Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

 

Bethanie

 

The voice led through the trees, a high-pitched splendour that seemed to always finish on a pitch just a little too sharp. Blue snow fell onto the trees, the brush underfoot and onto Abigail, the cat and I, highlighting everything in a cool blue and silvery colouration. Despite that eeriness however my feet walked through the forest, determinedly seeking its source.

The sword felt heavy in my hands and heavier as ever moment passed. It was starting to become apparent that the longer I had it drawn the more difficult it became to wield, however I could not drop it now. It took too long a moment to materialise and in this setting I did not want to lose that moment. It was because this was exactly the situation Abigail and I had found ourselves in the previous week, right before being attacked by a swarm of shades.

"Bethanie?" Abigail asked, the fear plain in her voice. "What do you think this all means? Is the snow connected to the singing?"

With dread I responded, "Yes."

Then suddenly I felt something pull at the edges of my school blouse. With alarm I turned around and saw Abigail clutching at me with desperation.

"Don't go running off this time and leave me! You promised that you'd protect me, right?"

My tense expression softened. "Yes, don't worry, I'm not going to run off, not for anything."

But that figure of my mother walking through the bush, always too far to reach but never too far to catch sight of returned to my mind. An illusion no doubt and possibly one connected to this horizontal snow. That meant I had to keep my guard up and my sword from falling.

Again the density of the snow increased, casting the entire scenery into strange shades of cool blue, just as the volume of the singing increased and different to last time, here I could actually make out the words as now they seemed to be in English.

 

Tears fall when I see your face

These black streaks trail with grace

Mascara smudged, never to be repaired

Because the loss of you will never be fair

 

We walked further through, the difficult path seemingly endless and just as before the song increased in its zeal but also in its sorrow.

 

Skin so white you could be a doll

With a perfect image and nought a soul

You are still my man even though you're gone

But I hold out for when the sun will be shone

 

As we walked my hands began to tremble as my blade threatened to fall. But I couldn't let go yet, I had to be ready.

 

It is death that claims you now

And though you have taken your last bow

I will never give you up

 

It was getting very loud again, so loud that I ceased to hear Abigail's and my own feet crunching on the imbroglio beneath. I panned my eyes about, critical of every aspect of the terrain to find the strange song's source, but failed to make out anything through the blue.

 

In my heart you will stay

Just as these tears keep it a rainy day

But I will never give you up

 

The words had hit the pinnacle of the volume I was sure, so loud that I could no longer hear my own uneasy pants but still I crunched mutely through, my destination hidden from view. Then I felt a firm jerk on my blouse. Turning around I saw Abigail's mouth widen and close over and over, as if she was shouting something.

"I can't hear you!" I shouted back but my own words were just as unheard.

Abigail shook her head and pointed sideways to a spot where blue glowed so acutely it was almost white and at the centre was a girl, singing.

 

Someway, somehow, you'll return to me

That is my endless decree

For I will never give you up

 

I motioned for Abigail to stay back and walked through the remaining trees between us and when I reached the girl I waited, seven foot sword held directly behind me and ready.

 

Even if the world must break

Even if destruction lies in its wake

I will never give up

 

She lingered on the last note awhile, seemingly at the climax of the song. When she finished her eyelids raised and flashed smiling silver eyes my way.

"You came to hear me sing!" She beamed. "Why thank you, Bethanie, I haven't had an audience in a very long time..."

I clutched my sword tightly as I viewed the glowing girl, the blue world still fixed about her. "Not so long ago I'm thinking, since I heard your voice just last week, Dorothy."

Giddily the silver-haired girl placed her hands together in a clap. "So you did hear me? You really did!?"

"Is that really such a surprise?" I asked sarcastically.

She nodded vehemently. "Oh yes, no one of this world ever hears me sing, only the phantoms and the ghosts..."

"You mean those shades of yours." I surmised.

"Huh?" She looked at me quizzically. "Shades? But that's what the bad side calls them. Our friends are no shades, but noes!" She added with a determined nod.

I smirked "No, I do think you're insane."

Dorothy's smile fell. "You're a phantom, but you don't seem to know your place yet. You don't realise that it's within the darkness you lie." She said it as if it was an accusation.

I cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah, I guess I don't."

The girl smiled, then started to laugh, then increased her zeal to manic before finally settling into a small chuckle. "Ah, so you're not my only audience but she came to hear me too, splendid!"

Here she shot a silver look straight through the trees to my friend behind. Instantly however I intercepted her hostile glare.

"Stay away from her, if there's anyone you're going to act bitchy towards, well," I shrugged, then, with hands still clenched on my hilt, I raised the sword over my shoulder. "Then you have me. Bring it!"

The girl resumed her crazed laughter quickly and just as soon settled it to another wild glare. "Oh, you're sassy! You don't take crap from no one, don't cha, Bethanie?" Her smile stretched wide as she lingered on my name. "You know, I'm not meant to kill you..." She gazed aside like a tempted child then turned back as if overruled by those naughty desires. "But you just look like so much fun to play with!"

With her shout everything quaked and like shards of glass breaking and falling apart so too did the blue world shatter around me.

Crystalline panes fell carrying images of trees, of the ground, of leaves overhead. Of the maniacal silver-eyed girl in front of me and with a desperate turn so too did the area holding Abigail fall away from existence. It was all falling apart, all of my senses suddenly overwhelmed by destruction.

But with the shattering reality came something else, a new place filled with hotdog stands, fairy floss machines, show-bags with recognisable characters headlining them, long dirt trails that were more wet than dry and distant rides where excited screams travelled from.

"This is dumb," My brother Cameron fabricated along with this scene, but he was four years younger and just entering the terrible teens. "It's crowded and smells like crap."

He wasn't wrong, people materialised within the scene in every direction, appearing down the lengths of the paths and pressed up to every stall, all making just as much commotion as their nearby neighbours. And he was also right about the smell, it was certainly carrying a degree of sulphur in the air.

"Quit being such a sook, Cam!" An eighteen year old Michael punched his brother in the shoulder playfully, yet not entirely gently. "It's just families out to enjoy the show and as to the smell... that's kind of expected with all the farm animals!"

"Yeah, dude!" Paul nudged Cameron himself with a smirk. "Just try to do the family thing, hey? It would mean the world to your mother!"

"It would, Cameron, please try for me?" A familiar voice and a familiar face pleaded, two of which I never thought I would experience again. Then the woman who said these things turned to me as she rubbed her large belly tenderly. "Bethanie's enjoying herself. Just try to relish the moment like your sister, won't you darling?"

"Mum..." I uttered, sword clenched behind me.

As Cameron rolled his eyes my mother turned to me with a smile so warm that it almost made my tear ducts unfreeze. "Is there something you'd like to say, Bethanie?"

"Mum..." I repeated, almost about to reach out for her but that would mean dropping the blade. "You're... not real."

The woman rose her eyebrows as she giggled, then made a bashful look as she brought her shoulder up to her blonde short cropped hair framing a face that resembled Marilyn Monroe acutely. "Yes, well, I am just too fantastic to be real, aren't I!?"

"Geez, Mum." Cameron groaned. "Could you be anymore in love with yourself!?"

Then Paul made his claim. "No matter how much Catherine loves herself, it is not only justified, but still far less than I feel for her. No one could have as much love for this woman, as I do." There he closed the gap between them and hugging her placed an affectionate hand onto her swollen belly.

I heard my own words then though I never moved my mouth. "Aw... you two are the perfect couple! Mum is the bestest of them all and you are too, Dad."

Both smiled happily as Paul pulled his hand away from his unborn child to squeeze my shoulder. "Every time you say it makes me so happy, Bethanie. I am so looking forward to all the years ahead being your father."

I heard Cameron scoff right before Michael made his interplay. "We are all glad to invite you into the family, Paul. I have never seen Mum so happy."

Then my mother gasped and all eyes turned to her belly with alarm but with her outstretched hand we next followed that instead. "Camels! Oh we must ride on a camel! Bethanie, you'll ride one with me, won't you?" My mother laid out her other hand as she looked with excited desperation into my eyes.

I knew how it played out, Paul's concern about the effect of how all the movement could affect her near term pregnancy. At how Mum decided to anyway, stating that she did much crazier things with her other three anyway, then jumping aboard that lumpy animal with me and us both squealing as we thought we were about to fall when it wonkily rose to its feet. We had seen the world at such a different perspective up there on that animal's unsteady back and we had giggled all the way. Mum had pointed to the big slides in the distance, where I pointed to all the lost tennis balls on a nearby tin roof to one of the shelters. Then my mother pointed down to all the people we were carried past and stated with marvel, "This is what it feels like to be on top on the world, with a bloated stomach and as if we're about to fall off at any moment!"

I had laughed, I had enjoyed that day so much. As well as the later fireworks, as well as my stepfather buying me a show-bag, as well as feeling my unborn brother kick in my mother's stomach. It was everything I wanted desperately to relive again.

My mother's hand was still outstretched for me to take, inviting me to that camel ride. And I started to reach for it but felt something begin to fall from my grasp.

"Don't do it!" I heard a distant muffled cry. "Don't take its hand, Bethanie! It only wants to hurt you!"

Then I remembered how the story of Catherine Starr ended.

It's all an illusion...

I drew that hand back and regripped it tightly with the other on my hilt. "You're not..." I told the inviting figure hesitantly. "You're not my mum."

The woman giggled. "Oh c'mon darling, I can't be that embarrassing, surely! I mean, I know I'm