Violet

by Livian Grey

Violet’s wandering had lasted centuries. She could not be exhausted, she hadn't a body to tire. She never slept, and she saw everything.

  She saw cities rise up out of the dirt, odd contraptions called cranes lifting pieces into the sky to build intimidating towers of steel and glass. She witnessed machines dumping tar to make roads where there had once been tracks in the mud left by the wheels of horse-drawn carts. The smog of the factories spewed into the sky, tainting it with burning rain and ash.

  The world slowly filled with people, and they fought vicious wars with weapons that terrified everyone. Violet found herself crossing continents, oceans even, in a matter of moments, affected but powerless in her search for a kind heart.

  Born into a simplistic life of poverty, Violet could make scarcely make sense of what money meant to a person. Witnessing the destruction it caused, the greed of humanity growing fierce, she soon hid from everything, staying within the forests of a different place for another hundred years.

  For a time, she had no clue what she looked like. No one seemed to even notice her when she haunted places, not even those who claimed to see ghosts and spirits. It was only when a flurry of brilliant white lights came across her in a valley thousands of miles from her home that she finally saw her semblance. She’d hoped for comfort from this meeting.

  As promised, these kelesnae explained how she had come to be. They appeared to those who could see them as clusters of white spheres that could break apart and inhabit living beings for a time.

  ‘But how do I become myself again?’ Violet had asked.

  You will know when you find the one with the kind heart. She wasn’t given much else to go by, besides a warning this transformation would cause her host to develop strange powers, and those who knew them both would turn on her eventually.

  ‘Then why change?’ she went on, miserably.

  She received no answer to this. The kelesnae disappeared, disallowing her to track them.

  So Violet remained alone, drifting through the trees and occasionally resting in the mouths of animals when she was lonely. Having contact with these beasts gave her access to warm flesh and a hot breath that made her feel human if only for a night. Her weightlessness had been easy to become accustomed to, still she missed being able to touch and taste.

  Many years later, Violet came across a child lost in the woods. Thinking she was invisible, she floated near the little girl, watching her and afraid for her being all alone. The girl reacted to her suddenly, gasping in terror at the sight of Violet in front of her.

  ‘You can see me?’ said Violet in her odd, tinkling voice.

  The girl nodded.

  ‘This is wonderful!’ She danced around the little girl only to terrify her all the more. She quickly said she was sorry.

  ‘Follow me,’ Violet said kindly. ‘I will lead you to the edge of these trees. I know of someone there who will help you.’

  The girl hesitated, Violet now feeling horrible for terrifying her.

  ‘Don’t be scared.’

  She gently drifted several feet ahead, stopping whenever the girl faltered for the undergrowth around her. The poor child had scratches over her arms since she was wearing a thin shirt, her legs covered by pants and her feet in flimsy shoes that were battered from her walking. Violet had worn heavy dresses all her life and a bonnet to cover her hair, her golden locks to be kept out of sight. Seeing girls in the clothes of boys had confused Violet terribly. They were never scolded for it.

  Eventually, she reached the small hut where a man who called himself the forest ranger lived. He did not see Violet, but upon seeing the little girl, he instantly went about tending to her, making sure her family was notified their daughter had been found.

  Violet was crushed to see the girl reunited with her parents, who were overjoyed to be holding their missing child. The little girl only glanced back once, saying nothing of Violet’s presence.

  Violet was sure the girl was the one with the kind heart and she’d missed her chance to be human again.

  After that, Violet lost track of time. She’d watch the sun and moon come and go, having no sense of the days or years that were passing. She drifted along, now certain she’d be a kelesnae until the end of the world.

  The tread of the three teenagers walking through the woods caused Violet to pay attention. A stubborn and grouchy girl with short blonde hair was walking ahead of a taller boy who was slouching from the weight of the bag on his back. The one who lagged behind them, another boy with the dark brown hair and pasty complexion, gave Violet the sensation he might be her second chance. She wasn’t completely sure why, though she was not about to waste another opportunity.

  Darting towards him with more speed than she had used in a long time, Violet circled around in front of the boy, distracting him and dazzling him with her glow. She paused to be sure she’d captured his complete attention, dashing away when he was called to by the others.

  She’d kept her distance afterwards, moving with care around the campsite where the three children were huddled around a large fire. Violet waited with growing impatience for the boy to be alone, whispering to him to attract his attention when the others had disappeared inside their tent.

  He followed her farther than was safe for him, guided by her light to the clearing where she’d finally asked him for help.

  Her voice was broken from staying silent for so long. She struggled to make the words come out. Somehow she knew if she stole his voice for a moment, she would be able to tell him what she needed. She protected him in the cold, drawing on his core to warm him in turn and quickly forgetting her acts might harm him. He slept soundly in her grasp for the night.

  Violet was moving around him, desperately trying to figure out how she was supposed to regain her human form. Soon she realised that if she fell past his throat, she could almost steal pieces of his essence, gradually finding her form as he slept. But she wasn't with him long enough to complete her task.

  The sudden approach of several people frightened her from him and Violet had hidden in the bushes to watch a search party of men and women take him out of the woods. Tracing them carefully, she left the safety of her forest to return to the world outside, only to make sure she could find the boy again.

  They kept him in a hospital for another day out of worry he’d been afflicted by the cold night air. Violet was too afraid of the machines they had in the building and instead chose to wait for him to return to his home. Floating outside his window, she watched a woman she assumed was his mother tend to him to help him recover.

  The boy seemed unaffected by Violet’s intrusion, resting in bed and playing with a contraption she’d not had a chance to make much sense of. It had a little screen that he stared at intently for hours. Waiting one more day, Violet decided then she’d try to reach him. She’d heard his mother call him Nate, and Violet knew this was short for Nathaniel. Another boy in her village had had the same name. She remembered he’d been a dull and sickly boy, and her guilt returned to see Nate unwell from her actions. She wanted him to recover before she tried again.

  In the glass of Nate’s window, she saw her own face at last. But she was a spectre now; she could easily frighten him in this form. Still, she had to try.

  She sneaked into his room through the window that night, now able to form an amorphous cloud over his body. He stirred awake and opened his eyes, quietly shocked when he saw her.

  ‘Why did you leave me, Nathaniel?’ she asked. ‘Did I not make you happy?’

  ‘I didn’t want to leave,’ he murmured, sitting up slightly and blinking rapidly at her. ‘I was taken away.’

  ‘You were safe with me. You can have that again if you open your mouth.’

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘I’ll explain… just trust me.’

  He then seemed to impulsively part his lips and she dropped into his throat, moving through him and gathering her own strength. She mingled with his blood, finding his core again and warming
him through his whole body.

  In this moment, she fed him her memories of her death, sharing images of the Enorahts biting her and causing her to become a kelesnae. She drifted through him, drawing on as much of his life as he could. Once she was sure she’d taken enough, Violet left his throat and drifted over him, at last feeling herself taking shape. She was materialising over him, her flesh now apparent, and she could feel herself resting above him, completely whole. Her blood quickly coursed through her newly formed veins, and she could feel her own bones stretch like branches from her shoulders and arms, right down to her fingers. She’d expected some pain in this transformation but was blessedly spared.

  Violet felt Nathaniel tentatively put his hands on her arms. She could actually slip her own arms around him, holding him and feeling so happy she was in the world again. Nothing felt strange about it to her as she nestled her head against his shoulder, whispering a thank you before he fell asleep again.

  She shifted beside him, warm from his body and now able to sleep for the first time in over four hundred years.

  Nate’s dream had him confused. A cloud had drifted into his room and he’d seen a face in swirling mist; a girl’s face, narrow and angular with small eyes and a pretty mouth.

  As soon as she’d told him to open his mouth, Nate did so without any real certainty he wanted to. He’d watched the girl’s face dissolve as he’d