The Girl Across the Sea
Part 2: Looking Glass
“Lyra! Lyra!”
A voice cascaded over knots of silence and invisible stepping stones that clouded the air between she and I. Words slipped and slid like so many beads on a string, sometimes separating, sometimes colliding and in nearly no way shaping coherent cadences, until they reached my ears rather more like the singular colors of a Monet, stripped of context and communal identity.
I might as well have slipped into another dimension.
Against my ankles, the crisp, lyrical melody of water played. I felt my feet growing numb in the mountain chill in spite of the warm April sun that played checkers on my nose. But I didn’t mind. Numb toes would freeze me to this moment, even minutes longer, as I waited to regain feeling before making my way down to the cottage again.
Here the moss wove tapestries, as if it had been thick, ancient spider webs plastered with dew. It waltzed over felled logs, in-between and upon stepping stones, and was blistered with flowers — tiny bright pinpricks of color creating patterns I’d yet to find repeating. Everything seemed to move with a purpose that brought clarity to the chaos of its existence.
Except me.
I’d come to see her again, but found myself in this moment just shy of her face; just lengths from her fingertips. And I wondered if her face would hold the familiar peace I’d grown to expect; or if the shock of pain would cause her eyes to flutter open again the way they had when she could no longer speak. It had just been the once; but somehow it lingered more than all the smiles, all the kisses, all the sing-song prayers and laughter over cups of spilled southern iced tea.
“Lyra.”
My eyes flickered in recognition as I raised them at her unexpected presence and I gasped.
Two warm brown eyes gazed levelly into my own blue. Two hands fitted perfectly as mittens over mine. Her hair a dark mirror of my own blonde; my freckles a mere reflection of her robust summer-skin. It was like looking at myself — reversed — in a looking glass.
I’d never seen her so young — even in photographs.
“Grandm… um… Stella?”
“I’ve been waiting ever so long!” she sighed petulantly, but nothing apart from joy rose into her cheeks, blooming with expectation. “Come on! I’ll race you to the house!”
Reluctantly, I let her hand pull from mine as I felt the words dropping from my lips; I tried to hold them in as I chased behind her— wild daisies fluttering in our wake, breathless and exuberant as we were, rushing towards the horizon, together —
I turned her wrinkled hand over and over in mine. I rubbed it, and wondered whether the rubbing helped or not. Morphine glowed an unnatural blue-green on her lips.
“It’s okay to go.”
I choked on the words because I wanted to say them; I truly wanted to say them, but the permission felt so strained. And selfish.
“We’ll see each other…. I know we will.”
I thought perhaps her eyelids fluttered.
I thought perhaps she murmured,
“Lyra.”
A Note: Thank you for reading — I’m constantly amazed at the support and generosity of the writers on Substack; I appreciate your patience as I continually endeavor to carve out creative time, even if for nothing more than my own sanity.