by Coral Walker
It felt like a long drop and then the lift came slowly to a standstill. He stared at the shut door and waited hopefully, putting his trust in the invisible force that the lift seemed to possess. But the trust was misplaced. As the door slid open, he found himself face to face with a handful of white-skinned Ertharan men who looked as shocked as he was.
At once he frantically pressed the buttons, not knowing which one he had hit first. Nonetheless, the door shut, and the box moved again. With his heart beating feverishly, he couldn’t even tell which way the lift was going.
When the lift stopped again, he hovered his hand over the buttons, ready to flee if necessary. At the sight of an empty corridor, he gave a sigh of relief. The next moment he saw Cici, still in her fine blue dress, waving to him from the end of the corridor.
“Quick, Ornardo, here!” she called.
He shuffled quickly towards her, lugging Lizi’s body with him, and she led the way, without a word, stopping only to let him adjust his grip and rest his arms for a moment. Before long they were back in Cici’s room.
Cici, her face flushed and her eyes shining, beamed at him like a child. She flitted across the room to the wardrobe and opened its ornate doors with a dramatic swing of her arms. Then, to Ornardo’s bafflement, she crouched forward and unlatched a hatch in the wardrobe’s rear wall.
An impish smile crossed Cici’s fine face. “Now you know how I managed to creep up on you, and give you a surprise every time. It’s my secret passage.”
Ornardo, with his body drained from carrying Lizi and his heart benumbed with grief, said nothing and stared blankly back. She, nevertheless, looked pleased, seemly taking his unresponsiveness as the sign of genuine amazement. With an impetuous gesture, she turned towards the hatch and vanished through it in the blink of an eye.
There was a frantic knocking on the door. Without delay he scrambled to his feet and made his way to the hatch where Cici had disappeared. Embracing the cold body of Lizi tightly to his chest, he pushed forward with one hand in front of him. The next moment he was falling at a terrific speed down a steep chute.
+++
With the thrilling sensation of sliding down the chute still fresh in his mind, he watched admiringly as Cici cracked the whip in the air and the open carriage gathered speed. Soon the horses were galloping furiously, pulling the carriage along at a reckless speed.
Ahead of them, the castle gate came into view against a gloomy backdrop, and the guards, with their faces glowing under the dingy torchlight, scattered out of the way. Once more Cici cracked the whip. The horses snorted, and the carriage careered towards the shut gate at breathtaking speed. In a few heartbeats they could see the faces of the guards clearly, looking foolish after their initial surprise, their knees bent and bodies tense, ready to act but still hesitant.
A crash seemed to be inevitable.
Abruptly one of the guards shouted at the top of his voice, “It’s Lady Cici, Open the gate!”
At once, the guards jumped away from in front of the gate, which started to open with a loud squeal.
The horses reared up, and the next instant thrust through the narrow opening. The sides of the carriage scraped against the dull surface of the half-opened gate, as it barrelled its way through.
Soon the castle was far behind. Dawn was breaking, and the changing sky looked spectacular — a deep, crystal blue with a ravishing splash of orange and red at the far horizon. It was all very quiet, except for the rumbling sound of the wheels.
“You smashed the gate,” he gasped at Cici, still in a daze.
She chuckled, “They were too slow and probably too startled seeing me in a dress like this.” Without taking her eyes off the path, she fetched something out of her garment and thrust it into his hand. “Yours.”
Baffled, he looked down and blushed at the sight of the yellow ribbon with the yellow Arnartarna flower in his open palm.
His silent bewilderment amused her. “Don’t you remember you ran your fingers over my heart last night? So you must keep it to claim the heart that you have won.”
He sat with his mind blank, not sure what to do about it or what to say to Cici. The ribbon, soothingly smooth and cool, offered him no comfort but perturbed his mind with trouble and guilt — a flower, both so precious and fragile at the same time, how could he be trusted to handle it?
“Cici. I ... I couldn’t ...” he muttered and was ashamed.
“Put it away Ornardo. Don’t even think of quibbling about it.”
She said it in a soft tone yet sounded firm and resolute. Robotically he did as he was told and gazed with pity as the yellow flower in his hand, fresh one moment ago, flattened into a shapeless lump.
For the rest of the journey he sat like a stone, and was not roused from his torpor even when he saw the two lonely hills that he had longed for in the distance. It was not until he could see the Charleea trees, one on the summit of each hill, protruding skywards like stunning jewels, that his self-enforced apathy started to crumble. But nothing prepared him for what he saw next.
The carriage turned into a driveway, and abruptly the house was right before his eyes in its entirety. So far he had kept his face expressionless and hard, and his emotions in check, but now shuddered, and Lizi, clutched tight in his embrace, shuddered with him.
Before him was the prostrate corpse of the place where they had grown up — or was it?
Burned to the last timber and the last stone, what had once been a grand house was now just a sprawling jumble of blackened, amorphous rubble — he couldn’t tell which shapeless mass was the ruin of a turret, which the gable wall ... The only thing that stood was the ancient willow tree. A scorched statue it was, with two rugged branches extending upwards, like the twisting arms of a suffering old man.
“Are you OK?” Cici sounded concerned.
He did not answer but sat with his eyes riveted.
It was their home!
Cici said no more but turned the carriage onto a rugged path that slanted up the hill — Lizi’s hill.
Biting back tears, he seemed to hear her chirping voice and watch as she twisted a corner of her frilled dress around her finger while she spoke.
“When I die, I shall lie exactly here.”
After that, she had dropped down and lain herself flat under the Charleea tree, her head towards the tree, and her legs in the direction of the house.
“When the tree is full of sweet flowers,” she had said as she lay still, “it attracts flocks of birds. They will be singing all day long in the tree. You can visit me every day if you wish, bring your picnic if you like, and then I shall never get bored here.”
He never knew how she had come to be so obsessed with death. Perhaps it had started with the injured bird that she had found in the garden, that she had nursed ardently, but which nevertheless, had died miserably in her hands. She had buried it under the tree and for a long while after that visited the little tomb every day, bringing flowers with her.
The horses trotted to a halt, jostling him out of his reverie. Ahead, the Charleea tree was ablaze with golden flowers.
+++
The ground was dry, the digging wasn’t easy, and soon his hands were blistered. Nonetheless, he persisted as if Lizi were watching him in her white frilled dress. The shovel he had grabbed from the stable where the carriage was parked was a handy tool. When a sizeable heap of soil had formed beside him and the rectangular hole was a decent pit, he stopped.
He moaned quietly from his aching back and shuffled to the sack. The sight of it unsteadied his footing. He swung violently before dropping to his knees. Taking a few breaths of air to strengthen his will he quickly pulled the tab down and stooped forward to take her out, ignoring the foul smell. Half way he broke down, dropped Lizi’s body and threw himself to the ground. He vomited and then burst into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing.
The sack was opened just over half way, exposing Lizi’s torso. Her stomach, wide open, was empty inside.
In s
ilence, Cici took the shawl from her shoulders and covered Lizi with it. Still shaking from the shock, he staggered to his feet. Together, they lifted Lizi out of the sack and laid her down in the pit. Cici had gathered a handful of Charleea flowers, and quietly scattered them over Lizi’s body. He stood watching, weeping at intervals, and gulped down a surge of despair as the last flower swirled down onto Lizi’s chest.
After that, he knelt down and mechanically pushed handful after handful of soil into the grave. It was done in a frantic, uninterrupted fashion, and he knew if he had allowed himself to stop and falter, the resolve that he feebly held would simply abandon him, and leave him crippled with torment.
When the last handful of soil was scattered, he slumped forward burying his face in his dirt-covered hands and wept some more.
It was the rustle of the Charleea tree that roused him. When he raised his head to listen more carefully, a few golden petals swirled down and dropped softly onto the fresh mound. Then there came the chirping sound of the birds.
He looked up.
Two golden-winged birds, perching on the high end of a branch next to a vibrant cluster of Charleea flowers, chirped while sucking the sweet dew from the blossoms. Behind them, the sun was rising brilliantly.
He let a bleary smile cross his face as he watched their small, elegant bodies flitting in the sunbeams.
“Your birds are here, Lizi. Aren’t they pretty?” he muttered to the tomb and cast it a long, tender glance for one last time.
When he took a step back and turned to find Cici, he was shocked to see she was no longer with him but stood far away down the hill. A willowy figure was next to her with one hand clutching her arm.
He yielded to a small shiver at the sight of the willowy man, Lord Shusha, whom he recognized with ease, and whose sharp and penetrating eyes never failed to unnerve him whenever he met them. Once the shiver had passed, he stood tall and proud and even stared back, as if he were part of the Charleea tree behind him, deep rooted and standing erect the way a tree would.
Lord Shusha made a gesture with his free hand, and in response dozens of guards appeared from nowhere. As the men approached him, Lord Shusha turned and started striding down the hill dragging Cici with him.
“No, father, don’t,” Cici squealed, wriggling her arm but to no avail. At the foot of the hill, a grand-looking carriage was waiting.
He heard Cici calling his name but lost sight of her as the thickset guards towered over him. Two of them were carrying a long box — a tar-box. They dropped the tar-box at his feet and flung the top open.
With jeers and laughter, they started shoving and pushing him. He staggered for balance but collapsed as one of his legs was kicked hard from behind. This made him topple backwards, flailing his arms as he fell. The men caught him with rough hands, and in a flash lifted him up and threw him into the box. Before he could put up a struggle, the same hands pressed down and locked him into place, and instantly the lid was slammed down, shutting him in darkness.
The box was lifted and swung in the air like the ebb and flow of the waves. He lay there spent and broken, and his mind, exhausted from all the recent struggles, was lulled as consciousness receded like a tide. He felt a dazzling sensation of lightness, as if he were stripped of flesh and blood and was a drifting soul again.
— Hi.
It was a small whisper, like a tiny ripple on a quiet lake.
He frowned.
— Hi.
It whispered again.
All of a sudden, his heart started beating like a drum, and he was fully alert again, straining physically with every sense.
“Is that you, Jack?” he asked.
Other Children of Swan books:
Reading along, joy alone — Share your joy and insight by reviewing
Thank you for reading
I invite you to share your thoughts
CORAL WALKER was born and raised in China. She holds a BSc in Computer Engineering, MSc in computing and PhD in Computer Science.
From a young age, she loved drawing and making stories. One of her favourite pastimes was to draw faces on her fingernails. Wiggling the fingers to make them come alive, she would tell their stories. It helped her endure the boredom of lessons and get through the school day.
Fully grown now, a wife and the mother of three, in her heart she has changed little — still she is that wisp of a school girl, with characters on her fingers and stories in her head.
Connect with the author online:
