Chapter 9
Light.
Blazing, flaring, stinging, fearsome light.
She could not see. She could not think.
Her breath caught in her throat and a voice, speaking words she did not understand, rang out frantically from somewhere beside her.
Bones ground together in her hand as Bella clenched her fist. The light was bright, too bright, and she could not cast it out. Her eyes were stinging. Her face was wet. Her lungs weren't working, and that voice— that high, frightened voice calling out in tongues— drove her wild. Her ears were ringing. Something heavy sat on her chest. Something snug was wrapped around her legs. Something strong held her down, pinning her, and she had to move, had to get away…
Mustering all her feeble strength, Bella managed to raise her arm. She did not know why it was so sore or why it was wrapped so tightly, but she soon found out how heavy it was when her strength failed her, and it came crashing down on her chest like a hammer on a nail. All at once, the air left her lungs in a startled whoosh, and she felt the scrabbling of sharp, little fingers on her swollen ones, gently prying the limb away. But the damage was done. Bella coughed, the force of her own blow sending a splintering pain down her right side, and she tasted blood… so much blood…
A new voice, darker and deeper, pierced the incessant ringing in her ears, but when she forced her eyes open, she saw nothing but blurry and frosted shadows.
Voices. Muttering. A distorted face, featureless and plain, swimming before her own. A cloth at her lips. Water, cool and fresh, wetting her tongue…
She choked on it and the voice shushed her, rolling her painfully onto her side as she hacked, her eyes streaming.
Fur tickled her nose.
"Facila, karulo. Vi dormis tro longe…"
The words made her head spin and when she opened her eyes again— the effort far more laborious than she'd ever thought possible— she saw, a little more clearly, who had spoken.
It was a man— tall, but crouched— resting on his haunches next to a bed where she lay, listless, facing away from the light. Sunlight, hot and bright, streamed through a glassless window she could just make out in her periphery, and Bella felt a warm breeze on the back of her neck. The man held a whittled, wooden cup in his fingers, its contents sloshed over the edge and dripping onto the floor. His face was a mask of concern, his kindly grey eyes boring into hers as if he wanted to see through her.
When he spoke, her head spun.
Tired, confused, and fighting back a cruel and biting headache, Bella stared, dumbfounded, as the man spoke again. And then he stared at her. His next words were slow— deliberate, even— and though Bella could see the efforts he took to speak clearly, she could make no sense of it. The man glanced anxiously over his shoulder, eying more shadowy figures that Bella could not make out, before she was turned dizzyingly onto her back, and her blankets torn away.
The man babbled, and Bella, blinking dazedly up at the wooden ceiling, fought to catch her breath. Her chest was sore— each breath brought a strange, popping pain and a crackling sound that reminded her of crushed paper. It felt like fire in her heart. The stranger's hands roved over her, his fingers prodding at her ribs, her neck, and her head until Bella could not stand it and she squirmed, shifting an inch or so to the right.
The man said something else, still staring down at her, and Bella felt the hateful sting of tears in her eyes.
"Charlie?" she mumbled, wondering where her uncle was. Charlie would make everything better— Charlie always made everything better. Where was he?
She called his name again, and murmurs erupted from the foot of the bed.
"Ĉu ŝi parolas, Carlisle? Kio ŝi diris?" A stranger, spoke into the silence.
"Neniu…"
And before Bella could process what the voices had said, what strange language they may have spoken, the man was pushed aside by a small and desperate hand. A woman took his place— a soft and gentle-looking woman with a long, thick braid and eyes of dark, piercing blue. Her fingers were soft and warm on Bella's cheeks as she peered eagerly at her face, tracing patterns over Bella's nose and lips. She beamed when Bella's unfocused eyes met hers, and Bella stared for only a moment before she turned, despite the rushing throb in her temples, and looked around the room.
Light blue paint covered stony brick walls, with a massive, sprawling mural spanning the length of the the right-hand wall. Although Bella could not make out what it might be, she could see that it was detailed, the tiny brushstrokes blurred and waving as she tried to take it in. A canopy of blue netting drifted above her, fixed to a tall wooden post, and the fabric fell in ample waves about the cushioned mattress. The bed was covered in furs and blankets— some black, some grey, and some the same, luxurious blue as the walls— and though the light was too bright for her to face them head-on, she could see the outlines of two tall windows inlaid on the wall to her left, and another straight ahead.
"Where am I?" Her voice cracked and rattled.
The words left her all at once, and Bella watched the blank confusion on the strangers' faces with growing concern.
"Who are you?" she asked. "Where am I?"
The man came back in a flash and this time, he held a candle to her face. Bella protested his inspection but the man was firm and strong, peering into her eyes with mounting concern as she continued to babble, growing more and more agitated.
"Ne, ne…" He shushed her gently and patted her hair. "Ne, karulo. Vi estas sekura."
"Where am I?" she asked again, and this time, her chest grew tight. The sting behind her eyes betrayed her fear and she knew the man saw, his face pinching as he wiped a hand over her cheek. Her breath grew short and the pulsing pain in her head increased. Ringing intensified in her ears, cut only by the loud, rhythmic timbre of her pulse…
And at once, Bella felt bile rise in her throat. Her brow broke out in sweat and her vision swam in a sudden haze of tears. Like the quick swell of the surf on a bright and sunny afternoon, her stomach roiled with a horridly familiar warning of sickness. She fought to bring a hand to her mouth, to hold off the inevitable, but before she could warn him, she felt her body heave.
The man had her turned onto her side again and, in a heartbeat, produced a large, wooden bowl to hold underneath her. She retched— horrible, painful spasms of sickness— until her eyes watered and her breath was lost and she trembled, terrible, awful tremors that shook her to her very marrow. She brought up nothing but bile and what little bit of water she'd consumed just minutes before, and though her stomach ached and her eyes streamed, it did not let up.
"Shhh…" the man soothed, and that, at least, was understood. "Shh, shh, shh…"
She rinsed her mouth with water from the man's cup. Coughing weakly, despite her flaring ribs, Bella felt herself growing heavy, exhausted by her sudden trial. All at once, it did not matter that she was sick and her brain was on the fritz. It did not matter that she was panicked, and frightened, and so horribly, damnably confused. Her eyes grew heavy— unbearably so— and she felt them drifting shut despite herself.
"Shh, karulo. Vi estas sekura. Sekura, karulo…"
Sleep took her quickly.
By the time Edward made it to the castle in a flurry of hooves and shouts, Jasper clinging desperately to his waist so as not to slip off the back of the saddle, the entire palace was in an uproar.
Soldiers barricaded the entranceway. Citizens— men, women, and children from the surrounding village— crowded around the stone keep, shouting praise and exultation for the revived Goddess. Jasper, red-faced and guilty, glanced nervously back at the gate, which had evidently been left open in his haste to find his brother. Edward's horse reared as it neared the crowd, and Jasper jumped quickly from his seat, taking Magnus by the bridle.
"I'll put him away," the boy offered nervously. "You go upstairs. Uncle is waiting."
And so, with his saddlebag of offerings in hand, Edward pushed through the growing crowd and opened the castle door, latching it with a firm click just after Emmett, holding tight to his own bundled bag, trailed in after him.
Through the entranceway and around the throne room, they raced through the opulence and splendour of the palace. Past the great hall, through the library, and around the Council Chambers to the staircase, which wound clockwise up four stories through a tall and narrow tower. The winding made him dizzy, but Edward did not cease, his feet pounding a punishing rhythm on the stone until he made it, heart hammering, to the last door, cracking it open with caution.
The Queen's antechamber was empty. A teapot, still steaming, rested on a small stool next to the fireside chair, where Edward saw his aunt's damp shawl hung before the blazing hearth. Most of the furniture was still covered— Edward had not had time to properly air the room before the girl's arrival— but the little nest his aunt had made herself could not be mistaken, and Edward was thankful for it. The only noise came from his own heavy breathing, the hammering of his pulse in his ears, and the crackling fire, which popped and hissed as it ate deeper into the damp logs. Emmett was silent as the grave— stock-still and serious— until he deposited his saddlebag next to the window, and turned hesitantly towards the closed door of the bedchamber.
"I'll wait here," he said quietly. "It would not do to have a strange man in a lady's room."
"As you wish," said Edward. He left his bag next to Emmett's, giving his friend a quick pat on the back as he pulled a white sheet away from a covered, ornate sofa. Emmett lowered his ample frame onto it and rested his elbows on his knees. He said nothing more as Edward fidgeted, uncertain and anxious, and when he closed his eyes, heaving a great and heavy sigh, Edward turned away. He glanced towards the bedchamber instead, and the closed wooden door felt as obtrusive and impenetrable as a wrought iron gate.
The latch on the door, golden and shining, was cold in his hand. He pulled it carefully, feeling for all the world like a thief in the night until it gave way and swung open, leaving him standing in the blazing light of the bright bedchamber.
The room was in disarray.
Blankets, thrown onto the floor, lay in a haphazard pile at the foot of the bed. The canopy, designed to keep away flying insects during the night, had been thrown hastily aside. The table upon which Carlisle had placed his instruments had been disturbed, pots of salves and spices upturned, their contents spilling out onto the wooden table. His aunt hovered anxiously over her husband's shoulder, her fingers at her lips as she gnawed on her thumbnail— a sure sign of nerves and discontent. Carlisle himself knelt on the wooden floor, a wooden bowl resting next to him, and his fingers pressed lightly over the pulse in the girl's neck. His other hand, trembling and gentle, rested on her hair.
And when Edward found the girl's face, he saw that she was no longer peaceful. Her stillness had fled, and in its place was a pinched, tearstained face, disturbed the shifting unrest of shallow sleep.
"Carlisle?"
"Edward." His uncle, starting at the sound of him, drew his fingers away from his patient.
"Jasper… he said…"
"Yes." His uncle smiled— a real, true smile that betrayed none of his prior worry— and Edward felt his own anxiety beaten back, a shaky sigh escaping his lips. So it was true, he thought. Jasper had not been lying. There had been no trick, no mistake, no misunderstanding…
"She does not look awake," was all that he said, and for the first time in a long while, Esme laughed— a high, strained sound that belied her shaky, tremulous relief.
"She was," insisted Carlisle. "She opened her eyes and spoke. She was sick…" Edward glanced nervously away from the bowl at Carlisle's feet. "And now, she sleeps."
Edward frowned. The girl shifted restlessly.
"You see? This is true sleep," said Carlisle. "Not unconsciousness. This time, if we disturb her, she will wake."
Edward, still hovering on the threshold, gave a careful smile.
"What did she say to you?" he asked. "Did she tell you where she came from?"
His uncle froze at once.
Closing his mouth with deliberate care, Carlisle shifted his attention to his nephew, but he did not say a word. This query, though innocently spoken, seemed to spark something in Carlisle, igniting an unnamed, unknowable silence that drove Edward to maddening curiosity. The silence was almost palpable. His uncle shifted uncomfortably as Edward watched, confused and perplexed, before he exchanged an unspoken, meaningful glance with his wife. Esme's tentative joy turned to worry at once, and Edward, feeding off of her nerves, felt his own anxious energy ramping back up. What had she said to them? What secrets had she shared?
"What did she say, Carlisle?"
After a long moment of persistent stillness, Carlisle met his eye with a quiet calm and an unexpected, wavering hesitation. It was written on his face as plainly as if someone had scrawled it there in ink: the man was uncertain. Carlisle was never uncertain. Surefooted and easy, Carlisle was a master of logic. He was a voice of sense in Edward's world, which was so often plagued by fancy and nonsense. Everyone, from his poorest citizens to his strong and stalwart advisors, were so steeped in superstition that level-headed clarity had become a rare commodity. Carlisle did not lose his head. Logic did not defy him. A scientific mind with a wise and benevolent soul, Carlisle was the epitome of reason.
But Carlisle— the stoic, intelligent healer who'd studied more books and texts than Edward could have read in three lifetimes— seemed struck dumb by this strange slip of a girl, who'd barely had the time to say two words to him. This woman, injured and disoriented, had somehow managed to rattle Carlisle, one of the strongest, most level-headed people Edward had ever known, and a burning question struck him like an arrow launched from a taut and pliant bowstring. Just what could this woman have said to make Carlisle so afraid? Edward's own anxiety, already fuelled by the tension in the room, soared, and on instinct, he felt his fingers twitch towards his sword. The unbroken silence weighed on them like an anvil, and the longer it lasted, the closer Edward came to the edge. Finally, when his question continued to go unanswered, he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as if he'd been pushed from some great height.
His fear must have shown, then, for Carlisle seemed to remember himself just at that moment. Edward, on instinct, felt his hand brush the hilt of his sword, his spine stiffening with the threat of impending violence.
"Nothing," said Carlisle finally. "She didn't say anything."
This response, unexpected as it was, made Edward stiffen. Even as a child, Edward had possessed an uncanny ability to detect falsehood, and just now, listening to Carlisle's hedging words, he felt the telltale bristling at the back of his neck. His uncle, whom Edward trusted above all others, would not meet his eye, and the longer the lie lay between them, growing like a weed, the angrier Edward grew.
"Do not tell falsehoods, Carlisle. What did she say?"
"I…" Carlisle stood, shaking his head again. "I couldn't say."
"What do you mean?" Edward moved to the foot of the bed, staring down at the girl's flushed face. He forced his hand away from the hilt of his blade, flexing his fingers in a deliberate attempt to calm himself, but when Carlisle remained silent, Edward felt a rush of irritation.
"Was she coherent?"
"Yes…" hesitated Carlisle, "and no."
"You're as bad as Jasper," complained Edward waspishly, his false bubble of calm popping in an instant. "Tell me what she said, Carlisle. Where does she come from?"
Hearing the command in Edward's voice made Carlisle sag, and he turned to his nephew with an intense concern that Edward rarely saw.
"I could not understand her," he said, and even through his annoyance, Edward caught the worry. "And I don't think she could understand us."
"What do you mean?" Edward's teeth clenched so tightly together that he wondered if they'd crack.
"I mean what I said," returned Carlisle crossly. "I did not understand her language."
"And what language was that?" Edward asked. He fought to keep the snark out of his voice. He was a King, and a King was gracious. A King was patient. A King was gentle, and understanding, and fair...
"I don't know," repeated Carlisle. "It wasn't our language."
Edward barked a sardonic laugh.
"What nonsense." His Kingly virtues were all but forgotten. "You're mistaken, Carlisle. The girl is not well, and you… you must be overtired."
For there was only one language spoken on the island, and no one knew it better than Carlisle.
"I'm not," said Carlisle again, and this time Edward could not mistake the note of defensive agitation. "Ask your aunt. Ask the child."
"What child?"
Edward glanced surreptitiously about the room, startled back into patient, slightly guilty calm when he noticed a small, shy-looking girl hidden in the shadows by the window, her face downcast and her eyes turned away. Esme caught his curious stare and beckoned the child forward, cajoling her with friendly, but unsuccessful smiles.
"It's alright, darling. Come," said Esme, and the girl obeyed with lagging feet and trembling hands. Edward felt a pang of pity when he recognized her dress— countless copies of the same brown, cotton smock had been supplied in heaps to the Children's Home in the center of the village, where the orphans from last summer's vicious raids were being housed. This particular orphan was still a child— a small, scrawny girl with a thin, elfin face, and long, black hair that touched her waist. She had it neatly plaited, tied off at the end with a piece of ribbon as red as ripe, summer cherries. The girl seemed frightened by him— she certainly would not look at him— and Edward noted that she eyed the great, gleaming sword at his waist with particular apprehension.
"Who are you?" asked Edward, not unkindly, and the girl shivered.
"Alice, My King."
"And what is your purpose here?"
"I…" The girl looked askance at his aunt. Esme smiled at her, nodding her head encouragingly before the child faltered, and Esme took pity on her.
"I asked her here," said Esme. "Her father, rest his soul, was the herbalist. She knows medicines, and we needed an extra set of hands to look after our sleeping lady."
Edward, fighting a grimace, looked away from the child, a strong pang of pity gripping his heart. The herbalist had worked closely with his uncle for many years, providing the healer with the necessary plants to make medicines, tinctures, and salves. The herbalist had been a mild man, a learned man, and a man undeserving of the fate he and his family had suffered during the first round of attacks from the men beyond the mountain the summer before. Decades prior, the herbalist and his wife had made their home at the foot of the mountains, whose slopes provided a variety of soils and gradating temperatures needed to grow a full complement of medicinal plants. Such was their sanctuary— a secluded, pastoral place to grow their stock and raise their children— but when the Alia had rushed through the unguarded mountain pass with axes and swords, they had been among the very first casualties.
Edward had seen, with his own two eyes, the devastation of that first attack. He had seen the herbalist, strung up and hanged by the neck from a great coconut tree at the base of the mountain, and his wife, a tiny slip of a woman, raped and killed on the floor of their barn. Their sons, all tall and handsome boys, had been butchered like beasts in the back pasture, and their house had been burned to ashes in a great, billowing inferno. It had been the first and final civilian bloodshed Edward had ever tended alongside his father, and it had stuck with him like a bad smell. Edward knew, in his heart, that this brutality was a mark that would never leave him— the blood of that innocent family would stain his hands until his dying day, and the memory of their suffering would forever play in the recesses of his mind.
But despite it all— despite the time they had taken to bury the dead, the parties they had sent out in search of the perpetrators, and the long, anxious nights they had spent keeping guard over that mountain pass— Edward had not known about a daughter.
"I'm sorry for your loss," said Edward gently, and the child's face pinched, "and I thank you for your service. If there is anything you need, you will please let me know."
The child, gnawing anxiously on her lip, ducked back into shadows without a word.
"I speak the truth, Edward," said Carlisle gravely, returning Edward to the discussion at hand. "I could not understand a word of what that woman said, and though I cannot speak for her, I do not believe she understood us."
"That's not possible," Edward said again, shaking his head. "What else would she speak, if not Maronese? There is no other language left on this island, and she is not old enough to have known any of the elders who spoke the old tongues. She can't be much older than myself, Carlisle, and the last of the Ancient Ones died when you were just a boy!"
"I don't know, Edward," said Carlisle, staring down at the girl again. "I can only guess…"
"Guess?"
"You know my father collected relics," said Carlisle. "Things that washed up on the shore, or old, weathered things that no one else thought useful."
"Yes," said Edward curtly. He had seen this collection many times. Silver forks, tarnished with age, and crab shells, empty of their inhabitants, all pulled from the shallows along the southern beaches. Driftwood and seaglass, piled into neat boxes, and old parchment covered in ornate, yet indecipherable, writing. There were outdated books, torn manuscripts, and baubles saved from the ashes of the Ancient Ones' cabin, where it had been burned to the ground out of fear of disease.
"There is a book," continued Carlisle. "A particular book. An old book… older, maybe, than even our island."
Edward stared at him in disbelief.
"And there are words written in it," continued Carlisle. "Foreign words. Strange words that I cannot decipher, though I can sound them out."
Edward felt another irritated barb at the end of his tongue— he had no use for mysticism or illusion— but the child's sniffle from the back corner of the room made him halt, keeping his anger in check. She was frightened of him as it was— the big, commanding man with a great, glinting sword— and Edward was loathe to make it worse.
"Where is this book now?" Edward asked stiffly. "And why does it matter?"
"It is in a box, hidden away at my cabin," said Carlisle. "I keep it hidden, so as not to draw suspicion. You know how people can be…"
Edward continued to stare, silent and surly. Superstition ran rampant on the island like a plague, and neither Carlisle nor Edward was impervious to it.
"Her words…" Carlisle shook his head, as if he, himself, could not make complete sense of it. "Her words sounded… familiar. She spoke with a strange accent— one I have never heard before— and she was upset, but her words were very familiar to me."
"What did she say?"
"I don't…" Carlisle shook his head again, and Edward saw the flicker of annoyance on his brow. "I don't know."
"Well then, what do you know?"
Carlisle's eyes flashed with indignant impatience, and Edward felt his ire before he heard it.
"That whatever language she speaks, it is not of this land," he replied. "That whatever she said is similar to, if not the same as, what appears in that book, and from what feeble memories I have from my boyhood, it sounded just like the strange language spoken by the elders in their hut. That wherever she came from, whatever land she calls home, her people must know that book and those words, for she does not know ours— not our language, and certainly not our customs. She did not recognize me as a healer, though I wear my traditional robes of white."
Edward, blinking, glanced down at the girl in the bed. She tossed in her sleep, her lips parted as a sweat broke on her brow and Esme, pointedly avoiding both her husband and nephew, wiped it gently with a damp cloth.
"There is no other land, Carlisle," said Edward, his mouth dry. "You know that as well as I do. There is only the ocean, and this island as a refuge for mankind. Where else would she have come from, if not here?"
Carlisle said nothing, but stared at Edward, disturbed and shaken by this quiet observation. Edward realized then that he was late on the uptake— this frightening and disturbing epiphany had struck Carlisle long before it had him, and though Carlisle had had time to process it, he seemed no closer to rational sense than Edward. When his uncle spoke, Edward felt a shiver down his spine.
"Then how do you explain her? If it's as you say, and the island is all there is…"
The girl shifted in the bed.
"Then how do you explain her?"
Translations:
Facila, karulo. Vi dormis tro longe…
Easy, darling. You've slept too long.
Ĉu ŝi parolas, Carlisle? Kio ŝi diris?
What is she talking about, Carlisle? What did she say?
Neniu
No
Ne, ne… Ne, karulo. Vi estas sekura.
No, no… No, darling… you're safe.
Shh, karulo. Vi estas sekura. Sekura, karulo…
Shh, darling. You're safe. Safe, darling…