Trouvaille
The Immortal – Chloe Quinn
In my long life I have known several brief facts with no greater certainty than anything else; one, that I am bound to the life of the island in which I live, and two, that I shall know many visitors and watch them depart each time and that they are young and full of life. Their bright eyes behold my island with wonder and curiosity, that lift from the burnished golden sand, to the leafy forest and then to me, an eternal fixture of sorts, sitting on my rocky outcrop, watching them. Once, I used to run to them, excitedly drawn by the promise of someone new. That time has passed and so I sit, swathed in my pale white dress and golden sash, with my golden armlets and necklaces and my simple jewelled crown.
The outcrop was chosen carefully. In the mid-morning sun golden light peeked shyly over the tall island peaks, spilling gingerly down the lush forest, leaping down over the outcrop and to the beach below. It was a bit of showing off on my part but I arrogantly clung to the small victories, the tiny acts of power I had. Sometimes I felt guilty, shameful of the airs that I pretended to have, the position I falsefully claimed. Yet I feared no Gods anymore, for what punishment could they provide that I hadn’t already endured for my misdeeds? I supposed they might turn me into an animal, dumb to the intelligence of a rock but there was a kindness in that. The awareness of my own imprisonment was a torture not easily matched.
The timing of every arrival, as aforementioned, was predictable. As I sat there I watched as another boat, one a little different from the tattered raft that last floated on my shores, drew closer. The new arrival was a bright orange. It was rounded and soft looking, hardly suitable for sea, and I saw one figure sprawled out, one arm draped wearily over the side. Slowly it drifted closer, drawn by the tide and the magic of the island. When it finally grazed the sand, and stilled upon the shore the stranger remained still. I waited and waited but the stranger didn’t rise, not like how they usually did. So, I lingered another hour or so, the sun rising up to the middle of the sky, before I rose with a huff of irritation. A niggling voice whispered scathingly, how dare this one defy the routine? It was childish but the feeling remained as I made my way down the well-worn path to the beach. Before I saw the beach through the trees I felt my toes sink into the soft, silky sand, brushing over the top of them with each step that inched closer. I lingered at the tree line, hoping that the stranger might rise, if only so I could return to my outcrop and resume the natural order of things. Commence the distant relationship until they, as per before, departed without a backwards glance.
Yet, to my frustration, there was no movement. I made my way to the raft and peered in. There, sprawled out in tattered garments I had no seen before; a shirt of sorts in a garish green with a picture I didn’t know – or pretend to understand, and something unlike the tunics I was accustomed to. No, the garment adorned each leg and gathered around the waist like a skirt. A belt fastened it to scrawny hips, sharp bones jutting out. I looked up to his face, sunken in and badly sunburnt. It seemed like he was dead and I almost believed it when his chest moved slightly, his cracked lips parting for a feint, wheezing gasp. His eyelids fluttered and weakly parted, eyes that moved, as if drawn by me, and saw me.
“So, this is heaven,” he mumbled before passing out.
I stared at his collapsed body and sighed. He wasn’t in any shape to move on his own and I knew if I left him he’d die. I had little interest in going to the effort of burying someone, let alone leaving a corpse out with no birds to feed on them. So, I carefully looped one arm beneath his thin body and lifted him, his human body nothing to my immortal strength. Rather ungracefully, I carried him back through the forest and up the steep path towards my home. A stone villa atop the hill that, with magic and quite a bit of time, I had built myself. It was nothing so big as what I remembered from another life; simply a series of rooms focused around a small courtyard with a deep pool in the middle, enclosed by a myriad of lush foliage and flowers and blooming vines that crawled up the polished pillars. A hammock, an idea gifted by a visitor long ago, was strung up between two pillars where the sun spilt in from above. A thin shade was strung up temporarily when the sun was too warm.
Passing the tranquil scene, I took him into a nearby room, sparsely furnished and dark, save for what light came from the court yard. There, I set him down on the makeshift bed – the same bed many strangers had taken to at some point, though not always, when a few rare few were permitted to my bed. There, I tended to him; first stripping him down, cleaning what cuts he had, applying a salve to his chapped skin and cracked lips, then leaving a low lantern burning above. I drew a small curtain across, darkening the room.
I filled the rest of my day predictably; tending the garden, mending clothes, then scribing the day’s events on the temple wall in a series of pictures. Magic made that process day faster. The sun had set low, vanishing beyond the mysterious horizon, when I finished and returned to the stranger’s room. I carefully peeled back the curtain and peered in. Dark eyes stared back from that alert face, the lips moving slowly, trying to form words. Knowing what he was after I hurried off and collected a small jug of war and a cup. When I returned I entered calmly and sat down beside him, pouring the glass only a little and handed it over. He downed it and held it out. I repeated the process for several cups, slowly, before refusing the hug completely.
“You are weak; too much at once will make you ill. I will return with some food shortly. Nothing exciting. You would just throw up anything like that,” I declared, moving closer.
He flinched back. I held my hand out until he relaxed, then I touched his forehead. Immediately he seemed to relax into my touch, as I knew he would. They all did. I stopped thinking it meant anything beyond what it actually was.
“W-where am I?”
I glanced from his forehead to his eyes. “My island.”
“Where is that?”
“I can’t say in relation to any place. Your world tends to change what it calls itself so often,” I replied without humour.
He stared at her. “Who are you?”
I stood up. “I am Calypso, immortal, daughter of the titan Atlas, he who holds the sky.”
With that, I left.
What followed over the next few days was profoundly strange. I left early each day, tended to my gardens on the edge of the island, returning only to leave small plates of food out for him and a jug of water. Every time I kept clear of him, using magic to hide my arrivals and departures. Whenever I lingered or felt inclined to attend to chores about the villa I kept myself hidden. During these times I found myself watching him, curious as his strength returned swiftly with the ambrosia I trickled into his food. Curious as he explored my villa, taking interest in the room in which I carved my history. There, he seemed to take quite a bit of interest, spending hours learning my history. I know not if he was aware of my presence. He gave no indication.
A week passed and he was exploring the island; slowly, at first, with short walks down the well-worn paths. He found some of my small gardens and even my first home, a cave dwelling higher up. Long since abandoned it was a trove of relics from a forgotten life. Ancient things, forgotten, terrible things.
One night I returned and used no magic. I had believed he would be asleep, as he had in all nights before. To my surprise he was awake, sitting by the pool, cast in a band of silver moonlight. He looked handsome, I realised as I stood there on the fringe, shock and wariness thrumming through me. Like the heroes of old, though far thinner. He’d filled out, however, and his sunken face glowed with vitality; dark hair, now curly, framed that well-filled face and those watchful, dark eyes. In the clothes I gave he looked like someone I once knew, whose face was obscured, marred by the years since, and stirred old memories. When he looked up and found me there I thought I saw – though perhaps imagined it, as I sometimes did – something spark in his eyes. Foolishly, I might’ve wanted it to be familiarity but it was perhaps shock or surprise. The thought was quashed when he spoke.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said quietly. “My name is Hector, by the way.”
I made no movement closer. “I have. I do not like to be around the ones that come here. It’s easier that way.”
“Why?”
“Because you always leave,” I said softly, no more hurt or anguish in those eyes – that time had come and gone. “Attachment is not something I feel anymore.”
“Why do they leave?”
The questions seemed rational from him and he reminded me of a scholar. Curious, wary but not afraid. Needing to understand, to cleave out some awareness in the foggy web I tangled around him.
“The island compels all those when the time is right to go. No one can stay forever.”
“Except for you,” he stated. “So, you’re a prisoner, then. What did you do?”
Old memories, raw and painful, full of grief and madness, rose dimly to my mind. No clear pictures. Time had taken that. Only that raw feeling remained, sharp and stabbing. No mercy in the years. I clenched my hands and stepped back, as if to summon the shadows to swallow me whole.
“I am a monster and this is my den. You have seen my history, peered into what I have written on my walls, walked where you saw fit. You know me,” I said waspishly.
He tilted his head. “No, I don’t but while I’m here, may I? Can I know your story?”
His question reminded me of something I couldn’t place but the strangeness of his question dispelled it from my mind. My story? All that had come before asked to love me, for me to love them. Some asked for magic, for knowledge, for power – as if I might grant it from my prison. No one had asked before my story. I recoiled like a wounded beast.
“Why do you care to know?” I snarled.
“Stories are how we are remembered; good and bad. Besides, you’re fascinating. This place is…fascinating. I won’t promise to stay because you’re sure I’m going to leave, that this place – if that’s really possible – will make me. Saying otherwise won’t do anything useful. So, here I am, asking, who are you?”
I wasn’t sure why his words touched me, why I felt that need to speak rise within me. Perhaps I truly had become so desperate to find that connection again, deluding myself that I didn’t need it, that I was willing to expose my soul again. To lay it before his array of weapons because he did have weapons, whether he knew it or not. Strong as I was it seemed I had fallen unwittingly at his mercy.
So, I told him of my story; what little I recalled. The truth of my own story, anyway. How I’d been born amongst Gods and Goddesses, raised as a minor, only to be exposed to my origin. That my beloved and children were butchered, that in my grief I had descended upon a nearby island and slaughtered everyone. I sunk an island beneath the waves and cursed the few that survived. In my grief I was weak and the Gods said I had shown my nature, that I was as dangerous as my father – Atlas. My voice fell low as I spoke of the moment I was cast by the Olympians to my island, banished forever. There, I fell silent. He knew the story after that.
I hadn’t realised it but he’d drawn closer, as I to him, and we sat on a small bench beneath a tangle of foliage and vines. His hand had found my cheek and I was staring at him, in wonder. In my story he gave no look of horror or disgust, no rage to cast me away. There was a kindness in his eyes that made my heart hurt, that made my soul weep.
In him, I had found something special; a rare gem that had drifted upon my shores, fleetingly so. I knew there would come a time when he would depart – he felt it, too, he confessed a few days later. The island was drawing him away, filling his mind, consuming him slowly. I was grieved by it, praying that I might be released to follow him.
We sat on the beach together, as we had spent every day and night since that fateful moment together. Our hands were intertwined as I felt our spirits had become, though with each breath, I felt his slowly untangle from my own and drift away. I made no move to reach for it; instead, I savoured the moments, stole glances to seal the shape of his face, the warmth of his embrace, the taste of his mouth. To burn it all into my mind.
“I will return,” he said softly as the sun set; yet his voice, in that moment, was filled with the voices of those who had come before him. “I will come for you.”
I merely squeezed his hand, trying to burn the shape of his hand into my skin, so that I might recall it when he was gone.
When night time came once more and we were in my bed, half entangled, only a thin sheet draped precariously across us, he turned to me. Moonlight framed that achingly beautiful face.
“I love you.”
I leant close, pressed my mouth to his – brief, full of yearning – then pulled back, just a fraction as I set my forehead to his. In that intimate moment, on an island where we were the only two souls alive, enclosed by a primal feeling, I smiled at him.
“I love you, too.”
When I woke the next morning, he was gone. I rose swiftly and ran to the beach, just in time to watch as his raft, which had been magically repaired by the island, ferried him away. I fell my knees and, for the first time in so many years, I wept. I wept until I screamed, then until I cursed and spat at the gods, only to beg their forgiveness. Crying consumed me once more, then I was silent, my own grief clawing at my chest. I fell asleep on the island, falling into a slumber induced by my own magic. Days and nights passed in a blur – hundreds, perhaps – before I rose and went numbly to my villa. It occurred to me I had not wrote since the day he came. For several days I was kept busy, inscribing all I had done and felt. When I was finished I didn’t cry or scream. I was silent. I made no sound, no murmuring conversation to myself, as I went about my day. The routine that I fell back into so easily.
At one night I realised I had gone a day without thinking of him, that my routine had returned to normal properly. So, I went to my special room once more, wrote his name but once on the last remaining space.
One day I was walking along the beach when, without any real awareness or intention, I cast my gaze to the horizon. There, I froze to a statue. A shadow on the edge of the reef that edged the island, drawing closer. A small ship, white, with the tallest sail I had ever seen, and a lone figure at the helm. My heart sunk. Another visitor had come…and so soon, too.
I remained where I was, numb, until the ship stopped just shy of the sand and the figure dropped into the water. They drew closer. A man. It was only when they emerged from the water I saw their face clearly – as they had turned to me and had started to call my name. I was running before I knew it, my feet carrying me over in great strides, so fast I almost flew. Maybe I did. I knew not, only that I flew into his arms. When I pulled back I stared at him, shocked.
“How?”
“Zeus came to me in a dream. He said your punishment was at an end – this one, anyway. He ordered me to take you to your next one, your final punishment.”
My heart sunk. “What?”
He kissed me, then drew back a little. “How does a mortal life sound, my love?”
Shock coursed through me. I made no sound as he stepped back, took one hand, and led me to the water. Half of me expected to be filled with pain, for the island’s magic to claw me back, the other half was pure dread. Only, none of that happened. The water encompassed me as he led me to the ship in waist deep water. He climbed up first, then reach down and held out a hand. I stared at it, fearful of what might happen but, with a deep breath, I reached up, and took that hand. That rare gift that had appeared before me, my salvation.
It didn’t matter if it was real or not, if I had gone completely mad in my grief and ripped out my own heart, killing myself. I clung to it regardless and felt the warm sunshine embrace me as I stepped up towards my freedom, whatever form it took.
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