Alternate Realities

From a Distance

Just a little bit of looking back from a long way down the line.

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I mostly don't ask because I'm sick of hearing everyone say I'm too young, that I shouldn't worry about unpleasant things. I only get to know the basics, like we are from a country called Norta, my mother is from the Lake Lands. We left Norta after their civil war in which my mother, aunt, and uncles all fought. It was a battle in the war that killed my father before I was even born. I may have stopped asking, but I didn't need words to put together some of the story, I fill in the gaps with daydreams and stories of my own.

My aunt stares through the fire into the past on cold winter nights. It's not a mood she falls into all of the time, but when she does, curiosity gets the better of me. I wonder at all the reasons she might look so distant. Those far away moments fleeting and private aren't meant for my questions, I pretend like I don't see them, but I can't help but play a film in my head.

It's hard to imagine unless I close my eyes, but I know that she wasn't always weak and sick. She wasn't always scarred by burns or shrunken and tired. Before we all left Norta, she had been a soldier side by side with my mother and my father. She had been beautiful and strong and amazing. I can picture her: Mare Barrow charging onto the battlefield in a suite of shining brass armor and brandishing a sword at the ogre-like Silvers that pummeled her with slime and filth.

When I look at her again, unmoved, and seemingly at war with the embers, I sometimes see something sadder, full of remorse, and an ocean of regret. I'm fourteen now, and I know a little about regret. Last year, I wished Markel Fortlon would get a pencil in the eye and then it happened. I wish that was the only time what I wanted came true. Looking at her now, I wanted her to shake her head and dust away the fog and smile, so I wouldn't imagine the cause.

Kilorn and my mother trade gossip about people from their past sometimes. And when they get really quite, it's always about an exiled man on an island. No name, no background. Just basic stuff: he's scratching out a harvest, he's chasing off settlers, he's been drunk and sick. He sounds like a grumpy old man. But he must be important or why talk about him even once a year let alone three or four? When I was eight and just before they realized I was listening, it occurred to me that they never talk about him in front of Mare. They talk about Ada and Cameron, and a man they call the prime minister, although he's not our current leader. But never about the man on the island. I overheard less now that they know I pay attention.

I imagine Mare and this man tearing each other apart. Or maybe loving each other deeply. But I don't know why a soldier wouldn't just finish their enemy or why a woman wouldn't claim her lover. That just doesn't make sense. A lot about the man on the island doesn't make sense. I mean, Mare's not pretty anymore, not to people that don't see her every day. She's not even all that nice to be around, but she has her moments. Maybe he never accepted her scars? Maybe she just wasn't beautiful enough or healthy enough? Maybe he didn't like how she was always sick or how she was frail and weak? If he has to harvest, then I would guess he's a farmer and Mare wouldn't do well on a farm. I wish I could ask, and that makes me angry.

I watch her intently. Sometimes, if I can just catch someone's eye just right, I can convince them to tell me things. It's happened before: I locked eyes with Elza and she gave me all the answers to the science quiz questions and she hates cheaters. Or once, I put on such a display of silent pleading that Kilorn outright spilled what he got me for my birthday. If she looks over now, maybe she'll tell me about the bracelet in her hands with a clasp she locks and unlocks over and over but she never puts it on. Maybe, if she just looks. But she won't. And it's silly to think I could make her talk without a convincing argument.

I've learned what I can from her dreams. She talks in her sleep sometimes in the tiny room we share. When I hear her mumbles, her fitful shaking in the middle of the night, sometimes I reach out and rub her shoulder until she quiets. And I feel useful, and like there's a purpose to having the two of us crammed together. My mom says Mare doesn't like to sleep alone. I think that my mom doesn't like being woken up by nightmares, and would rather leave it to me.

Watching her cradle her scarred arms like the blaze isn't warm enough, I know what murmurs will be passing her lips in the night.

"Cal."

Clear as day, when she says it. Not mumbled like when she cries for Shade, or angry when she shouts, "Maven," another name from her past that we just never talk about. it's what she says.

"Cal."

With remorse and guilt and a choked sob that never progresses, never wakes her. Just his name once, maybe twice.

"Cal."

I asked my mother once last year, casually, just like I was asking what was for dinner. She froze, turned her back and took a breath, and then let it out slowly. I regretted my trespassing into her past. She shook off my apology as she turned around to cup my cheeks. Her eyes carried a sadness not for Cal, but I think for Mare. And wished and wanted her to tell me who he was. Who was this man that came into my room as a whisper and lingered in tears? I wanted it, and she opened her mouth, then closed her eyes and breathed deep again.

She struggled to say it, like it took every ounce of her to get the words out, "That is not my story to tell, darling. When you're older, when she's ready, that's Mare's grief to share."

Mare put the bracelet to her lips and pinched the band between in a slow, kiss. And she rocked into her memories in front of the flames.