Guess I'm doing Fictober now. Also guess I'm titling these. That's definitely going to come back to bite me in the butt. Original writing. Enjoy!
*****
Masy weeps like tales of goddesses gone. Cheeks glimmering in moonlight, tears sparkling. "I need you," she cries, voice like bells and song. Her desperation only heightens her beauty, which is why Lorilee has to deny her.
She steps back. Warning shivers through the links of her spine. Her heart, spelled and beating, bids her to listen. "I can't stay," she says, voice tight in her battle against her baser instinct to flee.
If it was something that would work, she would. But escaping a siren's grasp was a difficult matter, as complex and delicate as lace.
"You have to." Her eyes, dark like void and hunger and temptation, latch onto hers.
This too, is dangerous. A siren's gaze was near as bad as one's song.
"My father calls for me. Mother is ill," she says in misleading truth, appealing to her sort-of-lover, sort-of-jailer's weakness in thinking the moon is her mother. "If I do not leave now, I shall never lay eyes on her again." That much is true.
She's spent a moon's full cycle here, which is all she needed. Masy's pearl sits stolen in her pocket, safe for her to touch due to the effects of the bite dug into her neck. A siren's result of labor was acid to touch, unless the bearer carried a piece of the siren willingly given with them. A bite given in the height of passion. A lock of the siren's hair personally braided on their wrist. A piece of nail chipped and caught in their bone.
The formermost was the most viable of the three. People died from the third, pierced and bleeding and dead before their fingers ever grazed the pearl. The second option was a token of long friendship years in the making. Impossible without falling completely under their spell. And the first? It was easier to angle for, than the others. Though it was still near impossible.
Taking the lace she's so carefully woven and picking it apart, tearing apart her own fruits of labor.
But Lorilee succeeded. The bite had hurt, excruciating as the pleasure, but it was worth it. Would be, if she managed to leave.
"But you can't!"
Lorilee lowers her eyes. To display guilt and keep Masy's song (not a literal one, as most think) of tears and shame and shaking hands, from pulling her further in. She could keep it at bay, some, but weeks of exposure has worn her defenses thin. The call of it messes with her psyche, sways her heart, makes her think Masy truly alone and lonely. Making her believe in the story.
She mustn't believe in it. If she does, she is lost.
Her voice shakes. Purposeful, or instinct? She does not know. "I do not wish to leave you." And a part of her doesn't. The part that Masy's song reaches begs her to stay. How could she think of abandoning her, as so many have done? How can she think of leaving? Isn't Masy all she's ever wanted?
It's simple, now, to see why so many have failed.
But Lorilee is determined, fueled by her sister's ghost and empty grave. She set out knowing that she'd have to cut off a sliver of her soul and leave it. She knew a part of Masy would latch onto her and make her think the farce was real. That she was loved.
"I'd stay if I could," she adds on. That is... less true. Was only so under a certain frame and perspective. If Masy was human and innocent and wouldn't eventually kill her, she would, probably.
"But..." Masy's lip wobbles. "I need you to stay. Everything is empty without you."
Despite knowing this is a trick, her heart thuds painfully.
"As it will be for me," she says. It already is. It always has been. Auralia lost her life for this, months ago, and it'd broken something unrepairable in her chest. "But I fear it will be emptier to not hear my mother's final words. And I can return." She can, technically. Nothing makes it impossible. But she won't. Can't. For her sanity. For her family. For Auralia.
Masy presses her hands to her chest, as if her still heart felt the same pain Lorilee's did, though it's impossible. "Please." She pries one hand off her chest to reach for her. Beseeching. Waiting. Expecting.
Lorilee takes a step back. Lets her grief show. "I can't." She presses her fingertips to Masy's; gentle, mourning, and pulls away. "I'm sorry."
And she thinks she might be.
She slips her hand into her pocket. "I'm sorry, Masy." She turns. Leaves.
Masy ups the volume and pitch of her cries.
Lorilee keeps walking. Away from the lake. Through the night, her own cheeks wetting.
As the sun starts to brighten the sky, she slips the pearl from her pocket. It sits, ice and guilt, in her palm. A piece of Masy. A piece of Auralia. A piece of so many dead. With her other hand, she grabs the tiny reed flute, presses it to her lips. Ensures that her grip is secure on the pearl. She blows.
A high, light pitch. Wind stirs. Her eyes shut.
When she opens them, she is home.
*****
So... I might come back to this? Write more of this world in future Fictober pieces if I see the opportunity because I like this world now. This is my curse. I need to stop creating cool worlds on what's just supposed to fill a prompt.
Prompt: "I've been waiting for this" | Fictober Day 3
Continued from day one's work which you can find here. It is, as you can probably guess from the title, very sad. I like it, though, and hope you guys do too!
*****
The pearl sits, a perfect sphere of ice and loss in her palm and she imagines her sister's voice emanating from it. Would she be proud, I always knew you'd be the one to do it? Saddened in disappoint, wondering why couldn't you do this before, when I was still alive? Her neighborhood seems quieter than she remembers, with no wind, as if the world is holding its breath to stand witness to her too-late triumph.
Lorilee presses the smooth surface to her lips. Imagines it is her sister's cheek and they just got done making snow angels in the backyard. Imagines the way her scar is burning in phantom memory of magma teeth sinking into her skin is actually her sister's forgiveness. Did Auralia know that she loved her, when she died? If she'd been able to have a last moment, would she have shared the sentiment?
It was Lorilee's fault that she was out trying, anyway. Lorilee's fault that she was even out in the world, chasing after a hope.
It had been her turn to go search for a pearl to try to heal their grandfather's noxious heart, the hex that was spreading to the whole family, a curse placed by a spurned witch.
It had been her turn, four months ago, and she'd screamed at her mother that they were only further ruining their family by going on this wild goose chase. "What good is saving grandfather," she'd snarled, "if the rest of us break our backs to do it?"
She'd left, after that argument. She'd refused the mantel trying to settle on her shoulders and she hadn't thought it strange, when Auralia didn't reach out. It made sense that she was leaving things to simmer down a bit, everything had gotten too hot and a weekend apart wasn't quite enough for things to settle back to normality. A few days of silence was healthy.
She hadn't known that the family moved the duty onto her.
She probably should have. Of course they wouldn't wait around for her mind to change. Of course they'd just keep going down the line until they out of old-enough-to-tempt-and-rob-a-siren family and have to risk even more by looping back to the start.
There had been two weeks where Auralia was dead and she did not know.
She shifts the pearl to sit cradled in both her palms. Treats it with the ginger tenderness she would her sister's ghost. The coolness of it sinks into her skin, like settling realization the moment before a terrible truth comes to light. "Auralia isn't here," her mother had said, and there'd been something about the tightness of her mouth and the shadows under her eyes and the way she was leaned against the doorframe that felt like knowing.
She takes a breath.
Stealing the pearl was useless if she doesn't hand it over. She walks across the lawn almost in a daze, her mind separate from her body. What use was there in honoring Auralia's memory when in another version of the world, she would be the one opening the door, there to celebrate with her?
Lorilee presses the pearl to her heart, feels the cold seep in there, too, remembers the way the world had stiffened when her mother admitted where Auralia was. It had felt like transfiguring her bones into glass. Like another breath in an Auralia-deprived world would shatter her into glass dust and broken wine shards. She used to steal the fancy wine glasses to drink apple juice in with Auralia in the middle of the night, laughing on the porch swing.
Maybe if she'd done this when she was supposed to, they could have done that again.
The crystal glass pokes at her heart with the memory, her glassen bones transfigured into regret. The doorbell dings, a toll of loss.
Uncle Lio is the one to open the door, a frown marred deep into his face that tells her his condition has only worsened. "What," he grunts. Thinking that she failed, probably, and is crawling back in her defeat, not noticing the hand cradling something to her chest for what it is.
And she can't blame him, for assuming she failed. They all did.
"I did it," she says, and the words sound foreign. She's parroting what she's supposed to say and it feels like she doesn't understand their meaning.
And does she, really?
What meaning was there in this? Grandfather would be saved from the hex burned into his heart but what of all of them who have lost to make it so? Because sure, her mother would be able to feel love and her Uncle Lio would be able to shake his endless grief, but what of the consequences that aren't due to the hex burning them all? What of Uncle Lio's cracked hope? Her mother's lost empathy? Parro's night terrors? Kenu's permanently shaking hands?
What of the things they just lost on the quest, not to the hex filtering down to them all with time's passage?
"What?" he breathes, grief watered out for a brief moment. His eyes drop to her hand, the glimmer of something soft white peering through her fingers. "You did it." His eyes widen. His voice booms louder. "You did it!" He calls for the family, stepping back, victory meshing with the grief always stamped on his heart.
She wonders what the curse makes him think he's grieving. What sort of grief does it feel like? Is it anything close to hers, now, over Auralia and the proof in her hand that she was really never coming back?
Her mother is the one to breach the bubble of distance everyone made, her aunts and uncles and cousins and small niece. Her hands fit to Lorilee's cheeks. Her fingers are thin and she forgets if they've always been so or if its something that came from her youngest's early death. "You did it," she praises lightly, tears welling over and freely spilling. Her lips press, cold as the pearl, to her forehead.
Lorilee closes her eyes.
She never considered what the success might feel like, but she doesn't think she would have assumed it'd be so empty.
Her mother grabs her wrist and pries her hand back. The skin of her chest feels loss without the contact. Lorilee had had to take a part of Masy to steal the pearl but she'd left a part of herself behind, too. Now the pearl is the only thing holding her together and soon, she will have to let it go.
Her mother gasps at the sight of it.
"I've waited for this," she says with a reverence Lorilee has never felt. "I can't believe you did it."
Her fingers tighten over the pearl. She cannot bear to hold it for one more moment. She cannot bear to let it go. It's all she has left of Auralia. It's all she has of her killer. It's the treasure she died for, a token of her memory.
And she's supposed to just let it go? With nothing more than a pat on the back, good job, dear, all is fine now? What about her mother's poisoned compassion? Uncle Lio's lost hope? Kenu's tremors? Parro's endless, terrifying nightmares and the way they make him scream?
What about Auralia?
"Come on, dear," her mother urges, lining her fingers beneath hers.
Lorilee tears her eyes from the pearl. Stares into her mother's eyes, feels like she's gazing at a stranger. "It'll all be fixed?" she asks, with the weary innocence of a child who has seen too many nightmares be made real.
"Yes."
But that's a lie. Grandfather will be fine. Uncle Lio will relearn how to hope. Kenu's hands will steady. Parro's nightmares will fade. But Auralia? She's dead. Gone.
Does she not care about that? Is it just a consequence of the curse branching fire in her heart?
It couldn't be. It didn't take her sympathy or her humanity or her memories. She should still care that her daughter is dead, even if she's shielded from the full brunt of it by not knowing how it is to love her now, as a ghost.
"What about Auralia? She's not--" she chokes, grief weighted in her throat. She'd set out for the pearl once she learned about Auralia and she hadn't paused to let herself grieve. The past weeks have been almost comforting, in a way. She was living in her sister's ghost. But now? She had to let that go. Let her go. "She's not coming back."
The gravity of the idea is enough to steamroll her into the polished wood floor. She loves Auralia, wants to (with a selfish part of her that was born in her guilt) hold onto this piece of her, never let it go.
But none of them would agree. It's a loss, losing this, but they've all given so much just so they could have a chance. It would save them. Nullify the hex hovering over all their heads.
It's so selfish, wanting to just keep it.
She drops her gaze to it again, memorizes the soft way light glints into rainbows, the weight of it, the cold that's somehow become a comfort even though she's always hated winter. She opens her hands. The pearl falls. It's phantom still rests in her hands, like morning frost and nightfall stone. It lands, safe, into her mother's.
It feels like losing Auralia again. The ghost of the moment her mother said she was gone.
But it was worth it. She cannot let her sentimentality and regret keep her from hollowing her sister's sacrifice of its purpose. Auralia died for their family and she has to honor that choice.
