Mist upon the Marsh: The Story of Nessa and Cassie (24 page)

“Don’t you think it’s a little too late, Nessa?”

“Don’t say that, Cassie,” Nessa pleaded, grasping at her hands. “Only let me make it right –”

Cassie pushed her away. “Explain it to me,” she said loudly. “Right now.”

Nessa opened her mouth; but no words came.

“Right now, Nessa!”

With great difficulty, as if extracting an apple down from a branch hidden just through the narrow opening of an hourglass, Nessa began to speak. She told Cassie of the Endalin custom of pairing. She told her of the joining ceremony.

“You’re going to be married?” she cried. “You’re going to be his
wife?”

Nessa nodded stiffly. But then she added: “It is what my family expects. But I –”

Cassie did not let her finish. “And how was that supposed to work, Nessa? Would you have only disappeared one day – so I would never see you again? Would you have even said goodbye?”

“That’s not the way of it,” Nessa said firmly. “I would never have done that.”

“I feel absolutely awful,” said Cassie, with great streams of tears gushing forth from her eyes, “about Caramon. It’s so terrible; there’s nothing at all that I can say. But

I – I can’t, I can’t keep on like this.” She shook her head, and pulled at her hair. “Just listen to me!
Keep on.
How can I say that, when I never even knew? But I should have known! You should have told me!”

Nessa knew full well, that to say absolutely anything at all, would be tenfold better than saying nothing. But she simply could not think of the something.

“I know that you’re in pain,” said Cassie. “I know that you loved your brother. But I can’t just –
forget
for a while, and then take up the slack again. I told you things, things I’ve never told anyone! And about my sister? I never thought – I never thought I could . . .!”

Nessa started forward, and tried to take her hand; but she was only shaken away again.

“And I only told you,” Cassie went on, with a voice so very broken, it seemed on the verge of shattering; “I only told you those things, because I thought that I was to you, what you were to me! And then you tell me, that – that –”

“Please, Cassie,” said Nessa. She knew that the words were pointless – meaningless. But she said them, anyway. “Please, only let me explain –”

“No, Nessa,” said Cassie, holding up her hands. “You can’t explain this. There’s nothing more to explain! I understand it all. I was never – never what I thought . . .”

“That’s not true!” cried Nessa.

Cassie wiped her face with both hands, and stamped her foot. “No!” she said. “No more. I love you, Nessa – I won’t lie to you. But no more.”

Nessa stood, still as stone, chilled to the bone by the breeze that drifted in through the window. The winter was come again. She merely stood stunned – stunned by the suddenness of what had only just passed. So sudden, she could hardly believe that it had happened at all. Perhaps she had only imagined it? Perhaps . . .

But no. Cassie would not look at her.

“Please leave,” she said.

Nessa lifted an arm in her direction; but the gesture was so painful, she felt as if the muscle were tearing; the bone breaking. And still there was that winter wind, blowing all around her. It was like reaching for a ghost.

“Please leave!” Cassie repeated. Again, tears were choking her voice.

Nessa let her arm fall; turned away; and leapt through the window.

Part the T
hird

Episode V

Chapter XXVIII:

Fire and I
ce

T
he gelid wind continued to roll all around her; but she felt it not at all. There was a brief touch of its frigid fingertips, as she connected with the ground, but they afterwards fell away, as if frightened. She felt no sadness now. There was only rage. What with all that she had suffered already in recent hours, she could recognise nothing but the roughest edge of her angst, transformed into brute ferocity.

At Dog’s Hill, she entered by the front door, and found the house silent. She rushed, first, into the parlour; but found, as she had expected to find, only an empty sofa, stained irreparably with Caramon’s blood.

What had been done with him? A sort of frenzy came upon her, to discover the answer to this question. She dashed from the room.

She had meant to go to her parents’ quarters, and rouse them. But in gaining the staircase, she needed pass by the door to her father’s study; and her course was halted, by voices emanating from within.

She moved near to the door, till her ear was nearly pressed to it.

Her father’s voice. Her mother’s voice.

Leyra’s voice.

A fierce indignation started up in her breast, and added itself to what anger had dwelt there already. She raised her fist, and pounded upon the door. Yet she waited for no answer.

Flinging open the door, she saw her mother and father, seated on a narrow couch at the right-hand of the room. They looked terribly weary. Their faces were pale, and their hands seemed to shake. Their feet were planted firmly on the floor, but their legs trembled, as well. It would no doubt have been unwise, in that moment, for either of them to try to stand.

Leyra sat in a chair before them. When Nessa entered, her head swivelled towards the door. Though there was evident in her face a sort of cool purpose, and detached determination, there came a stark fear into it, too, at the sight of Nessa.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nessa thundered.

Leyra only continued to appear affrighted. But the contents of Ceir’s and Dahro’s countenances, all seemingly so exhausted and bemused, assured Nessa that Leyra had yet to reveal what she planned to tell.

“Oh, Nessa!” cried Ceir, holding her arms out to her. “Thank heavens you’re home!”

Nessa went to her, and sat down beside her. She was wrapped immediately in her mother’s embrace; but over her shoulder, she cast a warning look at Leyra. She could not trouble herself long with this, though, so very distraught was her mother. She wept in a manner very painful for Nessa to witness. Nessa took her head to her shoulder, and did what she could to comfort her – but how much could truly be done? Her son was dead.

Dahro shut his eyes for a moment, and reached his arm around his mate and his daughter. But then he sighed, and looked to Leyra. “Leyra seems to want to tell us something,” he said. “She says it is very important. You have arrived just in time to hear it, Nessa, I think.”

His gaze remained patiently fixed upon Leyra.

“Perhaps this might wait,” said Leyra, with a quavering voice. She made to rise from her chair.

“If it is such a piece of vital information, Leyra dear,” said Dahro, “then I think it best you tell us now. I believe you did say, that not to speak of it straightaway, might cause great harm?”

“I think I may only have been upset,” Leyra offered, with eyes darting any and every which way but towards Nessa. “I cannot honestly even remember having said that, Dahro. I am terribly sorry, though – really I am, Ceir.”

But Ceir was not listening. Still, she was sobbing into Nessa’s shirt.

Leyra made quickly from the room.

~

It was some time later when Nessa quit the study. She remained with her parents for a long while, sometimes talking, but most times silent. Finally, though, their despair and agony of heart swallowed the last of their strength, and they were forced to retire. Nessa saw them to their room, and kissed them both.

But when she left them, she made not for her own quarters.

She made for Leyra’s.

She had truly been about to tell them what she promised Nessa she would – even in the very wake of Caramon’s death! Nessa’s fury was unrivalled. She stormed into Leyra’s room, as she had done into the study. She pulled her from her bed, before she had the time to wake in confusion. She threw her to the floor, fell down upon her, and growled threateningly into her face.

“I’ll ask you again,” said Nessa. “What did you think you were
doing?”

Leyra was holding her hands in the air, as if in surrender, or for mercy. “I don’t know, Nessa,” she said. “I don’t know what I was doing. I didn’t mean what you think –”

Nessa pressed her face to Leyra’s, and gnashed her teeth. “Then what did you mean?” she whispered.

“Nothing, Nessa, honestly I didn’t,” Leyra whimpered.

“There is nothing honest about you, Leyra. You are a miserable, whining, slimy little snake. You disgust me. Confound you!”

Again, she snapped her teeth; and much by accident, caught Leyra’s cheek with them. There opened up a wide gash where they fell, which dripped quick with blood. Leyra put a hand to it, and scampered fearfully into a corner.

Nessa could have killed her. But she did not.

She only wiped the blood from her mouth, and hurried away.

~

Nessa spent those next days alone, doing nothing at all destructive to either herself or to others. She only mourned for Caramon. Her eagerness to see his body, just a final time before the rites, had vanished completely with the dissipation of her ire; and she was now nearly fearful of laying eyes upon him again.

Finally she lost count of the days. She knew not at all how much time passed. It seemed a great deal, to be sure – but this she could not ascertain.

She moved slowly, passing through whatever space she occupied, as if it were possessive of a palpable thickness, and indeed as if it were the most unbearable obstacle that anyone had ever been forced to overcome. Every action, every movement, was performed sluggishly; and when she strove for even the smallest increase in her own speed, she felt instantly weary, and drained to the point where naught remained. She looked in the mirror, and saw nothing but an unfamiliar, emaciated figure, with a patch of blurred whiteness where the face should have been. The black of her eyes seemed to have faded to grey.

But then, Ceir came one night to her room. Still, her eyes were ringed red with the incessant tears; but she managed to smile at Nessa as she sat down upon the bed.

Her first words were of the joining ceremony.

“It won’t be long now,” she said, running a hand over Nessa’s hair. “You shall be so very beautiful, Nessa, in your dress! And Orin will be so very handsome. I see you standing together – such a magnificent pair!” She took a deep breath, and put a hand to her chest. “But I don’t know what there is to be done, Nessa. What to do for Dechtire? She will not speak of her pain. I fear for her, my love, a little more each day. Do you think, perhaps, that you might try to speak with her? I know that she has always trusted you.”

“I will try, Mother,” Nessa said softly. In her heart, she had no hope; but she spoke the words, for the benefit of Ceir.

“Oh, yes,” her mother said, putting a shaking hand to her cheek. “It will be such a beautiful day. So much goodness, in the wake of so much tragedy! I will weep for my son, who will not stand with you – but I will smile for you, my darling, in spite of it! Have no fear that I won’t.”

“I have none, Mother,” said Nessa, grasping her hand.

“So beautiful, you shall be,” said Ceir. “So beautiful, there with your mate. It is the beginning of your life, Nessa! The beginning of a long and happy life.”

But then there came a shadow of doubt into her face; and she looked worriedly down at Nessa. “You will be happy, my love – won’t you? Your love for Orin shall make things right – shan’t it, my darling?”

Nessa pressed her hand. “I will be happy, Mother,” she whispered. She could say little more than that, lest her voice be seen as it truly was, so thick with untruth.

Ceir smiled once more – slowly, painfully. She kissed Nessa’s face, and slipped silently from the darkened room, into the light of the hall.

~

The rising of the sun brought Nessa no alleviation. She lay for long hours in bed, looking out at the bright blue sky. What business had it to be so very blue? Did it not know that her heart was grey, and that it was raining there, and flooding to the brim? Blue sky! Ba
h!

She watched as the white cotton clouds drifted across the blue, sailing like a fleet of strong ships over the deep waters of the sea. Perhaps she might jump into one of those ships, and stow away belowdecks, so that none would find her till the destination was reached. By that time, they would have already reached the opposite side of the world; and she could exit the ship with the confidence that she would encounter no thing which she despised. There would be nothing but openness, and things unfamiliar.

Perhaps, when she arrived – in a place so very different from the one she had left – she could send for Cassie.

Chapter XXIX:

St Alban Alley

G
rown tired of dwelling inside her own anguish, Nessa left her room for the first time, for a purpose other than obtaining food, or paying a necessary visit to the washroom.

She stepped out into the hall, and blinked several times against the light; but ventured on behind the safety of her raised hand, till she had come to the door of Dechtire’s quarters. She knocked softly.

Dechtire’s voice sounded quietly – almost as if it were coming, from somewhere far away.

“Leave me be,” she said.

“Dechtire,” said Nessa, leaving heavily against the door; “won’t you please let me in?”

“No.”

“I only want to talk to you.”

“You are talking to me. And it’s been quite enough, thank you.”

Nessa slammed her open hand against the wood. Then she did it again; and again. “I shall keep on doing this,” she said, “until you let me in.”

“Then I suppose your hand will be very sore.”

“Damn you, Dechtire! Let me
in!”

She heard shuffling footsteps. The lock turned. The door opened.

“There’s no need to shout,” said Dechtire, glaring through narrowed eyes.

She looked absolutely terrible. Her black hair hung in limp strands all round her face, which held in it the very pallor of death. Her lips looked cold, and bloodless. There were blue circles round her eyes, and her hands shook as if from incredible weariness. Nessa doubted if she had slept a wink, since the night that Caramon died.

“You look dreadful, Dechtire.”

“Thanks very much. As do you.”

Nessa pushed into the room. “Oh, don’t be that way,” she said. She sat down upon the bed, and gestured for Dechtire to do the same. But she seemed not at all inclined to  give way; and she would come no closer.

“Are you eating?” Nessa asked.

“No.”

“Are you sleeping?”

“No.”

“Are you bathing?”

But Nessa held up a hand; sniffed the air, and grimaced. “Never mind,” she said. “You needn’t answer that.”

“Oh, just leave me alone,” moaned Dechtire, motioning frantically towards the open door. “Just leave me, won’t you, Nessa?”

“No, I won’t.”

Dechtire fell down to the floor, and pressed her back to the wall. She looked straight ahead: through everything, and at nothing.

“Do you want to know what’s worst, Nessa?” she asked tonelessly.

“I suppose so.”

It seemed the whole right side of her face began to twitch. “He cried for me,” she said, “when I nearly died. So why can’t I cry for him?”

Her eyes rose unexpectedly to Nessa’s. “Why can’t I?” she repeated.

“I can’t tell you that, Dechtire,” said Nessa. “But – both you and I know how much you loved him. It’s not because you didn’t love him. You
know
that.”

“I feel as if I’ve betrayed him somehow,” Dechtire whispered. She was staring once more towards the opposite wall, eyes wide as if having witnessed the floating of a spectre. “I feel as if I’ve done him a terrible wrong.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” said Nessa. “There is no wrong, and there is no right, at times like this. There’s only what is.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It
means,”
said Nessa, gaining her feet, and crossing the room to take hold of Dechtire’s hands, “that you’re leaving this room – this instant. Go and take a bath. Then come and find me.” She smiled as best she could. “We shall go from there, all right?”

Dechtire nodded, but there was not much promise in her face. She went stiffly to the bureau, and took herself some clothes. Then she hung her head, and went out of the room.

~

Dechtire was so long in the bath, Nessa had been already some time asleep, when she came into her room. She looked, really, quite the same as she had before, save for the red blotches on her skin (the effects of what could only have been very hot water), and the dripping of her hair.

“Well?” said Nessa. “Do you feel any better?”

“No.”

Nessa frowned.

“Did you expect me to say anything different?” Dechtire inquired.

“No.”

Finally, the very smallest hint of a smile came to pull at the right corner of Dechtire’s mouth; and she went to the bed, and sat down. She sat so very quietly, for such a very long time, that Nessa began again to doze; and so she was full startled, when Dechtire shook her by the shoulder, and shouted in her ear.

“Come for a drink with me, eh? Mardi Gras is on, you know.”

“It’s September, Dechtire.”

“Ah, what matter! Come along with me.”

Before Nessa knew it, she was out the door, and flying down the stairs.

“To where, exactly, am I coming along?” she asked. “And that, without my Turin? Let me fetch it, at least.”

“Ah, what matter!” Dechtire repeated. She spent a moment or two in searching for the truck keys; and found them finally in the hand of Dor, who had been planning a venture to the liquor store, but then had found the van gone.

“And where are you going, then?” he demanded, as Dechtire snatched the keys from him.

“For a drink.”

“But that’s all that
I
want! At least take me with you.”

“I think not,” said Dechtire, stuffing the keys into her pocket, and away from Dor’s grabbing fingers. “No boys allowed!”

She took Nessa by the hand, and hurried with her from the house. On their way to the barn, they cast a backwards glance, and saw Dor staring after them in rather a melancholy fashion, with his face pressed to the window.

They could not help but to laugh at the poor fellow’s expense.

~

Nessa did not ask again where they were bound, but only sat quietly as Dechtire drove along. Their brief amusement had subsided, and they now sat thinking their separate thoughts: the weight of which was making the air of the cab quite heavy; so much so, in fact, that Nessa needed roll her window down, to escape the feeling of suffocation which had taken hold of her.

The night passed by on either side, dark and close. Nessa gripped the door handle with white knuckles, laid her head back, and looked up at the sky: endless in its vast expanse, and spattered everywhere with bright, twinkling stars. Her breath came easier, for a moment; but then she only began to think of Mason jars that should have been full, but were made empty by her own mistakes. So she closed her eyes against them, and kept them closed, until finally the truck stopped. They had come to a place of darkness. She looked to either side, and saw nothing. She looked up, and saw no more stars.

“Where have you taken us?” she demanded.

“Oh, just come on, would you?” said Dechtire. She climbed without hesitation from the truck; and Nessa had no choice but to follow.

There was darkness behind, as well as overhead. But when she stepped from the truck, and walked a little forward, she noticed that there were flickering lights just before them. Up above, she saw now, were fixed thick striped awnings, jutting out from the wall over several apartment windows. When she moved to the left, the sky opened up; and when she reached the end of the long building, an entire street appeared before her.

“St Alban Alley?” she asked.

“Mm-hmm,” answered Dechtire. Already, she was speeding down the cracked sidewalk, dodging people left and right. It was almost difficult to keep pace with her.

And so, here was the Mardi Gras that Dechtire had desired. There were liquor stands everywhere, and a drunken parade marching up and down the alley. Nessa and Dechtire stopped at the nearest stand, and requested shots of “whatever was strongest.” Soon they were both crying. They staggered towards the parade, and screamed and stamped at it. Their gestures were speedily reciprocated, in a most friendly fashion.

Then they began to walk. The scene before them had commenced a strange swirling, and fuzzying, quality; and they did all they could to maintain, and even to increase, the illusion. Indeed, as they walked along, through wide, bright patches of churning colour and sound, their spirits began to lift, and their hearts to lighten. Soon they came across a stand which was hosted by a fellow named Juan, whose great wide smile drew them near. They paid him for several rounds; but after the time it took to drink them down, they had apparently become so dear to him (just as dear, surely, as he, with his big smiling face, had become to them), that he supplied them with several more, and refused the money that Dechtire attempted to press into his hand. Yet he was so very
dear to them, that Nessa stuffed the bills into his back pocket, while he was preoccupied with a large dark woman in a yellow muumuu, who had initiated a rousing conversation with him, and who seemed nearly as fond of him as were Nessa and Dechtire themselves.

They were loath to part with Juan, surely they were, but Nessa for one was beginning to feel that she might be sick; and Dechtire that the greater number of her extremities had no more proper function. So they both embraced him, and kissed his soft smiling cheek. Then they turned on their way. 

And, as they walked (which Dechtire discovered was, indeed, in her power to do), it began to seem as if the world were darkening around them. The eddies of moving colour, which had washed over them, pleasantly and repeatedly, like warm waves, seemed to be losing their intensity; and the colours seemed faded, and cold. Nessa felt the haze of her eyes beginning to clear – and was most severely disappointed, when the faces of all those many people who surrounded her (and whom she had previously been pleased to regard, as some sort of bright and shining mythical beings) came full into focus, and showed themselves for what they truly were.

She bid Dechtire pause at a side street, and was sick into a small patch of grass. But then she straightened up, and wiped her mouth; and began again to stumble along.

And what were the chances? Finally they staggered into a small, half-open courtyard squeezed between two squat buildings. Their aim was to find a place either to sit, or to lie, till the last of the haze had dissipated. The courtyard was scattered with little picnic tables, which seemed ideally suited to either of the aforementioned activities; and Nessa was eyeing the nearest and emptiest one, when suddenly a voice came to her ear. So Nessa turned her head, and saw Cassie there, seated at the fullest table, with several young women whom Nessa recognised from the diner.

Nessa’s heart was engulfed in fierce flame; and the haze flew quickly out of sight. She let out a scream; and Dechtire cried out in response. The haze, for her, was not eradicated, and she could not tell what had gone so horribly wrong. Everyone in the courtyard looked up. Cassie’s eyes met Nessa’s, for only the briefest moment – and then Nessa dashed back out into the street.

~

Cassie looked up from a measure of rum, startled by the sound of screaming. She was even more startled by the sight of Nessa, there directly before her; and vanished the very next moment.

“Hey, Cassie,” said one of her companions. “Wasn’t that one of those weirdoes from the diner?” She squinted at the one who remained. “And isn’t that
another
one?”

Cassie recognised the woman named Dechtire. She stayed behind for a little, looking all about. She seemed incredibly drunk; in fact so drunk that she may indeed have been temporarily rendered suitable for a competition on the subject with Birdie Post.

Therefore her reaction was slow, and it was some matter of seconds before she hurried from the courtyard after Nessa.

Much without thinking, but spurred instead merely by the sight of Nessa, Cassie overturned her glass, and bounded over the picnic table. She spilt several of the others’ drinks, as she did so; but their cries of indignation fell on deaf ears, and she only kept on till she had come out into the street.

But the crowd was thick. She pressed through it for a while, looking in every direction; but it was too late. Finally she returned to the entrance of the courtyard, half-expecting for Nessa to come back. But, of course, she never did.