The Girl in the Water

Chapter 5

It was late, but I couldn't sleep.

Lilah Winters and Myrnah, Jannosh's wife, had fussily arranged one of the many bedrooms in their stately house for me. I had been awed by the classy, spacious room - the walls were wallpapered a light blue, and the light wooden furniture was girlish but functional. I'd discovered to my dismay that none of the clothes my uncle had packed for me could serve as pyjamas. Myrnah, a small, mousy lady with blood red eyes, had happily pulled out a horrifically stuffy looking nightgown for me to change into, but Lilah had saved me by providing an oversized tee shirt and a pair of sweat pants.

However, despite the large comfortable room and the even more comfortable clothes, I laid awake for hours. I watched the shadows the one tall window cast migrate slowly across the blue wall, and I loathed that the peace and quiet gave me the first opportunity I'd had in the last day or so to think about my parents.

No matter how tightly I shut my eyes, I couldn't get their faces out of my head.

My mother had been a small, lovely woman, slender but curvy, with long dark brown hair that she threw back in an untidy braid every day. Like her brothers, her eyes were silver, gleaming even in the darkness. Her laugh was contagious and echoed like bells; it was rare that the sound of her laughter didn't illicit laughter out of me in turn. Her hands had been soft and small, and lying in that huge unfamiliar bed in the blue room, I could almost imagine their soft touch on my cheek.

My father was opposite to my mother in every way. He was tall to her small size, and gangly where she was curvy. He had brown hair too, but it was light with tones of honey, and he kept his curls cropped close to his head. His neon orange eyes were deep set, with laugh lines crinkling at the corners like ripples in a pool. He was clumsy with a booming voice, and he never seemed sure what to do with his hands.

As I lay there, images and memories of them, once treasured, felt like dust. I ached for them now that I was far from home, longed for their warm embraces now that I felt so alone.

"Come back to me." I whispered sadly, hugging a pillow tightly to my chest.

But the blue room stayed empty except for me and the slowly moving shadows. So finally, conceding defeat, I slipped out of the room, the bare soles of my feet padding silently across the wooden floor.

Apollo and Lilah's home was silent, and lovely in spite of the darkness. Everything gleamed in the moonlight, and the quiet was nice and sleepy as I walked down the hall. Creeping down the staircase, I paused beside the piano in the front room. My mother had played - not well, but with enough enthusiasm that I liked to listen. My fingers stroked the keys, never quite able to press down.

Turning away from the piano, my feet carried me to the front door and out onto the grass. It was cool outside, and the air smelled even sweeter than it did during the day. The lawn was dry and soft under my toes, and the moonlight dusted both the grass and the tops of the trees with silver. I put my hands on my hips and looked up at the sky, marvelling at the explosion of stars in the sky. Such a view was impossible in Feloix Felaii.

I found myself wondering if my parents were up there now.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I sat down clumsily, rocking slightly as my fingers combed through the grass roughly. It wasn't fair that I was experiencing all these new things simply because they were gone; I shouldn't have waited for them to die to be able to step outside of Feloix Felaii. They should have been with me! My mother could have been here right now, pointing out constellations she'd learned as a girl, and my father would have been stretching out his long, awkward limbs as he smiled up at the sky.

I had never known true loneliness, but in that moment, I knew it fully.

"Emery?"

My head whipped back to see Roan standing in the doorway. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, and his U2 shirt looked wrinkled, as if he hadn't bothered changing before getting into bed. His silvery hair was messy, a strand sticking up in the back, but his eyes looked alert; even in the darkness, the gold in them glowed.