1Chapter IV: Eluti—I Am Alone
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'
They are gone. The words echo in my mind like a mantra. I have thought of nothing else since I received the news; indeed, I cannot turn my mind from it.
They are gone. I should have seen this coming. I should have known. I should have done something. But I did nothing, and so nothing prevented their capture. It is my fault. The children have to pay for the sins of their father.
They are gone. And is there nothing I can do? Can I not set this right? Or maybe … I'm too afraid to. No—no, I musn't think that! If I think I am too afraid, then I will be—and I cannot let myself be afraid. My children are in danger. They need me.
They are gone. I must get them back.
The whisperer is back. She wanders through my meditations, sometimes leading me, sometimes evading me, always whispering her strange messages, the ones I cannot understand. She teases me. No matter how much I follow her, how closely I try to pay attention, all I ever see of her is a flick of hair, a flash of dress, a beckoning finger. All I ever hear is her strange whispers.
She is smiling at me. Even without ever seeing her face, I know she smiles. I can … feel it, somehow. I believe she is trying to help me. There is something I must find here, in this strange world that is meditation, and she is my guide. And yet her presence only makes it more mysterious than ever.
"Who are you?" I call to her. "Why are you here? Where are you going?"
She merely smiles, and whispers.
I can't believe my ears. First my children, now this. Jahari looks apologetic, and almost afraid. He meets my eyes squarely, though, as he's been taught to do. But still—after everything that's happened, everything that's happening…
Why this?
"She's gone?" I repeat, incredulous. "Where? When? How?"
"We don't know," says Jahari, his voice deceptively calm. "She just vanished. She probably left to find the kids. There's no signs of a struggle. Maybe she just walked out in the middle of the night. It's not that hard."
I don't particularly want to hear about how hard it is to walk out of the mansion. I want to know where my wife went. "And you have no idea where she went? At all?"
He shakes his head. "None at all, sorry." He sounds overly cheerful, I think. As if he's happy she's gone. But then I realise that's a ridiculous idea—he's been Snapdragon's closest friend for years. Yet… I shake the thoughts from my mind. It's no use to try to pin blame on people for things like these.
I sink down into a chair, unable to comprehend everything. I feel numb. In shock. My children are gone. My wife is gone. I am utterly alone now. A sort of sadistic irony comes to me—Snapdragon once said, before the madness took hold, that she felt as if she could be sitting in my lap and still feel as if I were not there. Perhaps I was always alone. Perhaps it was my own doing.
It's my fault. I was never there to help them. I didn't protect them, or guide them. They're gone because of me.
It's not until I feel a wetness on my cheeks that I realise I'm crying, and then I don't even know why. I feel helpless, hopeless. There's nothing I can do anymore, and it's all because of my own doings. Never before have I felt more horrible.
And then a thought comes to me. Something Snapdragon used to do. At times, when things seemed especially grim, and the situation hopeless, or even if a negotiation had come to a standstill or a certain debate was on the verge of being lost, she would turn to her closest friend, her most trusted advisor, and ask a very simple question. Yet its simplicity hid a very great power, for the answer would always change the course of what was happening. I thought it was a fantastic, yet subtle, show of her wisdom. So I turn to this same man now, my wife's closest friend and most trusted advisor, and ask him that same question.
"What do you think, Jahari?"
He's halfway out the door when I ask this, and seems surprised at the question. He turns slowly, examining me carefully with his strange mismatched eyes. There is a very long pause before he answers. "I think," he begins, "you need to go, too. I think you need to go to the sea. I think you need to find Snapdragon there."
Jahari smiles at me. I give him a small smile in return. In a few simple sentences, he has told me more than the royal guards would ever find out.
Sometimes the greatest wisdom comes in asking the right questions.
The sea. I can see it from my balcony. A wide, expansive blanket of blue over a brown world. There are few places I feel more at home. Closing my eyes, I can feel the gentle breeze wash over my face, and I can smell the salt air. In the distance, a gull is calling to its mate. The lonely sound only reminds me of my own isolation.
The sky is grey and low. It looks ready to rain. Looking up at it, I feel as if it reflects my own emotions—a turmoil of sadness, loneliness, and guilt. But it does not rain just yet. It's keeping its sorrow inside. Just as I do.
A lock of hair has come loose from the long braid down my back. I play with it absent-mindedly, thinking about the way Snapdragon used to play with my hair sometimes. She was of the opinion that I worked too much and too hard, and I needed to relax. Back then, she was as free and wild as the wind, so different from myself. I remember her compassion, the gentle way she braided my hair in a myriad of ways, and the many times she would insist I needed a back massage, and though I would never admit it to her, I loved it.
I miss her. I've missed her for years. Ever since the coronation, and half her family died, and the depression took hold. On that day, she was taken from me, and never returned. But I have never felt as deeply abandoned as I do now.
"Snapdragon…" I whisper. "Where did you go, Snapdragon? Why did you leave me?"
That night, the whisperer comes close enough to take my hand. I still do not see her face, but I marvel at how soft her skin is. If I could see her, I know, she would be beautiful. Perhaps breathtakingly so.
"Where are you leading me?" I ask. For a moment, she stops whispering, and laughs instead. She has a pretty, musical laugh, like birdsong. But she does not answer me. "Will you help me?" I say. She only laughs again.
Then, to my surprise, she leans in close enough that I can hear her clearly for the first time. I still cannot see her face, but I know what she says. "If you love…" she whispers.
Then she pulls away, and dances into the mist, leaving me alone in my thoughts.
The sky is still grey, and it has not rained yet. I wonder how long it will be before the weight of the water finally becomes too much. The wind is colder, and harsher today, and I pull my robe around me for warmth. The beach is deserted; the only sound is that of my feet on the sand. Even the gulls have stopped crying. I wonder what became of the lonely one I heard yesterday. Did he ever find his mate?
The wind suddenly picks up, whipping my hair around like a long white banner. Struggling to keep it under control, my eyes fall on a patch of beach unlike the rest of its surroundings. There seems to be something buried there, underneath all the sand. The wind has exposed part of it.
I kneel down to get a better look, and brush away some of the sand. The something is rounded, like a bowl, smooth, and has an odd, iridescent colour. Intrigued, I dig further, and finally unearth it. It's a shell. I pick it up, examining it, and marvel at it. Its perfect shape, its smoothness, the strange, changing colours—it hardly seems natural.
Perhaps, I think, it's an omen. Though of what, I can't be sure.
To my surprise, when I look up from the shell, I see someone standing not six yards away from me. She wears a very plain white dress and a matching shawl, her feet are bare, her skin strangely pale and almost translucent. Her wings are tucked behind her, as pale and transparent as her skin, and her hair is a deep, chocolate brown, cut short and being tossed about by the breeze. With a shock, I recognise who it is.
Snapdragon.
I am running to her before I realise it, the shell still tightly clutched in my hands. "Snapdragon!" I call to her. "You're here!"
She turns slowly to me, as if in a dream, and looks up at me with a blank face. Her sky blue eyes, once so bright and knowing, seem dulled. There is no spark of recognition in them, no joy at seeing me. In fact, she seems strangely numbed—if there is any feeling in her eyes, it is one of confusion.
"Who are you?" she asks. I am taken aback; the bottom of my stomach opens up, and my heart, suddenly frozen, falls through it. She doesn't know who I am.
She's forgotten me.