23
I found my seat on the plane and wriggled out of
my coat. As I lifted it up to stuff it into the overhead compartment, an
envelope slipped from the interior pocket and fell heavily to the floor. I sank
down into my seat and withdrew a letter.
Dear Eliza,
While I cannot
say with any sense of certainty whether your pursuit is one that will lead to
success, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. As I mentioned, you have
chosen to challenge a foe with a sophisticated brand of magic. To my knowledge
there is no magic of our kind that will assuredly safeguard you against the
whims of nereids. However, in my many years of collecting magical antiquities,
I have occasionally come across items that hold powers since lost to us.
Enclosed is one such item. A long time ago I was told it signified a covenant
between our kind and the faerie kind, possibly of nereid origin. I do hope it
can be of use to you.
Guard it well.
Until we meet
again,
Harold Pliny
I shook the envelope, freeing the small object
hidden in its corner. My heart skipped a beat. The smooth curves of the carved gem
glistened on my palm like a stigmata, a blood red water lily.
* * *
The journey from Uncle Harold’s house to Cora’s
doorstep was easier than I anticipated. After a brief battle with the airline
ticket agent, I managed to change my route from Boston to Jacksonville and
hopped aboard the first leg of the trip before midnight. When I finally arrived
in Moco after an early morning bus ride from the Jacksonville airport, I found
Cora’s address in a phone book and took a cab to her house. By sunrise, I was
standing on her front porch listening to birds waking and nervously staring at
her door.
It was the first time I’d paused and just breathed
in days. The air filling me up carried the scents of my past, earth that was
intensely alive because it never froze, plants that never slept, and something
frying in a house somewhere near where the kitchen window stood open. There was
a softness to the light and air. The breeze picked up and rattled the bottle
tree in Cora’s garden. The blue hazy glass bottles shook and clunked on their
posts, a sound I’d nearly forgotten.
I was grubby and rumpled from the journey and
fretted about Cora’s reaction to the unexpected visit. Then, before I even rang
the bell, the bolt behind the front door slid free.
Suddenly, Cora’s colorful countenance filled the
doorframe and a warm smile spread across her face. At the sight of her, a wave
of nostalgia washed over me and with it all the darkness of those days after my
mother disappeared gripped me like a vice. But Cora wasn’t shaken.
Without a word, she gathered me in her arms and
held me like she did so many years ago. In that instant, my reservations about
coming to her with such a daunting request fell away. She pulled me across the
threshold and pressed me into a chair at her dining room table.
Carefully lowering herself into a chair opposite
me, her plump arms rested on the table. Her smooth brown skin melted into the
deeply stained wood. Her head fell to one side and eyes puckered as she stared
at me in silence.
“You’ve grown, child.” She said softly, her voice
smooth and rich as honey. Unprecedented tears gathered in the corners of her
eyes.
Taking a deep breath, I met her gaze with even
confidence.
“The shrouding spell’s been broken.” I declared in
a clear voice, taking care not to leave a hint of question in my tone, proving
to Cora that I knew she was the one who cast it.
With an unwavering gaze, the edges of her lips
spread to something between a smile and a grimace.
“It has.” She replied, low and calm.
It was then that I sensed the steady vibration in
the air around us like a low baritone stuck on one note, so subtle I may not
have noticed it if my attention was less focused on Cora. I wondered if it had
always been there, if it was something that I’d felt as a child but never paid
attention to or if I was just picking it up now that my powers were stronger.
“Cora, I know what I am and what you are too.” I
said.
Cora inhaled deeply and reclined in her chair. Her
eyes softened and creased with stress.
“You don’t know all of what I am or what you are,
child, but I suppose, it’s time you found out.” She confided.
“Stay here.” She instructed solemnly.
Cora stood. Her joints creaked audibly and she
groaned as if the effort pained her. She walked out of the room without a backward
glance.
I had come to Moco unsure of where my quest would
lead and now the road was already bending, veering off in a direction I had not
anticipated. I slumped back into my chair and looked forlorn around the room
waiting for Cora to return. The question of whether or not she would help me
find my mother weighed heavily on my shoulders.
Cora’s house was small and tidy. The living room
and dining room were both the cool blue, usually reserved for porch ceilings. Sepia
toned family portraits lined the room and the eyes of generations past stared
at me from every direction. The tick of an old fashioned clock hanging on the
wall was the only distraction from silence. My gaze lingered on the pendulum
watching it sway predictably from side to side.
From beyond the swinging door to the kitchen,
Cora’s slow heavy footsteps approached. When the door swung open, she emerged
cradling an armful of books. She carefully deposited her load onto the table
and laboriously lowered herself back into the chair across from me. Her gaze
flitted pensively between the books and my face.
Too tired and confused to know what to say, I sat
silently waiting for Cora to sort her thoughts. She sifted through the pile of
books and pulled one from the stack then shoved the rest of the pile down the
table. She set the book in the space between us and began to flip through
translucent vellum pages containing a combination of photographs, script and
mementoes. When she found the page she was looking for, she stared at the
photograph for a moment before turning the book toward me.
The page was decorated with pressed flowers
arranged around a photograph of a girl in a graduation gown. The girl was
smiling with her graduation cap cocked playfully to the side like a beret. My
heart skipped a beat and the blood drained from my face. The girl in the
picture was my mother.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, my voice a
mixture of confusion and suspicion.
Cora’s eyes clouded with emotion. She lifted the
page to reveal another set of photographs, all of my mother, when she could not
have been much older than me posing comfortably with her arms around Cora.
“You knew her, even then?” I asked incredulous, my
voice a hoarse whisper.
With a slow nod, Cora’s eyelids fell and a tear
slid down her cheek. When she opened them there was a new sense of resolve in
her eyes.
“Your mama is my daughter.” She said softly.
My stomach plummeted like I’d fallen off a cliff.
Cora was my grandmother? Besides the fact that my mother never told me anything
about my grandparents, much less that I had a grandmother right here in Moco,
we didn’t look alike. But yet, Cora was a witch and so was I. I shook my head
in disbelief.
“But why didn’t you ever tell me? And we… look
different.” I added stumbling over my words.
Cora assumed a stoic expression before responding.
“Your mama and I had words when she was not much
older than you and we never spoke again… until the night she asked me to come
for you. Understand now, I didn’t want that for us. I love your mama.” She
said, with a passion flowing from deep within her.
“As for our looks, child. Are you so sure, you
don’t look like me?” She said tenderly and her eyebrows peaked.
For the first time since I’d met Cora, I noticed
speckles of gold in her mossy green eyes, just like mine, staring back at me. A
tremble ran through my body so strong it made my teeth chatter, my stomach
churned and tears began to build up behind my eyes causing my head to hurt.
“Why didn’t you
tell
me? I was so afraid…and so alone.”
I asked trying hard not to cry.
Cora’s eyes softened and her arms stretched across
the table to hold my shaking hands. Her touch was warm and soothing and somehow
told me things her words could not.
“Eliza, I have loved you all your life but, child,
you needed to leave this place. They were comin’ for you. Telling you then
would have just made leavin’ harder.” She whispered as twin tears slid down her
cheeks.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to process
Cora’s confession. It felt like the roots of my life, at least what remained,
were being tugged from the ground like a tree in a hurricane.
“Why didn’t she want me to know about you?” I
asked as calmly as possible.
Cora’s hands released mine and her fingers twined
with each other joining and releasing as she thought.
“Your mama found out I’d shrouded her, like I did
you.” She divulged hesitantly as if this was a topic she didn’t want to
elaborate upon.
But I was not about to let Cora hide anything more
from me. Not after I’d come this far.
“Why did you do it then?” I pressed, frustration
creeping into my voice.
Cora folded her hands together, letting them rest
on the table.
“Now Eliza, don’t you snap at me, child. I
shrouded your mama and you for the same reason. To protect you.” She said
firmly.
“From the nereids?” I ventured boldly, testing
her.
Cora frowned.
“Some call them that. Around here, we call them
swamp haints. When Nia was a girl, the haints came to her first in dreams, just
like they came to you. I did the only thing I could to protect her. I hid her
from them.” Cora explained patiently.
“But they crossed over, didn’t they?” I asked.
A look of surprise washed over Cora’s face.
“That’s right. Eventually, they crossed over and found
her. They squirmed their way like worms right through my spell and went to work
on your mama.” She said sadly.
“They showed her the magic that lived inside her
and fed her lies. Nia didn’t trust me anymore. She cut me clean outta her life.
She thought I was the evil one, keepin’ her powers from her.” Cora said, her
voice dropping low. “She invited them in and then they took her away.” Her
voice cracked.
But one thing didn’t make sense. The nereids
hunted bloodlines. Cora was my grandmother and my link to the magic they
wanted. Why hadn’t they gone after her?
“Why didn’t they come after you? Don’t you have
the magic they want just as much as my mother and me?” I asked.
Cora pursed her lips and frowned defiantly. “Oh
they tried alright but understand now, they didn’t find me until I was a grown
woman. I wasn’t fallin’ for their tricks. But poor Nia, she was just a babe.
They coulda lured her away in the night right out from under my nose… course,
in the end that’s just about what happened.” She said sadly.
My heart sank at the memory and broke not just for
me but for Cora too. But this was the part of the story I already knew and I
hadn’t come back to Moco to sit around and feel sorry about things we could not
change. I came to rescue my mother, if it could be done. I reached into my
pocket and grabbed the water lily amulet that Uncle Harold gave me. I slapped
my palm on the table and slid my hand away, leaving the amulet between us.
“I was given this. Will it help me find her?” I
asked carefully watching Cora’s expression.
Recognition and surprise flashed in her eyes.
“Who gave that to you?” She demanded.
“A wizard, a very old one. Do you know where the
haints took my mother? Will this help me?” I persisted.
Cora pursed her lips and shook her head. I could
see she was beginning to understand why I’d come to Moco and she didn’t like
it.
“No child. That won’t help you and neither will I.
The haints want you as bad as your mama. There’s no sense in you goin’ after
her, they’ll just trap you too.” She resigned.
I slumped in my seat and glared silently at my
clasped hands for a moment before speaking.
“Why do the nereids want us so badly anyway? What
do we have that’s so special?” I fumed.
Cora frowned and pressed her lips together tight
as if considering the affect her response might have on me. “Eliza, look at me
child.”
I lifted my eyes to her, surprised by the sudden
softening of her tone.
“Do you see my skin? It reveals the place of my
ancestors and yours too. Our blood runs straight to the womb of human life. We
are the children of the oldest magic.” She said reverently.
“Why does that even matter? I can hardly do
anything.” I exclaimed.
Cora shook her head. “Don’t matter what you know
how to do, child. With your magic, the swamps haints can do a whole lotta
things. They’d take what you have and mold it like clay to their liking. If on
their own they can light a candle, with your magic, they could set a whole
forest on fire.” She said with dismay.
“So they can do more with my magic than even I
can?” I asked with frustration.
Cora gave me a stern look. “Now do you understand
why you shouldn’t be messin’ with this business?”
I took a deep breath and stared at the table,
trying to quell my fear and temper my anger.
“I came to see you because you’re a witch and I
thought you could help me. I knew you were the one who cast the shrouding spell
on me. I thought you might help me because you care about me. But now that I
know you’re my family, I would think you’d help me because you love me and your
daughter no matter how dangerous the nereids are.” I sighed and stared at the
amulet on the table.