The Indigo Child: Part Four Of Four (The Remaining Chapters Will Be Posted When They Are Written) Neveah Fay
They call me normal.
“Human.
She calls me different.
“Alien.
Two points of view,
Set out before me.
I wish they let me choose.
But I must pick
What they put out for me,
On a silver platter.
Mixture.
Why can I not be one?
To fit with them,
Why must I be the one,
Who only wants to return,
With a price?
Chapter Nineteen
I feel the plane ride down on a bed of tar. Through the sparse grass, is a few peeks of marshy
sand and puddles. The tiny, black plane’s wings perfectly touch down, and the other passengers-which is only around seventy people because the plane is so small-begin to unbuckle themselves from the cushioned seats. I tap Neveah’s cheek, and find it clammy, almost stiff and a gray color. She turns slightly, a small groan escaping her lips, a bluish pink in hue. I tell her to look outside, and a very slight sheen of color returns to her face, remembering the real beauty we’ll encounter, to make her feel better. She slowly clings to me, and we walk down the narrow aisle and out the plane.
The air is the first thing I take in, warm and radiant. Beyond the small area where the miniscule plane has landed, is marshy, long grass and small streams ducking through. Throughout them, I can see the dunes, piled high and golden out looking the sea. A few stores are scattered around the dusty roads, all beige and shingled. The houses are wide and white, all summer rented. Neveah smiles, looking at a few kids poking around in the marshes across the road. A heron dips its beak into the filmy water, drinking it up.
“I like it here.” I tell her as we begin to walk. The wind presses on my shirt, flattening as I move. Her eyes twinkle, remembering the place. Plum Island, perfect and tweaked of grayness.
The passengers all spread across the terrain, and we droop across the road, smudged with sands and dust from years of work, blowing of dunes and withering of time. I kick a small rock back, and it flies up with a cloud of heavy dust. I feel things speed up, while I slow down. I feel caged but free of anything. Neveah is looking at me, curiously.
“You’re growing stronger.” She says, padding farther down to a wide expanse of a four way road. Across from us is a deli with a reddish orange crab face popping out from the off white sign covered in blue and a stocky, brick color. Beneath my feet the shadows begin to curl, and Neveah halts us. Her face is steadier, a rosy shine of cream and peach skin. “Soon, you’ll be whole and an Indigo Child. Then, we can finally go.”
I close my eyes, the feeling of everything pulsing with life blinking through me. Is this what Neveah encounters every day? The feeling of things, blurred until they reach no end of nonsense.
“The feeling,” Neveah says quietly, “Is called Utopiunus. Everything is balanced, you hear the shadows as the whisper words in languages of gray matter, the word twines together, and you connect to all the strings. It takes a while to get used to, all the blur.”
I try to lean my weight on my right foot, and watch a teenage couple, licking two cones of sugary vanilla ice cream in cake-y, thick cones. The girl giggles, and smiles with teeth topped off on melted cream. I feel my heart remembering Claudio, how I was supposed to write to him. Inside my pocket lays his address, waiting to be used for good.
I walk farther with Neveah, each of us crawling to see the beach. The sky has turned a flourishing baby pink, with streaks of warm yellow and purples. Beyond, the juicy blue reflects off the ocean, thundering with the silver moon. A few people look up, wanting to grasp the light between their own fingers. Someday Neveah will, right along beside all of it.
A shaky trail to the beach snakes out to the horizon, and Neveah and I clamber down it, our suitcase’s wheels getting caught in grains of sand and smooth, polished rocks. The sand along the beach is dark, no longer golden with sun, but following the downcast of night. A bonfire about a hundred feet away casts orange sheen onto the beach, embers flying in the air like blinking fireflies.
I kick my shoes off, and toss them in a heap at the entrance to the beach alongside the suitcase and bags. The glassy tide reflects everything, glittering in Neveah’s violet eyes. Her curly, damp hair flies through the wind, dancing like a cloud as the breeze tumbles by. I touch mine, an ashy blond with side bangs curving round my cheeks. People used to tell me I was beautiful as a child, but once I grew back, they began to say it less. They said I could have worn some make up, could have curled my hair ‘like a lady.’ The saying I was pretty grew faded. But Neveah’s never will, she’s a jewel in a field of rusted crowns, tossed away.
We cross to a section of sand damp with green, sparkling seaweed. Neveah takes a naked, sandy foot and picks up the slime with her toes, wriggling them against it. I shriek, the gooey surface crawling under my feet. The warm grains of sand rise up, still storing a bit of day in them. I sit down, pouring a handful through my fingers, sifting them like a gold digger.
Neveah nears close to the ocean, the black swimming tides burning under the opalescent moon. She cautiously in her foot, but then rejects it, standing in the silky sand. I get up and turn right, so I can see her face. She’s turned to the water, hollow and immersed in the rich sound of brine and foam as it crashes down. Walking over, I clutch her hand, but she doesn’t move. “Are you okay?” I ask her quietly, and she turns to me, eyes streaked with red and tears. Her chin is upward, looking into my face.
“I was just, thinking, about my fake parents.” She says, sinking her feet into the golden brown sand, “And what if, what if they really miss me?” I shake my head, and wipe away a droplet from her cheek.
“It’s not them anymore Neveah.” I say, smiling at her, “We’re our own family now, sisters. It’s just us and we’re all we’ve both got.”
Neveah Fay
In my dreams, I see my universe. It’s still black, darker than the color that lives behind your eyes when you finally close them at night. The souls living there still wander, wishing they could be more powerful than body less aliens. Power. That’s the main reason they tricked us into studying Earth, so they could have more space. But when I return, they’ll remember me as they sweet Indigo, who did not object. They’ll take me in.
I’ll let Kapri go home, but maybe she’ll stay. Maybe that urge, to go be alongside her family, her new friends, will subside. And she will live with me, true sisters. Two Indigo Children, the last ones to be left in the universe.
But it all depends on her fate.
Chapter Twenty
I set down our suitcase on a large, flat rock ending a section of the jetty. It is far up the beach, where tide will not corrode over it. Neveah unzips her bag, and pulls out a blue, fleece blanket for us. The warm wind seems to make it so we won’t need it, but she pushes me under, forcing me to sleep in it. The small lights of the stars contort in the heavy darkness, burning with the black of the moon.
The beach is empty, and the few glows of the bonfire that still hang in the air are vanishing. Neveah whispers something, but I don’t hear it, already in a drone of sleep. She flattens her body against the rock, the cold, dusty surface circulating on her shoulder blades. I look up to the ocean, and find it rhythmic, humming to my mind as I fall asleep.
| | |
I am in my old house, but it is painted a new coat of creamy white mixed with a fuel of gold. My Mom sits at our kitchen table, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes that rarely move. In her hand is a picture of my dad and I, smiling at each other in a background of orange, umber leaves dropping across the gray road of the street. A silent tear runs off her cheekbone, sliding on the picture and muddling my dad’s short, tweaked mustache. “Why did I lose both of them?” She whispers, in a shaking voice. I want to reach out through my dream, and put a hand on her shoulder, telling her it’s okay, but my body stays still.
She walks across the room, and nears our array of knives. I scream through the surreal, knowing that this must be a vision, that this is happening right this moment in our house. She gets a grip on it, and holds it close to her wrist. I cry out, trying to summon her. She looks up, the knife jerking away from her body.
“Maybe it’s not worth it.” She whispers to herself, setting it back down. “Maybe she’ll come back.”
Eventually.
| | |
I wake to a stream of red flaring sky stretching across the horizon of the glittering sea, shining in the heavy sun. Neveah is already dressed, and looks like she’s washed out her hair in one of the outdoor showers strewn along the ends of the beach. The smooth sand near the edge of the sea lies untouched by footprints, a line of damp gold. I brush off my grimy feet, and run over to it, my feet sinking below the surface. A small wave runs over me, and a small cut running up my leg begins to sting uncontrollably, I press the edge of my sweatpants to it, sucking out a fraction of the pain, but it continues to wheedle through as I run over to Neveah.
I look up at her, dressed in a tank top with small pink flowers on the hem and a long, maxi skirt brimming her sandal baring feet with Mexican, green print on it. She hands me an outfit, and tells me to change quickly in the outdoor shower before anybody strides down the beach. I nod, and lock the wood plank door. Shaking out the clothes, I see a dress made of silky material, with dark purple color. A string of pearly ribbon is tied on the strap, and a small, white hair tie with a flower is arranged for me to take up in my hair. I breathe out, and look at myself in the small mirror attached to the door. I look different, than the girl with the drab, shapeless wear. This is a different girl. This is someone who is above the class of Kapri Isanhamn.
“Hello.” I say to the girl, “You look quite beautiful.”
I swing open the door to the shower, and walk out, brushing access sand grains off the satiny, purple fabric. Neveah nods her head, as if saying how nice the dress looks. She’s set us a small area nestled between two rocks, where our towels and bags lay out. The stench of rich, heavy sunblock floats through the air off Neveah’s rosy cheeks.
“Here.” She says, handing me the bottle. I squeeze out a dollop of cream, and rub it over my arms, shivering as cool substance comes in contact with my skin, lubricant and soft with a cold touch. The salty air freezes it on my body, drying over me in shell of whiteness.
“Can we go get breakfast?” I ask her, smoothing out a crinkle in my dress. Neveah looks up and smiles, holding up a small bundle of U.S. bills. Nodding, she sets our sunblock with the area, and we walk into the small town.
We end up in a diner called ‘Plum Crazy’, and sit down at a booth table. Behind us, is a section with three aisles like a supermarket, but then just the basic layout of a diner where we sit. A chunky woman with dyed brown hair and a mask of foundation make up take our order, chewing on her pencil eraser. For once, I don’t envy the person who stands in front of me, but smile as she inspects my new dress.
“What you like girls?” She asks in a southern drawl. I look up from the small menu, and answer that we’ll have toast, home fries, and waffles. She disappears in a hurry into the kitchen.
Neveah obtains our table, and I look around the store aisle. A rack of postcards lays against the wall, all pictures of the island in sunny colors. My fingers close around a picture with a silhouette of two people holding hands and walking across the sunset beach. One dollar. Neveah reluctantly gives it to me, and I question the person at the counter if they have a pen.
I twiddle with the pen end, the cheap plastic snapped in places. Words fog up the end, as I scribble in Claudio’s name and address. Finally, I’ll tell him what it’s like here.
Claudio,
Greetings, from Plum Island. This place is wonderful, all the colors are so serene you feel like you have to look away from their brightness. I love it here, but just as much as Milan.
I miss you and Esta, my first real friends. I miss Italy, and the happiness that wavered everywhere. Every time I eat, I remember the taste of a zeppole as it entered my mouth with a clash of sugar. I promise I won’t forget you guys, because every time I look at somebody’s eyes, I remember the way yours used to twinkle. Or if I see a girl prettier than the others around the area, I remember that Esta, was even more beautiful. Everything swirls together, until I really remember is your two faces.
I love this place, but it’s half way across the world. I wish I could see you again, just to sedate you in my mind. Already, I feel like I don’t remember what you looked like completely. Or your voice, it’s hard to remember the fragments of someone’s voice,
When you look up at the sky and see stars, remember me Claudio, because I shine alongside you even when I’m thousands of miles away. Remember me, because even when the night is so dark, I gleam because I want you to see me twinkling with you.
Goodbye Claudio,
Kapri
Neveah Fay
I’ll toss away the yesterday,
The future that prevailed us before,
I’ll take away my December through May,
And find only small hope for sure.
I’ll leave with only life
That stands in front of me,
A world of clashing strife,
Calamity sea through sea.
My life is left,
to present play,
I threw away my yesterday,
My life is gone,
Only present,
Only in this
Life changing
Moment.
Chapter Twenty-One
I pick up a piece of waffle and cram the warm food into my mouth. The sticky sap of syrup drones through me, a rush of sugar accelerating on my blood. Neveah stabs a potato with the edge of her fork, and eats it slowly, letting the flavor run over her in a soft, symbolic way. Reading our postcard, she sets it in a small, green envelope and scribbles out the address.
The waitress arrives at our table, her glittering eyelids bouncing in the light. I blink, avoiding the sheen of pink and sparkles. She takes up our plates, the ceramic tops clinking together against her arms. I smile, biting my lip inside of my cheek. Neveah looks out the window, watching the dust as it rolls by the roads in heaps of sand and debris.
A check floats to our table, and Neveah quickly stacks twenty six dollars in a neat pile on top of it. The waitress nods, and we clamber out the front door, a bell ringing after us. I look around for a blue mailbox, and locate one across the road. A car halts on the asphalt, and we dart through the cross walk. I tip open the top of the box, and slide in the card.
I walk Neveah back to the small crook between the rocks where she has set our towels down. A salty wave crashes over my feet, seaweed twisting through my toes. I crawl up on top of a flat boulder and look at the ocean. Glassy black tides roll in through the damp sand, wetting the shore with a glossy finish. A boy teeters on the edge of the beach and the water, his feet dipped in clear, icy ocean. He seems to be about ten years old, young and waiting to have his life set to place. Neveah watches him, studying his strong body as it resists the curling waves.
She removes her skirt, revealing a sparkly blue bathing suit. A trickle of water floods through the rocks, and she scrambles far onto the jetty, her eyes perched to the sky. I gaze out, the hazy clouds moving slowly against the sound of the hollow, brittle wind. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Neveah, but I don’t watch her so intently.
She jumps.
By this point she’s around a hundred feet away, in the cold water of Plum Island. I hear her scream, chattering blue face bobbing across the water. Her lips throb with a purple hue, and teeth click inside of her small mouth. It takes a small hesitant moment, for me to bound across the boulders, the sand slipping beneath my feet and rising up like dust. Her hands still clutch the surface of the water, trailing back and forth. I take it she doesn’t know how to swim. My eyes shut, and I dive down.
The waves thrust me under the water, and I regain a blurry sight. The salt and icy texture impact on me, feeling almost like a shell of lubricant. A swirl of bubbles worms out below me, and I duck down, seeing Neveah’s body float through, almost gone. I grab a hand, the flesh colder than fresh snow. Her hair tangles on my fingers, greasy and thick.
I shoot up, holding Neveah in a tight grasp. The familiar smell of air blinks back on us as I drag her quivering body onto the golden grains, darkening under the smooth trail of water behind us. A slight breath falls over her chest, and a cough of salt gurgling up. Her bathing suit is stretched at angles, pulled off. I push onto her chest, making another stream fall.
“Neveah.” I say quietly. She reaches her hand up, and leans onto it, looking at the revving sea. The choppy high tide crawls up the beach, towels and buckets draining back into the waves. I hug her, and then ask her why she jumped.
“I wanted to be like that boy.” She says steadily, not testing if her voice will fail, “Because he was so courageous with the ocean. The water is like a gift; you can tame it, or let it break on you. I tested my limits, I gave myself to the ocean. It was calling me, telling me to feel it, to understand it’s emotions.” I nod, and tell her to never do it again. She smiles, her hair drying in snaky ribbons across her back.
Neveah throws her skirt back on, and spreads a towel out fully on the beach. Her creamy, golden skin blurs with the sand, as she bakes in the hot, grilling sun. The breeze blows in the smell of something sweet, buried under the tangy air. She stills shakes, recovering from her sudden jump. She wanted the ocean, it was calling her. It almost scares me, that she responds to what her body needs so fast. We came whizzing to Plum Island, because the colors of Italy faded. We did it, without hesitation.
That flash of rainbow appears in my mind, a waiver of newness cleansing my body. A memoir. It confuses me, but Neveah’s voice rings out, explaining. Against happiness, things must be sad too. We have to join them together, and realize they’re the same, after all.
She smiles, her face rosy in the blaring light. Her skin feels sticky, like hot, burnt gelatin. The blinding rays of sun warm my face, drying up the moisture and sucking out all the sadness of the deep, murky sea. I look around, and find a few people scattered on towels, like us. Not splashing the water, but sleeping on the sand in the midst of day. The sound of crashing foam and brine tuck me into sleep, and I fall back onto the sand, remembering that I am in reality. That my whole world is to find Neveah her blank universe. Beside me she is asleep, resting as she begins to enter in a deep breath. I close my eyes, a red light under my eyelids, and hear the gulls cry. I taste salt on my lips, and I feel the heat, stored in grains of sand. The world is paused in a sepia movie, the world falling into fragments of a dream as I whirl back in time and fall to sleep.
Neveah Fay
Dear No One,
I feel
That the world is feeling my presence. The Blank Universe,
They know I am coming. They feel me beneath their feet.
They’re calling me through things,
The ocean.
They pulled me there, thinking that they could take me through to the Universe.
Alone.
But I was too strong, to resist from the
Undesirable hands,
Curling with shadows around me.
I remembered Kapri, and I remembered that I was too strong to resist on Earth.
But in definition,
I was all too weak.
I could not
Even make it to the top,
To breathe upon the surface.
I was weak.
I did not have enough memoir yet.
There were two definitions,
But I could only fit one.
With love,
Neveah
Chapter Twenty-Two
I sit up, shaking sand out of my eyes and look out at the water. The glittering surface dilates in my line of vision, the sleepy fog around my eyes breaking away to reveal the brightness of the afternoon. Neveah is still asleep beside me, her hushed breath filling up the blank sound of the beach. I spread a hand over the surface of the dress, the fabric ruined from the waves of the ocean. The rippled texture is hard, dried from the sun beating down. I sigh, and apply more sunscreen, the smell lurking around me.
A seagull runs across the golden sand, making prints in the surface. In its beak is a shell, glimmering in the light. The bird spreads his dusty wings, and flies away, the shell dropping from its grasp. I bend over, and pick up the shell. It’s an oyster, pearly on the inside but rocky on the outside. I slip it into the fold of my towel, a present to Neveah when she wakes up.
The hazy clouds hanging in the blue, cornflower sky swirl over the ocean, moving in swarms from the movement of the wind. A kite dashes below them , purple and green, floating alone in the spacious sky. I blink, my Utopiunus whirling the scenery into a blur of light. I close my eyes, still getting used to the strange experience. But, I smile. It means I am closer to being a full Indigo Child.
“It’s pretty out today.” A voice says behind me. I open up my eyes, the whirls dying down. Neveah looks at me, waiting for an answer.
“Yeah.” I say, listening to the hollow sound of the wind. I dig out the shell, and hand it over to her. She smiles, running a hand over the polished matter. Swallowing, she stands up and coats herself in more sunblock, trying to fully wake up as she does so.
“Let’s go to the tide pools.” She says quietly, her voice craggy from sleep. I nod, and she stands up. Throwing a bathing suit at me, I tear down the beach and to the shower so I can change. Swinging open the door, I thrust a hand towards the zipper of the dress. The white ribbon flutters as I close up the shower. The dress removed, I pull on the tankini top. The strap is bright turquoise, and so is the rest of the suit, except for purple polka dots, placed around the hem. I snap back the fabric, and pull on the tankini bottoms, hugging my hips. Picking up the dress, I fold it neatly and walk out of the shower. Sand brushes against my feet, sticky on the surface of white sunscreen.
Golden bubbles streak the air when I return to Neveah. She blows them through a small, green, plastic ring, watching the color stain the light. Purples and blue hues dance across the field of sand. A small toddler wanders towards a soapy circle, his grubby hands clasping around the surface. As it pops, he laughs warmly. Neveah smiles, and purses her lips again to let out another stream float through the air.
“Let’s go.” She says, setting the bubbles down.
I follow her as she slips her bag onto her shoulder and guides us off the beach. My feet hit on the cement sidewalk with a heated impact, the concrete burning on the soles of my sandals. The shriek of a girl blares through the area, and I quickly look up at a short, laughing teenage girl, being splashed by a guy with a long, black hose. “Stop it!” She giggles, slapping him. They walk away, holding hands. Neveah mutters something, and drags me onto a small road.
A golden finch chirps, hiding in a surround of bushes. I walk slower, listening to the sounds. Neveah halts, her eyes closed. I see her out of the corner of my iris, her hands resting at her sides. She breathes out and begins to walk again, as if everything is normal.
“Is everything okay?” I ask her when we reach the entrance to the tide pools. Neveah bites her lip, and says yes. “Alright.” I assure her, “You just seemed kind of out of it.”
Neveah grins, and walks forwards to a sandy path. Beyond, I hear the roll of tide, crashing on the shore. A loud, trail of static salsa music twists through the breeze endlessly, and feet shake to it on the sand.
They call it the tide pools, because the tide sweeps out so far. Where we stand now was under twenty feet of water three hours ago. Neveah tells me telepathically. I take in the salty air, tainted with a braid of seaweed. Crushed shells lay across the damp sand, glittering in the lights. I pick up a conch, the edges chipped away just slightly.
Suddenly, I am thinking about Claudio. Is he in Milan, reading my note? Does he miss me? I smile at the thought of him, on his bike. Would he ever really call us friends? I toss away the shell, listening to it splash in the water and fly away. He didn’t really even know me.
He didn’t know me, but neither did Neveah. And here I stand, looking across the ocean to a new day. I know he knows me, still has a place in his heart. I know there must be, a connection. A thread that dangles between the two of us; so far apart it hurts to think about.
Neveah Fay
When I found her,
I felt
That I knew her,
From some lost, blank dream.
I remembered her slightly,
Her vague,
Side smile,
Her piercing eyes,
Hazel as they
Bore through mine,
Curling around the thought,
That she was my
Soul sister.
The one who I needed,
To fully recover with,
And to make one of
My own.
She was special,
I knew it well.
I had to know her,
To live on more,
Than remembrance,
Of
A simple dream.
I set forth.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Neveah dips a foot into the icy water, testing its feel. Smiling and assuring herself, she dunks her head under the surface, disrupting the calm silk top. Breaching to the air, she curls her fingers around a wet, green and gray rock. I look up the beach, where a family has spread out a large picnic of food. I feel my stomach gurgle, drained from all the breakfast. A girl licks the bottom of her lip, and tears her teeth through a piece of stark white bread topped with cheese and tomato. I feel myself groan.
I watch Neveah as she glides through the water, gracefully lurking through and laughing as a breeze tousles her soft, chestnut hair. Every so often she tosses a small shell or rock into the deeper water, and sits there, under the shore. I see her face harden as she looks to the nearest land, a blue hem around the horizon. I know she’s thinking of her home.
It must be painful here, with so many things altering her patience. We only have three memories, and need to double it so we can pass through as whole to her universe. I’ll become an Indigo Child, she, home. It always confuses me though, what will happen when I return home. There will be many interviews, I know that. I will take therapy, my Mom is one to lean towards that, and I’ll always be hanging around the fraying edges, where people whisper about me. I can hear it in my head.
“There’s that girl.”
“She’s sick.”
“I know, she ran away, and claims she went to another universe.”
“Liar.”
“I’m happy I’m not her.”
I sigh, this must be done for Neveah. It doesn’t seem too much to be my choice, more so a fate that’s lies in the air around me. She needs to be back home, where she can resume her full life, so one day she can save us all from some horrible tragedy.
So one day, we will reunite.
The sun begins to crawl through the sky, the pink corals and purple bottoms of the clouds cluster around the shining, orangey light surrounding the sunset. The low, billowing cry of gulls flock over the landscape, blurring with the noise of the wind.
I scout the waves for Neveah and find her slipping out onto the damp sand, a collection of broken shells in her hand. She pours them onto the towel, hovering over me with dripping hair. “Like them?” She asks me quietly.
“Yes,” I say, selecting a piece of glass, rounded from the erosion and a perfect, sky blue. I hold it to my eye and peer in through it, watching as the whole world becomes glowing with blue light. “It’s a nice bunch you got there.”
Neveah beams, scooping up her pebbles and broken pieces. I cover her in a fuzzy towel, enveloping her in warmth. She shakes sand out of her hair and looks over at me. “Let’s walk.”
I follow her down a section of sand hot from the sun’s beat all day. I turn over my foot, finding it tinged with red from the scalping burn of the grain. Slipping on my sandals, I grin in relief of the cool fabric. Neveah holds my hand, making prints in the ground.
“Do you miss him?” She asks me once we’ve trailed away from the popular area of the tide pools. A puddle of water blocks my way, and I sit down in it, glad to be wearing a bathing suit. The shiny blue color begins to deepen as I lower myself in the warmer water. I know she’s talking about Claudio, “Because I could tell you liked him.”
I shrug, a painful look etching across my face. “I guess I do. I couldn’t really say I loved him that much though, it was really I think, that he was just so different from our culture. It inspired me, really.” My hands snakes across my face, and I tie my hair into a loose ponytail. “I know we’ll never meet again anyway.” I say painfully.
“Maybe.” Neveah whispers.
| | |
I walk down the sand, feeling that life has become a dream. The sounds around me fade into buzz, and only remaining is the breath blowing through the air, coming in and out. The taste of rain is on my tongue, and I feel only the warm baking hearth that the sun provides me with. The rainbow flash is through my mind, slashing with hope.
Four sixths.
Neveah jolts me back from my dazing, dreamlike world. “Only two more Kapri! Two!” Her face is lit up proudly, a string of words erupting from her mouth. I nod, and fall onto the sand. The feel makes a blanket around me, to rest my body. I am still overwhelmed, by what happens with the memoir. The shaking of reality, the flashes of color behind my eyes when we get notice we’re one step closer. Neveah sits down next to me, her body stretching out a gray shadow.
“Only two more.” She says, her fingers dancing on the sand. They twirl with the heat, spinning up clouds of dust. I nod. We’re almost there. Two more,
And she’ll be home.
Neveah Fay
We are so close, we can taste the sugar of stars, we feel the darkness of night all around us, as we glide to the portal. It’s black, swirling with emptiness, and our whole will feed it. The humans call it a black hole, but I know it transports us, to our needed destination. It will devour us unless we are as whole as light, and then we are spinning through the emptiness, the road to my universe.
We’re so close we can almost touch it, the heavy drought that speeds over space, the monster crashing over things. I am so near it, four sixths, so impossibly ready.
We are so close to our destined design, but
We are so close that
We seem apart.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I swirl my fingers through the sand, writing my name in a loopy, short hand. Neveah looks at it, and writes hers next to mine, making a heart around the two. Sisters. I purse my lips, feeling the hollow feeling of time overtake me. How long have Neveah and I been on the run? Two months, three?
I lay back onto a steaming, gray rock. The brittle feel rushes on my head, a slate pillow for me to rest on. The silhouette of a bird rushes through the sky, black against the vibrancy of dusk. Trees rustle behind me rattling on one another’s sandy limbs. The fiery gold of sunset is already melting into the deep sapphire twilight, waiting for night.
“Should we sleep here?” I ask Neveah quietly enough not to disturb a couple walking across the beach. She nods, but says in a short whisper, “I need to get something though.”
I watch Neveah brush off grains and shakily get up, crossing across the beach. She exits through the path, and leaves me leaning on the rock. I dip my feet in a nearby puddle, the cold water cooling my burning toes. I get up, and feel around in the puddle for a shell. Beneath a layer of muddy leaves, I feel something hard. Thrusting upwards, I find a perfect, white sand dollar, gleaming with beads of water and salt.
I look to where the family was picnicking, hungry for something to eat. Suddenly, I envy them for such a nice group. Why did I get the family that was altered into broken puzzle pieces? Why not someone else? Even now, I still want the warmth of hugs and presents, days where we do nothing at all but simply lay in bed and all talk together.
I think I want home.
But home will be different when I finally return from the blank universe, after getting Neveah back safely. My mom won’t be able to look at me without a spark of hate that I ran away without even any notice. I left her to mope on dad and I.
Shaking my head, I breathe in the smell of fishy salt and heavy air whirling around me. The dark scenery of night is surprisingly humid, bubbles of warmness spilling over the area. The family has already left, aware the tide is slowly dropping back through the sand. I have planted myself in a spot though, of dry beach, and the waves don’t come near our camp.
I droop into a sanctum of dream-like pictures. The world begins to mix, under my hazy vision. I am halfway between sleep and life. The water a pearly aqua, my skin on fire with a golden glow. I feel myself drifting off, falling away into blackness.
| | |
When I wake, Neveah is standing before me with a pleated, paper plate of deli meat and chili flavored Fritos. A wad of napkins is wedged between two of her dirty fingers, and she holds plastic forks with the others. I raise an eyebrow, and she speaks out, “Dinner.”
I smile, and take the plate in my hands, wiping off excess sand on the bottom of my swimsuit. The smell of meat runs through me, rich and greasy. I take a piece of sausage and lift it to my mouth. It’s Italian, heavy and dark. Washing it down with a few chips, I thrust the plate towards Neveah and she takes a piece of ham.
“Tell me a story Kapri.” Neveah says, swallowing her food and licking her lips.
“About what?” I ask her, watching as the irises of her eyes change to a subtle cobalt. She shrugs, telling me to lull her to sleep.
I transplant my words into telepathy, and begin.
“I remember so well the day I walked into high school. It was a crisp, baby blue skied day with emerald leaves sprouting from the maple trees dotting the school. I wore a red, fuzzy zippered sweater and cut off blue jeans splattered with paint and grass stains. I remember my hair was tied into a ponytail, with a ribbon scrunchie, still drying from my early shower. I felt confident, breathing in the smell of pencil shavings and swept, floor polish. I heard the clicking of our principal’s heels, smacking on the tile. A scattering of bubbly cheerleaders smiled at me, not my enemy, not my friend either though. They were nice to me, but didn’t fully accept me into their posse of curled hair and blush, of lip gloss sharing and gossipy secrets. Still, I was happy to fit in.
I slid into my seat in Language Arts, feeling my eyebrows furrow at the sight of my new teacher. She wore her hair in a bun at the center of her head, a sparkly hairband was holding it in. She was dressed in a long, maxi skirt with glittering embroidery around the blue hem. Around her wrists loosely hung glass green beads, making melancholy as they hit each other. The boys whispered about her, and the girls grinned, passing inky notes about her look. I sat quietly, waiting for her to clap her hands together and start the period.
“Good morning!” She said to us happily in a chiming, young voice. Her glistening, brown eyes shone at us brightly. “Let’s brighten you up writing stars! Write a poem, quick!” A girl named Andrea Moscow slicked back her pigtails, flinging the brown, shiny curls everywhere, and passed out sheets of fresh, lined paper. I gripped my pencil, the yellow paint so irritable from sweat beginning to peel off. Thoughts were steaming through me, but I managed to write down something.
“Alright kids, done?” We all nodded, biting our lips. “Come on up here Mis Isanhamn, let’s see what’cha got!”
I pushed forwards my side bangs, trying to hide under their coverage from everyone’s view. My paper was crumpled in my hands, but I straightened it out, and began to read through my acceptable poetry.
And we cried,
because we knew,
we were an end.
And we screamed because,
we knew
that we were leaning
on opaque walls
to survive.
We were trying,
but when they did not
support
we fell back,
and we knew
it was an end.
And we hurt because
even though
we were perfect
we felt inside
that we were breaking.
We knew we were
an end.
And even though
we leaned on
opaque walls
they were not enough
to keep us up.
Because we fell so hard
that when we were
knowing,
we knew
that we were gone.
Drifting slowly back
as we cried to sleep
and it was one long dream,
that we could never surface from.
And we cried because we
always knew
that we were and end,
and our long dream was
always there,
watching as we
tried leaning on
opaque walls,
but
became an end.”
“It sucked!” Yelled a kid from the back of the room. I moaned, this had been a complete downcast in popularity.
My teacher clapped, but I could see the ghostly looks upon some of the kid’s faces. “Opaque Walls.” She mused, “What an interesting title.”
I only looked at the floor, knowing it was not good enough.”
Neveah Fay
Immersed within
The sound of the wind,
The hollow brittle beat,
Crackling against the
Dry sand.
A pathfinder to
The sacred stardom,
The popularity that surrounds us.
The thing that grows
Beastly
Within our hearts.
A key to the door
That symbolizes us,
So that when I drop in
The lock,
I remove the gateway between,
And all that is left
Is ourselves,
Standing
Side
By
Side.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Neveah looks at me with a surprised, quirky stare. “But that was beautiful!” She spurs, not quite understanding how the poetry was bad. I shrug, and crumple up the used plate. She sinks lowly into the wet puddle before us, her feet damp in the water.
“It was their choice not to like it.” I say quietly, “Now!” I brighten up, smiling, “Tell me a story okay?” She nods openly, and begins to recite her memory.
“Long ago I remember that people used to be so vain, they could get away with wearing stuffed birds on their heads. The women wore satin dresses ruffled with lace, and the men fine collared suits with white stitching. The peasants dressed in gray, tarnished wear, simple breeches and soot across their faces. I remember one of the peasants, going by the name Dmitri was more or less, much poorer than the others. But each day she gathered a crowd, singing in the street way about her dreams to one day even see the lights of a bulb, turning on as she recovered from the cold snow.
The rich threw rocks at her, saying she was worth nothing, but Dmitri just bit her lip and felt remorse for herself. She knew deeper, that one day she would rise above them. Her friend, also a peasant nodded, and together they set forth into the world of song, hand in hand.
Things got better for Dmitri and her young friend, Thom. They ventured countryside, singing and dancing for everyone they met. People who lived in the hills were more generous, and paid Dmitri fairly. She collected all types of currency, from many kingdoms. Finally one day, she bought a house and willingly asked Thom to move in.
The two were married several months later, and were blessed with beautiful twins. Dmitri needn’t sing anymore, she was perfectly wealthy and had a good job in a café located three miles from the house. But even at night, Dmitri felt the tingle of music drone on, and she stepped out into the night sky, singing out her life.
‘Gone traveling on the life of both,
Been poor been rich been all!
I’m trying to just fit in,
And have, somebody,
Catch me when I fa-all!
I’ve been every life,
I’ve filled myself with strife,
Until I realized!
I’m not the only one,
Who’s been suffering,
And I let it all go,
Away.
Gone traveling!
On the
Life,
Of bo-o-th,
And I realized,
I’m nothing,
At a-a-all.’”
| | |
Neveah finishes her story, looking out at the dark sea. The vacant beach is eerie, shining with lamp light that reaches out to the tip of the icy sea, just enough to see the black waves roll in with grasping fingers of foam. The sunset is gone, and only is there the aftertaste of gloomy blackness blanketing the whole sky.
I watch Neveah fall asleep in my arms, covered by her blue, fleece fabric. She looks so peaceful, even with her kind’s fate resting in her hands. She is the only one left, and now it’s her duty. This must be her fate, to return safely and save her kind. The Indigo Children.
It seems centuries ago, when the T.V. buzzed on with a broadcast on the fascinating children across the world. My mom was in the kitchen, making us dinner and I sat on the couch flipping through channels to find something. A red headed reporter stood perkily in the middle of the screen, clutching her microphone with glee. She spoke about the kids, how they loved everybody, how they never doubted anyone. The screen darkened, and returned to a grainy station showing a football game.
I carefully slip Neveah out of my arms and walk down the beach. The shadowed sand is mushy, damp from the soaking puddles splotched nearby. I look behind, and see the water creasing over the prints, erasing my history. In the morning the dawn will arrive and nobody, will ever know the two sisters who came to Plum Island.
| | |
I find myself waking in an area of the beach foreign to my eyes. I brush sand out of my hair, and walk backwards to a familiar jetty where the tide pools begin. The water is lower down, sinking far out and making ripples in the grain. I rub my forehead, trying to find Neveah.
With relief, I spot her next to a cluster of flowering trees. She’s up, with her hair brushed into a neat set of pigtails. I lick my lips, still tasting dinner on them. She eyes me, unzipping the suitcase. “Here.” She says nonchalantly, throwing a pair of jeans and a tank top at me, “Go change in the trees.”
I nod, and stride over to the tall, slender trees. Sedated in the limbs, I strip off my sandy bathing suit and put on the clothes. The jeans are loose on my legs, reaching the tops of my feet. I frown, realizing how much weight I’ve lost. How much has gone through me. I slowly lift the tank top, revealing my stomach. Feeling myself gasp, I can’t tear away my eyes. I can almost see my whole ribs. I prod one. It feels unnatural, like I am a stick waddling through the body of a girl. Flipping the top down, I shudder. It’ll have to do, there is nothing that can be done about it.
Neveah follows my steps, watching with her slate gray eyes at every more I make. She’s fully clothed in an outfit of an overly large tee shirt and lint covered black leggings. Her mouth is upturned ever so slightly, but no sound emits. I see it, the small tears dropping from her cheeks.
“I did this to you!” She whispers, crying into my shoulder. I hush her, patting down on her back. Looking up, she squeezes her eyelids tightly and presses back more droplets from emerging. “I’m so sorry Kapri. I ruined you.”
I shake my head, smiling at her. She twiddles her thumbs, looks bouncing everywhere. “Maybe you didn’t ruin me.” I say thoughtfully, “Maybe it’s our way to start from scratch. Maybe it’s a new hope.”
Neveah Fay
More or less,
An outcast,
Who tries so hard to
Pass it by,
More or less a smaller mass,
Each day is tears to cry.
She’s mine!
She’s me! Why can’t you see?
She’s just like you,
Although it’s true,
It’s rather hard to see.
Younger in the age of friends,
Better at, blending in,
Someone who’s poor in trust,
The one who never wins.
She’s mine,
She’s me!
Why can’t you see?
She’s just like you,
Although it’s true,
It’s rather hard to see.
She’s mine,
And though,
She hides in the shade,
She better than you,
With your masquerade.
The one who I
Feel breaks apart,
She’s hanging off,
She’s ending the start.
The girl who lives,
Without a doubt,
She cries all night,
Her anger out.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I recover Neveah from her anxiety about my weight, and she settles down. Her face is pale, the dark colors of her outfit shining on her usually golden skin like a fire raining down. It burns out all her cheerful potential, leaving her drab and abused. I look expectantly at her furled fists, and raise an eyebrow. “Open your hands.” I say in instruction.
Neveah folds away her greasy fingers to reveal two bars of melting chocolate. Saliva jets into my mouth, hungry for the warm sugar. She smiles, and hands one to me, smudging her hands with brown paste.
I break off a piece of the bar with a satisfying crunch, noticing it must be a Kitkat. Parting my lips, I swallow down the chocolate. The taste is so foreign I barely recognize it, the thick base and light topping, ready to float away. Trying to make it last, I find the treat is gone in less than a minute.
Neveah stands up, brushing crumbs and sand off her shirt. “Let’s go.” She says. Agonized, I look up at her. I remember Claudio’s saying. We are Viaggiatores. Travelers. Fumbling with my loose strands of hair,
I shake my head. Neveah furrows her brows, and frowns.
“Where are we going to go Neveah?” I ask her sarcastically. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to get our final memories. The last two that we just could never reach. “Nowhere left to run is there?”
Neveah places her hands on her hips, and swallows. “I’m not sure what happened Kapri, but you swore to help me and return me home. We have to find somewhere, to go. We have to get the final memories. You can’t walk away, you swore.”
“Maybe I did swear!” I cry out, angry at everything, “but guess what you did to me? You made my mother almost cut herself, and you made me almost die from hunger, and you know what? I miss everyone! I swore Neveah, well I’m walking away!”
Neveah is calm, her eyes unmoving. I start to back away, my feet lodging into the sand. “Go.” She says carefully, talking like she is more mature than me, “But once you swear, your fate is altered. You’ll never forget.” My tread is faster, but I can’t function it properly enough to run straight. Finally, I find enough speed to drop in a vertical line, and pace faster.
Neveah tries to call after me, realizing how much she already misses me, but I know that she is just a silent killer. While we raced, she destroyed my family, my body, she messed with my soul. Everything was disappearing as she explained that it was alright. When I return, my mind will be in confusion, not knowing whether it is human, or Indigo. I push the thought away, and stop short. A dark blot is Neveah, sicker with her cold colors, not being able to wait. Her words slash through the air, cries maneuvering through the sound. “We are meant to be sisters!” I bite my lip, feeling tears run.
“Sometimes what’s meant to be isn’t always right.” I find myself whispering.
| | |
I sleep, not even sure where I am.
| | |
A flower grows beneath my feet, petals blooming in flashes of deep silver. I breathe in, aweing over such rare color. My hands reach to pick it, but below my fingers, the surface turns to stony ash. I tremble, but all I can filter is that I am a beast, everything must crumble away. “It’s not me!” I moan, “It’s not my fault!”
“Go home child.” A voice chimes around me, “Be with who you love.”
“I will.”
“Just remember Neveah, she is your true sister.”
My body shakes, falling on the ground and my eyes closing. I feel the darkness work its way across my body, slowly closing off my mind.
“Always.”
And then I am gone.
| | |
I walk off the beach with sorrow looming over me. My feet drag across the ground, and I bite my lip, knowing the face of Neveah is already gone. I close my eyes, trying to paint the picture of her smiling. Nothing comes, and I know her voice is gone, her face is gone. She floats away, useless. All of it was for nothing.
The first thing that I register is calling my Mom. I rush to the diner, Plum Crazy. Somebody will have a phone, and know to let me use it. As I near the door, everything shatters, and I feel like some kind of doll, being played with for my life. What will everyone do when I come home? There will be the phase of tears, the hate. But eventually, I know we will all grow together.
I listen to the bells ring as I run in. The store keeper smiles at me, nodding for a question. Wiping away sweat, I clamber up to the counter. The fake wood grain rumbles as I tap my dirty fingernails against it. “Do you have a phone I could borrow?” I ask, my mouth demanding the words. The woman behind the counter says yes, and hands me a cord telephone with blue numbers. I gulp, the moment has come for me to call home. I am coming early, I am still human. No fate fulfilled.
My fingers are shaking as they call my Mom’s phone. I hear the buzzing as it rings twice. The third time is delayed, but I hear a voice call out.
“Hello? This is Lana Isanhamn.” It says. I swallow down, and speak out.
“I’m at Plum Island Mom. I’m coming home.”
ⱷ
p a r t t h r e e
ARRIVAL OF SORROW
ⱷ
Neveah Fay
Now that Kapri is gone, everything is gone as well. I will wait here, because I know one day, she will return to help me. I cannot go without her, I need her help for the final two. Food will no longer sustain me, neither will hope. For the past weeks, there has been nothing but me sitting here. Each day I wait on the same cluster of rocks, the same area of the tide pools. Nothing will disturb me, nothing to come and help.
Kapri was selfish, but so was I. I stole her away, and manipulated her family. Everything fell apart for her. I deserve it here, to die without my home around me. I deserve to be on this beach, this horrible place. It was once beautiful, now it just scares me.
I hate everything, I only want home.
I don’t deserve a life on this Earth.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TWO YEARS LATER
The ride home that day was full of sorrow and flashing lights. A reporter looked at me, asking so many things. I didn’t answer, so my Mom shooed them away and we drove in silence. There was no ambulance, although a doctor called to ask if I was okay because my Mom explained to them that I had lost an extreme amount of weight. I didn’t tell them it was a six year olds fault, I pressed my head against the window, crying. The sight of Plum Island flooded away, all the color draining into the rocky roads to bring us back to New York. I didn’t say anything for three days, and I never told my Mom I knew she almost cut herself.
The next month we moved into a small apartment in New York City. The publicity in our hometown was too much for my Mom, and she didn’t want to stick around for any more. The subject I had run away grew faded, and things grew over it. We visited National Parks, ate picnics on the Mohonk Mountains. Nothing came close to the memories of Italy and Plum Island though, just small moments.
I didn’t bother looking up colleges, or going back to school. The teachers understood, they let me roam freely across the country side. At daytime, I could forget Neveah, but my dreams were always the same. Neveah laughing with me, in her Universe. Things perfect. It haunted me, and my soul began to defoliate. I became a wasted body, a wasted mind. A wasted Kapri.
My mom never bothered to ask me anything. I think she was scared to imagine what had happened when I ran. We became closer, more or less. Every time at dusk, she let me pull her outside to see the sunset and awe over the color. It was a ritual, to see the yellows melt over the sky. Leaves turned to gold, died, then were reborn to green. Two years passed us, and even the thought of Neveah was something that made me have a headache.
Most of my days were spent in bed, thinking of Claudio and Neveah. Sometimes I wanted to tell my Mom I’d went to Italy. Sometimes in my mind she would be happy, she would say that it was a nice place. But sometimes reality took over, and I knew of my Mom, raising an eyebrow and sighing. As if I should be on pills.
I wasn’t placed in therapy, like I thought I would be. I didn’t go to any strange rehab, nothing wild. Every few months though, a doctor would drop in, just ask how I was. I didn’t say much, that I was fine and nothing else.
But I would never be fine, I never will be. Days blur into months, into years. Things switch, the president is changed. We make new laws, we violate old ones. None of that can ever change what happened though, and what happened has changed me. I am half a human, half an Indigo.
Most people believe that you can eventually heal yourself, and things will be alright, but I know nothing will heal the wound that scarred me, the ones I love. Nothing will scab over such a river of blood.
Now I wonder what Neveah is doing. Has she gone without me, has she broken the promise I can become a full Indigo, that I will be whole? Things will always swirl around my head, did she stay on the Island? Did she pass away? She could have drowned; her body could be floating in the ocean right now, catching the wind as she lays her head to the clouds.
| | |
As I think of it, I bite my lip. The bedroom I now live in is a small place, according to the size of the apartment. My bed is squished between boxes of things that lie untouched from the day I moved. I shake my head; it’s time to open it up, to accept that Neveah is not my company to be with anymore. She has obviously moved on, and found another person to toy with. The first cardboard box opens, and I feel my eyes scan over an array of faded cotton shirts, the colors almost all gone. I dig a finger under the pile, and lift up all the clothing.
I drop the shirts on my bed, and sift through. The first thing I find is a ragged long sleeve with blue flowers on the hem, and an electric blue thread dancing on the petals. I smile, it looks like something Neveah would wear. Feeling myself gulp, I rub my eyes, forcing myself not to think of her. It isn’t working, and I feel my eyes close again. The darkness makes me think of my dreams, my usual setting of the Blank Universe. They’re always like this; my dream hasn’t changed for two years.
In my dream, I am sleeping in the beginning. My thoughts race, as we travel through a tunnel of paradox time. Neveah is beside me in the dark tunnel, and when we surface, she grips my hand, sweat aligning on my palm.
A sharp jolt always wakes me from my dream sleep. I am in a blank sheen of space, as Neveah always explains. There are no colors, just flat darkness, something blacker than black itself. There are no stars, but a distant light hangs around the hue of the scenery.
There are always people who welcome Neveah, and tell her that they’re glad she’s home. I stand uncomfortably, until they welcome me too. We are all happy, and tell stories. Everyone is together, believing that life is more than it seems. They are all like Neveah, all with a mysterious air around them. Songs radiate from within them, and they make them radiate from me too.
We stay a long time, we always do. Every time we are there for centuries, but Neveah tells me not to worry, she says that when the night finally ends, and I go home, I will be in the same spot as before, thinking back. She says that they might as well use their cameras and flash on, but they won’t get any information out of me. After one night ends, there is no sunrise or set. Every time is the same, all flat and dark. Neveah pulls me aside each time to say she knows that I miss it.
The people are kind, the land is kind, and everything is beautiful in a spacious way, which most don’t see. But Neveah knows I must go back, and they send me home. The day breaks then, and I wake up. I am just home again.
I bite my lip, and continue to look through the clothes. A flash of worn purple catches my eye, and I pick it up. The shirt I traveled in, the one that has Milan and bread flour woven into it, the golden grains of sand caught in the stitching. It’s hers, and she would want it back, but I remove my gray cardigan and slip it on, feeling strange in the old memory.
Laying down, I finally fall asleep. It’s a good thing, to at least remember the fate we could have if we could have always been together. The thing we wanted too much that it could never come true.