Day Seven - 1,010

Edward Hopper, The Automat, 1927

Sophia and the Automat

Sophia stepped off the bus, nearly tripping on the last step and approached the automat. She knew there was at least fifty cents in her left pocket, plus the ten or so dollars in her purse. Pressing her hand to her hat to keep it from blowing off of her head, she cursed herself for being such a good girl. Of course, she reasoned, running away was not exactly good, but she should have been brave enough to take more money. Her parents were more than well-off; they certainly could have spared any amount of cash and probably not have even noticed its absence.

She walked back and forth in front of the boxes containing various meals and beverages. Then she settled on the coffee. It was more expensive than a sip from the water fountain, but she had nearly frozen outside during her transition from the bus to the automat. She needed something hot if she was going to keep going.

Sophia nearly burnt her fingers on the cup. She hurried to place it on the nearest table and then sat carefully, crossing her legs and digging in her purse for the map she had folded up messily before leaving.

Boston was another fifty miles. She could be there in less than an hour, she supposed. But maybe she did not want to go to Boston anymore. New York sounded so much more exciting.

Or maybe something tamer, like Rhode Island, would be better.

The entire world was at her fingertips, figuratively and on paper. She could go to Hong Kong or Brazil or England. She could visit Versailles or the Grand Canyon or Taj Mahal. All of these places she had read of in books, but never did she expect she would have the opportunity to actually visit them. Now she did and she did not know where to start – or even if she wanted to.

It occurred to Sophia that maybe she should just go back. She knew it would only be a few days and she would run out of money, even if she was conservative with it.

An elderly man approached the cubbies and paid for a chocolate cupcake. Sophia expected him to sit down, perhaps at the table next to her, and maybe even give her a heart-to-heart, but he did not. Instead, he left, letting cold air into the room in a severe gust.

Sophia stirred her coffee absent-mindedly while still gazing at the map. Maybe Boston was the place to go. She could always start there and if she wanted to leave, she could. There were probably jobs available there – even if it was low-paying, she did not need much.

When she looked up to rest her eyes, she spotted a payphone by the door. She had not seen it when she had first come in and she was glad she had not. She had been miserable then: cold and with wet shoes and hungry. Now she was at least warm and her shoes were drying. Had she not been, she would have called her parents and apologized, sobbing into the phone with a curved, shaking back, and begging them to come and get her.

Sophia recrossed her legs and took a sip of her coffee. By now it had cooled to a more tolerable heat. It warmed her throat and then her stomach, spreading throughout her body in a pleasant wave.

“God,” she said. “What the hell am I going to do? Whose dumb idea was it to run away anyway? What twenty-one year old woman runs away from her parents’ house?” She shook her head, disgusted with herself, then stirred her coffee some more, desperate to have something to do with her hands. Then she traced the path from her house to her present location on the map with her index finger. “God dammit,” she swore, biting her lip.

“Now that’s my kind of girl,” a woman across the eating area said. She had a voice with a sort of twang to it, but it also had a clear New York accent.

Sophia eyed her. Most of the woman’s body was in shadow, but from what Sophia could see, she wondered if the woman was a prostitute.

“Excuse me?”

“Taking the Lord’s name in vain and all that,” she said, getting up. When she reached Sophia, she stuck her hand out. “Loretta,” she said. “That’s my name. You need a place to stay, kid? I got a hotel room about a mile down the road. ‘Fraid I don’t have a car to get there, but the walk ain’t bad. Got two beds in it, and I only use the one. Don’t have a man friend at the moment.”

“Are you a – excuse me, but are you a prostitute?” Sophia realized after it was probably not appropriate to ask. She sighed, embarrassed for herself.

“Gosh! You really thought so? Not on your life. I’m an actress. Travel loads. A girl has to know how to protect herself out here. Figure if I look a little roughed up, won’t get approached, see?”

“I guess so.”

“So,” Loretta said, pulling up a chair. “What’s your story, kid? Look pretty young to be out here on your own. Run away from your husband? Get a little heavy on the drink, maybe? I’m a drinker myself. Hope you don’t mind. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to take the edge off. Cigarette?” Loretta held out a cheap cigarette case, pressing it close to Sophia’s face.

“No, thank you. I’m actually from Connecticut. I was thinking of heading to Boston—“

“Well, golly, girl! That’s where I’m headed. You see, there are lots of actin’ jobs there. I bet we could get you one! You’re pretty enough. Got a nice figure and all that.” Loretta held her hands up, framing Sophia with her fingers. “Yeah! You’d make a fab actress. What do you say, kid?”

“How’s the pay?”

“Oh, it’s here and there, you know. Not steady, but if you catch a break…”

“I accept.”

Day Six - 1,002

John William Waterhouse, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1893

Marden

I had found her. Yes, I had found her. It would impress my supervising superiors, most definitely. Drawing an arrow from my quiver, I set myself steadily on my horse, I imagined a target painted on her thigh.

She was not, I had been told, to be killed. She was only to be maimed enough to be manageable. It was of most importance that she remained generally capable.

But something stopped me, as I strained the string of my bow.

She wore a heart on her sleeve.

And her skirt was embellished with baby’s breath and pearls.

She turned and her eyes found mine, much like the deer I had hunted in the past. There was a glowing, glittering quality about her skin and her face in general. My breath caught in my throat for a moment, but I forced myself composed again, waking myself from my stupor. Then she darted behind a tree and took off through the winding paths which I suspected only she was familiar with.

She seemed to pay no mind to the biting nettles and rocks on the ground, stepping on them with her bare feet.

Soon I had caught up to her. Her eyes widened when she saw my horse gaining on her. Then she tripped, looking over her shoulder. For a moment, she struggled, trying to get back on her feet. I drew my sword and held it beneath her chin, forcing her to look up at me. She snapped her jaws, as if she were attempting to bite the blade.

“Rise,” I said, putting a bit of pressure on her chin. “Slowly.”

She did.

“Now, remain still. I’m going to dismount, you understand?”

She nodded her head slowly, but said nothing.

“Good,” I said. I swung my leg over my horse’s back and slid down his broad slide, all the while keeping my eyes on her. I tensed at every twitch of her muscle. “You are the forest witch, are you not?”

She grinned wickedly.

“Yes. So I thought. You are to come with me. You understand? The king is demanding your company. I know not of your future following your delivery. However, if you come with me quietly, I assure you I shall cause you no harm. Do you understand, lady?”

The witch broke out in giggles for a moment. Then she looped her hair around my neck and crouched, forcing me to follow her. I knelt before her. Thought she was lower than I was, it felt quite the opposite. For a moment, she was my queen, and I her lowly servant.

Then she looked up at me like a child. I was entirely captured. Whether this was from some spell or some other reason, I was unsure. Nothing made sense. Time was suspended. I thought I saw her lips move, but I heard nothing, only the wordless babble of the stream nearby. A few birds flew overhead, cackling at my stupidity at being caught by a woman.

Then she vanished.

I stumbled backwards, no longer having her hair anchoring me in balance. My horse responded by stomping and whinnying. I could only look up at him and blinked. Had he seen her? Had I imagined her, even? My stomach turned. No armor could protect me from the fear which had been installed in my mind.

Was I mad? That hardly seemed a better option than if she was only just behind me, a knife poised above my back. I whipped around and found there was no one.

Mounting my horse shakily, I wondered if I should tell the other men that I had seen her. But then how would I explain her absence? Would they believe I had seen her? Or that I had let her get away? They knew she was a witch; would that be enough of an excuse?

I clicked my tongue, urging my horse forward and back to the group.

Then the woman stood in front of the horse, still and looking me in the eye. Admittedly, I was intimidated.

“Woah!” I said, pulling on the reins.

The witch murmured something, her lips moving slowly as she kept her gaze trained on my eyes, despite their residence in my shadowed helmet.

“Lie with me,” she said.

“Witch!” I exclaimed, pointing at her accusingly.

“Lie with me,” she repeated, her eyes more alive.

“Witch!” I said louder, hoping the rest would come and capture her while I kept her distracted. “Damned sorceress! Over here!” I waved my arms, then realized it would only encourage her to run away from me.

“Marden,” she said.

“I – excuse me? Witch!” I called again. Then I turned back to her. “Marden?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”

“Marden,” she said.

“Is that your name? Marden?”

“Marden.” The R rolled from her tongue pleasantly. A flash of flesh against flesh invaded my mind, a lightning bolt between tongues.

“Yes, it’s very pretty. How long have you lived here, Marden?”

“Ten,” she said. She clasped her hands, gazing at me giddily.

“Ten?” I saw another of the men approaching quietly behind her. I put my finger to my lips, then continued to talk to her. “Ten years? Is that how long, Marden? Ten weeks? Ten months? Ten days?”

“Ten,” she said, nodding. “Marden.”

“Marden. Are you hungry, Marden?”

“Marden.”

She was grabbed about the waist by the man behind her. Others came in from the sides and tied ropes to her wrists, binding her. She kicked wildly, flailing about and screeching as she tried to scratch herself free. I looked away.

“Take her,” I said, gripping the mane of my horse below me. He blew air through his nose and stamped his hooves. “Go on! The king will be waiting. I understand he’s a cell for her and Porter is ready for containing her. Hurry.”

“Yes, sir,” one of them said. I could not recognize him through his armor.

After that, they turned and left, dragging Marden along the path only she could see.

Day Five - 1,008

John William Waterhouse, Boreas, 1902

Discovering Abilities

Finally, they banished me. I was too much of a liability, they said. I would hurt the crops, hurt the livestock, hurt the children, even. I told them a little breeze never hurt anyone. And then there was the storm.

“This, Lorelei,” they said to me, “is what we are talking about. You cannot control your emotions – no one blames you for that – but when you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control the wind.”

“Perhaps the two have nothing in common!” I protested. The wind blew harder, disproving me wickedly. “Perhaps there is no connection at all!”

“I think you ought to go, Lorelei,” the medicine woman said to me. She put her hand on my upper back, though she could barely reach. Her long gray hair blew violently around her face, hiding her wrinkled expression from me. I was almost sure there were tears in her cloudy white eyes, but I could not be entirely certain.

I decided to leave, stumbling through the fields and tripping on anything and everything in my anger. The wind only pushed me further and the more it pushed me, the angrier I became, and the harder the wind blew.

So I stood on a cliff side for a long time, howling with my sister, the wind. She pushed the water of the ocean against the rocky bottom of the cliff, like dust brushing up in the skirts of a woman out for a walk in the desert. I cradled my face in my hands and cried tears and so the rain fell. Through my tears I could see the fish below splash against the rocks. I wonder if they ever snapped their spines in so doing. The thought terrified me, clutching at my lips and crying out in near disgust and horror.

It was not for another seven hours that the sun finally showed any signs of existing. It was hardly visible behind the dark, brooding clouds. Eventually, I crawled to the nearest tree and rested beneath it, curling myself in the mold of its bark, as if it were my mother. It was scarred from hunters’ arrows and knives, and possibly children misunderstanding the importance of a tree in our world. I held my hand over its wounds and they were freshly mended.

So this was how I learned of my control of earthly substances. I tested it on the grass on which I sat, urging it to grow taller, to reach for the branches in the tree above. It obeyed, sprouting up and shaking off the dirt as it grew. For a moment, I smiled, brushing my palm over the tickling grass. I knew already of my control over the weather and its elements. It occurred to me that night, still sitting under the tree, that I may also be the master of fire.

Out of instinct, I snapped my fingers. Then between my thumb and my forefinger appeared a small flame, flickering in the slight breeze. I still sniffled from my earlier tears, but I did not sob as I had before. I thought I heard a whisper of something but, figuring it to be the wind, I ignored it. I broke a twig from the tree, excusing myself as I did. The tree did not seem to mind. It shivered its leaves in the wind and went on being silent.

Then I touched the twig to the flame. It took quickly and I laid it on the ground on a spread of grass-barren dirt. As the flame flickered, it seemed to whisper my name in a lullaby, “Lorelei, Lorelei, Lorelei” all night long. I had been right earlier: I had heard something.

I heard it even in my dreams.

When I woke in the morning, there was a terrible pain in my side. I ached and it only worsened as a stretched. For a moment, I looked up into the branches of the tree, half expecting it to offer some sort of remedy. It was still silent.

Crawling around quite like an animal, I searched for herbal remedies to my pain. The feeling had crawled up to my neck at this point. Finally exhausted, I fell back against the tree. The sun was high and I had been searching for hours. The medicine woman would know how to heal me, but my knowledge of the medicines were limited to almost nothing. With so few resources, I had no idea what might help me.

Then I thought. If I have the power over weather and earth and fire, why should I not also have power over flesh?

I wanted to test my tentative ability on a mouse or some other small animal desperately, afraid of what it might do to myself. However, there were none in sight. Even if there had been, I knew I would not be able to bring myself to touch the animal. Especially if it had no ailment – I did not know how I would test such a thing in that case anyway.

Gingerly I reached around to my back where it was sore and pressed my fingers down. There was no difference so I stripped myself of my clothes, hoping the direct contact would help. They were dirty anyhow and needed a rinse in the river. I tried to promise to remind myself of this later. For a moment I watched them on the ground. They were still, and their purple hues matched the purple clouds in the sky. They had since dried since the rain the previous night, but were still cold from the water. I combed my hair back from my face and sighed, worrying about disappointing myself.

I lied on the ground and took a deep breath as I reached around for the second time, the pain worsening as I stretched my unwilling body. As my fingers brushed against my back, however, I felt an immediate sense of relief.

I decided then to bathe in the river while washing my dressings. Perhaps then I would return to the village.

Day Four - 1,070

John William Waterhouse, The Crystal Ball, 1902
The Collection

Jetta’s eyes slid to the scene outside her new window. The king had been right: the view was beautiful. However, she still felt captive. Only eighteen hours before, five guards had arrived at her mother’s humble hut in the countryside outside the kingdom, demanding to see Jetta.

“What could you want with my Jetta?” Faylin had asked, standing defensively in the doorway.

“The king requests her talents. We are to take her to him immediately.”

It was then Jetta looked up from her needlepoint at the fire.

“What talents?” she asked, playing dumb. She did not have even a sliver of an idea as to how anyone had found out about them.

“You know very well which talents we speak of. You’ve an hour to gather your belongings. Do not attempt escape – we will be waiting for you outside.”

“Oh,” another of them added, “and you’ll be provided most of the necessities. Eventually you will be fitted by a new wardrobe by the king’s seamstress and you will have a room of your own immediately.”

Faylin shut the door after offering the men a drink.

“I do not want to go, Mother,” Jetta said.

“Think of the opportunity, Jetta! You must go!”

“But what about the farm? What about you?”

“I will manage. I imagine you will earn wages. You can send some to me, and I shall be even better off than I am now. And you certainly will as well. Imagine! Living in the king’s castle!”

“As his servant!”

“I think not. Given your talents they will likely nurture them as much as possible. Yes, I think you could manipulate them into giving you quite the room! Living like a princess. Oh, and you shall become such friends with the princess!”

“Not with the prince, I imagine. I’ve heard he is pompous.”

“Nonsense. Come now, have you your brush?”

All the while she talked, Faylin continued getting Jetta’s items together. Finally, Jetta’s few bags were being loaded onto the carriage. She hugged her mother tightly, trying not to cry.

“Goodbye, Mother. Please visit! I’m sure they will allow it. They must.”

And now she was here, gazing into her crystal ball needlessly. Her vision was not something she could easily control. The king, however, did not understand this.

There was a knock at her door.

“Yes,” she said, unsure of how to respond.

It opened. A man stood with a glass of what appeared to be wine and a book. He tossed his dark curls out of his eyes.

“Hello,” Jetta said carefully. “I’m sorry, I’m—“

“Yes, new, I understand.” He laughed. “I should have announced myself. I am Blakely.”

The crystal ball fell from Jetta’s hands. She stooped and groped at the air for it, just managing to catch it in her skirts.

“You mean Prince Blakely?”

“Well, yes. May I. . .?” he said, gesturing to her room.

“Oh, yes, of course. Come in. Please. I, um. . . .” It occurred to her that there was nowhere in her room to sit. In organizing her books and things, they had become rather disorganized. She started cleaning up the clutter hurriedly. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting—“

“Not another word on it. I only came to introduce myself and offer you a glass of wine. You must be thirsty. We do not supper for another few hours, but I understand we are having quite a feast tonight in your honor.”

Blakely offered her the glass of wine and Jetta placed one of her books on the bookshelf. She took the wine from him then and jerked her hand back, sloshing the wine in the goblet. Some had spilled on the carpet below.

“Oh, I am so clumsy!” she exclaimed, hiding her face with one hand, embarrassed.

“Not at all. May I sit?” he asked, this time gesturing to the edge of her bed.

She hesitated, wondering if it was appropriate to have a man sit on her bed, even if it was the prince.

“I—yes,” she said.

“Thank you.” He seemed to be observing her room carefully, curiously. Then something occurred to him. “Oh!” he said, “I almost forgot! I brought this for you. You’re very fortunate that you were taught to read. It’s a guide to all the plants in our kingdom. I hope you haven’t one already. I hope you find it useful. I am quite interested in the flora of our kingdom myself. I am particularly interested in healing remedies. I suppose I spent a bit too much time with the resident midwife as a boy.” He laughed.

Jetta sipped at her wine.

“Your dress is marvelous,” he said.

“Thank you. I. . .it was here when I arrived. It fits very well.”

“Yes, I agree.” Blakely paused for a moment and Jetta continued to sip at her wine. “You are a quiet sort of girl, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, I suppose.”

“Why is that?”

“I have nothing to say.” She quickly amended herself. “I mean, in general. Not that you are not a wonderful conversationalist. You see, I grew up with just my mother and myself and we tended to the land and there never was much to say. We would read each other stories at night by the fire, but it just was not our way to converse much, for there was little to talk about, except for the crop.”

“Oh, yes, I see. That would have that affect, wouldn’t it? Well, I hope to have many conversations with you. Your profession interests me terribly.”

Jetta sighed. “Yes.”

“Is something the matter?”

“I only worry about my mother, living by herself.”

“You say you were her only companion?”

“Yes. We hadn’t neighbors for miles.”

“I’ve just the thing! Would she be very comfortable here?”

“I suppose she might.”

“Then I shall have her collected tomorrow. Then she will not be so lonely. And I hope it will ease your homesickness. I saw you watching out the window when I arrived.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!”

“Yes. I shall do that then. Would it be alright if I came to tell you when supper is ready?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, beaming. “Thank you so much for the wine, and the book.”

Blakely smiled, hiding his face slightly. Then he got up, and left.

Jetta slowly sat on her bed and began leafing through her new book, waiting for dinner.