Thanks to everyone who's been so patient! (I haven't given up!) I've been
stumped with so much homework and Sac dates that I think that there's a
government conspiracy that wants to keep me from having any spare time.
Hopefully it doesn't get any worse than this!
Thank you to all you people you enjoyed my fic enough to review. You all made my day (or month). You guys rock!
Bella Principessa – Thanx darlz! : )
Silver Rasmussen – Thanks. *smiles* The link between the Night World and the Light World will be fully revealed later. So you'll have to read to find out!
Orange – Thank you! : ) *grins* (I read your review and the first thing to pop into my head was "Oh she's/he's so nice" – But that's really corny and it's something my mother would say. lol) Just read your bio and realised that Orange is such a unisex name and that you don't even hint at what gender you are. (That's why I did the whole she/he thing.) I am all over FFN aren't I? But there so much talent there how could I not? I think I do understand the 'I think it is great' remark and thank you (again) for it. (Well I hope I understand) And I also understand the physics homework statement; only substitute chemistry for physics, that's what I'm supposed to be doing now.
April – Thank you for your review. Trust me if I don't finish this story *I* will go nuts because it wont leave me alone.
Kalika – Thank you : ) That *was* very helpful because I'm experimenting with a new weight loss program. I substitute reviews for chocolate. – So far it's working. Lol
Lilychik – I'm glad you liked the chapter : ) *smiles* Thanks for reviewing.
* * *
Part Two
~ "Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where" – John Dryden ~
- Love wisely; the foolish suffer at the hands of a lover.
Question openly; the ignorant keep their silence.
Waste not the few moments you have,
Others pray for the few but get none.
Trust your heart, it at least, would never lie to you.
When you feel alone, remember,
There is always someone who cares for you. -
Maya looked at the wrinkled note in her hands, yellow with age, torn from use. It was the only thing she had of her mother, that and the scent of lavender. She thought of lavender each time her mother's name was mentioned. It was the scent she used to identify her mother. To separate her from the mass of people that enter and leave the university.
She held the paper to her chest, and thought good thoughts, trying to convey them to her mother. Wherever she was. She knew her mother would feel the thoughts. Ms Treloar had told her that if she concentrated on her mother and thought good thoughts, her mother would feel her connection see the pictures she was sending.
Maya closed her eyes tightly and thought of the taste of fairy floss melting on her tongue, she thought of sunny days and of the colour purple. She thought of princesses and castles, of fairy tales and happy endings, of love. Then she thought of her reflection, to show her mother what she looked like, and that she was alive. She always longed for an answer, but it never came.
She was too afraid to ask Ms Treloar whether she was supposed to feel her mother's life force when she sent her the images. She was afraid that Ms Treloar would say yes, because regardless of how long she tried, and how long she thought, she felt an unsatisfying . . . nothing. She could not feel one thing that related to her mother.
But she wouldn't give up. And she didn't want to believe her mother was . . . gone.
She opened her eyes and released a breath. She needed air. She needed to be outside. All of a sudden her room had become stifling and she felt the walls closing in on her. "Breathe. Breathe." She gasped the words out, and walking so as not to tax her strength, she reached the door and pushed it open.
The air rushed to greet her and she took a step back, instinctively retreating from its strength. She then walked into the wind and felt it trying to push her back into the building. She ran into the empty courtyard, her heart beating wildly, her arms stretched as if welcoming the wind to her embrace.
Carefree, she ran to find solace between two buildings, as soon as she stepped into the empty space between the art and English faculties, she heard a blessed nothing. The silence was occasionally punctuated by the muted howling of the wind as it tried to enter her warm sanctuary.
The wind howled, and curious, Maya focused once more on the sound. For she had read in many books of the mysterious howling wind, but had never heard it herself. Then again the wind gave a subdued sound that sounded like howling and Maya smiled, amused at the predictability of the sound now that she had recognised it.
Her thoughts were a contradiction and she knew it. She was happy, unusually so. As if something in life had happened, a sudden harmony, the aligning of all the elements that made life. She couldn't explain it, but she understood it.
"Maya," She heard her name being yelled out in the tone of someone who knew they had been heard but were fed up with being ignored.
"I'm coming"
She ran out from between the two buildings towards Ms Treloar, who had at times been her one good friend and at others her tormentor. She now knew that the tormentor memories were those of a child, yet she couldn't help but latch on the first impression she had of the teacher.
Walking towards her teacher at a leisurely pace, she still liked to test Ms Treloar's patience, she hummed a small tune under her breath, then laughed out loud at her tuneless song. She walked around the corner then stopped in her tracks as memories rushed into her head. A picture of a woman hugging her at an opaque wall tinged with the colours of the rainbow. Her mother? A picture of sitting on a man's lap as he told her a story of his youth. Her father? She wished they were. They were the first pictures her brain gave her of the two people that mattered most.
It wasn't Ms Treloar's glare that invoked the memories, nor was it her own laughter, it was the man standing next to Ms Treloar, wearing a small shy smile.
He was a stranger, who while unfamiliar to her, seemed so familiar.
* * *
It was an ordinary Monday morning in the Melbourne CBD. The shades of black and grey clad business people strode purposefully through the streets. They knew where they're going, and are indifferent to the morning drizzle and the gust of wind that has just now breezed through the moving human mass of people walking to work.
On a day of grey skies and grey suits, a man in jeans and a blue knitted jumper breaks his way through the crowd. Many people give him glances of annoyance, at he pushes past, but he is unmoved by their irritation; his mouth curls into a smile as if amused by them. He doesn't wind his way through the crowd, his steps are forceful and his confidence is not challenged. Few get in his way.
He scans the address written in the folded piece of paper he holds in his hands and frowns. Where is that – Ah, there it is, he thinks as he walks. He stares at the apartment blocks and laughs. He is amused that she would pick a luxury apartment overlooking the Yarra to host a private meeting. It's just like her.
A middle aged woman wearing a sophisticated, if gaudy pink suit saw his smile as she was walking out of the apartments and offered a polite smile in return. Feeling unusually pleasant this morning, the man keeps his smile as he walks through the revolving front door.
He knocks on door number 42 and waits as he is scrutinised through the eyehole in the door. She takes a minute too long to open the door and he bears his teeth, at her. He is led to a bright yellow sofa and looks enquiringly at the woman seated in front of him. She continued to stare at him, smiling slightly, amused. He couldn't stand silences; he liked sound, continuous sound. And she knew it.
Alone, he could appreciate the lonely sound of nothing. But in the presence of people, silence made him jittery. "What?" he snapped out irritated that she could last out the silences, while he could not. "What do you want with me?"
The woman, with the straight blond hair, pulled from her face in a ponytail, still smiled, amused at his apparent discomfort. "Well, hello to you to. I guess being such a hot shot with the Council means you can forfeit common courtesy now?"
She was smiling wider now, and then all of a sudden hard gripping hands were around her throat. "Iris, I haven't got time for this. Tell me what was so important that I had to fly out from Sydney."
She had been gazing down at his arm, but then she looked up at him and in her clear grey eyes, he saw laughter rather than fear. "You know, brother dear, I think you actually believe all the rumours that your faithful," her nose wrinkled, "minions spread about you. You just can't deal with the fact that you weren't picked to be part of the council, so to make yourself feel better about your failure, you pick on people who are smaller than you."
He let go of her, and without his support, her eyes widened for a split second, before she slid limply to the floor. Holding out a hand, he chuckled, "If you've finished with your little psychobabble why don't we get onto more important things, huh? Like you telling me what's the big secret that I shouldn't tell anybody about because it might be the biggest discovery of all time? Quite dramatic, aren't we?"
Ignoring his hand, Iris, stood up and glared at her brother. "You do realise that I don't have to tell you, I could have told anybody about my discovery. But me, being the idiot that I am of course, thought that instead of mocking me, my brother would actually appreciate being told."
"Oh for . . . Told what?" His exasperated voice just made her glare become more forceful as she pouted over his lack of interest in her big discovery.
"Well, remember about my trip to Uluru?"
"Yeah. What's that got to do with anything?"
"If you shut up long enough for me to say, then maybe you'll know. As I was *saying,* when I went to Uluru, I felt this really weird feeling just as I was stepping over this piece of land. It wasn't anything big or anything. But I felt it *every* time."
"You brought me here because of a *feeling* you had?"
"You know Lowan, you are really starting to pee me off. Will you just listen and stop being my annoying younger brother? So I felt this weird thing and I went to the local Council Department, which wasn't very local I might add. Anyway, so basically what they say is that I'm an idiot, give me the impression that I'm wasting their time. They're in the middle of nowhere and I come to tell them something weird and I get treated like trash. The bimbo then adds have a nice day as I walk out. God! I could of turned back and just pounded her one straight in that fake smile mouth if hers. So getting back to the point, I go back to the site. You know, for confirmation of my feelings and there was that creepy feeling again. But this time I heard voices saying stuff like the Queen of something that I didn't hear and then stuff like they're bringing her back and oh it's about time. So that was really weird and what I'm getting at is if you could come up with me to investigate. Seeing as how you're the stronger one in magic," she said all in a rush.
His eyes widened and he stared at her not speaking. "Come on," she pleaded. "You owe me."
His eyebrows rose, "I owe you, huh? What, pray tell do I owe you for?"
"Okay, so you don't owe me. Fine. Don't come. I'll go investigate by myself, and claim the credit for my self." She huffed off, about to walk out of the door.
"Iris, where were you walking out of this apartment? Aren't you supposed to be throwing *me* out of the apartment since *you* own it?" He only had about a second's warning before his sister pounced. She landed on his chest and with a thud, they both fell to the floor, all the while she was pounding on his chest with her fists. Laughing and trying in vain to hold both her hands, he said, "But I won't let you go on this damn fool mission alone."
* * *
The seconds stopped, the minutes froze, the sun disappeared and laughter died.
Death.
That's what caused it. A death. A murder of the innocent; her blood still flowing, staining his hands, he ran. He ran to the edge of the barrier, instinctively choosing the spot she had said goodbye to her daughter.
It wasn't my daughter.
His tears unlike hers were not silent; they did not stem form courage and a strong determination to save lives. They came in violent bursts of emotion. His tears fell freely aided by his occasional hiccupping sob.
With all the strength left in him he pounded his grief onto the veil that separated the worlds. His wet hands smearing the surface with a red tint. His head slowly lifted, each deliberately slow movement portraying his loss. He looks at the crimson, the mark that damned him, and he bows his head once more unable to look upon the last pieces of her.
Not my daughter.
His breath quickens, his visions blur yet all he sees is her looking up at him with courage, not flinching at the touch of the metal. All he hears is her silence, the gasps of surprise from the others. It was then he realised what he did. Who he lost. And why.
She wasn't mine. She wasn't. She wasn't. The statement repeated over and over in his mind until he brought his hands over his ears to stop the voice that only he could hear.
StopStopStopStop.
He couldn't take the pain, the guilt, and the condemnation. He couldn't deal with the loss. His fists pound furiously on the veil until his hands drew blood. He looked at his blood entwined with hers, their fates sealed together. Their destiny changed by a single thought of doubt, of suspicion.
Calum lifts his head; he is no longer looking at her but at the cold stone where she rests. His hands no longer smooth and supple with the vitality of youth, but rather they are older. Not so much wrinkled, as having the possibility of wrinkles, the hair on his arm greying. His life was a wasted mass of self-hatred and regret. For the first time in 12 years he shed tears for the loss of her.
The first tear slowly travels the length of his cheek before being suspended in time at the edge of his chin. It drops onto the gravestone, a temporary testament of his grief and as that drop settles on the cold stone, Calum thought one last thought. It flittered by his mind, unable to be controlled nor could he stop himself from believing it.
My daughter.
As he thought that one thought, he drew his last breath.
A life unfulfilled. A death at the whim of fate. He lived cursing her name; he died whispering one poignant word. So softly that the air it travelled upon did not notice the intrusion.
Only a lonely grey stone heard the word he uttered on his dying breath.
Catherine.
* * *
Author's note: Fairy floss is what we call cotton candy in Australia. I used the word cotton candy last time because it seemed simpler, but now I realise that I may forget and use fairy floss, so I'm telling you now. And because I live in Australia, it's much easier for me, if the parts in the 'real' world are set there. Uluru is the Aboriginal name for Ayer's Rock which is supposedly the centre of Australia.
Thank you to all you people you enjoyed my fic enough to review. You all made my day (or month). You guys rock!
Bella Principessa – Thanx darlz! : )
Silver Rasmussen – Thanks. *smiles* The link between the Night World and the Light World will be fully revealed later. So you'll have to read to find out!
Orange – Thank you! : ) *grins* (I read your review and the first thing to pop into my head was "Oh she's/he's so nice" – But that's really corny and it's something my mother would say. lol) Just read your bio and realised that Orange is such a unisex name and that you don't even hint at what gender you are. (That's why I did the whole she/he thing.) I am all over FFN aren't I? But there so much talent there how could I not? I think I do understand the 'I think it is great' remark and thank you (again) for it. (Well I hope I understand) And I also understand the physics homework statement; only substitute chemistry for physics, that's what I'm supposed to be doing now.
April – Thank you for your review. Trust me if I don't finish this story *I* will go nuts because it wont leave me alone.
Kalika – Thank you : ) That *was* very helpful because I'm experimenting with a new weight loss program. I substitute reviews for chocolate. – So far it's working. Lol
Lilychik – I'm glad you liked the chapter : ) *smiles* Thanks for reviewing.
* * *
Part Two
~ "Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where" – John Dryden ~
- Love wisely; the foolish suffer at the hands of a lover.
Question openly; the ignorant keep their silence.
Waste not the few moments you have,
Others pray for the few but get none.
Trust your heart, it at least, would never lie to you.
When you feel alone, remember,
There is always someone who cares for you. -
Maya looked at the wrinkled note in her hands, yellow with age, torn from use. It was the only thing she had of her mother, that and the scent of lavender. She thought of lavender each time her mother's name was mentioned. It was the scent she used to identify her mother. To separate her from the mass of people that enter and leave the university.
She held the paper to her chest, and thought good thoughts, trying to convey them to her mother. Wherever she was. She knew her mother would feel the thoughts. Ms Treloar had told her that if she concentrated on her mother and thought good thoughts, her mother would feel her connection see the pictures she was sending.
Maya closed her eyes tightly and thought of the taste of fairy floss melting on her tongue, she thought of sunny days and of the colour purple. She thought of princesses and castles, of fairy tales and happy endings, of love. Then she thought of her reflection, to show her mother what she looked like, and that she was alive. She always longed for an answer, but it never came.
She was too afraid to ask Ms Treloar whether she was supposed to feel her mother's life force when she sent her the images. She was afraid that Ms Treloar would say yes, because regardless of how long she tried, and how long she thought, she felt an unsatisfying . . . nothing. She could not feel one thing that related to her mother.
But she wouldn't give up. And she didn't want to believe her mother was . . . gone.
She opened her eyes and released a breath. She needed air. She needed to be outside. All of a sudden her room had become stifling and she felt the walls closing in on her. "Breathe. Breathe." She gasped the words out, and walking so as not to tax her strength, she reached the door and pushed it open.
The air rushed to greet her and she took a step back, instinctively retreating from its strength. She then walked into the wind and felt it trying to push her back into the building. She ran into the empty courtyard, her heart beating wildly, her arms stretched as if welcoming the wind to her embrace.
Carefree, she ran to find solace between two buildings, as soon as she stepped into the empty space between the art and English faculties, she heard a blessed nothing. The silence was occasionally punctuated by the muted howling of the wind as it tried to enter her warm sanctuary.
The wind howled, and curious, Maya focused once more on the sound. For she had read in many books of the mysterious howling wind, but had never heard it herself. Then again the wind gave a subdued sound that sounded like howling and Maya smiled, amused at the predictability of the sound now that she had recognised it.
Her thoughts were a contradiction and she knew it. She was happy, unusually so. As if something in life had happened, a sudden harmony, the aligning of all the elements that made life. She couldn't explain it, but she understood it.
"Maya," She heard her name being yelled out in the tone of someone who knew they had been heard but were fed up with being ignored.
"I'm coming"
She ran out from between the two buildings towards Ms Treloar, who had at times been her one good friend and at others her tormentor. She now knew that the tormentor memories were those of a child, yet she couldn't help but latch on the first impression she had of the teacher.
Walking towards her teacher at a leisurely pace, she still liked to test Ms Treloar's patience, she hummed a small tune under her breath, then laughed out loud at her tuneless song. She walked around the corner then stopped in her tracks as memories rushed into her head. A picture of a woman hugging her at an opaque wall tinged with the colours of the rainbow. Her mother? A picture of sitting on a man's lap as he told her a story of his youth. Her father? She wished they were. They were the first pictures her brain gave her of the two people that mattered most.
It wasn't Ms Treloar's glare that invoked the memories, nor was it her own laughter, it was the man standing next to Ms Treloar, wearing a small shy smile.
He was a stranger, who while unfamiliar to her, seemed so familiar.
* * *
It was an ordinary Monday morning in the Melbourne CBD. The shades of black and grey clad business people strode purposefully through the streets. They knew where they're going, and are indifferent to the morning drizzle and the gust of wind that has just now breezed through the moving human mass of people walking to work.
On a day of grey skies and grey suits, a man in jeans and a blue knitted jumper breaks his way through the crowd. Many people give him glances of annoyance, at he pushes past, but he is unmoved by their irritation; his mouth curls into a smile as if amused by them. He doesn't wind his way through the crowd, his steps are forceful and his confidence is not challenged. Few get in his way.
He scans the address written in the folded piece of paper he holds in his hands and frowns. Where is that – Ah, there it is, he thinks as he walks. He stares at the apartment blocks and laughs. He is amused that she would pick a luxury apartment overlooking the Yarra to host a private meeting. It's just like her.
A middle aged woman wearing a sophisticated, if gaudy pink suit saw his smile as she was walking out of the apartments and offered a polite smile in return. Feeling unusually pleasant this morning, the man keeps his smile as he walks through the revolving front door.
He knocks on door number 42 and waits as he is scrutinised through the eyehole in the door. She takes a minute too long to open the door and he bears his teeth, at her. He is led to a bright yellow sofa and looks enquiringly at the woman seated in front of him. She continued to stare at him, smiling slightly, amused. He couldn't stand silences; he liked sound, continuous sound. And she knew it.
Alone, he could appreciate the lonely sound of nothing. But in the presence of people, silence made him jittery. "What?" he snapped out irritated that she could last out the silences, while he could not. "What do you want with me?"
The woman, with the straight blond hair, pulled from her face in a ponytail, still smiled, amused at his apparent discomfort. "Well, hello to you to. I guess being such a hot shot with the Council means you can forfeit common courtesy now?"
She was smiling wider now, and then all of a sudden hard gripping hands were around her throat. "Iris, I haven't got time for this. Tell me what was so important that I had to fly out from Sydney."
She had been gazing down at his arm, but then she looked up at him and in her clear grey eyes, he saw laughter rather than fear. "You know, brother dear, I think you actually believe all the rumours that your faithful," her nose wrinkled, "minions spread about you. You just can't deal with the fact that you weren't picked to be part of the council, so to make yourself feel better about your failure, you pick on people who are smaller than you."
He let go of her, and without his support, her eyes widened for a split second, before she slid limply to the floor. Holding out a hand, he chuckled, "If you've finished with your little psychobabble why don't we get onto more important things, huh? Like you telling me what's the big secret that I shouldn't tell anybody about because it might be the biggest discovery of all time? Quite dramatic, aren't we?"
Ignoring his hand, Iris, stood up and glared at her brother. "You do realise that I don't have to tell you, I could have told anybody about my discovery. But me, being the idiot that I am of course, thought that instead of mocking me, my brother would actually appreciate being told."
"Oh for . . . Told what?" His exasperated voice just made her glare become more forceful as she pouted over his lack of interest in her big discovery.
"Well, remember about my trip to Uluru?"
"Yeah. What's that got to do with anything?"
"If you shut up long enough for me to say, then maybe you'll know. As I was *saying,* when I went to Uluru, I felt this really weird feeling just as I was stepping over this piece of land. It wasn't anything big or anything. But I felt it *every* time."
"You brought me here because of a *feeling* you had?"
"You know Lowan, you are really starting to pee me off. Will you just listen and stop being my annoying younger brother? So I felt this weird thing and I went to the local Council Department, which wasn't very local I might add. Anyway, so basically what they say is that I'm an idiot, give me the impression that I'm wasting their time. They're in the middle of nowhere and I come to tell them something weird and I get treated like trash. The bimbo then adds have a nice day as I walk out. God! I could of turned back and just pounded her one straight in that fake smile mouth if hers. So getting back to the point, I go back to the site. You know, for confirmation of my feelings and there was that creepy feeling again. But this time I heard voices saying stuff like the Queen of something that I didn't hear and then stuff like they're bringing her back and oh it's about time. So that was really weird and what I'm getting at is if you could come up with me to investigate. Seeing as how you're the stronger one in magic," she said all in a rush.
His eyes widened and he stared at her not speaking. "Come on," she pleaded. "You owe me."
His eyebrows rose, "I owe you, huh? What, pray tell do I owe you for?"
"Okay, so you don't owe me. Fine. Don't come. I'll go investigate by myself, and claim the credit for my self." She huffed off, about to walk out of the door.
"Iris, where were you walking out of this apartment? Aren't you supposed to be throwing *me* out of the apartment since *you* own it?" He only had about a second's warning before his sister pounced. She landed on his chest and with a thud, they both fell to the floor, all the while she was pounding on his chest with her fists. Laughing and trying in vain to hold both her hands, he said, "But I won't let you go on this damn fool mission alone."
* * *
The seconds stopped, the minutes froze, the sun disappeared and laughter died.
Death.
That's what caused it. A death. A murder of the innocent; her blood still flowing, staining his hands, he ran. He ran to the edge of the barrier, instinctively choosing the spot she had said goodbye to her daughter.
It wasn't my daughter.
His tears unlike hers were not silent; they did not stem form courage and a strong determination to save lives. They came in violent bursts of emotion. His tears fell freely aided by his occasional hiccupping sob.
With all the strength left in him he pounded his grief onto the veil that separated the worlds. His wet hands smearing the surface with a red tint. His head slowly lifted, each deliberately slow movement portraying his loss. He looks at the crimson, the mark that damned him, and he bows his head once more unable to look upon the last pieces of her.
Not my daughter.
His breath quickens, his visions blur yet all he sees is her looking up at him with courage, not flinching at the touch of the metal. All he hears is her silence, the gasps of surprise from the others. It was then he realised what he did. Who he lost. And why.
She wasn't mine. She wasn't. She wasn't. The statement repeated over and over in his mind until he brought his hands over his ears to stop the voice that only he could hear.
StopStopStopStop.
He couldn't take the pain, the guilt, and the condemnation. He couldn't deal with the loss. His fists pound furiously on the veil until his hands drew blood. He looked at his blood entwined with hers, their fates sealed together. Their destiny changed by a single thought of doubt, of suspicion.
Calum lifts his head; he is no longer looking at her but at the cold stone where she rests. His hands no longer smooth and supple with the vitality of youth, but rather they are older. Not so much wrinkled, as having the possibility of wrinkles, the hair on his arm greying. His life was a wasted mass of self-hatred and regret. For the first time in 12 years he shed tears for the loss of her.
The first tear slowly travels the length of his cheek before being suspended in time at the edge of his chin. It drops onto the gravestone, a temporary testament of his grief and as that drop settles on the cold stone, Calum thought one last thought. It flittered by his mind, unable to be controlled nor could he stop himself from believing it.
My daughter.
As he thought that one thought, he drew his last breath.
A life unfulfilled. A death at the whim of fate. He lived cursing her name; he died whispering one poignant word. So softly that the air it travelled upon did not notice the intrusion.
Only a lonely grey stone heard the word he uttered on his dying breath.
Catherine.
* * *
Author's note: Fairy floss is what we call cotton candy in Australia. I used the word cotton candy last time because it seemed simpler, but now I realise that I may forget and use fairy floss, so I'm telling you now. And because I live in Australia, it's much easier for me, if the parts in the 'real' world are set there. Uluru is the Aboriginal name for Ayer's Rock which is supposedly the centre of Australia.