Chapter 35
Gloria spotted a stall selling fireworks and tugged on Blake’s arm. “We have to get some of those!” she gushed.
“Why? What do they do?” he asked, puzzled.
“You’ve never seen fireworks? This is going to be such a surprise. You’re going to love it!” she bought a bunch of them and put them in her bag, as they walked along and looked out at the setting sun.
“You know, when I was reading the Journey of the Ring, I thought of these shores as the western shores that Frido sails to in the end of the story. To paradise.” Gloria looked out at the water, lulled by its constant motion.
“It does seem pretty perfect here. I’ve been here about a month, and I can’t find a fault with it yet. If more people knew that peace like this was real and not a myth…” he trailed off, imagining what it would be like.
“What do you think Frido did when he got to the western shores?” Gloria wondered.
Well, I think-” Blake turned Gloria to face him while picking up her hand gently. “He settled down in a new town and found a nice girl who-” he raised his other hand to brush her cheek, “-taught him to release his fears and laughed at his old fashioned ways of thinking.”
Gloria shook down to her toes with anticipation. “Do you think that they were happy together or do you think that he was too afraid to be happy?”
“I think that he was finally able to build a new life and rest happily.” he whispered.
A flare fizzed behind Gloria as she pulled out a sparkler from behind her back. It had been tricky lighting it with one hand (a bit of magic had helped with that though), but the surprise on his face was worth the effort.
“What- what is that? How did you do that? It's so bright!” he stared at the bright tip.
“It’s a sparkler! My parents had them at their wedding and ever since they’ve been special to my family. The people here on the Islands make them.” Gloria informed.
“I have never seen anything like it before! It’s almost like you’re a witch and this is a spell.” he marveled at it.
Gloria lit another one from the spark of the one already lit and handed it to Blake. “It’s even cooler if you twirl it around. It looks like it leaves streaks in the air!” she started spinning hers around, and Blake’s eyes twinkled in the light, his jaw slightly agape, watching the dance.
He looked at his own sparkler and twirled it, entranced by its beauty. The smell of fizzling sparklers held them in a dizzying pocket for a few minutes, just enjoying the light.
Gloria smiled mischievously, and a sudden loud crack was heard and Blake threw himself to the ground, startling Gloria.
“Where is it? Where’s the cannon? It sounded so close, it must be near. Where is it?” His eyes were wide, frightened.
Gloria looked at him concerned and confused. “Blake, there’s no cannon. It was a firecracker. It pops and makes a loud noise when lit. Are you ok?” she asked.
“A firecracker? Who would make something that sounded so similar to war?! To attack?” his face fell, and he shook his head, all merriment gone. He stood from the ground. “I feel like I’m a broken human, Gloria. I jump at loud noises, I see shadows where there are none.” he looked up at her. “I’m as damaged as Frido. I don’t know how to be happy.” The last word was sharp, almost like an accusation; that the people who lived here were too happy with their lives to be realistic.
“You can be. I promise. It just takes some time to get used to. You’ll adjust.” She had seen refugees go through this before, but always from afar, never up close. It felt heavy, like a rock tied around her lungs pulling her down, as if she were sharing in his pain. Was this part of her power or just her human feelings?
“Then why do I feel like I’m being held back by the past?” he demanded, looking at her with agony in his eyes.
“Because you haven’t built something to fill the hole where it used to be! The longer you’re away from it, the further away it will seem, and the smaller on the horizon it will be.” she comforted, a spike of pain ripping through her, feeling his pain. It felt like guilt, homesickness, and fear. There was a scent of something hidden underneath, a thrill of something she couldn’t place, but it felt incongruous to the other feelings.
He shook his head, and Gloria tried to recover from her step into his feelings. “I don’t know how,” he continued. “I don’t want to be the person that I was, I want to be better. To be the right person. But I don’t know how I can climb out of the pit and change.”
Gloria looked at him with sympathy. “If you like, there’s a ceremony where you renounce your old self, and you turn to a new life. It’s the rebirth ceremony, you get a new name and everything. You can become an entirely new person.”
“That doesn’t sound half bad. I’ll consider it.” He took a breath and looked around, trying to move on from the heavy topic. “In the meantime, where did the sun go? It left us behind! Come on, I’ll walk you to your boat.”
~*~
Gloria had a hard time falling asleep. She had been so close to kissing him, if he had just been a few inches closer, a few breaths away, but she got too nervous and lit the sparkler and killed the mood. Imagine where those minutes could have gone if she hadn’t interrupted the flow they were going down! She could have finished the evening with a boyfriend.
Robin slept quietly in the bed that was near hers. The house was getting so cramped with the twins being born, they had erected a new room that still felt a bit bare and were housing the twins in there. However, that meant that it would be a while until Gloria got her own room. Instead, she was in the same room as her little brother who was 9 years younger than her.
Still, it was hard to be annoyed with him. It didn’t feel like that long ago that she was that age, and she was happy to have him close enough to get to know him. He breathed audibly as he slept, and it formed a slow and relaxing rhythm like the sound of waves that was easy to fall asleep to.
She rolled over and tried to do just that. She wouldn’t get any the next night, as it would be a full moon. Her energy flowed in her veins, making her restless. But as restless as she felt, she also felt an odd pull to unconsciousness. Almost unnaturally she closed her eyes and felt like her body had become a dead weight. Sleep usually felt like drifting away, this felt like a shutting door and an anchor around her ankle.
She breathed and smelled the scent of a foreign flower, mixed with the smell of freshwater hitting rocks which was almost like copper. She opened her eyes, wondering if she had to get up to close the window before a storm came through and soaked her while she slept (it had happened before), but the room had changed to a bright and swirling view of a greenhouse. She remembered the building from a dream she’d had as a child, and she smiled in glee. She remembered the inside of the greenhouse and how she hadn’t been able to explore it to the extent that she had wanted to, and now perhaps she had the chance. And the grounds of this area seemed interesting and twisting; she could spend hours finding all of the small details.
She stood from her bed and noticed that she was wearing a white dress. It was different than the one she had worn when she was a child, but it fit her well. As if she were clothed with the stars.
She pulled open the door and found that it hadn’t changed at all over the years. She considered doing the math on how long it had been since she had been here, but it was just a dream. It didn’t really matter and she would have to leave soon anyway, so she decided against it. She didn’t want to waste her time.
Glowing orbs pulsed on counters and fragrant herbs and roots were scattered between them. She recognised some of them from the real greenhouse: mandrake, deathflower, sage. Others she couldn’t recognise.
A sudden jolt of power ran down her arm like a shock and went flying out towards the wall, and at that moment she noticed a young man standing across the room from her where there had been none before. He looked at her with stunned dark eyes, as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Ow!” Gloria exclaimed. “Oh, hi! Sorry, is this your house? Mind if I look around?” she massaged her hand and kept looking around. The interesting flower smell wasn’t in the greenhouse, and she had the whim to follow it and find where it originated.
“You, you’re not real. This isn’t happening.” he stuttered.
A bit odd, but Gloria rolled with it. “Of course not. This is a dream. None of this is real.”
She left the greenhouse and walked towards the bed she had woken up in. The light smell wafted here and there, and she turned her head to try and find the direction.
The boy followed her. “You’ve changed so much, and yet not as much as I thought you would have over the years. I never got your name last time.”
Gloria wasn’t listening, the smell of the flowers were distracting her too much. The boy walked and stood in front of her and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here, do you remember me? Why am dreaming of you?”
Gloria only half heard him. “Hm?” she focused on his face, trying to place his face. There had been a boy who had been well dressed in white, and he had mentioned his name, but Gloria was already bad with names that were monosyllabic that she didn’t have to practice once a week.
There was something about his face, it felt familiar. His eyes, they were like burnt gold, as if there was dark amber on top of gold coins. But his childish round face had sculpted into one of sharpened cheekbones and a pronounced nose. He had a nearly scrawny frame, and he seemed like he was hiding the fact that he was jumpy.
“I’m sorry, if you’re the boy I saw last time I was here, I don’t remember your name.” she said.
“But I remember you so perfectly. Your hair was shorter, you were just as curious. My name’s Seneca. Seneca.” he repeated to make sure she got it in her head before and then looked at her expectantly to say it back to him.
“Seneca. Ok. Well, Seneca, do you know about this place? Any cool secrets?” she asked, turning away from him to look around.
“No, I don’t come here unless you’re here.” He suddenly held his chest and gasped in pain. “I don’t understand why the girl from my dream has returned, and why am I in pain?”
He looked up to find Gloria a comically far ways off. “Hey, wait for me! Don’t get lost!” He straightened up and ran after her.
“Oh, you’re still here?” she asked when he caught up to her. “I guess I thought you would have disappeared by now.”
“I’m not feeling well…” he took deep breaths, trying to catch his breath and settle his stomach.
“You don’t look well. Here, let me help you with that.” Gloria waved her hand and tried to think of the spell that helped sickness. Or was that the one that caused sickness? Nope, it was the helping cure sickness spell. She remembered correctly.
“How did you do that?” he asked. “Are you a witch?” he asked.
“What’s a witch? Like a sandwich? Or a switch to urge a horse?” Gloria asked.
“No, it’s when you make a deal with the devil in exchange for powers.” he eyed her even more skeptically.
Gloria had no idea what this boy was talking about and she was getting weirded out by him.“I’m pretty sure I was born with these powers. I was about six when I started to develop them. I hope the devil doesn’t make deals with children.” Gloria said bluntly.
“You seem to be about fifteen or sixteen, and it was ten years ago that we last met.” Seneca said as if it were easy to remember. “Is there a coincidence?”
“I don’t even know who you are! Why do you care so much about who I am?” Gloria was getting irrationally annoyed at the boy who wouldn’t leave her alone to explore the beautiful and surprising world.
“I want to know who-” and with that he faded and disappeared.
“Good. I can finally get some peace.” And Gloria went back to finding the smell of the flowers. She realised that she hadn’t told him her name, shrugged, and moved on.
Finally stuff I can sink my nails into! It's no secret that I don't like build up chapters, but now the snowball is starting to get rolling and it's getting thicker the further we go! That metaphor works, right? maybe?
So, we have Blake, Seneca, and the girl of their dreams. But which dreams are those, and for whom? Are they good dreams or bad ones? Who the heck are these people?! Stay tuned, and it will make sense eventually.
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