The songbird's wingbeats began to slow, as if his feathers were filled with lead. They were at the edge of the water now, exhausted. They had been traveling all day.
The sun shone brightly on the surface of the lake, reflecting off in a harsh, clinical way. The rebounding light pierced his eyes and the bird plummeted into the grass.
The words "Stop, rest, rejuvenate" clambered out of his beak. He held his wings far from his sides to let air circulate through his feathers.
The woman took this opportunity gladly and waded into the shallows. Immediately, shock ran through her body in an electrified current. It was cold—so so cold. Something was charging this water.
Something dark.
Images ran rampant through her mind, images she thought she had forgotten—hoped she had forgotten. Shadows slipped under the awnings in her memory, and raging flames consumed trees. She watched a bullet puncture the back of her mother's head. She watched her father teeter on the edge of the gorge but, after minutes of tearful deliberation, turn away.
She sunk beneath the surface of the lake but wasn't aware.
A voice began to sing.
It was pleasant at first, then grew louder and wilder, as if the entire world were in chorus. All sounds of the world rushed through the water, but slowly the birdsong and laughter melted away, leaving a symphony of aggressive sounds—raking rivers, burning sap, screams, and drums.
The Viper was here, in the water, infused in her head. Her eyes opened in a burst of alarm and she searched for its twisted body.
That's when she realized she was sinking to the bottom of the lake.
The water was light turquoise and she could pass through it easily, so she set her arms into upward strokes—but she couldn't ascend. She drifted to her left, to her right, and downwards, and tried to swim up again. She couldn't. An involuntary wail escaped her mouth. She closed it quickly, expecting to choke on the water. Nothing felt different.
She could breathe just fine. She just couldn't reach the surface.
She saw a thin, shimmering shape dart past her—a creature with slick scales that glittered in the ghost-blue half-light. No, no, no. Please, please, please. She clawed at the water above her.
Sinking. She couldn't escape.
She paddled frantically, her eyes turning turquoise and water seeping into her veins. A voice spoke, distorted through the muted depths.
"Surface far, lungs thin
Turquoise breath and lips—
Falling through the endlessness
Of sewn-patch rends and rips."
The woman sunk deeper, deeper...
This time it was the whisperer's voice hissing to her, not the—Viper's?—or whatever it been.
"Please," Haze said. "You have to come back. You're better than this."
The woman gathered her wits together. From the recesses of her head came a melody, played on keys in a dark room—the tune of her childhood. She remembered her mother singing it to her as the rain, which lasted for months, thundered down and turned the ground into a lake, and the river into a sienna sea.
She swam upward, fins sprouting from her sides. When her head burst above the surface, they disappeared, and her irises faded back to brown.
The bird erupted into song when the woman tossed one shaking arm over the embankment, and Haze bent her head in acknowledgement.
"You pulled through," she said as the woman pulled herself onto the land.
"Now listen to your own head, and not the reason from mine."
"But—" Ravine coughed. "But the Viper is here—and—we have to—"
"Please, dear woman, calm yourself.
I must tell you this, for your sake.
Dark and danger this lake brings,
But it doesn't hold the snake."
"What?"
Haze began to knead the grass. "This isn't my first time coming here,
And this lake, I think, manifests one's fears.
Something in it saw what scares you,
So the Viper appeared, black on light blue—
And you panicked, and the lake took its chance,
And you sunk farther down in a waterlogged dance.
Then you got a hold of your mind,
And things cleared for you to find
That you were capable of escaping this...
And now more than ever, we must go to the Mist.
Ravine, you're stronger than you think you are—
I can't help you, always, when from you I'm far.
Light your lantern by your lonesome,
And soon you'll learn, dear, that you've grown some.
We should be on our journey again now.
You still did well on your test, and I'm proud."
The woman nodded once more and suddenly vomited turquoise water onto the ground. She shivered and tried to stand, but her legs buckled beneath her. Her head pounded, and more water bubbled up from her throat. She'd been okay until she tried to move.
After all dark contents of the lake had heaved themselves out of her, the woman felt stronger than she had in a long time.
"Let's walk," she said.
YOU ARE READING
Aeolia
General FictionA woman runs from everything. A songbird joins her from nowhere, singing colors and images. A whisperer finds the pair among a field of poplars and graves. A dark and vicious viper stalks them from deep in the earth. They must flee from the Viper...
