by Mandi Lynn
I let her words hang in the air. Once she’s done three gazes turn to me. They wait for a reply I don’t have.
“Okay,” I say.
LVII.
The moon is cut in half tonight, the sky dark with speckles of small lights from points of stars. It makes Phantom Lagoon a beautiful mystery. Crickets call out their soothing sound that can never be replicated as they click their heels in the trees. The wind is only a soft hush against my cheeks, my only awareness of the sensation being the strands of hair that move across my fingers.
“Why isn’t your body in the cave?”
A voice comes from behind me. I don’t know the voice well, but it belongs to Giles. He’s soft in his approach, joining me. I’ve found a solace from the lagoon itself while still being within the boulders. There’s an unclear path to the top of the cave in Phantom Lagoon. Its backside acts as the rock wall of the lagoon itself, but the mouth of the cave is still blocked off to avoid the sight of the bodies of those victims to the stones. I sit on what is the roof of the cave. If I walk forward, I would meet with the edge of the cliff face and look over everything that is Phantom Lagoon.
Giles sits next to me on the ground. Solid rock pours out in all directions around us, but neither of us can feel the rough surface beneath our feet.
“You went into the cave?” I don’t look at him at first, embarrassed to have my private spot discovered. Hadley and Edwin never let the lagoon leave their sight anymore. Their lack of curiosity allows me to be left alone, if only at night.
“Edwin told me about it. I wanted to see if it was true.”
I let out a sigh when I look at him. I can’t imagine what it would be like to see my dead body. It’s an experience that isn’t natural—that shouldn’t occur—but it does for an Essence.
“I guess I just wanted to know why your body wasn’t in the cave,” Giles says.
I gather my gown in my fists, holding the fabric closer to me. The hem is still brown from kneeling in the soil to plant the trees. It makes me feel exposed and vulnerable even though the clothing covers almost every inch of skin.
“I’m not like the rest of you,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
I don’t want to tell him my story. It all seems too much for a stranger to know, even if we will be spending eternity together. No matter how many others come here, I don’t want everyone to know I was the cause of this—that I carried the moon’s curse and brought it here when it could have stayed on Tiboulain, where fewer lives would have been taken.
So I lie. “I burned my body.”
Giles seems put off by my words or at least unable to respond. The silence between us is comfortable. I don’t push him, and he doesn’t push me. For a long time I think he’ll leave it at that and won’t ask any further questions, but it’s too soon when I hear his voice again.
“Why?”
I brush away a fern embedded in my skirt. This gown no longer makes me look beautiful like Hadley intended me to be.
“To forget. To let go. To remember I’m not human.”
Giles just nods his head next to me like he understands. “Did it hurt?” he asks.
I’m confused by his question. “We don’t feel anything. It may have been my body, but Edwin already told you that we don’t have any sense of touch.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He repositions himself to look at me.
I imagine how Hadley and Edwin are so close to us, yet they have no idea this piece of Phantom Lagoon exists. Below us they sleep on the beach, growing bored and falling into human traits each night, but this newest Essence doesn’t. The one who is most likely to remember what it’s like to be human sits in front of me, just as awake as I am.
“Luna, you burned your body. You stood there and said goodbye to your physical self forever. You saw it go up in flames in front of you. You saw your own death, and you tell me it didn’t hurt?”
I stare into his eyes and realize how easy it would be to tell him the truth. How I can tell him of Marseille and the Black Death that killed everyone I knew. How no one was able to love me because I appeared to be a witch. How Mystral saw that and took death from me when I didn’t want her to. How I fell in love with someone, who I’m not sure ever felt the same. How all I wish is to rest in peace but can’t, when I’ve made others fall victim to Phantom Lagoon and taken away their human life. I’ve trapped their souls along with mine.
But I can’t tell him that. I look at him and see his brown eyes that only display kindness and don’t flinch as I say nothing of the truth.
“Of course it hurt, but it hurt more knowing that it existed. I let go of my hopes, of the slightest possibility that I could be human again.”
Giles wrestles with the idea. He opens his mouth to speak but then shuts it again. He turns away only to look at me again, wishing to challenge my idea. But then he doesn’t. Giles studies me one last time before standing up and walking away. I hear his footsteps as he leaves me at the top of Phantom Lagoon.
He believes me.
LVIII.
The trees planted around the lagoon grow slowly. There are gaps in our system. Some of the acorns sprout with small green plants that grow from the ground—others don’t grow at all. Hadley and I make our rounds, checking to see which ones have grown weak after planting and replant in the areas that don’t sprout anything.
The green saplings look like unfed infants compared to the large oaks that stand mighty and strong just feet away. The small sprouts of trees could be pulled out by the root, if I so wished. The stems aren’t any bigger than my finger, and the youngest trees only stand a foot or so tall. The other trees that Hadley and I had to replant after the first round of seeds didn’t grow, are just a tiny sprout in the ground; only to be seen if someone looks for them.
As more seasons come and go, I’m reminded that it will be a long time until these trees are able to act as a safeguard for the humans.
~~~
A woman enters Phantom Lagoon in the middle of the night. She’s wearing a torn nightgown, and from my view atop the cave I can see her tears. I watch her as she navigates through the dark and finds her way to the lagoon. She’s aware of everything around her as she walks. Her head turns from side to side. The woman has more control than Edwin, Giles, or Hadley did when they stumbled upon the lagoon.
Edwin sleeps on the beach in a corner where I can’t see him. Giles is close by—within sight of this woman, had his body been visible to humans—but of course, the woman stumbles past him.
I have yet to understand how humans are able to see Edwin and hear Hadley.
The woman is quiet as she walks through the lagoon. It’s clear she has no real destination while she zigzags over the stony ground, never showing any sign of slowing down.
Hadley is at the edge of the beach, sitting awake in the night. When she hears the woman approach, she looks up to where I stand atop Phantom Lagoon’s rock wall and cave. Her eyes plead with me as she waits for another person to lose their human soul.
The woman is younger than Edwin, but some unknown grief weighs down her heart. Hadley watches her as she walks closer and closer to the water.
“Please go home,” Hadley says. She stands at the side of the woman, allowing her the choice of stepping into the water or not.
“I can’t,” the woman replies. She doesn’t seem shocked or frightened by Hadley’s voice. In fact the woman smiles like some great mystery has been confirmed for her.
She takes tentative strides across the beach, bits of gravel pushing against her feet. She steps into the water, and for the first time, I notice she isn’t wearing any shoes. Her bare feet go farther into the lagoon as her nightgown floats over the surface of the water. In the night sky the moon shines above the three of us. Hadley is on the beach with nothing more to say. The woman is up to her knees in water and I’m left to stand on the rock wall, watching it all.
The woman has silent tears running down her cheeks as she kneels in the water, the liquid soaking her c
hest. Her hand skims the bottom of the lagoon as she picks up a silver stone and looks into it. She sees herself within the surface, observes her soul, and then she’s gone. Her body falls into the water, and Hadley turns her gaze on me.
We both look at each other, wondering if we’ll ever save someone, or if there’s no turning back once you’ve passed the border.
~~~
“Brielle.”
The woman tells us her name. I’ve spoken with her since she woke. In the morning Edwin and Giles are surprised to see another body pulled up on the shore, but they don’t ask any more about it. Instead the two just leave once the sun rises and aren’t likely to be back until the sun sets. Brielle already knows what being an Essence means. She’s taken the information flawlessly, in a way I’d never predict from a human who’s had their life stolen.
“Forever?” she asks.
I sit with her at the edge of the water. She hasn’t touched it since she woke, her wet nightgown still clinging to her. But she’s not chilled, as no Essence can sense cold or anything of the like.
“Brielle?”
She runs her fingers through her long brown hair when I speak her name.
“What were you doing wandering in the forest last night?”
I’ve told her everything about staying safe in Phantom Lagoon, and she acted as if it were just a simple set of rules for a game. She had no emotions or reactions, and all the while I wonder how she ended up here.
Brielle’s demeanor cracks then. Her placid face turns into a frown, and I watch her features change as she runs human memories over and over within her mind.
“My child died,” she says.
I hear footsteps walk through the forest, and I turn to see Hadley stepping back into the perimeter of the lagoon. I motion her to leave again, and she stops, seeming a bit confused, but obeys me and turns around. She had gone into town to let me speak privately with Brielle, but Hadley’s back too soon. I turn around with the sound of Hadley’s departure and wait for Brielle to continue.
“I don’t know the name of the man, but he was a soldier. He came into my family’s home and ordered us to allow him to sleep there. Housing a soldier is part of the law, and my parents couldn’t turn him away, so a group of soldiers took refuge in our home. They weren’t kind all the time, but they were kind enough. The soldier, he found me alone, and I had to obey orders.”
Brielle looks at me and I see the ghost tears that want to pour down her cheeks.
“They left the next morning. I knew I was pregnant a few weeks later and I wanted to curse the man, but I couldn’t be happier with my gift.”
Brielle makes a motion to wipe tears from her eyes but seems almost disappointed when she pulls away her dry hand. “I had a baby to take care of, and it was all I could ask for because I thought my life was over. I never married, and I knew as I grew older, any hopes of having a family were diminishing. The truth is I should have been ashamed to have a child without a husband, but I couldn’t bring myself to not love her.”
She smiles. “I was happy to have the baby. My father was ashamed and tried to remove me from the household, but my mother wouldn’t let him. Instead she helped me grow strong for the baby.”
“What was the baby’s name?” I ask.
Brielle weakens at the question. She lets out a breath that almost sounds like weak laughter—the type that occurs when our emotions are so worn they don’t make sense anymore.
“I never had a chance to name her,” she says. “She was stillborn. My mother helped with the labor, but when she came into the world, there was no cry. My mother let me bury her in private, but I had no name to put on a grave, because I never took the time to think of one. I was going to name her once I saw her eyes, but they were never opened.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. But my words don’t help her anguish. Every soul in the world could apologize for the death of her daughter, but that changes nothing. A life was lost and forgotten before an infant’s eyes could open and see her mother for the first time.
“Her body was blue when my mother handed her to me wrapped in a blanket. I told her that I was taking her away to be buried. And I did—out in the forest where no one would ever disturb her. But I couldn’t bring it upon myself to go home. Instead I just kept going farther and farther in the trees, though I knew my mother was expecting me.”
I look at Brielle again as she clutches her nightgown to her body. She wears her sorrow and grief that speaks more than words ever could.
“At some point when I was walking through the forest, I didn’t have to think about where I was going. Instead it seemed like something else was guiding me. I know I should have been scared so far from home, but I wasn’t.”
“Did you hear a girl’s voice when you stepped into the lagoon?” I ask.
Brielle’s next words are a whisper. “I heard her, but there was nothing left to hang on to. And there was something—I don’t know what to call it—but there was a sense that if I just went into the water, it could somehow bring me peace.”
She opens her palm to me to reveal her stone. The surface has scrapes and chips, but it glows amber pink. She smiles when she shows me her soul, seeming so proud of something that most would want to push away. I don’t understand how, but she’s already accepted this life. Part of me feels it’s because she had nothing left, but then I realize Brielle made a choice. Hadley spoke to Brielle, told her to go home, but she refused. Now her soul quivers with a fierce radiance that no human is aware of.
~~~
The trees that wrap around the lagoon aren’t enough. Their trunks grow in diameter and height, but never enough to stop wandering humans. Some are just hunters, like Theo and Jackson. The two men had guns in hand when they stumbled across the border. It was during the day, when Hadley and I had traveled to town, but Brielle had stayed behind and watched them as they entered Phantom Lagoon and stepped into the water. When Hadley and I came back, there was nothing left for us to do but help Brielle drag the men from the water, hiding their guns in the woods where no one would find them.
Theo was the first to wake up. I spoke to him in private as we left Hadley and Brielle watching Jackson. Theo didn’t want to speak to me, so instead I spoke as we walked through the forest. I told him how he was an Essence and how he had to return to the lagoon each night. I told him that he may have powers to communicate with humans, but there was no way of knowing unless he tested it. He didn’t object to anything I said, but he also didn’t ask questions.
Jackson took longer to wake up. Theo was at his side the entire time, always rolling his stone around in his hand. Its surface was smooth, except for a chip deep enough to trap dirt and debris. Theo’s soul was blue, not like the sky, but much richer in tone.
Jackson woke up three days later, but Theo wouldn’t let me speak to him. Instead Theo told Jackson everything he needed to know. It was a long time until I was able to speak to Jackson myself, but he seemed calm. When I asked to see his stone, he held it out to me, its face covered in bumps and ridges of vibrant purple.
The two newcomers adjusted privately. In the light of day they visited their families, offering a silent protection, but always coming back long before the sun went down—just like so many of us.
LIX.
Days will always come to a close, no matter how long the hours may seem. Tonight the moon hides behind clouds, but its glow still peeks out over the sky. I stand at the edge of the lagoon and I can feel an anxiety grow somewhere within my core that warns me. I back from the dividing line, feeling peace come over me as I go home to Phantom Lagoon.
The safeguard of trees are close to being fully grown now. Their trunks are thick enough that, if I wrap my arms around them, my fingertips would just barely touch. There is room to pass between the trees, but people would have to walk sideways to fit.
Over the decades the trees have grown and protected Phantom Lagoon, but some humans still find their way. Along with Brielle, Theo, and Jackson, others have come to
the lagoon. Emily and Melissa are sisters, only a handful of years older than Hadley, who came to the lagoon in the early morning before anyone was awake to see it happen. Instead those who have already resided within the lagoon greeted the morning with two new bodies floating in the water. When the sisters woke they both held lilac stones, though Emily’s stone was a darker shade.
Conor came to Phantom Lagoon in the night. I watched him as he snuck through the trees, some unknown force driving him forward. I ran to wake up Hadley to see if she could say something to stop him, but by the time I found her asleep underneath a tree, Conor had already picked up a stone. I didn’t bother disturbing Hadley after I heard the splash as he fell into the water.
When he woke a few hours later I wanted to ask what he had been doing in the woods in the middle of the night, but he attacked me with so many questions about this new life that I could do nothing other than fulfill his curiosity.
Gravis is an older man, a gentle soul who simply stumbled upon the wrong place at the wrong time. Brielle was the one who saw him the day he came to Phantom Lagoon. He walked in dazed, and like the others, it was as if something had control over his body that made him walk into the pool, not his mind telling him to do so.
“I touched him,” Brielle would later tell me. “His feet stood in the water of the lagoon, and it scared me so I grabbed on to him. I didn’t pass through him like I should have, Luna. I touched his skin, and he turned around. His eyes were facing me, but he couldn’t see where I was.”
Her words did nothing but add more confusion as to what it means to be an Essence.
But tonight—tonight the trees do what they were designed for. They stand tall and protect the land of Phantom Lagoon. And for that I’m thankful.
“Luna?”
I turn to the voice and see Giles standing in the darkness. Behind him the others of the lagoon scatter about, distracting themselves with simple things to make the hours and days pass. Hadley is sitting with Emily and Melissa, playing at the edge of the water, splashing each other even though they squeal when the water touches their gowns.
