11 November 2011

Tristessa's Story, Part 5

Follow Tristessa through her mother's disappearance, bullying, and the mysterious appearance of the shadow-man in Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4. Satisfaction guaranteed! -m

I couldn't stop thinking about Ambreel-the-shadow-man, as I called him in my head. I began to imagine conversations with him while I was doing my chores. And then I imagined that he brought friends with him, children I might have known while living between the stone buildings in my life with my mother.

I loved imagining the children.  They were sweet and helpful and aided me in sweeping the floor and cleaning out the chicken coop, and they talked about nice things like hot baths and clean toes and dresses that fit instead of hanging on my skin and bones.  Every day I thought of them, they grew clearer in my mind, even gaining personalities and quirks.  I loved the feeling of creating something so useful, and I relished the feeling of electric power I had whenever I was talking to them.

Ambreel was a gentleman and walked with me around the perimeter of the house after Ravigie decided I was allowed to venture there.

"How are you today, Ambreel?" I asked.

"I'm just fine, Tristessa Dellatierre," he said, using my first and last names, which I had almost forgotten existed.

Thinking of that, I asked, "Do you know my other names? I know there are others."

Ambreel shrugged his shadowed shoulders and I felt electricity tickle my palms. "I am in your imagination, Tristessa. You'll have to remember your other names for yourself."

"Thank you, Ambreel," I said. Turning the corner, I almost ran into Ravigie.

"Who are you talking to?" she asked forcefully. The smoke fled to the corners of my vision and the power stopped tingling in my fingers.

"Nobody," I said truthfully. I was talking to shadows and my own imagination.

Ravigie sniffed as though smelling the air and kept her nostrils wide. "You're lying," she said. "I can feel his magic. Where is he hiding?" she added, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards her. I had to stand on my tiptoes so that her vise grip wouldn't break my arm off.

"Who?" I asked as innocently as I could manage.

"Don't toy with me, child. I know his scent and I've heard you talking to him this past sennight. I will not be lied to. Now where is he?"

"He's nowhere," I said. The feeling was gone in my left arm and my calves were burning from standing so tall. "I just pretend to talk to him."

Ravigie looked at me with horror in her eyes. Without another word she dropped my arm to grab my hand. It stung as blood flowed back into the veins. The old woman held my hand up, holding her thumb in the center of my palm and pressing hard.

"Ow," I said. "What are you doing?"

"You're marked," Ravigie said, giving back my hand. I rubbed it and held it safe against my stomach.

"I don't understand," I said, knowing that she meant she could see the designs on my palms.

Ravigie looked at me shrewdly. "Don't use that magic to do anything stupid," she said. Just when I was about to ask another question, she walked away. Like she had told me not to forget to milk the goat. Like what she had just said was the simplest thing.

I cleared my throat and swallowed, letting her leave without a fight. When she was back in the house, I looked down at my hands. Magic? As I looked up again, my eyes drifted over the form of the brown paper package, which was still on the kitchen table. It made me think of the courier who had looked at me with fear, backing away before I had even had time to say hello.

Resolution flooded my mind. If I had magic, then I had power. And if I had power...no one could stop me.

Tristessa's Story, Part 4

Check out Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Tristessa's narrative to get caught up on her journey. -m


The package on the table taunted me. I could hear it: "Triiiiiisteesssssssaaaa.... I'm waiting for yooooouuuuu. Just waitiiiiing. Open me....open meeeeee..."

In any other circumstance, those words would be creepy, even terrifying. But instead of being worried, I was strangely comforted. I was not the only peculiar thing in the village. If I could hear the voice of a brown paper package, then surely there were stranger things than me. For the first time in months, I could feel my spirit lifting.

And then I realized that the shadows on the edge of my vision were not normal things.

The realization came one night when I snuck out of the house. Ravigie was sleeping. I still wasn't supposed to go any further than the front stoop, but being outside at night was the only freedom I had left. And with the package taunting me, outside was the only place that the voice stopped whispering in my ear.

I'd been outside before, on other nights, but this night felt different from the moment my right heel touched the other side of the threshold. I shivered and cleared my throat as my stomach tightened. Something was wrong. Adrenaline beating like drums in my veins, I looked inside, back into the shadows.

Dark smoke poured into my peripheral vision, clouding things until the only thing I could see clearly was the package on the table. Something like the sound of feet scrunching on gravel happened behind me, and I turned back around to face the outdoors. The smoke followed me, taking on the shape of a young man.

The darkness poured first into his shoes, then up to his knees and waist. It was only a nanosecond but it felt like I watched for hours as this person was formed out of the night. When he spoke, I heard my name. "Tristessa."

"Who are you?"

His face was clearer now; I could even see that he had a sort of a nose and broad shoulders on top of a rather lanky frame. "I'm...a shadow."

"I can see that. Is it parts of you I've been seeing?"

"Parts of me?"

"Sometimes there are dark things over here," I said as I motioned with my hands near my temples. "Like shadows." The smoke was making me feel light-headed, though, and I accidentally scratched myself on the forehead.

The man shook his head slowly, and then nodded. "It's possible. Ravigie can sense when I am near, so why wouldn't you see parts of me?"

"What's your name?" I asked. His skin was solid now, and was taking on a tint like the men from Italia. "Why can Ravigie sense you?" I added as an afterthought.

"Ambreel," he said after a moment's hesitation. And then, without warning: poof. The smoke that had poured into the smoke-man Ambreel seemed to shrink, like it was inhaling. With one great explosion, the smoke exhaled and Ambreel disappeared.

My hair was blown back and tears were pulled from my eyes. I held my breath. In a moment it was over, and the shadows were gone, leaving only the blank darkness of the night. I grinned, unexpectantly feeling powerful. My nerves were jumping in my fingertips and my blood was pumping hot through my chest, though it felt different from normal adrenaline.

I stretched my hands, looking in wonder at my palms. They even looked different. What had that smoke done to me? Tiny swirling designs played on my skin like a kaleidoscope. I turned my hands over and looked at the backs of my fingers. Smoke curled around them like tattoos of vines, then sunk into my skin with tiny electrical shocks.

For the first time in almost a year, I didn't miss my mother.

Tristessa's Story, Part 3

Be sure to check out Parts 1 and 2... Tristessa's story begins there. -m


In the days after I threw the egg at the boy, Ravigie refused to speak to me. She was so angry with me for throwing our last egg that she didn't even make me toast for breakfast. She set a cup in front of me, which I had to fill with milk myself. The well was dry; we were lucky that the goat was still alive.

The yard in front of the coop smelled strange, close to something like rotten eggs. Every time I walked past it I held my breath, and soon it became a sort of game to me. In a week I became very good at holding my breath for no reason in particular.

It was at the end of that week that the package arrived. The courier was dirty, sweaty, and smelled worse than I did. But his clothes had once been very fine, and even though he looked ready to collapse, he held his head as high as a prized stallion did during a parade. Ravigie met him at the corner of the property, a little ways away from where the garden of eggs had popped up. I stayed out of sight, watching and listening.

"I have a package for Ravigie," he said. "There's no last name."

"I don't have a last name," Ravigie said, holding her hand out for the brown paper-wrapped thing.

The man held on to it just a second longer. "You are Ravigie?" Disbelief was bright in his voice. He obviously had been led to believe that Ravigie would be housekeeper to some grand woman.

"The only one," she said. "Give it to me, boy." She glared at him so strongly that immediately he handed it over. Ravigie took it and tucked in under her arm, clamped beneath her armpit. "Well?"

The man looked like he was about to say something about being called "boy", but he wisely thought better of it and took a couple of steps backwards instead.

I don't know why, but I chose that moment to come out of hiding. The man jumped when he saw me. I started to smile, to try to clear his mind of worry, but it was too late. His mouth gaped and he staggered backwards, fingers splayed open as though searching for a handhold.

"You..." But he wasn't looking at me anymore, he was looking somewhere behind me. I turned around, curious. Just on my peripheral vision, I saw the flicker of something dark. Trying to follow it, the shadow stayed on the edge of everything, but it took on the form of what could have been a man, or the reflection of a man.

"Me?" I asked once I had faced him again.

He shook his head, turned on his heel, and ran away.

Ravigie came to stand near me, putting her hand on my shoulder and shifting the package under her arm. "Come inside, Tessa."

"Why?" I was looking after the running package-carrier, watching his heels kick up dry dirt clods as he ran back to town.

"Just come," she said, pulling me towards the door. She, too, was looking at something behind me. Looking again, the shadow became only more distorted, seeming to be obscured by smoke. It was certainly the form of a man, but I couldn't see his face.

I shook my head, trying to clear my eyes for another look. "There's someone there, Ravigie," I said, pointing. She didn't respond, but she did pull me swiftly into the house.

The old woman put the package on the table in the kitchen, then sat down on a chair and put her face in her hands. I waited silently for a minute before she lifted her head again.

"I don't want you to go outside for the rest of the week, Tristessa." When I didn't respond, she went on: "And don't touch this package."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Ravigie pushed herself up and walked through the back door to the garden, leaving me in the kitchen. I stared at the crinkled brown paper wrapped around the courier's delivery. It was the first time I had a chance to really inspect it.

The wrapping job was haphazard and sloppily tied with several loops of dirt-caked brown twine. All in all, I believe it was about the size and shape of a dinner plate, and floppy, not like a wrapped box. And I wasn't allowed to open it. After sighing once, I poked it. The paper crinkled and stayed pressed in where my finger had been, a clean smudge on the brown surface. I looked at my finger; it was covered with dust. Wiping in on my skirt, I sat in the chair and stared at the package, thinking about the garden of eggs and the shadows that were flickering at the edge of my vision.