Half Sick of Shadows

by Laura Sebastian

  * * *

  THE NIGHT BEFORE we leave Avalon, I dream of my mother.

  I know right away it’s only a dream, not because of some oracular sense but because she’s outside, sitting by a rushing river, with the sun on her face and her silver hair loose around her shoulders. I know it’s a dream because she’s smiling and rosy cheeked and happy, dangling her bare legs in the crystal water, her dress bunched up around her knees.

  We are in the woods outside Shalott, where we used to picnic when I was a child. Back before the sun became too bright for my mother, the sound of the birds chirping too loud. Before everything became too much for my mother, every facet of life so unbearable that she never left her room, no matter how I used to beg her to play with me.

  “Come, Little Lily,” she says now, taking my hands in hers and pulling me down to sit beside her. Her hands are warmer than I remember. I pull my own dress up to my knees and dangle my legs in the cold river. “Rivers are funny things, aren’t they? Always running, never getting anywhere. I suppose you understand that better than anyone.”

  Her voice is its own kind of ghost, familiar and foreign in a way that clutches at my gut. I never heard my mother like this, though, with a smile in her voice, a lilting cadence that might give way to laughter at any second.

  I know it’s a dream, but it’s one I want for a change, so I tilt my head back and enjoy the sun on my face, enjoy her presence beside me, solid and sure. For a moment, I forget to fear the water rushing about my legs.

  All too soon, though, a cloud passes in front of the sun, and the world becomes gray.

  “Change is coming,” I tell her as the river rushes faster, churning so hard that whitecaps appear on the current.

  “Change is here,” my mother replies, in that voice I’m far more familiar with. It is full of omens and warnings, reproachful and fearful and bitter all at once. That is the voice of the mother I remember, and even now I flinch from it, feeling like a child again. A child who will always be a disappointment.

  She gets to her feet and helps me stand beside her. I’m taller than her now, I realize with a jolt. How did that happen? I still feel like a child, clinging to her skirts.

  My mother’s hand lifts to touch my cheek, her fingers cold against my skin.

  “I wonder what will be left of you,” she muses, “when all the people you love have chipped away their pieces.”

  I jerk away from her, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her attention has returned to the river, which has begun to churn like the sea in a storm, the water turning black as the midnight sky, capped with streaks of white foam.

  She takes my hand, but this time it has gone cold. Her flesh melts away until her grip is all skin and bone, then only bone.

  “It is all coming now, Lily,” she tells me. “You must choose your path.”

  She rasps out the same prophecy she told me that night long ago, but this time, it is complete. This time, I understand every terrible word of it.

  Beware, beware three maidens fair

  With bloody hands and divine air.

  Help not the girl whom others blame

  She’ll burn the world to ash and flame.

  Trust not the girl with the golden crown

  She’ll take what’s yours and watch you drown.

  And my Lily Maid will scream and cry.

  She’ll break them both and then she’ll die.

  And then my mother falls away altogether, and the past becomes the future, where I will drown. The water will fill my throat and lungs, and there will be a part of me that will want to struggle and a part of me that won’t. I will stare at the moon shining through the surface above like a beacon beckoning to me, and I will ignore its call.

  10

  THE LAST TIME I stood on Camelot’s shore, I was a frightened girl of thirteen, running away from a shadowed life of solitude. I remember how the storm lit up golden veins in the sky, how the wind whipped through my tangled hair, carrying the scent of honey and charred oak. I remember Morgana’s hand in mine, solid and warm, as she urged me forward, toward the waiting boat, toward Avalon and away from the mother who would have rather killed me than set me free.

  When I left, I didn’t imagine I would ever come back to this place. But here I am.

  Silhouetted against the pale light of dawn, the towers of Camelot’s castle look beautiful—spindly and delicate like they’ve been crafted from spun sugar. There is nothing beautiful about that castle, though, and ten years away wasn’t enough to let me forget that.

  Morgana appears at my side like a shadow, slipping her hand into mine just like she did so long ago, when we were still children, practically. There’s comfort in the gesture, an anchor that holds me here, now, to the present.

  Resentment still rolls off her in waves, and she keeps glancing back at the shore over her shoulder as if, at any moment, Nimue might appear to say she’s changed her mind.

  “Arthur needs us,” I tell her, drawing her attention back to me and Camelot. It’s not the first time I’ve said that to her, either, and she rolls her eyes.

  I suppose I understand it, her irritation. It can’t be easy being Arthur’s older sister, always adjacent to greatness, to constantly be asked to put his needs before her own—though she has always done so without hesitation. But of all the parts of herself she’s given up for Arthur, I don’t think she ever expected Avalon to be one of them.

  For all of us, it was home; for Morgana, it was her very heart.

  She turns to look at me, her violet eyes more gray in the early-morning light. “It’s not going to be like before, you know,” she tells me. “You aren’t like you were before.”

  Maybe I should be surprised that she sees through me so well, that she can read my thoughts as easily as I think them, but I’m not. Even when we first met, she understood me, like we were two facets of the same jewel.

  “I know,” I tell her, though I wonder how much truth there is in that. Part of me feels like as soon as I step into that castle, I will become that same girl all over again, the one who didn’t know who she was or what she was capable of or how to stand up for herself.

  “If you two are done whispering,” Lancelot shouts behind us. “Gwen’s done with the horses.”

  The others were relieved when I told them he was coming with us. I’m relieved, too, though I know there are plenty of reasons I shouldn’t be. And Nimue . . . well, when he appeared on the shore with a packed bag and his sword at his hip, she wasn’t surprised, whatever there is to make out of that.

  I give Morgana’s hand a squeeze before releasing it and turning back toward the shore, where five horses stand in the water beside Lancelot, Guinevere, and Arthur. Sea-foam still clings to the horses’ legs, sinking into their skin to become white markings against their glistening wet black hides.

  What were they before? I wonder. Did the water birth them, or were they constructed from the water itself? They stomp their hooves and toss their heads impatiently, alive as any horse I’ve ever seen, but I know just how misleading magic can be. I can’t begin to understand Gwen’s power of manipulating nature any more than she can understand my Sight.

  Guinevere drops her hands to her sides and smiles, satisfied with her work. A breeze blows through her loose red hair, and the sight of it sends a pang through me. Once she’s joined us in the castle as Arthur’s betrothed, she’ll have to start binding it in plaits and chignons. In Camelot, only children wear their hair loose like that.

  “They’ll get us to the castle?” Arthur asks her, brow furrowed as he examines the horse closest to him, even reaching a hand out to touch its flank. He is mildly surprised when the creature doesn’t dissolve beneath his fingertips.

  Gwen glowers at him. “And take me to Lyonesse and make it back here before the magic fades,” she says. “I know what I’m doing, Arthur.”

  T
he irritation in her voice makes his cheeks redden, but only for an instant. We all know Gwen’s temper—quick to burn, but over in a flash. In a moment or two, she won’t even remember that she was annoyed at him.

  Nimue always said that Gwen was like a cat—just as likely to nuzzle and purr as she was to hiss and scratch, but she never specified if she was a tabby or a tigress. I suppose it varies from day to day.

  “You shouldn’t be traveling on your own,” Arthur says, but that only makes her laugh.

  “And why not? The horse knows the way, and you have a throne that needs warming.”

  He looks ready to argue but decides against it. Instead, he shakes his head and lets it go. We all have short tempers right now, I think, not just Gwen. We all are heading into an uncertain future. We’ve all lost the only real home we’ve ever known.

  As if sensing my thoughts, Lancelot looks over his shoulder at the horizon. From here, all that can be seen is the lake itself, the morning mist dancing over its surface, but somewhere in the distance is Avalon. It’s where his mother is still, where he was born, where he’s lived his entire life. It’s where Nimue waits, watching us from afar, the chess pieces she spent years painstakingly setting in place.

  “There’s no more time to waste,” Lancelot says, all brusqueness, bringing a hand down onto Arthur’s shoulder. “Gwen’s right—Arthur has a throne to claim.”

  I have to bite my tongue to keep from correcting him because we’re all tense and anxious, and there’s no point in fighting with each other when there will be enemies aplenty once we’re at court.

  Still, I doubt getting Arthur on the throne will be the real challenge—he is his father’s only heir, the rightful king of Camelot. No one can contest that. Keeping him there, however, will be another matter entirely.

  As we mount our horses and start toward the castle, I can’t take my eyes off those delicate spires.

  You aren’t like you were before, Morgana said. I know her words were true, but I also know that there are ghosts waiting for me in the halls of that castle, and the girl I was is only one of them.

  * * *

  WHEN WE REACH the fork in the road where Gwen’s path separates from ours, we pause to say our goodbyes, dismounting from our impatient horses, who stomp their hooves and whinny, eager to keep going.

  Arthur and Gwen say their goodbyes first, and the rest of us avert our eyes, trying to give them some semblance of privacy, though I’m not sure how much good it does. Besides, very little of their courtship has been private. We were there the first time they kissed, during their first quarrel. And what’s more, there will be very little privacy when they’re ruling Albion together. Perhaps it’s better they don’t grow accustomed to it now.

  With that done, Gwen hugs Lancelot and Morgana, kissing both of their cheeks and murmuring words I don’t hear. They both laugh, and I think I see Morgana hastily wipe a tear from her eye. It seems they’re always at odds with each other, but Gwen has been more of a sister to Morgana than Morgause ever was.

  And then it’s my turn. When Gwen folds me into her arms, my mother’s words from my dream last night come back to me.

  Trust not the girl with the golden crown, she’ll take what’s yours and watch you drown.

  The thought sends a shiver down my spine. There is no doubt in my mind that the girl she spoke of was Gwen. I know it in the same bone-deep way that I know the other girl she mentioned was Morgana. The three of us have always had a tangled future, but we aren’t there yet, and no matter what my mother told me, I know that prophecies can change. This one will have to.

  “Keep Arthur safe,” Gwen tells me when she pulls back, her freckled hands tight on my shoulders. Behind the usual ferociousness of her green eyes, a touch of fear lingers. She bites her lip. “Please,” she adds.

  “Of course,” I tell her. “Of course I will.”

  “They’ll try to tear him to pieces, you know,” she says. “He’s not made for that.”

  Sometimes, I forget that Gwen arrived in Avalon only a year before I did, that she remembers the mainland better than Arthur and Morgana. She remembers court life and the politics behind the power of the throne. She remembers the games.

  “I know,” I say. “And you’ll be with us soon enough, Gwen. He’ll need you at his side.”

  Gwen nods, but she glances away as she does. It’s such a brief thing that I almost miss it—I might have missed it if I weren’t looking for it.

  “Hey,” I say, tugging her attention back to me. “Arthur needs us.”

  Those words are almost as familiar to her as they are to Morgana, repeated over and over by Nimue until they became an integral part of all of us.

  Arthur needs us. Arthur needs us. Arthur needs us. He has a destiny to fulfill, after all.

  I see the twinge of bitterness flash through Gwen’s eyes as clearly as I feel its echo deep in my soul. But that, too, I push away.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I tell her.

  She embraces me once more before stepping back and climbing onto her horse. The rest of us wait, watching her ride away. It’s only when she disappears down her path that we mount our horses and start toward Camelot once more.

  * * *

  BACK ON AVALON, Gwen rarely slept. She would roam the island instead, as the moon arced its way over the sky above. The lack of rest never seemed to affect her. She was always alert during the day, her eyes always bright, with none of the dark circles that I would see beneath my own after a sleepless night. It was just how she was, she said.

  One night, I’d gotten so caught up in a vision that I emerged from the Cave of Prophecies long past dinner. The moon was directly overhead, a large, silver half circle surrounded by more stars than sky. My stomach rumbled, and I crossed my arms over it. I wouldn’t be able to eat until breakfast, but that was likely just as well. I don’t remember anymore what vision I had seen, exactly, but I remember it was a bad one, that it had left me feeling too nauseated to stomach anything.

  It wasn’t until I was walking through the woods alone in the middle of the night that I realized I should be frightened. At that point, I had been on Avalon for more than a year and her woods were familiar to me, but in the dark they had become strange and dangerous once again. The island may have been asleep, but the woods were as awake as ever.

  A wind rustled through the trees. Insects chirped. A river ran somewhere out of sight. But it was the silence that was the eeriest thing because it was too silent. A pregnant pause that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

  Suddenly, a golden orb flickered into view, weaving between trees not far ahead. Tentatively I took a step closer, then another until I caught sight of her telltale red-gold hair—a rarity even among the fey.

  “Gwen?” I said.

  The orb stilled and Gwen turned toward me, dressed in a white nightshirt that fell down to her knees and holding a sphere of warm light in her cupped hands. Her hair was piled on top of her head so messily that pieces had already sprung free, sticking out at strange angles.

  “Elaine,” she said with a tired smile. “What in the name of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone are you doing out at this hour?”

  A stab of annoyance wedged into my gut. Did no one notice I wasn’t at dinner? Did they not miss me at all? Even after a year, it still felt like that sometimes. Like I would never be able to truly fit in with her and the others, that I would always be a newcomer and an outsider.

  “I got caught up in the Cave of Prophecies,” I told her. “I lost track of time.”

  Gwen shook her head. “We thought that’s what it was,” she said. “We wanted to go fetch you, but Nimue said it was important you not be disturbed.”

  That made me feel a bit better. Though I wasn’t sure where she was going, I fell into step beside her.

  “And you?” I asked. “Another bad night?”

  Gwen’s face clo
uded over but she only shrugged her shoulders. “Not so bad, I don’t think,” she said. “But no, I couldn’t sleep, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Surely one of the fey can brew you something,” I said. “Even on the mainland we have sleeping draughts.”

  She shook her head. “Well, they can,” she said. “But either they don’t work at all or they work too well. I would take something to sleep, and the next thing I knew it was three days later and I had no memory of the time in between, though apparently I was awake and functioning for much of it. It’s a scary thing to hear, that your body is working without your mind. I didn’t care for it. I’d rather not sleep at all, so I stopped taking anything.”

  I thought of the potion my mother used to give me—different, but similar in some ways. Both took something from us while masquerading as cures.

  “Besides, I’ve found I quite enjoy these nights,” Gwen continued. “There’s something peaceful about being awake while the rest of the island sleeps.”

  “I didn’t think you cared much for peacefulness,” I said, which made her laugh.

  “No, I don’t think I do most of the time,” she admitted with a sheepish smile. “I like a good, noisy world. I like it to be so loud I can’t hear myself think. Usually. My thoughts aren’t too interesting anyway.”

  For so long, my thoughts had been all I had. The idea of trying to drown them out was strange to me.

  “I don’t think that’s true,” I told her.

  “Maybe not for you,” she allowed, laughing. “People like you and Arthur must have very interesting thoughts. I imagine your thoughts have fascinating conversations with one another, multiplying enough to keep you occupied for hours on end. But that’s never been the case for me. What thoughts I have force their way out of my mouth before I can grow too attached to them. That’s why Arthur will make a far better king than I will a queen.”