Aurabel

by Laura Dockrill

  And Murray screams, dizzily, is sick, vomiting up a brown bitter slop. She runs to the door to tell Victor. To shout. No. DON’T. DON’T TRUST HER. So sick and angry. So enraged and confused and she has to get out …

  But the iron claw is bolted shut; of course it is. Sienna could not help herself – she has a war to win and the last thing she needs is some stupid Tip messing things up.

  A JOINT RESOLUTION

  It is calm. Two young boys meeting for the first time.

  Victor, a shrewd, striking beanpole of a Mer; long arms, long neck, natural grace.

  And Kai. Dark haired. Light eyes that challenge my own for drowning pools with their wonder. Broader shoulders but still slight. The silver-hooped scar shimmers like fish skin.

  These boys, even for their youth, have lived. Have stories to tell. And as I wind back, knowing who they are, I can almost taste what is important to them. Sniff them out as the hungry dogs they are. For these are not just any two boys. These boys are strong, resilient, full of heart and alive. Not dead at all, but thriving young men, given a second chance, and I know why they were salvaged and saved. For their valiance.

  Over the white rock in the centre of the Whirl, the pair steal nervous glances at each other. Eyes on each other. Sizing up their strengths. Their weaknesses. Examining the obscurity of it all. The fuss.

  Red hearts beat as the boys lie on their altars. Bodies bound in chrysalis wraps made from seaweed, they shiver with nerves under the open tilt of my surface. Sienna stands at the head of her salvaged.

  ‘Where’s Murray?’ Victor asks Sienna.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be in the crowd somewhere. Forget about her for now.’

  ‘Did she not come for me?’

  Was the kiss too much? Has she not forgiven him? Does she not want to know him any more?

  ‘No. Sorry, were you expecting her?’

  ‘Yes – she will come, she said she would come … Can we not wait for her?’

  ‘No, we can’t wait, Victor. Not for anybody. Least of all for some dizzy dank Tip who you’ve got a crush on. Get over it.’

  Rage fizzes through the young Mer’s blood. He is really starting to hate Sienna. He can’t wait to get this thing out of the way so he can leave.

  With the resolver behind her, the empty rock lies before them, ready to paint the language of Victor’s tapestry. And Kai, moments away, but kept so far, the protective king behind him. Keppel at his side.

  On balconies above sit strings of Mer. Present for the double resolution but also for the turning of the crown, the vote that is to happen after the resolution itself. This is not just a resolution of any two Mer; one of these boys will be prince by morning.

  Blessed oysters, drunk from the scoop of their shells, swallowed by the boys, then both Zar and Sienna wet the salvaged ones’ heads in kissed water. The resolver allows the projections to commence. Never the same are these murals. All is quiet as the colours splatter, mutate, spasm, dance.

  Kai … We see his kindness, his heart, his strength, his curiosity, his loyalty, his love for nature, his sense of humour, his bravery. He is liked, valued. This humble tail is full of charm. Decorative, considered designs are now transferring onto the scales of his tail. An impressive tapestry.

  Now the king is proud, so grateful he retrieved this lonely falling star from my hands. And that shows here too: a Lorali-shaped shadow features. Of course, Lorali was their child before Kai, so perhaps this illusion is the foreboding shadow of her slipping away and him arriving … But no … here she reappears again. It is her, unmistakably.

  Keppel rubs her stomach; her faded stitches seem to unpick, carving a hideous gash into her pelvis. She must hold on. Keep control. Find the strength. She is saddened to learn how much of Lorali has interrupted Kai’s projections; guilty, even. She has gone. But still here; the dancing Mer casts shades across Kai’s tapestry, skipping now with legs and painting pictures so vivid it seems as if their daughter has resurrected, bursting through the walls and home.

  Kai’s memories … have they been triggered too? As the strange, pretty girl with the bewitching grace springs across his history like some spirit fairy conjured up by voodoo magic he feels his heart smash violently in his chest like a relentless caged bird.

  Suddenly, she fades off the screen and is gone, and Kai’s cartoon-like playback of shapes and tones continues to blush and dye without the twirls of the girl with a tail and then with legs. And all is calm. His patterns roll on.

  But now, these patterns of Kai’s are bleeding into Victor’s. The resolver shakes his head – this isn’t normal. But he doesn’t want to worry the royals. ‘Perfectly normal,’ he reassures the parents with a lie. The projections aren’t meant to grab at one another like this – shift, emulate, tango like a game of shadow puppets. Their colours, at times, are synchronised, they move in time. ‘Impossible,’ the resolver mutters to himself as the projections imitate one another, battle, play tag.

  The Mer have never seen anything like it. Sienna holds her nerve, already frazzled from the day’s events. This only makes things more curious, and then, when things can’t get any more unusual, the Lorali silhouette skips onto the projection of Victor. The crowd make a fuss.

  Lots of ‘Isn’t that …?’

  ‘Wasn’t that …?’

  ‘She looks just like the princess …’

  But the resolver asks for silence. Does this mean they know one another? Is there something they are not telling the resolver? Myrtle shuffles in her seat, frowning in confusion. Ruffles of gossip scatter across the crowd. Even the boys, virgins to tapestry reading, know this is strange; they can’t help but glance at each other, nervously, from the exposed podiums where they lie. It’s Victor who sees it first. Senses it.

  Do they know each other? Do they share a friend? A lover? Did they fight? Are they enemies? Are they …

  And Victor’s skin suddenly begins to transform. Becomes camouflaged in tattoos. Elaborate patterns and colours on his skin, like tracing paper. Of maps and words and lines of poetry. Of constellations. Of animals and beasts. Birds. Of hearts. Of planets and ships and anchors. Of a mother who never loved him. Of a boat named Liberty. The names of his brothers inked for ever onto his skin …

  And Victor remembers. These stories reveal themselves, clues to truth hidden within the eternal diary that he wore tattooed onto his own flesh. The word Ablegare and the words brothers with no mothers provoke something deep.

  This tapestry that he wore even as a Walker. Before he knew the real me. He isn’t sure what the patterns mean exactly, as I stole his memory, but he trusts his instinct.

  He is right to.

  He cannot help himself.

  He rips his body up from the white rock, just as Lorali did those years before. He cannot resolve to Sienna.

  He owes it to himself.

  He would rather die.

  And over the sound of the crowd screaming, Sienna wants to roar in humiliation and anger as her only salvaged darts off. Tearing away from her; but she holds a smile. Firm.

  And just as she is about to go after him, her chain begins to pull …

  Tight. Tight. Tighter. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle … She is almost dragged to the ground. Is it Nevermind? Has she done her work? Why does it seem she is coming closer? Why is she not heading back to her cell? Sienna tries to hold the smile but it is undeniable: her cuff is dragging her down …

  Something is at the other end of it and it is coming.

  THE CHAIN

  Once I know she’s clocked me, I drop the other end of the chain to the ground. ‘Oi, Sienna!’ It feels amazing to say her name but my voice is so nervous, I have to lock myself in, be somebody new, as everybody turns to face us. I drop the other end of the chain to the ground. The adrenaline rushing through my veins is so intense, like I could chuck up any second, and my voice sounds well different. Proper large and taking up all the space.

  Sienna goes cold. Scaredy-catfish, she is. Frozen right there. I s
ee her flinch for a moment but then it’s nothing a twitch of the mouth won’t sort, a readjustment of the posture. Anything to not lose face. Shitty habit to never be genuine; winds me right up.

  I can’t help myself.

  I step further in now. Into sight. Revealing my full self properly. That’s when I hear them all. Talking about me. I must be quite a vision. Bit of a shock. My body: machine and iron. My shaved head. My definition. I reckon every bit of me looks different. My eye colour. My expression as they begin to realise who I am. I feel like the hugest thing in the universe.

  I can see my Tips.

  Zar, the king. The council.

  That boy from the palace. Completely forgot about ever meeting him that day. He’s strapped to the rock. All bound up. It must be his resolution. Poor sod. Resolving in a time like this. To a king like him. But watching him watching me gives me strength.

  I’m so close now. ‘SIENNA!’ Proper top of my fucking lungs like I’m gonna blow down some mountain ship with the ripping burn of my voice. ‘SIENNA!’ I rip. And now she knows she can’t avoid me. Knows I’ve got her serpents under a leash. Cos I have. Under my fucking command. Her own beasts hissing against her with their new metal body parts. We’ve done ’em up well nice, given them helmets and mended all their injuries (from my doing) with metal patches. They’ve even got muzzles – which I won’t be using right about now.

  The other Mer start gawping and shrieking at me. Like they’ve seen a ghost. Back from the dead. Or maybe thinking I’m about to set these pesky serps off on them. They don’t all recognise me. To them, I am someone new. To me, I am someone new. With black blood running through me. This is what torture does.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Sienna tries to give it the big show, doesn’t she? The whole Whirl mutes to a crispy silence. Sienna’s trying to orchestrate the thing, now – nah! ‘Why do you have my chain?’ She talks to me like I’m the scum of the Whirl.

  I stay quiet.

  She tries again at me. ‘Where is Nevermind?’ Nope. I stay silent. Stubborn. Victorious. ‘Do I know you?’ She looks at me like I’m an urchin caught on the flip of her tail, her voice all sarcastic and fake like some crook.

  The king, Zar, raises his trident to me now, ready to hunt me. Kill me. Imprison me. I hear him warn me but I don’t listen and continue on as planned; I’m already dead to them, see … I don’t give a fuck now.

  ‘Oh, you don’t remember me?’ I volunteer. ‘No?’ Holding the monsters steady just as much as my own nerve. ‘Don’t remember no girl from Tippi, no?’

  I hear Tips gasp. I see my friends in the crowd. The Mer I love and miss. They begin to call my name.

  ‘AURABEL!’

  ‘AURABEL!’

  ‘AURABEL!’

  Six, five, four, three, two …

  They cry out for me. I can’t see Murray but my eyes keep trying to find her. It’s breaking my focus. Where is she? No. Mustn’t let her soften me; stay strong before I can even glance her way.

  ‘Funny that. Don’t remember how you convinced me that the king was an awful chap for sending me out all alone on my first day?’

  The Mer from Tippi choke on this, as I blow a hurricane of shock across the water. I can see the king out the corner of my eye lowering his staff, looking to Keppel. Confused. Betrayed.

  Sienna looks small. Algae-like. She stumbles but catches her boldness with a pick; plucking on the strings of a threatening sentence she says, ‘I don’t recall ever saying such a thing – nor you for that matter, I’m afraid. You may well be the missing Tippi girl but, I’m sorry, I’m not going to be your pathetic cover story to explain why you’ve been gone all this time.’ Her tongue whips as she lies, splitting in two. ‘Now you’ve interrupted a royal resolution with your terrible manners, which is an offence. I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s what I expect from a Tip.’ The Tips begin to bellow and roar at Sienna, booing her. ‘Why not go back where you came from before you dig yourself any deeper?’

  ‘HA! No chance!’ I howl. How I’ve longed to see her miserable face. ‘I wanna see if you remember me.’ My Tips know me. They know me. They shout my name, louder and louder. They recognise me. Even with my bloody bald moon-head and box-square shoulders; even with my streamlined jaw and eyes full of hate. Even with my metal tail. I continue. My eyes locked. My stance proud. ‘Don’t remember sending me to die with these beasts? No? Ordering them to get me, kill me, eat me? For your own benefit? Then lying about it? To ruin the king? These beasts that once served you?’ Sienna looks to the king, almost like she wants him to drive his fork into my chest – but no, he doesn’t; he wants to hear more.

  I hear the king mutter my name as he realises who I am. That little over-excitable girl from Tippi town who never came home again.

  I remain. Angrily huge. Monstrous. With the beasts at my side, snarling, all gnarly, hatefully growling at their master.

  ‘I wonder …’ I scratch my bald head with my free hand, the other one looped around the beasts. ‘Perhaps someone else might jog your memory. Someone who is a much better talker than me.’

  HOME

  I reveal myself. Shaking. I don’t think I’m about to even breathe, let alone talk.

  I hear my name but it doesn’t sound like mine. Not now. Not any more. Mother. Father. Hold tight. Breathe in. Cry. I can’t do anything as we planned. I can’t do anything except fall into them. Eyes rummage me.

  ‘Your chest? What happened?’ I feel their fingers on my heart, line the weave of blue hair, but I can’t even say through all the tears. They thought I was dead. They thought I was gone.

  ‘It’s true, Father, everything she is saying. Sienna saw me. She saw me fall.’

  My father’s face contorts. Anger storms over his eyes, his mouth, his brows. He knows I am telling the truth. But Sienna fights back.

  ‘LIARS!’ she blows. ‘They are liars! As if you are going to believe what these deluded strangers are conjuring up. They have lived in isolation; we do not know them any –’

  ‘You told me my daughter was DEAD!’

  ‘Now, those weren’t my exact words, Zar …’ And Sienna begins to grovel, cowering into the corner, her own serpent beasts hissing and stirring at her waist. ‘I’m sorry – I had no choice. I didn’t mean it; I didn’t mean it. I was doing it for the greater good. Tippi? Mer of Tippi? Tips, please, this is not what it looks like, please.’ She tries again as my father’s trident presses into the soft white flesh of her neck. ‘You are an amazing king. Thank you for this authority; I think you are very brave and very, very good at your job. In fact, you’ve really improved since we last spoke; have you –’

  And it’s Myrtle who handles Sienna directly, pinning her arms into cuffs behind her back. Guards wade her away, Keppel’s narwhals trailing behind, tusks angrily clanking … Sienna, begging for her life. Howling. Her screams rattle my bones.

  And there he is.

  I see him.

  I see him see me.

  Like putting a hand to a flame, I reach forward. Like petting a nervous animal. He sits up. He is shaking. Nervous … I see that the other boy got away. But Rory … he is different … he has a tapestry. He has a tail. A beautiful one of colour and light.

  My brain begins to join dots. No.

  ‘Did my parents salvage you?’

  He nods. ‘Zar found me.’

  I cry. I cry so hard. My body aching. From time and loss and missing so much. From desperation. From exhaustion. And how crossed we were and still are. Fate, our aching thorn.

  ‘I never thought I’d see you again.’ I touch his face; his long hair falls about my hands. ‘I can’t believe that I am seeing you again.’

  We shift together, clumsy at first, trying to re-establish, settle in. Elementary; touch is a fragile game. You make me. Embrace, holding tightly, chests fixing to one another. I don’t care who sees me. I know you. You know me. So long I’ve waited to feel. Hold tight. It’s all too close. Too warm. Lips. Neck. Hands. Forget everything. Forget ev
erybody. Does he know me? Does he know me the way I know him?

  I can’t stop staring my eyes into his and touching his face and his hands and his bullet wound but he is looking back at me, trying to learn me again, trying to make sense. He shakes his head. He closes his eyes. He looks for Carmine and she nods. He looks up again. Right at me. Dead close and the foggy world soaks away.

  What do you feel, Kai?

  His eyes are simple black hoops that look at me with nothing to say. Empty. They twitch. And then suddenly his tapestry begins to morph and speak to me …

  It paints Hastings. England. Football. The kind eyes of Cheryl. Flynn. Iris. The lighthouse.

  Fish and chips.

  Pickled onions in jars like glass eyeballs.

  Of his dad. Spain. Pirates. Birds. The sea. And projected onto the scales is a shadow: a silhouette of a girl.

  A girl. And the girl is me.

  ‘I remember,’ he says. ‘I remember Lorali.’

  But … I can’t … I scramble … for air, can’t breathe, tight chest and choking. Gasp for air. Not now. Why now? Swallowing it. Sucking it up. Eyes panic. Keppel. Zar. His face falls. He shakes me. Holds my throat. Rory tries to help me. They call him Kai. NO! It’s Rory! Rory! His name is RORY! All the Mer come forward, touch me. Hands off! Get off. I hold my throat. Too many eyes. Hands. Voices. Starving me. Heavy. Small. Tight. Gulp. Light-headed, I fall. Backwards. Rory has me in his arms as the weight on my chest presses harder and harder and the little spirit of air within me has gone.

  SOLVE

  Aurabel, already there, right there on the white rock. Pressing down with open palms on her ribs. Blowing air into her mouth. She begins to unpick Lorali’s stitches, whilst Keppel wrestles with the girl’s working hands, but Aurabel reassures her that it is what has to happen. Blood crawls out like rumours – dancing, whispering away. Kai begins to cry. Memories rolling back into his brain.