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If there was something Greta could think of as her best friend, it would be darkness. Even that was an understatement. The shade had become a part of her before she knew it, the first thing she noticed. An attachment, much like her shadow. Shadows were dark, right?
At least that was what Johanna had told her.
Johanna had told her about a lot of things. In her ears—which had enhanced themselves as a compensation for her everlasting darkness—Johanna’s voice sounded like a cup of warm tea, with just the right amount of honey. She loved it. She could listen to that middle-aged woman talk for hours and would never think of interrupting, unless if the said interruption only prompted Johanna to say more.
Every morning, Johanna would lead Greta into her bathroom where she would take off her nightgown and bathe herself. It had been done ever since she didn’t know what a nightgown was, until she could almost paint a picture of her bathroom in her head. A ceramic maze that was damp and slippery. Johanna would sit beside the tub to hear her talk about her ‘dream’ last night, or lack thereof.
In her dream, she heard a sprinting horse, smelled an array of leaves after a night of heavy rain, or tasted the bread she had for breakfast. When she felt nothing but utter silence immersing her, Johanna would hear minutes of headache-centered complaints the next morning, and that meant more assistance. For her, taking a warm bath was like falling into a daydream—where nothing was presented, but she perceived everything ever so intensely.
Sometimes, she wished Johanna was her mother. Johanna was the first person who told her she had long and wavy auburn hair, in which the older lady had particular interest of braiding. Johanna also told her she had an oval face, a pair of arched brows, pointy nose, and thin lips. Her eyes were said to contain an alluring shade of hazel, and people around her loved to spend a little bit more time gazing at them. Greta had learned almost about everything from Johanna. How the uppermost strands of Johanna’s hair were at the same level as her chest, the correct altitude her hand must reach for her tongue to retrieve the saltiness of her porridge in the morning, and even the heroic tale of how her castle had come to be. She didn’t understand most of what Johanna had taught her, but every second they spent together was a delight. Johanna was someone she could hold on to even in the utmost absence of light.
Sometimes, she wished Johanna was her mother, but the amount of creases that were carved on Johanna’s skin as far as Greta’s fingers had traced them told the younger woman she had gone through a great deal of issues—enough to accelerate her age by few years. Besides, Johanna was already a mother to someone Greta dearly knew. Greta’s mother by blood, on the other hand, had departed the world not long after Greta’s entrance. She fell ill in the middle of her pregnancy and the only cure was her eventual demise. Greta took after her mother in terms of appearance and character.
