Chapter 7
Tumbling made her dizzy.
Up and down, and left to right, Bella swayed, swinging lazily on a rope she could not see, above a world she did not know. It was hot here, she thought, always so hot… until the wind came, and with it, the snow and the ice. And then she would freeze. Shivering and swinging, spinning and sweating… never stopping, and never seeing.
Everything— every last bit of her— hurt. Though she did not walk, the pain her legs felt as sharp as broken glass. Her back felt like fire, her head like thunder, and her ribs cracked like frigid steel. As she swung she tasted blood, all metal and salt on her parched tongue, though sometimes, if she was lucky, the rain would come to wash it away. Sometimes, when the blood filled her mouth, cool, sweet water would take its place, and sometimes, she thought she could hear singing.
Today was not a singing day.
Floating in that spinning world beyond reason or thought, Bella waited, her limbs flailing for any hint of ground. She hated flying… it was too high, too dangerous, and too disorienting for her to feel anything but frantic. At any moment, she might come crashing down. At any minute, she might tumble headlong into the rocks, or the water, or the swaying, green trees above the hut…
The hut.
How had she come to be here?
She had seen it only once, when the light waxed long enough for her to see anything in this endless, bottomless blackness. Wooden walls, a thatched, yellow roof, a glassless window looking out into a world of green, and rafters spanning from wall to narrow wall, their shadows dancing like autumn leaves in the glow from a flickering fire. The light had not stayed long and Bella could not see as much as she'd wanted to, but before the light waned and she was plunged back into the dark, she had added to this new inventory.
She had seen hands. She had seen hair. And once, though it was only for the most fleeting of moments, she had seen a face.
She dreamed about that face.
It was fuzzy, even though it had sat right before her eyes, not a foot from the end of her nose. Its lips had parted in garbled speech, the words as strange and foreign as the words on the beach. The eyes of blue, so dark that they almost looked black, bore into hers, though what horrors they saw there, Bella would never know. The lips had moved, the eyes had raked her face, and though Bella could see them, she could not truly know them. Her eyes had flitted shut shortly thereafter, dragging her back into that whirling, spinning hell, but all the while, she saw that face.
In this strange, shoreless space, Bella hovered, never really knowing, though her thoughts raced by like flies, and never really feeling, though the ache in her bones seemed her constant companion. Days turned into nights, and nights into eons, but all the while, Bella remained untouched, not knowing where she was, or really, who she was. Time lost its meaning as she railed against the sky, shouting curses and pleas that no one but she could hear. Sometimes, she saw stars, but when they saw her watching they ducked away, flickering out like little candles snuffed by the dawn. Sometimes she felt hands, always grabbing, always touching, and though she longed to shrug them away, to banish them from this place of lonely solitude, her muscles would not obey.
She counted things in this place, though as time marched ever on, even that lost its appeal. One pinch on her arm. Two hands on her ribs. Three stars up above. Four whispers in the dark. Five words, spoken in tongues…
"Bonvolu veki, karulo. Ni atendas."
Yet still, she slept.
Bella felt like a seashell— empty, hardened, and fragile. Life had fled her, the world had forsaken her, and all that was good had abandoned her, lonesome and drifting, on an unfamiliar beach lapped by a strange and hostile sea. She could feel its water dripping down her face and she could hear its murmurs. Voices whispered words she did not understand and these missives bounced around her brain like echoes, a cacophony of sound that held no meaning. Now, when she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but darkness, and though she sat only by the edge of the ocean, she was sure the tides would do her in. Sometimes, she felt dry— so hot she could melt— but then all at once, the heat would flee and she would flounder, desperate for air, in the rising, ruthless sea.
Bella could see her mother.
Eyes closed, with laughter on her lips, she stood against a backdrop of blue, her arms raised towards the sky as if she could fly. Bella wondered if she would— if she would splay those arms to catch the breeze, lifting her higher, and higher, and higher until she was naught but a spot, a mere speck against the pressing darkness that had become her home. Bella hoped she wouldn't.
"My baby…"
Bella could not speak.
"Always my baby… come to me, my love."
"Mom…"
"Hush, darling…" Her mother spun, the yellow skirt of her dress flaring like a tulip. "Never mind, now…"
"M…"
Her mother kissed her brow.
"You're a good girl, Bella, you know that? I want you to remember that, always…"
Something dark— something deep, and painful, and poignant— tugged at Bella's heart at the sound of those words. She'd heard them before, though when, she could not recall…
"Mom…"
"My baby…" And suddenly, her mother was blazing with light. "My girl… my favourite girl."
A tightness in her chest made Bella choke, and she reached out a shaking, tremulous hand.
"Go to bed, now, sweet thing, and don't come downstairs. Remember: Mommy loves you."
I love you too…
"Go on, now…" Her mother gripped her shoulders, and Bella was spinning. "Be a good girl, Bella, and go upstairs…"
Her feet on the steps. Her mother's lips, so soft and trembling, at the nape of her neck. Her mother's quivering fingers as Bella released her hand, and the blazing something in her eyes as Bella looked back, only for a second, to see the strangest melancholy in her gaze. She was supposed to be happy, Bella thought. Why was she not happy?
A bang through the floorboards that startled her awake, and her eyes, snapping open at the sound of the blast, sending bright, white light to fight away the darkness.
Translations:
Bonvolu veki, karulo. Ni atendas.
Please wake up, darling. We are waiting.