black and all blue.

[Eliza]

ghosts that we knew made us black and all blue but we'll live a long life. - m&s. Timestamp: 72 Summer 513 AV "This time, Eliza, pretend to care," the dead man's voice scattered in the open air, but it was soon swallowed by the thunderclap of crashing waves. His voice pulled the young woman into the water with it, taking her consciousness down to the tidal grip like an anchor; and she continued to sink. Water frothed around her knees and sucked sand out from beneath the arches of her feet when it receded. She stood exposed to the sky with nothing but a cloth banded about her breasts and a soaking pair of undershorts; her arms were out-flung, causing her shadow that rippled atop the water to resemble a heron, those great-winged birds from more southern climes, known to swoop low through the swamps of Kenash. A perfect stillness held her. It would flee by the time she needed to breathe, but in this moment she held the air of the bay in her lungs and let it infiltrate the rest of her. It brought salt, a thing already known, and the decaying taste of kelp like oil on the tongue. Before she could turn the sensations over to examine them from below, the violence of the ocean shattered her meditation with a spray of bubbles. Her concentration buoyed up to choke on a laugh. "I do care," she half gargled, half shrieked. Nolan surfaced before her, ephemeral; but the strength of his hands was solid as they slammed against her collarbone, the weight of a highly concentrated second. The shock of that connection widened Eliza's eyes with a mix of fear and delight, startling her back; but bare feet were still partially in the grasp of the sand and water chuckled over when she fell backwards to sink out of sight.

[Eliza]

Water splashed right through the dead man when Eliza surfaced. She had spent a suffocating minute turned by the riptide, gouging trenches on the ocean floor with grappling fingers and eventually thrusting her feet back beneath her. After all, the water was only waist high. “You bastard!” She spluttered at her companion, drops of water spraying from her lips. A loose coil of hair was slung, sodden, out of her eyes to reveal a fiendish grin. Nolan mirrored the grin back at her, the ocean behind him broken by the pale line of the sky, both capable of being seen through his translucent form. He raised long fingered hands, palms out in mock attrition. “I fell right through you. You’re just clumsy, Lizzie,” he claimed in his sloping drawl. His voice always smelled a little like cedar smoke to her. “Forget meditating,” he went on, an arm circling out as if to catch the sunlight that flickered through it. “Fetch the fishing pole. That Yasi entrusted it to you with hopes you’d share your catch.” “That Yasi entrusted it to me well knowing there probably wouldn’t be a catch,” Eliza grumbled under her breath. She slogged around all the same, swayed by the break of a wave across her hip, to make her way through the shallows to where she had left the wooden stick and attached string safely out of the water’s reach. “You don’t know that,” Nolan’s voice floated near her. “Maybe he was hungry.” “His cheeks were round and his eyes were laughing at me!” She protested. “You don’t have any patience for children,” the ghost sighed, a cool breeze frolicking at her back despite the heat. “I use it all up on dead men and higher caste adults,” she retorted. Nolan’s roar of laughter was drowned in the cry of a gull wheeling above, allowing Eliza to ignore him while dropping down to scoop up the borrowed fishing pole. She dusted sand from the shaft and looped the knot of string about her fingers. It was squinted at for a long moment and then she turned her head, delicate chin brushing her bare shoulder, so as to peer at the water. “Aren’t I supposed to have bait or something?” She asked the air at last. “Maybe you should have asked the Yasi for a bag of crickets,” Nolan deadpanned. “Or a lure?” She paused. “Not that I know what to use for a lure. Nolan, how did I grow up in the middle of a lake and never go fishing?” “That’s what I’ve been wanting to know since you got this fool notion.” Eliza snuck a glance at him and he was visible enough to just catch the sickle moon line of his smile. “Take a walk,” he insisted. “Find a gull feather and a shell or something else to give it some weight. Or buoyancy? I don’t know. Don’t just stand there, Lizzie. Move. Move. Always move while you can.” Accustomed to such lectures, the young woman jammed the butt end of the fishing pole into the sand and turned to wander along the water line, seeking feathers and shells and purpose. The air of her shadow simmered when Nolan fell into step with her, their path leaving a solitary set of footprints behind. “While we’re hunting,” the ghost said. “Finish telling me how you met that bastard Sarden.”

[Eliza]

A single window of slightly opaque glass looked down into an overgrown garden where brambles of wild roses climbed over a rumbling wall of ballast stone and pushed open a warped wooden gate. A beckoning image, that gate in the evening light where twilight stroked heaven toward violet and blue as an apricot sun sank down behind the lake waters. Just the sort of gate where anything could happen. Just the sort of gate children knew led the way toward secrets and mysteries, to other realms and adventures if only they could find a way to reach it. And through this older pane with its rippled surface, gazed a girl. Her fingers rested on the sill. Her nose pressed to the pane. She watched with expectation. Waited. Waited. And watched the sky. Once, long ago, perhaps a few days or a few years or a few minutes, there was a very black bird. Glossy black. It was said he carried the night on his back. Or in his wings. Perhaps under them. Sometimes he forgot exactly where he was supposed to keep this night he heard about, but it didn't matter. He only carried a very small part of it anyhow. So small that no one would ever really notice if he brought it with him or not. Sometimes he grew distracted while following sunset. There would be shimmers on the water. Sparks of new diamonds never to create themselves again.Just like the crystalline dewdrops on spiderwebs and flower petals. It might even be just the glint of a coin fallen into a patch of clover. Or a lady's shining button. Today, or yesterday, maybe it was tomorrow's yesterday, it was a silver hatpin bearing a dollop of amber topped with a seed pearl. It rested in the shadow of a new forming rose. He folded his wings back and spiraled down from the sky. The girl at the window saw this. Her breath caught. Her fingers gripped. Her pale eyes widened. The boy's black wings extended a moment with landing. A glossy reflection of plumy sky and the house's gaslights. His reaching hands were long and white. He looked up. How does one soul recognize another? At what moment is there a realization, a connection that stretched beyond anything that could normally be understood? When does the soul whisper: Oh, there you are at last? The girl saw a flash of fire in his eyes. A gleam of light that sparked her heart into searing heat. It flowed fast through her veins. Made her pulse sing psalms. She didn't know what sort of boy she looked at, only that he couldn't imagine not knowing him. She lifted her hand up. Palm pressed to the glass and smiled to him. Smiled and shaped a few words of pale, fragile hope. Please don't go, the boy heard her ghost words. Please wait for me. Though it made him nervous. To know she saw him. Even as he plucked the shining pin from the ground. He meant to pretend he never came here before. That for the past score of yesterdays and tomorrows he never lit down to walk where she walked. He never found scraps of the ribbons from her hair, or snags of lace from her dress. Or, like now, a lovely pin. He watched the house with expectation. Waiting. Waiting. And watched the ornate doors. She raced down-down-down the wooden loop of blonde oak stairs. Her bare feet made little more than a whisper. Her hand clasped along the smooth banister to ensure she wouldn't stumble. Her heart raced with her feet. Faster, no doubt. Her legs strove to keep up. The pallid gown she wore fluttered about her slender body as she flew to the landing and through the hallway, past the long paintings of bone dry cities and ornate vases gorged with flowers. She prayed for him to still remain in the garden as she burst through the doors into the cool summer evening teasing the grounds. Birds called to each other, whether it was in greeting or to say good night, she wasn't sure. She fled down the low marble steps and past the fountain where Tanroa stood holding her jar to spill water out in a melodious trickle. His attention caught up on sharp hooks to hear the doors open like they did. He saw her racing toward him. Her brilliant curls streaming back from a heart shaped face like a war banner. Her frothy gown made him think of egrets. He curved his fingers over the hatpin. Nevermind about accidentally pricking his forefinger. Nothing could deter his focus from her. Just like nothing could deter the waking smile from his mouth. They met. One to another they met. His arms wrapped about her with the rustle of wings echoing in her ears. For him there came the satin drift of cloth. She pressed her cheek to his with eyes closed. Breathed him in. Listened to him do the same. Skies and fields and hyssop soap and roses. Everything mingled. Everything braided together into something just right. A sleeping daydream and a waking myth. Oh, how long, she began. I don't know, so very, he stumbled. What do I call you? They asked each other as the sky darkened and the stars kissed the horizon with bright winks. Corax. The boy who lived as a crow gave her the name without thinking. Eliza. The girl who lived trapped in a fine old inn, confined to a fine garden and trapped by a lake, replied. Each was a doorway unto themselves. Just like the garden gate only waiting to be opened. For the right hand to gently push. For the right key to find the lock and turn just so. Each waiting, waiting and watching and saying to the other: Oh, there you are at last. * * * When Eliza finished the story, it was to discover the dead man gazing at her with reproach. “That,” Nolan pronounced, “Is not how you met the bastard Sarden. Eliza Jin, you are full of lies.” Eliza cast verdant eyes to the sea and spread out her arms to a gust of salt wind. Perhaps she would hug it. “Sarden would be brilliant as a bird,” she confessed. “And that tale is ever so much nicer than the truth.” When Nolan continued to stare dimly at her, she dropped her arms in a sweeping motions. “Very well. Keep looking for lures. I’ll tell you the true tale now.” She paused, tongue pressing against the backs of her teeth, and added. “But nobody likes it.” The ghost made a rushing gesture, bidding her on.