrics. Of the broken window and the broken vases. His own near demise in the study and the suddenly healed broken legs.

  He could see the golden coins emblazoned with Heaven’s likeness drifting across the ocean floor, along with his now-quieting libido. His majestic ship broke apart, and slipped into its eternal mansion.

  The magnificent clock at the top of the grand staircase still ticked, temporarily oblivious to its motionless surroundings. The once proud crow’s nest descended and collapsed in defeat, until it hung in limbo beneath the icy waters. The great ship was down. It may never rise again.

  Without further ado, he quickly pulled the soaked sheet over his head and waited for the door to close.

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  Heaven trotted across the expansive lawn, carefully staying in the shadows of the fragrant evergreen trees which dotted it.

  The salty ocean was only yards ahead. She could hear the moan of the waves slapping the cliff wall through the darkness. But there was nothing left for her on the dark side of the crashing waves. The only peace and solitude she’d ever known were now a wash of faded memories lying on the ocean floor, thanks to a hurricane.

  In the distance, a tiny light burned inside the gatehouse. She caught her breath, seeing a movement within. What she hoped would be easy, had in reality materialized into an unexpected complication. The shadowy figure of a uniformed man stood within the small building.

  Frustrated, but not ready to give up and slip quietly back upstairs of the great mansion,

  she gazed at him. He appeared to be reading a paper. Every few moments, he quickly scanned the property and took a sip from a steaming mug which sat near him. She’d have to look for another route. She’d show Harmon a thing or two.

  It was after all, his idea for her to live within the depths of the great house. Because the man was on a nearly decade old guilt trip shouldn’t disrupt the peace she once enjoyed. She knew he wouldn’t be pleased when he found her missing in the morning.

  Yet, she owed him nothing. Even though he felt he owed her something, he’d have to move on. He’d seen for himself she’d survived fine without him having a pity-

  party for allowing her to be taken to the orphanage years ago. Now here she was, seventeen years old and living within the depths of a much-too-large house geared toward the older generation. She simply didn’t fit in.

  She ducked low and ran toward the far side of the massive lawn, opposite of the churning waves. Ahead, the moonlight reflected off of an enormous brick wall.

  She sighed in exasperation. The fortress seemed inescapable. The orphanage also seemed like a prison, but she and her friend found a way out. She gazed at a large oak tree growing near the high wall. She glanced around once more, and leapt up on a lower limb.

  Along the thin branch she slowly slid, wrapping her legs around its circumference with great care. Higher and higher she edged her way toward the starry sky, until she was only inches from the foreboding wall. The call of a gull in the night air echoed against the concret barrier. Although a gentle wind from the sea caressed her skin, she began to sweat as she clung to the thinning limb.

  Finally, she made the leap. She dared not look down into the darkened abyss.

  She flew through the air, barely managing to catch the top of the wall. She shook with fear as she clung to the edge, her legs desperately flailing in hopes of finding a toehold. But there were none. The wall was as slick as the fresh green lawn surrounding Harmon’s magnificent estate.

  Gasping for breath, she finally managed to swing her leg over. She lay atop the wall as the sweat from her brow formed tiny spider webs of molten salt and marched its way into her eyes. She squeezed them shut, and laid still atop the wall in silence. Her heart pounded and her ears rang.

  The beat of the island drums sounded from somewhere in the night. The last moments with her mother on the stormy sea came back to her with fury. She was ten years old again and terribly frightened. Her mother was dying.

  “Momma, please come back to me.” She’d cried, gazing at the injured woman who lay in the bottom of the rickety boat. Her wind-blistered lips could not speak the words, but somehow she knew her mother could hear.

  The woman’s parched mouth opened slightly and edged into a faint smile. Her eyes flickered open, and she gazed at her distraught child.

  “Do not fear, my child”. She whispered, yet her mouth never moved. She spoke to her daughter from her soul. No human language was needed for mother and daughter to communicate. She too had the gift.

  She’d grown old and frail, and the gift of healing was no longer hers. It now belonged to her daughter. But she could still speak to the girl without words. “We shall be to safety soon. Yet, I will not be with you any longer. Do not try to save me, for it is my time. You must carry on, because the sea will claim your father soon. Do not despair dear child, I will still walk alongside you, although you can not see me. Carry on the Gift.”

  “No mamma, no!” She cried.

  Her mother grasped her hand with the last bit of her ebbing strength. Her eyes slowly closed and the faint smile trickled from her worn face.

  She knew as she gazed upon her mother, she would indeed walk alone. Her mother had asked her to carry on the Gift. She would, and with great pride. She brushed her hands across her mother’s frozen lips, and ever so gently cradled her.

  “Papa, mamma is no longer with us in flesh. She has gone to greet the spirit world.”

  “Do not fret young one, we have many golden coins. You will earn us even more. They will take care of us for many moons.” He knelt over the dead woman, lifted her up and tossed her into the churning sea.

  Waves of sickness filled her belly as she watched her mother slowly disappear beneath the waves. Tendrils of her long hair waved goodbye, until she slowly sank beneath the churning waters.

  She gazed in horror at the man who called himself her father. He was obviously more concerned about the golden coins, not loosing her adored mother. As she stared at him, a faint memory formed in her mind as the boat rocked in the relentless waves. A realization burst forward at a dizzying speed, nearly knocking her from the frail craft.

  The many fights she could hear from her tiny room within the island hut. Her mother begging her papa to let her child be. She’d told him she and the girl were worn and tired from their many travels across the great seas. She’d bravely told papa the gift was not his to profit from.

  Angrily, he slapped the frail woman and stomped from the hut.

  But their travels continued until she and her mother were to the point of exhaustion. After so long, she remembered the final moments on the island. Bit by bit, piece by piece the puzzle slowly unfolded.

  The kind island women had propped her upon a chair. By then, she was so weak and frail she could not walk. They were forced to carry her back to the hut, after she gave the gift of life back to
their lost loved ones.

  But by morning, her father intervened. He demanded more golden coins. Only then, would he allow her to breath life upon the remnant of their dead.

  Alas, the natives had no more coins. The merchant ships had not come in many a great moon, for it was monsoon season. Even if the ships had come, they had nothing to trade for gold to stamp coins from, as the storms caused their crops to perish.

  Her father took her back to the hut, refusing further aid to the children.

  Horrified, the natives attacked and drove the small family from their island. They’d tried desperately to keep the girl with the strange eyes, but her father managed to toss her upon the rickety craft and make due haste for the high seas.

  The boat rocked and swayed as her father attempted to navigate the tiny craft through the tossing waves. Grey winds growled their warning as they swirled around the boat. The telltale smell of a storm was coming. Saltwater spray pelted her until she was chilled to the bone.

  Hour upon hour she endured in the boat. She’d clung to the sides until her arms had grown weak, while the man who called himself her father battled the demons of the sea. Finally, she curled up in the bottom of the craft and waited patiently for the end to come.

  Against all odds the sea finally grew quiet. She pulled herself up and gazed across the vast expanse.

  The seaside glowed with shades of amber lights from a great city. A city she’d never before set eyes upon. Through the darkness a jagged cliff line protruded into the foamy sea. Maybe, safety would come.

  Not far beyond the cliff a great house loomed. Perhaps the family inside might offer them shelter and warm food, until once again they journeyed back across the mighty seas to help the little island children who fell ill.

  But no, she had traveled in despair cowering in the tiny boat for too long. Recogntion had paid visit to her after so many years of not knowing. The truth billowed in the onyx winds, waiting for her to grasp. It whispered its secrets into her young mind.

  She recalled the words her mother had spoken only once to her. Words she’d quickly erased from her fragile mind.

  “Child, this man is your uncle, not your father.” She’d whispered. “There is no honor in an unmarried woman giving birth to a babe whose father is a married man in a faraway country. You must call him papa for the sake of our reputation with the islanders.”

  Driven by greed and lust for pirating the open seas, her Uncle one day discovered her gift. He’d immediately set sail under false pretenses with the unsuspecting pair, taking the girl with aquamarine eyes from island to island and making great profit from her gift.

  Soon word spread across the seas about her, to which her uncle greedily paid visit to each archeplago who’d succumbed to disaster of hurricaine, monsoon or even disease. The girl with aquamarine eyes would set foot upon the beaches, and all would be as it once was. She could turn back time itself.

  Soft drums beat in the distance. But, they were not the drums of the islanders. She opened her eyes and gazed at the foreboding skies. The clouds whirled and spun, weaving to her their silent tale of the future. A future which did not include her greedy Uncle.

  Her mothers voice fell from the sky, along with dozens of shimmering raindrops. The drums beat louder as lightening zigzagged across the horizon. Thunder boomed in the distance. Another squall was coming. But this squall was different. This storm was sent by the Gods of the sea itself. The waves around the aged boat swelled and surged above her, to greater heights than she’d ever before seen.

  “Child, you know what to do. Save yourself.” Her mother whispered from the broken skies.

  She stared incredulously into the rumbling clouds. Her mother’s face was etched into the nearest thunderhead, smiling down upon her. A momentary break in the storm allowed a golden beam of starry light through. It fell upon her, igniting her golden hair into a fiery rainbow. The cloud billowed and churned. In only moments the face was gone. The sky was gone. The stormy seas once again let loose with a fury unknown to mankind. They seemed without doubt, focused on capsizing the tiny craft.

  She leapt from the boat into the churning water the moment before a rouge wave slammed against the tired vessel. The boat rose high into the air, teetered momentarily atop the mastodon of the deep and was quickly slammed into the protruding cliff wall.

  Her Uncle’s body fell limp as a snared tuna and plunged to the beach below. It was as if mother nature herself had rehearsed this very moment from the beginning of time. The seas had set her free.

  She’d closed her eyes and let the waves wash her to the ocean floor. The glittering coins drifted around her, falling silently into the brine. She could not breathe. The water swirled into her ears and eyes and nose and mouth, until finally her starved lungs fell quiet.

  Heaven gasped and opened her eyes with a start, gripping the wall tightly. The same wall which Harmon had found her near on the beach that day. The beach where he mother had washed up on shortly after the boat was pulverized against the cliff.

  She couldn’t recall how she’d washed ashore after the accident. She remembered being too exhausted to make a swim for land. Her mother must have somehow lifted her up and laid her on the beach. Maybe she knew Harmon would soon be out for an early morning stroll. Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t her time to go. Maybe she had important things to do first. What, she didn’t know. But one thing she did know, the memory of her childhood was back.

  She gazed into the darkness. Lights from a distant highway were smeared with the orangey-red glow of fast moving machines. The seaside wind bristled along her prickled skin. A grey fog was quickly settling on the low areas beyond the estate. Soon, it’d be impossible to see. It was now or never.

  She inhaled deeply and leapt from the wall.

  Shrubs and thorns rose up and welcomed her into their underworld cathedral. She hadn’t realized the wall stood perched on the highest hill on the grounds. She couldn’t have known the drop off was quite possibly deadly, the vast darkness hiding the bottomless pit below.

  She did not feel the pain as she heard her bones breaking and her flesh being ripped away, as the rocky earth rose up to greet her. She briefly wondered why she mattered to anyone at all. She thought of her mother. Of the seas, and the islands and the beautiful tropical flowers.

  Luck had not been on her side since Harmon had brought her across the ocean to his prison. Life itself had not been kind to her. She knew she was hurt yet again, as she tasted blood in her mouth. She wasn’t surprised.

  At least she was free.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tommy Kildaire tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

  He tried in vain to squint through the fog, but it was hopeless. He was forced to slow down to well below the speed limit, letting other vehicles move into the fast lane and speed by.

  It was well past midnight, and he was tired from getting stuck working the late shift. He was in no mood to keep up with the rat race on the freeways of Los Angeles. The other motorists didn’t care about the fog drifting in from the bay. He did.

  His car was too worn and ragged. It had taken the seventeen year old high-school junior months to buy it, working for minimum wage at the pizza place.

  As the son of a physician who ruled the household with an ultra-tight wallet, he spent the entire summer saving for the aged machine. Most, if not all boys at his high school sported new Porches or Hummers. It was no surprise they got all the girls.

  Their wealthy parents purchased the glittering machines for their holier-than-thou and jobless sons. None in the entire school except him bought their own vehicle with their hard earned money.

  He attended an elite school filled with wealthy teenagers who asked for something, and got it on a silver platter. Upon graduation, they were gifted a college education at an Ivy League school of their choice.

  His father wasn’t exactly poor. He was the director of plastic surgery at the largest hospital in Los Angeles. He was the surgeon of
choice for the movie stars. The man worked hard, and eventually became a millionaire. However, he instilled his beliefs in hard work on his son. If the boy wanted something, he’d have to buy it himself.

  Tommy appreciated it. In a way.

  It really sucked each morning, as he pulled his clattering machine into his slot at school. Naturally, the football jocks always hung around the parking lot the last few minutes before the morning bell rang. Their giggling girlfriends clung to their tree-trunk arms in delight as cigarette or joint was passed back and forth between the in-crowd.

  No matter how far away he parked, the laughs and catcalls floated through the air after him, as he made his daily mad rush through the double-doors.

  Once inside, he found his locker stacked. When he opened it, a dozen books rained down on him, and scattered across the slick floor. The snickers would drift down the hallway. echoing down the corridor, vibrating from wall to wall until at last he was left alone. Or, out of earshot.

  Now here he was, alone on a Friday night, hoping he could make it home as his car coughed and sputtered in protest. The jocks had by now left the football game and were crashing a party in their wealthy neighborhood. A party he was not invited too.

  His neighborhood was a private enclave filled with actors, musicians and even astronauts. It was also dappled with a few physicians. The cul-de-sac seemed to party day and night, adults and teenagers alike. Mercedes and Ferrari’s were the cars of choice.

  Gated and walled multi-million dollar estates lined the canyon. He was surprised the neighborhood association had not contacted his father about the rickety jalopy parked in front of the exquisite estate. If they did call, his father was probably jet-setting overseas, or at Saratoga betting the ponies and missed the complaint.

  He eased his car off the freeway, carefully navigating the canyon roads that wound upward toward his darkened home. His father, once again, would not be home to greet him. He’d flown to a medical convention in New York city, and wasn’t due home until morning.