Chapter 8
By the margin, willow-veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhailed
The shallop flitteth, silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot
Yet who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she know in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Ann sat in her literature class, and stared out the window. Outside, Warren and Will were trying to help Dr. Medulla with one of his numerous projects. They weren't having much success.
Only reapers, reaping early,
In among the beared barley
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to towered Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."
"Miss Cromwell. Could you please give us your interpretation of today's poem?"
Ann sighed. She had done a paper on this one during her school years in England. She knew the poem itself by heart.
"Tennyson describes the Lady of Shalott as living in a castle on an Island near Camelot. No one sees her, she is completely isolated, yet the farmers hear her singing as they are in their fields, and they know who she is." She began.
…
"Please Warren, don't say anything just yet. Just listen. You're right, my mother met your father in her first year, and he was in his last. My own father had known her for her entire life. They became sort of like you and Warren and Layla, always together, always pulling some prank on the poor unsuspecting staff. But when he graduated, she was mostly alone except for my father."
…
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
"Her task is to watch the people of Camelot in her mirror, and weave what she sees into her tapestry. Yet she is cursed to never be able to look upon them with her own eyes. She does not know what would happen were she to disobey the curse, and she is content with her lot."
…
"By the time my mother was fifteen, and my father was sixteen, they were a couple. From what I understand, they were very happy, and for the most part my mother was happy with her abilities. She didn't care whether she could use fire or not."
…
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
"But no matter how happy she is, she is alone. Her life is empty, incomplete, yet she doesn't notice. She doesn't care."
…
"They were happy. Until sometime right after my mom turned sixteen. Everything changed. Everything went wrong."
"So what happened?" Asked Warren icily.
"My mom got pregnant."
Warren sucked in a sharp breath of air.
"My mom had to drop out of high school so that she could take care of the baby. My father made sure that he finished his last two years. It wasn't so bad financially. My grandparents had already died, and Mother had a substantial amount of money from them. But when I was two years old, your father came back into our lives."
…
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneeled
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
"Until one day, in her magic mirror she saw Sir Lancelot. A brave, and some say handsome Knight of the Round Table."
…
"I had never met a pyro before. To this day I can remember the feeling I got when he shook my hand like I was an adult, when he touched me. It was like… all of a sudden I knew what it would feel like to be able to control something as uncontrollable as fire, to feel it burning inside and outside of you. When I looked at my mother, I knew she had felt it too. He was handsome, your father. Barron Battle. He looked a lot like you. And he was kind to me."
…
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
"When she saw him, she realized how alone she was. She fell in love with him, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not resist the urge to look, and she did. The Lady saw him, her knight in shining armor, but as soon as she did, the mirror broke, and she realized what the curse meant."
…
"I don't remember much about that time. My mother spent a lot of time with your father. She began to help him with his 'work'. I suppose she was his sidekick. She changed too, she began to stay up late at nights, poring over old books about elementals, trying to find the secret of controlling her fire."
…
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining.
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And around about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.
"The curse was, that she had her task, she had her weaving. But if she were ever to strive for anything more, she would lose everything. So she went down to the river, and prepared her own sort of funeral pyre."
…
"And did she find it?"
"Yes, but not before it was too late, not before it consumed her. By the time she found it, she had already lost her mind from so many failures. And…"
"And…?"
"And from trying to reconcile her love of my father with her obsession with… well… fire. Unfortunately, pyrokinetics are fire."
"Did… did she love him? My father?"
"… I think so. I remember when I was six, seeing them together. She had failed again, and half of her body was covered in burns. Your father cradled her in his arms, soothing her pain away. I think they both loved each other very much."
…
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
"Because of her love, she died. For a brief moment of happiness, she lost her life."
…
"By the time she lost her mind, things with Barron Battle had gotten out of hand. He had is own plethora of obsessions, not least of all was world domination. Eva followed him wherever he led. I remember that day, about three months before my eighth birthday. A man and a woman came to our house. When she saw them, my mother went pale. They asked her where 'he' was. But she wouldn't tell them. She told them that she would rather die then let them hurt him."
…
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
"All came to see her as she floated by, and they wondered who she was, this maiden called 'The Lady of Shalott'."
…
I heard it all from my hiding place in a cabinet. I think… I think my mother tried to stop them from going, because she knew they would find them. Barron took that precise opportunity to show up. There was a fight, and the man hit him so hard that he went flying through several walls, all the way into our back yard."
…
Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."
"Lancelot, as he seemed to do so many times, saw her dead, never knowing that she died for love of him. The poem is a version of the story of Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, another woman who pined away and died because of Lancelot. But perhaps the final phrase from the original version of 'The Lady of Shalott' sums it up the best."
…
When my mother saw that the man was going to hit him again, she cried out. I'd never heard a scream so filled with anguish. She jumped in front of his fist, I don't think I'd ever seen her move so fast, and she went flying. But my mother was like me, we are both fast but we get hurt easier then other people. Her body couldn't take an impact of that force. The doctor told us later that her entire ribcage had completely collapsed. She died on impact. Barron they took away, and I found out later that he was in prison."
…
"The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not -- this is I,
The Lady of Shalott."
"Her final wish was that the people that she looked upon every day would finally look upon her, and feel no fear. And perhaps, feel a little bit of love for the nymph."
…
"So now you know. And do you hate me for it? Me, I got over it long ago. It still hurts sometimes, but I learned a long time ago to not blame people for things that they didn't do."
Warren was silent, staring out the window, trying to take in everything that he had heard.
"How could you not tell me this?"
"Because I… I didn't want you to be angry with me. I was afraid that if you knew, you wouldn't want to be my friend. That's all I've ever wanted, your friendship, and to understand why my mother did what she did."
"And you think I can help you do that?"
Ann shrugged.
"I don't know."
"One thing, Ann." Warren said bitterly. "Eva Yost had one child, a daughter named Ember Yost."
Ann blushed.
"My birth name is Ember Hannah Cromwell. People who doubt that my father was really my father choose to insult me by calling me by my mother's maiden name, which even she only used when she was in costume."
Warren turned to look at her, and Ann shivered at the look in his eyes.
"I'm not going to apologize. I didn't do anything wrong." She said, trying unsuccessfully to sound defiant.
"I didn't think you would." He replied, before climbing back out of her window and jumping down to the ground below. Ann could only watch him go, and when he was gone she curled up with the only picture of Eva Cromwell she had and wept.
…
"So in the end, it's about self-sacrifice. How much are you willing to give up for your art, or for just about anything that isolates you. What would happen if we were to ignore our responsibilities and just do what we wanted?"
The teacher smiled.
"Thank you, Ann. That was a wonderful job."
In her heart, Ann had always compared her mother to the doomed Lady, but in a way, she supposed she herself was a little bit in danger of becoming like her, she had already started on her mother's path of obsession and mania, she knew that. But her own desire for fire was not for the power, as it was with Eva, but she wanted fire for fire's sake alone. To be able truly understand the beauty and persona of not only flame, but those who wielded it as well.
…
As she walked into the cafeteria, Ann saw that Will and his group were back, with a faint smile she walked over to them.
"Hello." She said faintly. "Mind if I sit with you guys?"
The entire rest of the cafeteria, who had all seen her sit with Warren for the past week or so, went silent, and most of them looked over at Warren, who was in his usual position, bent over a book.
"Sure!" Layla said happily. "We have a lot to catch up on don't we."
"Yeah." Ann replied, sitting down next to the plant-girl.
Will looked around the room curiously.
"What's with them?" He asked, as they all turned back, realizing that there would be no fireworks today.
Ann shrugged.
"I don't know." She said, before focusing her attention on her food.
Layla cast her a suspicious, I-know-there's-something-wrong-and-I-won't-rest-until-I-know-what-it-is look.
"Are you okay?" The redhead asked the brunette.
"Just tired. I didn't get much sleep last night." She said.
"Probably because you were sobbing your eyes out over some…"
"Quiet Wren."
Layla decided to let her go for now, and maybe press her further when there were fewer people about.
…
Mercifully, Ann had managed to avoid attending Save the Citizen, but unmercifully, she found she couldn't evade it any longer. Dressed in looser black jeans and a dark red sports bra, she entered the gym, and took her seat as far away from Warren as possible. Will and the crew came to sit by her, and Layla smiled at her.
"Jeans?" She asked questioningly.
"I find them comfortable." Ann explained simply, and Layla nodded.
"Okay people, listen up." Shouted Boomer from his perch. "Today's teams will be chosen by me. Out in the world, you can't always choose who you work with, and you're going to have to learn to be adaptable. Heroes are going to be Peace and Brice. Villains. Baker and Cromwell."
Ann's face went white, and she nearly passed out. Warren and Speed against her and Lash? Either Boomer was also telepathic, or he just had an uncanny knack for finding the best way of making the most uncomfortable people at a time possible. Getting up, she went to put on the protective gear.
Warren looked over at Ann as she got up, and his eyes widened. Not only was she wearing at top that exposed two-thirds of her torso, but it also revealed something interesting. On her lower back, just above her, ahem, tailbone was a tattoo of a rampant lion, in the style of the old heraldry. It wasn't overly large, but it wasn't small either, maybe as tall as her hand was long. It was strange to Warren that a girl as generally well behaved as Ann, Ember, he corrected himself, had a tattoo, especially one in that particular spot.
Standing across from Warren and Speed, and next to Lash, Ann could feel her knees going weak. What had possessed her to come today? Why couldn't she have found another problem that kept her from being there? Why couldn't she have made up one? Why couldn't she have just skipped the bloody class altogether?
"I'll take Speed." She said. "I think I can stop him."
"Right." Replied Lash, nodding. "Watch out for Peace."
"I will." She agreed.
As soon as the fight began, Ann closed her eyes and reached out. There was a tremendous amount of moisture in the air, probably from the rain clouds outside, and as she calmed her racing heart, she grasped it with invisible fingers, and pulled it down to the floor of the gym. Water began to form on the ground, making Speed create small waves as he zoomed about. As she worked, Lash made sure that she was protected until she was finished.
Reaching out again, Ann coaxed the water to drop its temperature, to gradually form into a thin sheet of ice, but made sure that it wasn't completely solid. The slippery surface that was formed was too much for Speed. In the middle of a barrel-run at Lash, he tripped, flipped up into the air, and came crashing down onto the ice. Anyone who has fallen on ice knows how tremendously painful it is, and Speed was effectively incapacitated for the moment.
Warren was having problems of his own. Lash was stretching all over the place, blocking his attempts to get at that annoying doll. When he saw the ice forming on the ground, he growled softly, and looked at Ann, and then at Lash. She was the key. Lash was distracted trying to protect her, even though she currently had a small tornado spinning around her, forming a fairly effective shield. If he could get Lash's attention focused on her for just a moment, he could get to the 'citizen'.
Forming a fireball in his hands, he waited for a few seconds until the opportune moment, and then threw it. Ann's eyes flew open as she sensed the fire coming toward her, and she turned to get out of the way, but she was too late. The ball slammed into her side, and she screamed in agony.
Warren went numb, and didn't even notice when the doll was shredded. He watched in horror as Ann slowly picked herself up and turned to him. Her left arm, side, and part of her leg were covered in what were probably deep-second-degree burns. When she saw him her eyes flashed.
"What. The hell. Was that?" She screamed. "You're supposed to incapacitate, not try to kill, you pyromaniacal git!"
"I thought that your kind couldn't be hurt by fire!" He shouted back.
"When we know the bloody thing is coming, yes! But when you toss the stuff at our heads, and just expect us to dodge, we don't have the time to form ice on our skin to protect us!"
Layla ran over, interrupting their argument.
"Ann! Are you alright?" She asked. "Oh! Stupid! Of course you're not all right! Here, we have to get you to the nurse."
"Her name isn't Ann." Warren snapped. "It's Ember."
Layla stopped her fussing, and slowly turned to Warren.
"What?" She asked.
"Her name is Ember Hannah Cromwell."
Will walked over to his best friend.
"Wait, how do you know that?" He asked.
"She told me. And you know what she also told me?"
Ann looked at him, and shook her head slightly. Her meaning was clear. If he told them what she had told him, then he would have broken his promise, and she would not be pleased. Warren stared back into her eyes, before taking her lightly by the arm and leading her away.
"I'm sorry." He whispered quietly enough that only Ann heard.
"What do you want?" She whispered back.
"I said I was sorry. Maybe you could say you forgive me."
"Do you forgive me?"
Warren frowned at her.
"Do you forgive me for being my mother's daughter?" She clarified.
Warren didn't know what to say to that. On the one hand, he could say that it did, and get her friendship back. Or he could say that it didn't. The problem was, he wasn't sure which was the truth.
"I…" He began, and stopped. He felt something like Damocles, with a sword hanging above his head by a hair.
"I didn't think so." Ann said before Warren could actually say anything, turned around, and walked out, heading for the nurse's office.
He watched her go. Why hadn't he said something? She was right; he really hadn't gotten over hearing that his new, he had to admit, friend was the daughter of a woman he had hated almost his entire life. He also knew that he usually would have completely fried her on the spot, without really needing a good excuse. But now, he just looked at her, and the lion on her back.
I know, I know, it's angsty. But I swear, this is about as sappy as it's ever going to get. Things will get much better in the next chapter.
