Sixteen: Bloom

Narcissus

The edge is there, under my fingers, and I'm looking at it, and it's looking at me.

We're tired now. But I understand why, what We have to do, what's going to happen and why.

We've been living too long, apart from each other.

Apart we do bad things. We drown people and scorch people and suffocate and starve people –

We're not stable, always shifting, always hurting.

Like desert sand and spring water, better together, more alive together.

Under my fingers, under the earth, running through the earth, you're waiting for me, waiting to touch me, give me life.

You're waiting for me to reach you, pull you up, to the light, waiting to see the sun.

The sun…

Fingers and toes like roots, reaching for you, hair like petals, reaching for the sky, bloom yellow like the sun.

We could never be with anyone else, but this way, We'll last forever.

We can't hurt anyone, and no one can hurt Us.

Icarus

I curse him. I curse him and anyone who comes in his name.

Echoes ring around in the blackness. Words are muted, like bubbles, they fill the space. I mean, they are space. It's like they don't exist but they're still there. Like thoughts.

I asked his help, he rejected. I reject him and anyone who wishes to help him.

In all the burning lungs and airless spinniness, I wonder what she asked from him?

I was cursed, he did nothing, only thought of himself.

And now he's cursed. Makes sense.

Cursed? He? It worked? Actually? Good.

No. Not good.

Why?

He saved my life.

What?

My life.

Why you and not me?

I don't know. It's a mistake probably. Most of my life is. And now I'll die here. He saved my life and I came all the way out here for him and now I'm going to die. That means he's going to die too.

I don't want him to die.

Neither do I.

I want him with me. But he killed me.

You're not dead though. You're still here. Still alive.

Not alive. Not inside.

Can't you go?

No. I'm too broken. Hera cursed me, then he cursed me double. I can only speak with words that don't exist. Or borrow other people's.

How can I hear you?

Words that don't exist. I have nothing to speak with. Nothing but the ether, and the waters and the earth.

Right…

You've been to that place before? You understand the language of the half-dead.

I guess?

I'm worthless you know.

Who told you that?

Guess.

Oh. Well, I don't think you're worthless.

Why?

Just got a feeling.

Really?

Yeah. You're kinda crazy, but not worthless. I mean look at what you can do. You can control the earth, move it with your mind. I'd love to be able to do that. But with air. Then I'd never have to be afraid of drowning.

Drowning…

I'm drowning.

Eliana's drowning.

We're dying. Oh shit.

We're –


Sitting up.

What?

…we're sitting up. Dripping wet. Sunlight and grit in my eyes. But no water in my lungs. Not even a coughful. Turn around, side to side, back to front, nearly inside out. Elli sits there looking back at me, same wonder in her eyes and air in her lungs.

'We're alive,' I speak first.

'Yes,' she slowly says,

'What… what just happened?'

'I don't know. I…'

What did just happen? Something's missing from my memory… the feeling's still there though.

Half dead…

I shudder. We were looking for Echo. We found Echo. The cave filled up with water. Now we're out of the cave and –

I'm on my feet. She is too. We stand. The Sun's started rolling down the mountain, Her – it's rays stopping us shivering. For now.

'We should go. It'll be dark soon.'

I take some steps. I'm stopped by a hand.

'What about Echo?' Eliana's voice is small, pleading, nothing like normal, like she's asking me for answers.

'Echo's gone.' The words fall out of my mouth like lead. I didn't even think of them, but I know it's true.

'She let us go. And now she's gone. So let's go.'

This is the bit where Elli argues back, makes me want to go and hunt Echo down and demand she come back and help us –

But instead she stops. Stares at the sunset. I stare at her pretty red hair glowing in it and… I feel nothing. She turns past me and starts walking back the way we came. I go after her, trudging, soaked, down and up rocky paths and hills.

My blisters don't hurt so much anymore.

Narcissus

I'm drinking deep from your fountain now, I open up and more seems to make sense. I shift. I am comfortable. Many things pass through me and I pass through them and they are transient, like light I pass them on and sacrifice them to you, to your energy, and you feed me and please me.

Half asleep half waking, eyes see little now. I don't see your face anymore, but I don't need to. You are within, taking what you need from me and I from you.

We coexist in perfect-

Something jabs.

Painful. Somewhere inside Us. A curl of something wrong. Something that needs to go, be gone –

It floats up gently, a feathery thorn in my chest, slowly seeping out and telling me things I don't want to hear. Something is wrong. I shouldn't be here. Something is missing.

Your water cools and heals though. Your spring cools the burning and balms the wound and draws the poison out with a breath. I rest, back in you, back in Us.

We coexist in perfect harmony.

Icarus

We come back to chaos.

The torches are ablaze in the atrium – it looks like daytime – and most of the servants – no, every single one of them, and the slaves too – are there, chatting away like some sort of party. Most of the women are gathered on the left, the men on the right. One of them breaks away from the crowd, eyes set on Elli. I know him, sort of – we talk with awkward words sometimes. He helps Darieos with the horses. I've seen him and Elli talking a lot.

'What's going on?'

She asks, before I have the time to.

'It's the master,' he - Areius? - answers,

'Something unnatural, its taken sway. Eliana, we don't know what to do. Some are saying we should desert, others that we should stick it out – this illness is more than that. His hair, his skin, it's like nothing we've ever seen before.'

'What?'

My chest tightens. I want to ask more – no, forget that, I want to go find him right now. But Eliana's arm shoots out and stops me before I get anywhere.

'Aias, please, explain.'

She takes on a gentle, nearly sympathetic tone I've never heard from her before. He shakes his head as though in disbelief,

'There's no way to describe such a thing. It makes me sick to even think about it.'

'Forget that, we have bigger problems.'

The other stable hand, a tall man with a shaved head and skin that's even darker than mine, stops the conversation dead. I'm about to complain when he points to Tyndareus. standing a head above everyone else between two pillars. He's the chief trade manager, one of the servants who came with us to Athens and was always trying to advise Narcissus on something or another without melting into gush. I stayed out of it. The housekeeper, Desma or Desme, hovers uncertainly behind him. She's older and is more able to resist Narcissus' charms – she seems more like a mother than anything else. I'm not sure what a housekeeper does – she always seems to be doing a million things at once. Tyndareus has his arm raised to gain the attention of the room, and sure enough, we all fall silent.

'Thank you. As we've all seen or heard, there is some sort of illness affecting the master. I, with Desme's assistance, have been working hard to ensure things still run as smoothly as possible. However, it seems that the news does not get better from here.'

Tyndareus pauses in a grimace, like he's swallowing sand. His face is like stone.

'I thought it best to withhold this information until we had resolved something, until the master,' every time he says the word the edge gets more and more bitter, as though any and all love he once had for Narcissus is long gone.

'had recovered. However, I now feel it is only right to inform you all of the true gravity of the situation. Narcissus, in an act I can only describe as madness, without my consolidation, has cut half of his business contracts and divided the other half amongst his troupe members.'

A shockwave ripples through the gathering. Some gasp, some mutter, others look at each other as if to say "what the hell does that mean?". I'm probably one of them. Tyndareus holds his hand up again, before yelling for silence.

'This means that we are inevitably left without a source of income as a household. Unless there is a change in his state, or a secret plan behind this move, I regret to say we are left redundant.'

The outcry is harder to stop this time, so eventually Tyndareus gives up and simply waits with his hand up until the noise dies down by itself.

'Permission to speak?'

Desme's voice emerges in the semi-quiet, directed at Tyndareus. He seems tense, but nods curtly. She turns out towards us, stepping onto a pillar base.

'Having known the master since his younger years, I should admit I have seen a difference in his behaviour leading up to the present state. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. I would argue that he knew something was wrong, that he didn't have much time left. That this business termination was a part of his last will. In light of thi-'

More muttering, more murmuring.

Suddenly a shout rattles out from beside me, the other stable hand,

'Anything about us?'

Desme frowns,

'Pardon?'

'He was obviously still somewhat sane when he did this. What about us?'

She looks into the group sadly for a moment, then shakes her head,

'Nothing. I don't think he got the chance to-'

'Then he has condemned us along with him!'

Uproar then.

'Are we expected to starve?' 'Does this mean we're free men?' 'He's not dead yet.' 'He soon will be.' 'We should offer ourselves to other masters.' 'Will they take us?' 'Not without his official statement.' 'How are we to find work?' 'The courts will think we did it. Conspired against him, like common murderers and thieves.' 'The gods have cursed this place…'

Tyndareus cuts in front of Desme, speaking out harshly to the angry mob.

'Peace! You will know your place!'

Silence.

'If the worst should happen, I will personally ensure that the slaves are sold on to their next owners. The money earned can be used to sustain the paid serving staff until we acquire more work. Dismissed.'

The room turns to hushed chatter, some satisfied, some angry. I lose the others for a second in the suddenly bustling room, but there they are, faces sombre, or furious, or just plain dejected. I could swear Eliana looks like she's about to cry. I'm about to take her hand, but she turns and rushes out of the room. Aias gives me a look – a semi-reassuring-semi-worried glance – before rushing after her. It occurs to me that he's a guy and she's a girl and they apparently aren't meant to be alone together unless they're related or something – Narcissus made an exception for me and Eliana, cos I'm a child apparently – but Narcissus isn't here now and Aias doesn't seem to care about the random gender rule.

I'm left wandering the atrium by myself, not sure what to make of things. If Narcissus really does… if we don't fix things… well then I'm just as screwed over as everyone else.

I shake the thought out of my head, but it's too late, I feel sick already. All I want to do is go and lie down and sleep and maybe not wake up for a really really long time. But my feet are already taking me outside, through the courtyard, hands already grabbing a torch off the wall, sandals and toes clogged with shreds of foliage and dust from the path between the trees.

The lake. Everything is shadows, no one's here.

No one's here.

No one's watching him, Narcissus is… gone. Vanished.

Oh shit, he's probably in the lake, I know it, probably drowned by now, shit

But then I see, or almost see. I see the shadow that's not quite a shadow. I see the firelight flicker over limbs and a face.

I see why no one else has dared to stay here past dusk.

Narcissus

Sight is a gift from the gods, sometimes fading, sometimes clear. Sunlight drips through the trees like honey on pastries, warm and sweet to my mouth. Night is cool and gives time to sleep. Pores open, pores close, sun through skin, feeding me light, warm and soft. Darkness, I drink in breeze and respire hazily. Colours in and out of here like honey bees. There's a buzzing somewhere… We are almost one, I can feel Us drawing closer, closer to Our natural state, to perfect peace and life and beauty.

To perfection.

Icarus

It's morning again. The Sun's somewhere low in the east. I watched… it. Rising. Like I used to. I've been awake for a while.

As the light came I stopped looking at the sun and got to see properly what all the fuss was about. The first thing I notice is that I'm lying on a crushed flower – there weren't any flowers here before. The season for them is long gone. A flower with a yellow bell shaped head and star like petals and a crunchy green stalk. It's not like anything I've ever seen.

And there's more too. Whole clusters of them, scattered all around the edge of the lake on this side. There's more and more clusters nearer to the lake, growing closer together, in denser packs until –

It looks like a giant flower.

Is my first thought, and it almost makes me laugh. And then I stop. And then I really see him. And it hits me.

The dark silkiness has drained out of his hair, it's gone waxy, pale pale yellow. The flesh has drained out of his skin. He looks… not dead. Alive but not in the right way, the plant way, not the human way. For a human he looks sick. Very very sick.

I stand. There's a piece of flower still sticking to my arm. I shake it off with a shudder. Step around the clusters towards him. Round to see his face.

He's still on his knees, but the flowers and the grass and the flowers, they hide everything below his waist. I come closer. A waft of something sweet, musky, like vanilla, fills the air. It comes from the yellow bells, but its also from him. Better than what he smelled like before. Or is it? At least before he smelled… human. He's not looking at the lake anymore, his whole head is tilted upward, stretching towards the sky, breathing oh so slowly. Is he awake?

His eyes… they're cloudy. Blind. I kind of expected it. Translucent golden blankets rest over each one. The irises underneath stare into nothing. The lids blink. Keep staring.

'Icarus!'

Eliana's here. I don't really want to turn away but I have to. It takes me a moment to realise I'm in amongst the yellow bells now, up to my knees in them, so close to Narcissus I could touch him.

'What are you doing?' Her voice is urgent but hushed, like she's scared of waking the forest.

'Come back here, it's dangerous!'

'What do you mean, dangerous?' I can't help it if there's anger in my voice. I don't know how else to feel right now.

'I mean,' she hisses, once I'm standing beside her, right at the edge of the clearing,

'That Chloe and Zosime just told me how he,' she points at Narcissus,

'nearly killed the last person that got near him.'

'What? Who?'

'Eubalus.'

'Oh. That would make sense then. That guy's a bit creepy.'

'Icarus!'

'Sorry.'

Elli just shakes her head. For a second it looks like she's about to move off, but she hesitates. She can't seem to stop staring at Narcissus. Or what's left of him.

'Why are you here anyway?' I blurt out,

'I thought you guys wanted to stay as far away from him as possible.'

'I know,' she replies, eyes flicking away from the green and yellow man and over to me,

'I just wanted to see where you'd gone. We thought you were in your room.'

…That's not right. There's something in her tone of voice – her eyes drop to the grassy floor – it doesn't add up – seems familiar, like the time…

'What happened last night?'

Her eyes to me again. Surprised.

'Last night? You were there weren't you? Tyndar-'

'You know what I mean Eliana.'

My voice is empty. I'm sick of people lying to me.

'You left. Aias followed you. If you were really worried about me, you would have come last night. But obviously you weren't. You were thinking about other things. Like you were about to cry.'

She fiddles with a toggle on her dress.

'You looked-'

'Like a mess? I know, don't remind me. Typical woman, getting emotional, that's what you think right?'

'Well… no. I completely get it. Your whole world is about to be flipped upside down and its not even your fault. Of course you're upset. But that's not what I was talking about. Last night you looked desperate. Ready for a fight. Like you were thinking, and thinking a lot.'

She stares at me then, her breath catches. She says nothing.

'Trust me, I know that look. What are you gonna do? Why did you really come here?'

Her eyes close, I can't see her thoughts. But then they snap open and she's smirking on her lips but her eyes they're full of something serious.

'Well, I suppose you could benefit from the plan too. We slaves may be low in status but our numbers are large and our intuition ensures our survival.'

'…Meaning?'

'Me, Aias, Jua and the rest. We're going to… convince Tyndareus to hand us our freedom. God knows we deserve it after this. The key is Desme. Tyndareus is near untouchable, but, though he doesn't like to admit it, he listens to Desme.'

'So you're going to threaten her?'

'Who said anything about threatening? We have to use more subtle means, or we could get in much worse trouble,' she sighs, tongue flicking over her cracked lips.

'I've been serving at Narcissus' side for a while now, catering to his every pointless whim. I know his every in and out, and I've overheard a lot of useful information that he can be careless with. Doesn't matter if a dumb slave girl overhears anything. His voice is practically engraved in my head, his every pause and gesture and condescending smirk – I know how he speaks perfectly. Joined with Dareios' ability to replicate his hand, we could make a pretty convincing forgery of a will, granting all the slaves in the household their freedom. There's just one problem.'

She gestures to Narcissus, who's head seems to have lulled again.

'You can't see it now, his arms are too embedded into whatever those flowers are. But on his smallest left finger should be his signet ring. No document is official without it, Desme and Tyndareus would definitely notice if it wasn't sealed. There's no one who dares to get close enough, far less touch him, not after what happened to Eubalus.'

'What happened to him anyway?'

'Apparently Narcissus nearly broke his neck. Grabbed him with both hands by the throat and nearly squeezed the life out of him.'

'Oh.'

'Now you understand why I was so shocked to see you next to him. If I was smart I would have asked you to get the ring while you were there. Unfortunately for me, I like you being alive.' She gives a short, small laugh, but it's not full of feeling.

'Thanks. I think.'

'Once we get the document forged, we can plant it in the study. Desme will surely get her hands on it. No doubt they'll be searching for more inheritance for themselves. She won't open it until it's handed over to Tyndareus though. We'll put something in for the servants too, divide up the estate, go into detail, make it look real, and throw in the freeing of the slaves as an afterthought – like he can't even be bothered to keep us. If the upper household want their share, they'll have to hand the courts the entire letter. Thus our freedom is ensured.'

She smiles at me. There's feeling in this one. She's so happy with her plan. Then slowly, she frowns, reacting to something apparently on my face.

'What? Is it not a good plan?'

Through this whole conversation my gut's been squeezing air out of my lungs. It's nearly unbearable now.

'You're acting like he's already dead.'

'Well he's as good as dead.' Her smile falls. Her face darkens.

'Don't tell me you're still holding on to hope Icarus?'

I say nothing. I just stare past her. I can't move. If I do I swear I might hit her and something inside me really doesn't want to do that.

'You're such a naïve child, do you know that?'

A low voice comes from somewhere beyond the corner of my eye.

'Do you know what this life is like? You never own yourself, you're passed around like property. This is my one chance, I'm going to take it. Once I'm free, I can work, earn real money, I can provide for Ma better, I can get her the help she needs. I have to think of my family, my future.'

Bitter, frustrated words.

'Don't act like you're above us all. You have to think of yours too.'

My family? My future?

'He is my future.'

Some hopeless sob nearly breaks my throat.

'He saved my life, he gave me food and clothes and a place to stay and talked to me like a human being with honesty and respect, and he didn't beat me, or imprison me, or lie to me, or try to kill me – you have no idea! You have no idea what I've been through, you have no right to call me naïve! I'm not an idiot! I'm not stupid! I know there's evil in this world, and you have to look out for number one and all the rest of that bullshit. But Narcissus isn't that bad, not by a long shot! And I think he deserves to be saved. I owe it to him.'

Oh great. I'm crying and yelling and killing any sense of peace there was and I'm surprised Narcissus hasn't snapped the hell out of it already and told me to shut up. The grass looks up at me. I turn away.

I feel Eliana staring at me, long and hard. A hot glare.

'I never said you were stupid, Icarus. In fact, I thought you were the opposite. You came at first, you acted cold towards him, I thought, 'finally, someone who gets it.' I almost admired you for not hiding your honesty, falling for… whatever it was he had over us all. But now you're acting like a damned fool. You want to be stuck with him for the rest of your life? I thought you were different.'

'I don't want to be stuck with him. I just don't want him to die. He's a good person!'

She just shakes her head at me. The seriousness in her eyes, its there, its gone. Its scorn now. All mocking.

'One worthy act in a lifetime of selfishness does not make a good man. Now his outsides match his insides, hideous on both counts. At least most of us have gained some sense by now, knowing what he's really like. But you knew from the start, and you're still obsessed. You're worse than that physician!'

She walks away. Fast. Faster than I could. Her hair is like fire. I imagine it burning down this woods and closing in around the lake and flames licking up Narcisuss' pale green thighs and turning them to charred ash.

I stand here, and I stay standing here, I don't know how long. I have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. I could go after her, try to stop their plan, try to convince… but why? Why bother? But she said, she said to me she wasn't going to give up, and then she turns around and says this? She said it just a couple days ago, she said… she said she wanted the physician.

She won't give up on her mother.

She couldn't care less about Narcissus.

No one does, I realise. It's just me.

Not even Eubalus is here anymore.

...

...

Grrrwl…

That was my stomach.

…I'm really hungry but at the same time not. But I don't want to go back inside.

Distract me.

My feet take themselves, eyes glued to the grass.

Back to the lakeside. I'm feeling my way along the flowers. Slowly.

I could just stay here for hours. I probably have, I think? Long enough that their thin ruffled shells seem comforting now, not creepy. They're just being. Just looking to the sky and smelling like vanilla and being bright, bright yellow. They soaked up all the sun's colour but they don't burn nearly as much.

The vanilla's strong now. In the flowers, something glints. Something gold and hard.

I pick it from the undergrowth, there's dead leaves under there, they smell too sweet.

A ring sits in my hand, intricate and golden, carved at the head in a backwards 'N' with tiny swirly leaf patterns all around. Trust him to be so fancy. It slips between my fingers until it fits one perfectly. Left hand, second to last finger. Hm. Narcissus' hands are a lot bigger than mine.

The lake sits in front of me. And I'm sitting with this ring on my finger, now it's off and in my hand. It's a heavy ring. It holds a lot in it. And it's tempting. It would make a satisfying sound as it lands in the water, never to be seen again. It's almost out of my hand but it changes course and the gold lands in the dirt a couple feet in front of me instead, hidden by grass and flowers. I'm searching the yellow bells again.

I think I'll keep it.