The Other One
Page 26
The door swung shut as Felix climbed in, and the globe started rotating again, slowly at first, and then picking up speed.
Everyone stood silently as Tom turned to face the machine, watching the spikes of lightning snake their way around the centre, illuminating the room. He wrapped his arm around Skii and sighed.
"Let's go home," he said.
KAELYN
Her footsteps reverberated loudly as her feet connected with the rickety staircase. She could almost taste the smell of rust and dust and dirt and a funny metallic taste that made her keep swallowing even though her mouth was as dry as a bone. Her legs felt weak. Drops of sweat slid their way down her back, unnoticed. She had just one thing on her mind.
How had years of anguish lead to this? How had she been so blind? How could she have let her grief do this to her? The questions raced through her mind, unanswered, as she raced against the most minute of odds.
Suicide mission. It sounded like a plot twist in one of those overly dramatic novels she read in secret. Did she even have to do this? Surely, there had to be another way. A more rational, a more intelligent, a more well thought out way. But that was the way he operated, and all the rationalising in the world couldn’t make up for the last sixteen years of their lives. No, this was her atonement. Her penance. Her way of self-reproach for the times she lay swaddled in a blanket of her misery, hoping it muffled out her cries for help.
How had she not known that her son— for that was what he was to her, that was what they both were— was alive all these years? How could she have blindly believed what he told her?
She hated herself for knowing the answer. It was a rhetorical question. She wasn’t supposed to know the answer. But she knew the reason why she readily accepted what he said was because she was too weak to have believed anything else. It was easy to go on hating him for what he had done. To believe that she played no part in it. She was just another one of his victims, after all, wasn’t she?
But there were always tipping points. And the sight of inky black hair was enough to fill her with fresh waves of rage. It seemed ironic that the cure for her sadness was anger. The only thing that could fill the cavernous hole of nothingness that had burrowed itself within her was furious, acidic, bitter fire. She had thought they were plotting something, at first. That was what they did— they plotted and planned with no regard for those around them. No regard for the people they loved, and who loved them back. How was she to know that her husband had hidden all this from her for so many years? How had her sadness made her so very, very blind?
A part of her ached. It always had, from the moment her son was born. A mother’s love left unrequited, it churned and bubbled inside her. She drowned in it. She couldn’t help it. It left no space for anything else.
But from the moment she learned the truth, she knew she had to fix it. She couldn’t remain blameless any longer. He could never fix it on his own. He never had been able to.
So she had gone to someone else. Someone from her past. They had just been children then, the poor boy. And it was wicked of her to reach out to him now, after so many years of rejection. But he couldn’t help her, or didn’t want to help her, and so she had to do this.
She heard the footsteps echo behind her, and her heart sank. She was naive to believe that she could go through with this successfully. The Eyes were too heavily guarded for that. She wondered whether she should turn herself in now. Would it be enough to change his mind?
He had been cold, in his office. He had listened to her, his face giving nothing away, his youthful angst long abandoned. He was very sorry to hear about her troubles, he had said, but he wouldn’t be able to help her. She knew how he saw her— a crazed, delusional, disenchanted ghost of a person he had once been infatuated by. That was all she was now, a ghost. So her first plan had crumbled.
Her second plan was hanging on a thin thread too, dangling even more precariously with the echo of every following footstep. She lurched herself forward, forcing herself to focus only on her own steps, which were leading her to exactly where she needed to be.
She only faltered when the face loomed up in front of her. It wasn't unfamiliar— she had seen it almost everyday she lived in the city. The lines on its face were as familiar to her as the lines on her own. But this wasn’t the face she was used to seeing. This was its skeleton. An inverse, a dizzying, gigantic carcass transposed against the night sky. No one could tell from down below where the Eyes were simply a homage to the Twin Faced God, but the facial elements were constructed from translucent, coloured glass, with the numerals and hands assembled in iron. And she was immensely grateful for the iron, because it made the next part of her plan marginally easier.
Creeping closer to the face, she stepped around onto the outside of the structure, and willed her eyes upwards. She didn’t care to think about how high up she already was, because she was about to go higher. The wind was stronger now that she was at the edge of the face. The icy gust felt like a slap, and she was grateful for this momentary reminder that she was not dreaming. She allowed her self one peek, just at the horizon to her right, where the tiniest sliver of tangerine was beginning to poke its head. She had to be quick. She didn’t have much time. She couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore, but that wasn’t because they had left.
She took a deep breath and started climbing, first on to the number five, then on to the iron skeleton that snaked its way around the face. One hand over the other. One foot above the other. Her palms were sweaty, and she had to concentrate on not slipping as she launched herself up.
She was almost at the Eyes themselves. Her last hope. Maybe now their lives could be mended. Maybe now she could finally hold her son without feeling like she was being choked.
She had reached the number three. She was here. Wrapping her fingers around the skeleton to steady herself, she inched her way to the middle of the face. Could she reach it? Would she even be able to pry it loose? She was almost there. Almost.
And then there was a hand on her foot. Voices shouting against the garbling wind. A tightening sensation in her chest when she knew that her second plan had also failed. They would never let her have the Pulse Stones now.
She had made her decision before she started to make her climb. She knew what she had to do next. Her third plan, the final one wasn’t a plan as much as it was a message. He had to take her seriously now. Her letter was safely tucked into her waistband, where she knew he would find it.
She took a deep breath. She wasn’t afraid. A mother was never afraid when she was protecting her children. She turned her face to the lightening sky, and unwrapped her fingers. She was finally setting things right.
OF LOSS
I don't miss her when things are bad-- I don't miss her advice or her comfort. I think when you really love someone, in the whole, encapsulating way that I loved her, you'll always know what they will say to you, even when they are gone.
There's that quiet voice at the back of my mind, telling me to man-up when I should, or telling me to stay strong, or hold on, or let it go, or be kind. That voice is hers, and will not fade. Not once through the agonising days and the unbearable nights and through the tears and fears and doubts and hurting and hating and grieving has that voice left me.
Even if some days I struggle to remember the exact sound of her voice. The way it would lilt over certain parts of a sentence. The clicking sound she would make when she was searching for the perfect word. Even then, I know. I know she will never leave me, and that it isn't the sound of her voice that mattered, but the way her words filled me with warmth.
I have her in my heart and my mind. And that's sometimes far more important than having her next to me. I don't miss her love. She loved me enough to carry me through this life and whatever is left to come.
Although, I do miss her when I am happy. I miss sharing the good things with her. Having her smiling and telling me that she was proud of me made a happy moment perfect. Her laugh validated my joy. And thi
s is what I miss the most. Having a whole, happy moment again.
But she is with me, still. I hear her laugh in my mind, and hold it tight in my heart. My laugh, when I do laugh again (and I will), will be hers as much as it is mine.
***
Ezra Orson finished typing. It felt so good to type again. He pulled out the sheet of paper from the typographer, and added it to his bundle.
"Ready to go?" Skii asked, sticking her head through the door. He always kept his office door open now, and enjoyed it when either of the children stopped by.
"Almost," he replied. "Has Tom packed up? Have you'll had breakfast?"
"Yes, eventually. And definitely yes. When did we ever miss a meal?"
"Come on, come on, come on," Tom cried, rushing down the stairs. "Xuntak said to be at the docks by half nine. Really, does no one here have a regard for time? He'll leave us behind at this rate."
Ezra smiled. It was nice that Tom was finally talking to him like he was a person. He recalled the weeks it had taken him to convince them both to stay with him. Skii seemed open to it, but Tom, well-- Ezra couldn’t blame the boy. But he wasn’t giving up on his son this time. Even now, there were moments of resentment, flashes of anger, the occasional bitter word.
But Ezra knew all about resentment. He knew that it wasn't a beast that could be battled away by force, but a poison that had to be drained out, one drop at a time. He packed up the typographer in its case. It seemed silly to take it with them on the voyage, but he wanted to teach Tom how to use it. Tom and Skii were finally making progress with their reading, and Ezra had seen Tom eyeing the typographer a few times.
He picked up his bag and followed the children out of the house. It was bare, now that they had sold most of the furniture. Beams of morning light dripped down from the windows, and Ezra saw the dust dance through it, from light to shadow, from shadow to light. He smiled softly to himself.
Maybe that’s what happened to people. Maybe they just move away from the beams of light to where we could not see them. That doesn’t mean they are not there. But Ezra wasn't going to dwell on that.
"New beginnings," he whispered, shutting the door behind him.
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The Other One