“The flute was left in a package for me on Armon’s boat. I have it. Lady Rhea Silva asked me to show it to her at Lago di Bracciano. But Kira told me that I will have to light the fires on the Kalends of the New Year in the place where the seas meet.”
“Kira told you that much? That plainly?” Cybilla gasped.
“Yes.”
“What did you have to give her?” Oren asked.
“A jewel on a chain. It had been my mother’s.”
“Of course, a jewel,” he laughed.
TREDICI:
‘At the place where the seas meet.’
That was the part that vexed me. There were many seas, and many places that the seas met. How would know the right place?
I could not fail at this. I simply could not.
~ ~
I remained with Oren Gale and his family for a number of days. He told me many things about his quest as he taught me to play the pan flute that was left on Armon’s boat for me. Interestingly, he was nearly the same age when he met Cybilla that I was when Dia saved my life and just a little older than I, when he found her name and began his quest. He, however, was a talented musician. I was the son of a sailor. I had means. I could make a comfortable life, but I was no Oren Gale.
And that worried me.
But Cala giggled when I confided in her. “You do worry a lot, Bastien!”
“I think life has given me cause to worry.”
“Fair point. But not here, not about this. I think a muse must love a man of the arts. It is that gift, that passion that calls her. But a Nymph must love a man of the Sea, a man who loves the water as she does.”
“Thank you. You have made this so much more real for me, you give me such hope.”
“Well, don’t take my words too seriously, she may just love you because you’re handsome and that French accent is a little sexy,” she teased as she ran her fingers up into my hair.”
I felt my face redden.
“You do know that, right? Women must tell you...”
“I have never made time for relationships, Cala. I lost my mother and then my father, I could not manage more heartaches. I shoved even this one miracle from my mind and hid it away with the last of pieces of my old life.”
“That makes me so sad. Bastien, when you leave here tomorrow, you won’t lose touch with me, will you? My family can be your family too. We all share so much. I would like to see your wedding and the happiness it brings you.”
“I promise you that I will stay in touch. I promise. You are so confident that I’m going to be able to find her and I am so afraid that I will not. I think I understand what I have to do and when, but where is still a mystery.”
“Do you want my opinion?” she asked, but quickly backpedaled. “You can say no! It’s your journey, I didn’t mean to butt in, I just...”
“Cala,” I interrupted, “I would love to hear your opinion. I really would. The Lady of the Lake at Bracciano told me to take all the world offered, not to turn anything away, so if you are offering me your thoughts, I welcome them.”
“Okay. This might be really silly, it’s just an idea that sort of popped into my head when you were telling your story,” she said, blushing a little.
“I won’t think it’s silly. Cross my heart.”
“You’re French,” she blurted out quickly.
“Okay?”
Her eyes darted around the room, avoiding mine. “Well, you said you didn’t know who you were, and you were having to find yourself. I sort of had this idea that when you’re on land, you’re French, but when you’re on the sea you’re Italian. I mean, I guess I thought that the bond you had with your father and the sea was what called Dia to you, and that was the reason the song was Italian. So, anyway, I thought the place was, sort of, um, you. Not physically you, but...”
I stood gaping at her. I had never thought of myself in that way.
“It’s dumb.”
“It’s brilliant,” I said, wrapping my arms around her. “Thank you, Cala. I can’t thank you enough.”
The next morning I set out again.
I still had a number of days to make my way to Marsala and frankly, I needed the solitude to think through all that had happened since I bought that necklace for Adrienne. And yet, in a way, I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to rationalize it away, I wanted to blindly accept that there was still magic and mystery as Cala said. I wanted to believe that fate had my back this time.
I walked a long way. I stayed along the coast, just to hear the water.
I squeezed that coin in my hand and wished as I whispered her name in my head.
But no mermaids swam in the blue sea.
No nymphs swam into my dreams.
I was just as alone as the past twelve years had made me.
QUATTORDICI:
I sat at the docks in Marsala for nearly the whole day waiting.
I was beginning to fear that Armon met trouble or that the boat was not as sea worthy as he was led to believe and his plans changed. But he left me no messages, so I waited.
At last, as the sun began it’s descent over the sea toward the west, a tall boat limped toward the harbor. Oh, she was beautiful from a distance, and yet she seemed to be foundering, almost forced along her path when she should have been flying along the water. I grabbed my things and made my way toward the slip where the boat seemed to be aimed.
Armon was barking orders to two young men and they scrambled to get the mooring lines cleated and ready. I leapt to the deck as soon as the boat was near enough and began battening down the sails that had been lowered but not secured. One of the others tossed the bumpers over the side and Armon pulled the wheel hard to land the boat in the slip.
He looked utterly worn out.
The two young ones were very obviously Greek, brothers, and seemingly twins which sort of freaked me out a little, and yet seemed fitting. But we completed securing the boat and I walked the length and breath of her, admiring and mourning. She was a diamond that had been set in a cheap flimsy setting. The comparison to the boat we set out on was ironic. This journey of mine seemed to be lesson upon lesson, opening my eyes to not only what I was, but what I was meant to be. It was about stripping away that which was not original, not the heart and soul of the boat, of the man, and remaking it, reawakening what was underneath. It was about remembering the past, not hiding it, not covering it up, but glorifying it, giving it new life while restoring the old memories, hopes and dreams.
The young ones disappeared into the day as Armon told me about his journey. He spoke in French, which sounded strange after nearly two weeks of Italian and English.
“The trip was hard, Sebastien. The boat could barely pull three knots. The boys are grandsons of the owner. Nice kids, but they have no knowledge of sailing, only of speed boats. I am wiped out. I would spend an extra day relaxing here, but I think it is still going to be six days to get her to Toulon. I had hoped to stay east, bring her up the coast of Italy. There are more ports if we have troubles. I thought we might stop in Bastia and rest and then start west across the Ligurian, but the way she is now, I don’t think she is nimble enough for that route.”
Bastia. My mind stalled.
“So what are you thinking now?” I asked after a long moment.
“West out of Marsala. Keep the coast of Sardinia in our sights. Then we bring her north into Toulon. This is a big job, Sebastien, are you ready?”
“I am ready. I will do anything you will teach, Armon.”
“Eh, I know you will, my boy. Did you find answers on your trip?”
I laughed. “Some answers, but many more questions.”
“It is the way of life. Always more questions than answers!” he laughed. “Come, tonight we will drink good wine and get good rest.”
~ ~
The day seemed so much more natural out upon the sea. The boat was surely crippled with the burdens of w
hat some considered advancements and the going was definitely slow.
I was at ease.
Happiness was here upon the water and I began to whistle.
And when I realized the song was coming from my lips, I clutched the coin in my pocket and called her name in my head.
At last we dropped anchor and set about the business of resting.
I lay upon the deck gazing into the night sky. The gentle waves rocked me to sleep. It seemed to be only a moment later that my mind registered the feeling of fingers stroking my hair. The desire to open my eyes battled with the desire to remain still and let that feeling continue. I flexed my right hand but I did not feel the smooth planks, no, I felt sand. I startled. “No! No! Not again!” I cried out.
“Shh, you are only dreaming, Sebastien. It is just a dream, my love,” she said softly as she stroked my cheek and pressed her hand to my chest. “You’re fast asleep upon the boat. You are safe, I promise you.”
And I opened my eyes and looked at her.
“Dia,” I breathed. “It’s you. You’re here with me.”
Never in my life had I seen a woman who stirred my heart as this stranger who sat beside me and called me ‘my love’. Her hair was long and colored like the setting sun. Her eyes were both blue and green at once, like jewels. She was long limbed, but delicate and though I did not know her, I knew her.
“You said I was dreaming. Are you just a dream?” I asked.
“No, Sebastien, you know in your heart that I am real.”
“How do I find you? Can you just tell me plainly? What do...”
But she began to cry and I did not know what I said that hurt her.
“You don’t want me to find you,” I said as my heart cracked in my chest.
“It is not that at all! I want you to come for me. That is my greatest wish.”
“Then why do you cry?”
She dropped her eyes from mine. “I must tell you something and I fear that you will not want to continue this quest when you know that what happened the night your father died was my fault.”
I could not accept that.
“I was supposed to be guarding the boat, Sebastien. Gian Parodi was a good man, a man who still believed in the old ways. There was such great love in his heart, and that was why he sang to the sea. My sisters and I loved to hear him. But my heart loved something else. I loved the one who sailed with him. I was not watching the sky or the water. If I had been, I might have been able to...”
I shook my head. “You couldn’t have known the lightening was about to strike, no one could know that! My father sailed his whole life and he was sure we were ahead of the storm.”
“But I...”
“Please don’t. It was an accident, a fluke. It was just one of those things that happen, and I need to believe that because I have no memories of that night after the mast fell and if what happened could have been different, then I have to wonder if I could have saved him.”
She began to cry harder.
“Don’t cry, Dia, please! This is the only chance I have had to look at you, to see you, to touch you, and you’re crying. It’s breaking my heart that you don’t feel happiness in this meeting. You took me to the shore, didn’t you?”
She nodded but she would not meet my eye.
I sat up and wrapped my arms around her, and my heart said she was meant to be there, to be in the circle of my arms, pressed against me.
She whispered, “you were thrown into the water. You were not moving. I got you safely onto a plank. He was calling for you, over and over, and I went to him, Sebastien, I would have taken you both but he was so badly injured. He begged me to save you and I promised him I would, but you were unconscious. I did all I could do. I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
“Did he drown?”
She shook her head. “He had the protection of the water. My sisters took him beyond this realm.”
“You asked me to forgive you that morning, on the beach. I didn’t understand. I had no memory and I thought those beautiful eyes and that voice that was whispering my name were just a dream. But I won’t forgive you for that day. If I offer you forgiveness then that implies that you did something wrong, that I blame you. And none of what happened was your fault. We took the risk of setting out with the storm coming behind us. You granted his last wish and took me to safety. You saved my life and I will never be able to repay that. I just need to know one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Why me, Dia? Please tell me. So many riddles still stand between me and the answer to finding you, I just want to hear this one thing in simple words.”
“I don’t know if words are ever simple, but I will tell you my tale. When Oren set out on his quest, he came to the fountain at Trastevere and he tossed that coin that rests in your pocket into the fountain. I grabbed it before it hit the water. I was bold then. I leapt from the water and stood before him. The gate he needed to find was his heart, and the moment I laid my hand upon his heart, I knew he had it within himself to succeed because his heart was filled with love for Cybilla alone. I had never felt such a thing before and I wished that there was a man who would feel such love for me. I still had his coin tight in my hand when my heart made that wish. When I went back to the water, my wish attached itself to the coin.
Oren was a very fine man and I chose to help him succeed. The second time I went to him, I think he knew what was in my heart. He made me a promise that should he succeed he would sing a song to let the man who was in my heart find his way to me. For a time, I thought it was your father. He sang the song, my song. He believed. But I did not feel in my own heart what I felt in Oren’s heart. And Gian loved another. I lost faith in that feeling and I left the sea.
I stayed in Lago d’Averno for a long time. Until one day I felt something in the water, something my heart said I must find and the water brought me to you. You were standing in the shallows, working the nets. Your father was on the boat preparing to sail. He was telling you something that I could not hear. You began to laugh and I fell in love, so deeply in love. I watched you many times but I didn’t know how to meet you. On that last trip you stood at the rail whistling our song to the wind. I was going to try to come to your dream. I wished to be as Cybilla was to Oren but it all went wrong so quickly,” she said softly as her tears began to fall again. “I left you the coin because my wish was bound to that coin and you were the one I wished for. But many years passed and your hand never touched it. I thought it was because you could not forgive me.”
“No! No! Don’t think those words anymore, Dia, they have no truth. I had no memory. If I had known, nothing could have kept me from seeking you. Nothing.”
“I felt it when you held the coin, Sebastien. I can hear what you whisper in the night when it is touching you. I knew you were coming back to the sea. I left the package on Armon’s boat and he took you in, as I knew he would because he believes in magic and fate.”
“Did you send the twins to guide me?”
“No. I did nothing after I left the flute. As I said, I did not think you would want to be with me. But The Great Mother made a promise to Oren and I think the moment the flute was in your hand she took over. I should not be here. Once a man has begun the quest...”
“Calandra said as much. But maybe this is not so much a quest as the fulfillment of the promise.”
“I needed to tell you about that night before you lit the fires, Sebastien. If you lit them and called me to you without knowing, my heart would be so heavy with guilt that I don’t know if I could have come forth from the water.”
“There is no guilt, Dia. Tell me you will come. Tell me that you still wish I would continue.”
She took the coin from my hand and she kissed it and laid it upon my heart. “I still wish for you, Sebastien. You are all I wish for.”
“You would give up immortal life for me?”
“With
out a moment of hesitation,” she whispered. She kissed me, deeply, passionately, a connection so deep our hearts were bound through all of time and I began to sing the song just as my father sang it.
But I woke up alone on the deck of a Greek boat that Armon and I were going to remake into a fairytale and I still didn’t really know how to find my princess.
QUINZE:
And then I was suddenly back in France.
But who was I?
I wasn’t sure anymore, but I knew who I wanted to be. So I quit my bank job at last and moved my sparse possessions to a small apartment in Toulon, near the market, not far from the house I lived in as a child. And I went and stood outside that house. A family lived there. They appeared to have small children from the items collected near the front door. I remembered what it was like when my Mama would comb my hair and tickle me when she tucked me in to bed at night. I remembered my father coming home with great stories about his travels.
I remembered when I had a family.
I wanted that life again, I wanted the love and the laughter. But no, I didn’t want that life, I wanted what Oren Gale had. I wanted love that broke the boundaries between the worlds. I wanted impossible children. I wanted something that would last forever.