It All Started With Magic

The Smell Of Wet Earth: AMBER

Location: White Room

Time: 4:23 PM

Rain.

Like little girls gathered in the churchyard, in lines of two, paired to be walked down the cold pathway on a particularly freezing day.

Rain.

Huddling together, shivering, despite the warmth each body seemed to create.

Rain.

Like small girls crying silently in the church mass for no reason. Or perhaps there was a reason: we were all sinners.

And like Father Matthew said: We, the sinners, must drench ourselves in rain so we wash away all our sins. Afterall rain was a way of God baptising us.

In Father Matthew's words, we were all sinners.

But Fiona never believed in Father Matthew's words, no matter how much she tried or pretended to. Perhaps Father saw that as well, for he sighed each time she came into the confession box and said nothing.

"Nothing today either?" Father questioned.

"No Father."

Fiona's voice was distant and felt final.

Yet he pursued.

"Take your time, sister," he'd say.

"I'm sorry, Father."

Then Fiona would walk out and Father would sigh.

She was not a believer, she was not a worshipper, she had questions. But she would not ask.

There she was again, bubbles forming above her mouth, her cheeks swollen, her arms flailing to move above to the cold surface, her 'habit'* dragging her further down to the surface while she moved against its will. Then she saw.

A hole.

In the bosom of the cold, pressurising water body, there was a hole. A hole with a light.

Fiona swam towards it. She needed to. Somehow she knew that. So she swam.

The hole grew bigger and bigger as she reached closer to it, until it became a massive pothole enough to empty the water body. With the last of her breath going out, she willed herself into the chasm and she stood. Under a scorching sun. No water anywhere save for a puddle in front of her feet.

She knew what this was: Another episode.

But she didn't have time to ponder, her breath was hitching at her throat even when she was completely fine and out of water.

She had to register all that was being told to her, shown to her, felt to her.

Water-bosom-chasm-dry land-scorching sun-

And then she saw. She stood alone.

No church, no Amber, only a wire-fence and she...she stood alone.

"Will she wake up anytime soon?" sniffed a female voice.

"Surely, she should wake up," a thick voice spoke with some sense of urgency.

Somethings were tinkered with, the roller clamp on the IV line was adjusted, the man sauntered out.

"I hope she wakes up soon," he whispered as he closed the door to the room.

A heavy silence entered the room as he exited. A silence so silent that even the walls wished to speak something. Eyes were glued onto a pale, pastel face of patches and bluish-black marks. The eyes that were glued to the body were electric blue and somewhere in them, every passing minute, either a storm waged, or a deathly calmness.

"You need to wake up," her voice ambled, using words as her crutches. Someone had to say something...to her, the one lying on the bed, someone with no contempt, someone with love.

She sniffed.

Her hands clutched onto the hands of the body, off-white bed sheets covering her as she slept mechanically.

"Please," she pleaded, a storm having passed her eyes and left remnants of grief, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Fiona whispered, her voice so hoarse, so dry as though someone had turned her throat into a desert and left it without an oasis.

She coughed a dry cough.

Amber moved into action.

"Here drink some water, slowly," she spoke, hurrying the glass of water to her mouth and Fiona, like a lost traveller in the middle of the desert, tried to gulp, forgetting the forewarning Amber had issued.

"Easy sister," Amber hushed and tried to calm a coughing Fiona.

Fiona then looked at Amber for the first time or more like smelled the air for the first time, consciously.

'The smell of wet earth,' she smiled, 'like Amber.'

"I need to tell you something before they come," Amber said, in a tone that made Fiona feel her stomach drop down a little.

"Sister Florence and Mother Gwenda have been informed. They'll come to pick us up. I.." Amber fidgeted with her shirt-sleeve, hesitant to meet Fiona's eyes, "I told them we were from the covenant and had come here to find information about our parents." Amber looked up then, meeting the frozen purple eyes of Fiona. As fast as they had frozen with Amber's words, they moulted with equal ferocity.

Fiona sighed.

"You had no choice..." Fiona whizzed the words out. "Did you say whose plan it was?"

"Of course not! I said we both made the plan and I egged us on to do this, which is true," Amber rambled, her hands and fingers twisting and coiling around each other to capture fear before her eyes or voice could give them away.

Fiona took Amber's hands.

"Listen to me Amber," Fiona said, her vision clear in her mind, "and don't cry."

Note: Habit: a distinctive attire worn by a member of a religious order.