804. you know what

We leave tonight, said Kyra.

Why tonight? Why not tomorrow morning? asked Yul.

It will make decompression easier.

Well, I don’t like it.

You know what Yul? I don’t give a rat’s arse what you like. We leave one hour past dusk. Say what you got to say. Do what you got to do. But we ain’t waiting on no one.

I call bullshite on that.

Chill, said Rog.

I just don’t see why.

Kyra looked at Mairi. You want to tell them why?

All eyes turned to Mairi. She began with an apology. Not everything she had told them about her and Dr X was true. And for reasons she would explain later, if they didn’t leave tonight, they might not be leaving at all.

Well frail me, said Yul, storming off.

Rog looked at the others with a shrug.

Rog! Turn and tuck or you won’t have nothing to turn and tuck.

Kyra turned to Von. Can you do something about that?

Nope.

Well, try, cause I ain’t got the time nor the patience. Oh, and Von?

Yes?

Tell John I need to see him.

800. as sun and cloud

She sat on the porch and watched them walk to the lake. They walked like leaves fall and they held hands as children, arms swinging, fingers tight. They seemed to be talking from the look of heads leaning, of attention held, gyroscopic by way of centered, balanced. Their walk was not of time or destination, she thought, nor for show or presentation. They were as sun and cloud. They held that kind of endlessness about them. Moving yet eternal. An archtype. As effortless as autumn. From the distance, she could not hear them, the trail beneath their silent feet gutter worn. The lake beyond was smooth and blue in reflection, still and quiet. Tranquil. All of it. As clear as day is to night, as light to dark, as them to her.

799. one way

Mairi would take the train back to town. And at the station, which would be awash in unfocused color, a blurred brimming of mainly dark hues, she would purchase a one-way ticket. The sounds of the terminal would be clear, of wheel and rail and steam and torque against the muted backdrop of conversations murmuring like sweet summer grass. Her movements, she thought, would be slow, her hands gloved, and she would wear a brown felt hat to match her long coat, neatly buttoned top to bottom. All in order. The Chatelaine words echoed. All in order. Let action shape thought. Keep moving. Go through your progression. Yet, those images; of her arm hanging limp against her side; the look of the agent on asking if there would be a return; her mumbled reply; the sliding of her passage under the glass; all would seem a little too much like Bravo leaving Hyneria. There would be departure. But no return. As there was no appetite, no desire to engage, to speak of things as if they could be spoken. So she would watch the endless flowing into and out of the station. She would watch clocks ticking the seconds into minutes. Thoughts of Em painting would come to mind. Best not too many strokes she would say. Paint neither too thick nor too thin. Apply with a even sweep of hand across the surface lightly. Moving. Always moving. A place, Em would say, far, far from thought.

782. she cried, he left

Mairi had returned and her story filled the cottage through the night as if round a campfire. She had searched, village by village, town by town and he was nowhere to be found. Sitting in a small cafe one morning, he found her. They talked of what was and what was not and could never be. She cried. He left. And a cold wind seemed all that remained.

780. upon the door, came a knock

They sat around the table and joined hands in silence, heads bowed, eyes closed. Ariel spoke the words of grace, her diminutive voice filled with a serenity and wisdom of word and tone beyond her eight summers. All were present save Mairi. Until, that is, upon the door, came a knock.

674. the elegant grace of the fall

The exercise was simple. Sit. Watch. And in time, from the rose, would be a falling, a petal overcome in time, by age, coming to terminal (in the sisterly way of leaves in autumn) like a train at the end of route. A slow, gentle succumbing. Taken with an innocent breeze from the motherly lips of a blue wind. A return to roots, to the fertile dark soil, the tail of the circle caressed, joined, connected in the way of fish and water, of sun and sky, of inhale and exhale.

As a chatelaine to be, this lesson, understanding to observe the unnatural resistance of life self-centered, misunderstanding it's place, role within the greater play, act, performance, this lesson. above all others, the elegant grace of the fall, the eternal truth of the circle, of relaxing into the dulcet rhythms of biology, of relationship, of love and letting go of ideas, of constructed constructs masquerading, of, as was revered, surrender.

Three weeks is a long time when all you have are your thoughts. Your thoughts and your past. Your thoughts and your training. Your thoughts and the molasses of a future moving like lava within the caged cavity of demoniacal desire. She knew all this. Like a fly to flypaper. If her petal were to fall, she wanted that fall in his arms, to see his eyes close the act of her life, his limbs holding the nesting of her heart, his breath the final kiss upon her lips sending her, her falling, to the dark soil.

__________

Thought percolating, she thought of Trev, of verse. Reaching for parchment, she quenched thirst of paper for ink as soil for rain:

I remember clearly the day
I learned to read
again

when the ocean rose up
and slapped a smile
across my face

and the sun sent
its arrows
upon my back

and your toes laced mine
upon a sea of sand
hands wet as kisses

I knew then
your verb
and not a few adjectives

like so many grapes
bleeding
my tongue rouge

673. Eternal Falling

Mairi watched Bravo depart. Growing smaller. And smaller. Just a star now. Extinguished in the great black coldness. An ocean, ink for water. Murky as the future. Left and left. Gauche feet. Gut gouache. Seeds in the belly. A growing hunger. Ambition driving rain of duct. Between and between. A landscape pocked with the unfamiliar. Moon barren. Dark side cold.

"Your transport is ready."

"Thank you," said Mairi, the voice, her voice sounding distant as if she was overhearing a conversation. "How long to Arc'teryx?"

"Three weeks."

She followed the drone through a sea of metal, of voices unknown, whispers in winter snow, the raven hungry, the dead buried. A walk not unlike one taken a lifetime ago, maroon cloak pulled tight against the wind, hair like flags in the open air, nose pert, alive with the breath of nature amidst The Garden of Eternal Falling in the house of Chatelaine.

__________

In her private quarters aboard the transport, Mairi watched the liquid fireworks of the universe slip by. Her chest felt like the nebula before her eyes, mysterious and seductive, beauty pure, as a hand leading. She drank wine, red to match her lips, the crimson of life, of blood, of the wine that warmed the turmoil within; as if a furnace she stoked with each sip, twirling tongue, imagining two where there was just one. She could not read. Too many thoughts barricading the entrance to the written word, pages feeling old, of a story known, static, dusty when air she needed, like a swimmer, like a baby born, to gulp and grasp the invisible tether. To pull this life into her lungs knot by knot, to fill as a balloon and rise to the light. She sighed. The only sound. Her only companion.

__________

She closed her eyes in the silence and began to float. Her cloak unbuttoned, hinged on shoulders bare, a curtain to the ground. Knees delicate and denuded, bent and spread with intent; cool air as a whisper flowed upon the river of dusk between her pale mountains erect, ripe of aching cherry. He had taught her to go inward, to travel the path of those electrical impulses, to caress and massage in the way of dreams sweet. Each touch a finger, of tongue educated in the ways of solitude and water, of clear glass filling and emptying, of that twin gateway of softness before the moat of orgasmic falling, falling as leaves, as petals, as the sun that rises must fall with a kiss of the horizon, dipping, melting, glistering out into the nothingness of abject surrender to a night drunk on stars, afire in the pen of meteors castings the warm flickering glow of a smolder burning beyond sight.

___________

In the silence of her cabin, skin bare, breathing the view, floating as on a calm lake. She exhaled. Lips full, blushed, agape. Limpid eyes of glass. Hands drained as legs tremulous in effort released the ecstasy of creation. Hair damp of exertion essayed. She eased into sleep deep as the cavern of her sorrow, as the cavity of her hope.

670. the rein of heart

"Mairi, may I come in?" asked Kyra.

The door opened. Kyra stepped in, museum quiet and clean the quarters. Like a docent of hair autumn coiffed, her kit organized, clothes folded, bed made lake smooth in the way of one trained in the sartorial arts, stood Mairi. Elegant sadness, flowing steel, cheeks doll symmetrical below eyes limpid in the vision of heart, reins held beyond articulation. Bearing dignified as death, her fingers blanched in the way of deep space, graceful in length, manicured as gardens of state. "If you've come to change my mind, I will allow you to speak."

Kyra smiled of cheek only. Starlight evident in the glass of her eye. "I've come not of word, but of ear, not to talk, but to listen, not to command, but rather hold."

Mairi sighed. "Have a seat. I have nothing to say, which is not to say I do not appreciate your gesture."

"I know."

Mairi continued to pack. Her movements measured as if the very reach of limb and climb of leg could control the chime to come, paint texture to the hour with each slow breath, each soft step. Kyra watched as one athlete watches another, admiring the choreography of past training bearing fruit, ripe, mature. She moved like water flowing, continuous, without beginning or end, a geometry of curves in dance.

"You know," said Mairi after some time, "I must go."

"I know."

"I would rather a goodbye without ceremony."

"As you wish."

"Ceremony seems so final. And there is always crying. And I can't bear either."

"Mairi."

"Yes."

"You will always be a part of Bravo. And you will always be welcomed back."

Kyra stood, opened her arms and as the sun dips below the horizon, Mairi poured herself into the melanic leather of the one taut and tight, her red hair looking like a torch held in the night of Kyra.

663.Round the Horn III

Yul exhaled as the setting sun. Rog inhaled as the rising dawn. Lips touching, parted, just breathing each other before the wonders of the cosmos of sheets warmer than before. Eyes shut as curtains before the stage of imagination, tongues playing as actors, darting to and fro, moving slow and quick, a touching of intent, a gliding beyond, beyond content. Sighs taken, sighs stolen, fingers searching, pulling hair as reins as necks bulged in sinewy shadows, lithe in desire, curved in reach. Hands spoke and fingers travelled, exploring nooks as scholar upon books as eyes followed lips in looks upon dives took; and taken.

Mairi cried the cry of frozen tears heard, not seen. Her face as stone in the rain. Her mind made up.

Kyra and Ariel danced in the light of the next life, master and apprentice, walking on rainbows, floating on clouds, kissing the sun with their eyes and tickling the stars with their toes. What had been given was to be given and so give it was with a natural joy, free as the breeze in the trees.

Von held his grandson. A name to give she had said. A son's wish she added. He beamed as a grandfather, holding lineage, holding a past and a future. His smile grew and Zoe smiled the smile of happiness shared, of a journey travelled to a successful conclusion.

Trev and Em, two cups of snizzle, one sheet of paper and eyes that said read. He didn't need to be asked twice. She found the spot between shoulder and chest, a nook to hear the heart she loved. He read as if floating, as if an audience of angels sat the seats of plush.

John leaned over the lave, door locked. The mornings were still hard. The memory still vivid. The pain almost unbearable. She was gone from sight, gone from touch.

654. The Sit of Stone

Mairi sat the sit of stone, flesh as marble, skin the color of bone. Her hands looked old and dry, silent fingers drawn within. She sat the quiet as a tree roots the ground, watching the worlds go round and round. Clocks ticked, louder for the silence, ticking away a life, of moments forgotten. Hell is a house alone, of children grown, of leaves not raked and gutters not sewn. The alabaster heart beats as little feet, running toward, forever toward, the parent long gone. The days and nights come, taking turns, sitting, just sitting as we sit when there is nothing to say, anxious to go, belabored to stay. And upon the starlight a silent orchestra of motes, languid glitter, nature's confetti, respectful in their beam, quiet toward their slumber.

651. No

Spartan cell
floor plain as wall
I sit

I stare at a steel door
one of many
gloss gray

Sunlight slats
my solitary window
a silent visitor

I close my eyes
to the click of heel
sound linked
to history

And for a moment
I am not here
but there
a foreign land
divided by a common
language
a common shore

I sit there
as I sit here
alone
afraid
the pew as hard
as my bed
the light as stained
as the memory

From somewhere
someone is walking
heels on cobbles
heels on stone
rhythmic
melodic
deliberate
meditative
doppler

I smell ancient wood
and see standards hung
scenes hued between lead
and the cold of great
heights
reaching
arching
beaconing
as fingers
whispering
for
my
soul

Tethered
I feel
by forces unknown
quartered
my soul
by fate postponed

Like drops from a gutter
the rain gone
nature's clock
moving
clicking
clacking
I hear the heels
I sense the beads
I know the prayers
and I wonder
how one so close
one belayed to me
can be so far
so distant
so cold


"Mairi, are you okay?"

Looking up through blurry eyes as if looking not through space but through time, where the texture was not of air but of heart and history, of voices fading, of hands reaching, slipping, tears as blood, falling, life escaping, she said:

"No."

547. Nocent

Mairi woke and seeing Em asked, "Where is Trev?"

Em, seeing Mairi awake heard the question as one hears the distant surf. "Gone."

"Gone?" repeated Mairi, her voice not much more than a whisper.

"Gone as in not coming back gone," said Em, her tone numb, her gaze somewhere else.

Mairi stared at Em, part crestfallen, part disbelieving.

Em continued. "Not your fault. Not mine either. The boy has issues."

"What happened?"

"I confronted him on a few, let us say, inconsistencies. Of course, he didn't quite see it that way."

"Em?"

"What?"

"Why is your nose bleeding?"

__________

Several months earlier . . .

"Polaris?"

"Yes, Polaris."

"Punishment or reward. I mean of all the forsaken places, not that I'm complaining, I hear its beautiful, but--"

"History is made in the forsaken places. Count your blessings for the opportunity."

__________

A few days before . . .

"Sir, the update you requested."

The Hood looked over the slate, the data drawing him from seat to stand. "Polaris! They went to Polaris?! 

543. Ochlesis

Trev took Mairi to the back bedroom and laid her on the bed facing the ocean. She had felt lighter in his arms than he remembered, her hair more faded, her skin paler. Gently, he took a wet cloth and wiped the dry blood from her lips. She looked at him as a puppy looks at his master long gone, now returned.

Em stood on the other side of the bed, watching, as much Trev as Mairi. To her eye, he seemed different. His face looked different and his voice sounded different. She wasn't asked to help and as if an invisible wall existed between her and the two of them, she felt oddly out of place, no real reason, just an uneasy feeling, a tightening of gut, a stirring of intuition.

With tender strokes, Trev wiped her forehead and then her cheeks. Mairi looked up, her eyes on Trev as were his on hers. Em felt like jumping up and down. Yelling hey. I'm here too. She resisted. With effort. Strained ugly effort. The kind of effort to surpress nausea. A temporary fix.

Mairi spoke first. The back of Trev's hand resting on her cheek. "Just like old times, huh," she said, taking his hand in hers, holding it tight to her face.

Em's eyes locked on Trev, big as owls, the skin on her face tight. Trev looked up, a feeling not so different from a vise gripping his chest, from hand to eye, from Mairi to Em. He shrugged.

Mairi continued. "Remember the time?" Her voice but a whisper. Em leaned. Mairi repeated the query. "Remember?"

Em looked at Trev. The kind of look found in the courtroom. A look expectant. A look that had all day for an answer.

Trev remained silent. Em exploded. "Answer the question!"

__________

Ed note: Mairi is referencing three previous chapters in particular:

With Considerable Effort

First Time

Outtake #2: Ministrations

541. Never

"Are you just gonna stand there?" asked Em. Trev hesitated. "Pick her up."

Trev lifted Mairi into his arms, her legs hanging loose, neck cradled in the crook of his elbow. Between lips dry and cracked she managed one word: "Never."

Zoe held Von's finger like a child to parent, lying in bed white with the eerie stillness of the infirm. Through lips dry and cracked, with eyes opened to another world, she spoke in a paper thin whisper. "If I see Ceru before you, I'll tell him how much you love him."

On the nightstand, Rog's comm blinked. Lost in the space of union divine, memories of one betraying the physicality of the other, eyes open, to the movies of his mind. Yul was too high to care, too lost in lust to wonder.

Kyra stood before the ocean, her chest matching the gentle swells. The watchet sky, endless as the hazy horizon. Licking her lips, an odd copper taste in her mouth. Reaching forth, her white fingers returned crimson bright, her gut tight in intuition.

"Dad?" asked Ariel. "Are you okay?"

John nodded, listening to the last message on his comm, sender unknown. "Your friends are in trouble. You've been warned."



---------

The head Chatelaine stood before the new class. We have, she said, many rules, and in time you will learn them all as the wind learns the path between the trees. However, as the full moon bows before the rising sun, we have one rule above all others. She paused, eyes glassing the room, looking through the new recruits. Mairi sat straight, hands placed evenly on her desk. The Chatelaine continued. Never become attached to a client. Placing her hands behind her back, she repeated. Never.

534. Kinesics

Mairi knocked on the (red) door.

Trev, did you hear something?

Knuckles white, petite, rose thrice, fell twice.

No baby, not a thing.

Wood sonorous, sentinel sennet, sung with susurration feminine.

I could have swore I heard something.

What fell, fell as rain, the door (silent) witness silent, her heart (leaden) rendered violent.

Do you want me to check?

Rims glinted, a light kind to eyes (verdant) full of (liquid) pain reflective.

Yes, please.

Crimson cheeks quivered, command lost, decorum abandoned.

Okay.

Snuffle breath, pond shallow, issued cries inaudible to stone ears.

Thanks.

Arm rose, the weigh as lead, purchase beyond body to pay.

Trev opened the door.

Her cape opened in the fall, a pleated parachute forming a perfect circle.

Oh my Janus. Mairi? Em!

507. Isn't It?

Mairi comes around the corner of the corridor and sees Yul, knees pulled into her chest, streaks running down her face, crying. She inquires. Yul speaks between sniffles. Something to do with Rog.

Scene moves to the bar with Rog, Von and Trev. Rog and Von are talking. Trev listens and watches but doesn't speak. Rog is hunched over his shot of snoot like a dog over a bone.

Von: Wanna talk?

Rog: Nope.

Von: Wanna talk anyway?

Rog: Nothing I ain't already said.

Von: Well, not like I have anywhere else to be. Humor me.

Rog: I'm frustrated. That's all.

Von: (raises his eyebrows)

Rog: Look, if I thought you could help, I'd waste your time but it'd just get in the way of a good shot of snoot.

Von: How many have you had?

Rog: Shots?

Von: Yeah.

Rog: Not enough.

Scene shifts back to Mairi and Yul

Mairi: What did he say?

Yul: He yelled at me.

Mairi: About what?

Yul: Said something about the kinds of questions I was asking.

Mairi: That's odd. What were you asking him?

Yul: Nothing. I was just trying to get him to talk.

Mairi: What did you say?

Yul: All I said was I thought the ship seemed awful quiet.

Mairi: That's it?

Yul: Yeah. That's it.

Back to Rog, Von and Trev

Von: Let me guess. Yul?

Rog: I don't even want to talk about it.

Von: What did she do this time?

Rog: I've told her a bazillion times I don't like statements that end in a question. Just pisses me off to no frailing end. And you know what? No matter how many times I tell her, she still needles the shiott of of me.

Von: Give me an example.

Rog: Okay. Try this on. She says, 'ship is awful quiet.'

Von: That's not a question.

Rog: Right. But then she adds, 'isn't it?'

Von: Okay.

Rog: What?

Von: I just said okay.

Rog: You think I'm an idiot.

Von: No. I'm just not sure I follow.

Scene flips back to Mairi and Yul

Mairi: Why would that upset him?

Yul: Because he's a Yakmuk's arse.

Mairi: Yeah, well, besides that.

Yul: You're asking the wrong person. I was just trying to make conversation. And he attacked me.

Mairi: Did he say anything else?

Yul: Like what?

Mairi: Anything.

Back to Rog, Von and Trev

Rog: Look, if a person wants to say something, fine. Just say it. But damn, don't end every statement with an "isn't it" or "don't you agree" or, frail, just pisses me off.

Von: I can see.

Rog: Why can't she see? I've told her a thousand times I hate that crap. "The ship is awful quiet, isn't it." Isn't it. Isn't it. If I hear that question one more time . . .

Back to Mairi and Yul

Yul: Get this. He accused me of trying to delibrately piss him off?

Mairi: How?

Yul: By asking him a question.

Mairi: What did you ask him?

Yul: Just asked him if he thought the ship seemed awful quiet.

Mairi: Why would he think that question was you trying to aggravate him?

Yul: Frail if I know. You see the shiott I have to put up with.

Back to Rog, Von and Trev

Von: Your permission to ask a question?

Rog: Don't frail with me.

Von: Besides Yul and her way of asking questions is there anything else on your mind?

Rog: Well, now that you ask, actually there is.

Scene fades back to Mairi and Yul

Mairi: Are you sure their wasn't something else he seemed upset with?

Yul: No. Not really.

Mairi: You sure?

Yul: Yeah.

Mairi: Yul.

Yul: What?

Mairi: Trust me.

Yul: Alright. Damn you.

Back to the boys

Von: Anytime you ready.

Rog: (slams back another shot) Tell me why the frail we're just sitting here?

Von: What do you mean?

Rog: Kyra! John tells us he saw Kieran and we are just gonna sit here and do nothing? Is that what we are going to do. Nothing. Look at me Von. Nothing?

Back to the girls

Yul: He mentioned Kyra.

Mairi: How so?

Yul: Same old shiott.

Mairi: Enlighten me.

Yul: (her face starts to tremble as she searches Mairi's face) He wants to go rescue her. (the tears cascade)

Mairi: Oh baby. (opens her arms)

Yul: (through tears she manages to say) What do I have to do? Tell me, what do I have to do?


Next thing we hear is tocins sounding and lights blinking and Arn's voice: "We have an unexplained Pod launch."

Rog: (to Arn) Where is John?

Arn: (no answer)

Rog: Arn?

Arn: On the Pod.

489. Mairi Revisited

Mairi

481. Mairi Painted

Mairi as fingerpainted by Ariel

452. Inside Out

"Em, it's time," said Mairi. No response. "Are you there? Em?"

"I'm here."

"You don't sound excited. What's wrong?" Silence on the other end of the comm. "Em, talk to me, what's wrong?"

"I don't know what to say."

"Okay. Let's do this. Imagine you are going to make a journal entry and you can only write one sentence. What would you write?"

"Confused."

More static.

"I said one sentence, not one word." Em didn't respond. "I'm kidding. Please, continue."

Her voice straining not to crack, Em added, "Consumed with a nauseous fear. I can't shake it. I feel it growing, eating me from the inside out as if there is something not of me, inside of me. I can't touch it, I can't reach it, I can't run it off and it is inside me, growing."

Mairi sighed. "Keep going. I'm listening."

"I thought when I lost my sight, I had lost my world. I thought that if I could only get my sight back, then everything would be as it should, that life would be good again. And now, now that I might very well have that sight . . .

The sound of static and breathing sweated the comm. Em continued. "I've learned to see without my eyes. When you see without eyes you see what you never knew was there all along. You see in ways that few with eyes can see. You see with your heart. You see without all the images of vision that mislead and divert. And now, as I stand at that door again, I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"That I'm trading one sight for another. That I'll be poorer in the bargain."

Mairi started talking when she realized the line was dead.

414. A Bitter Wind

Dr X looked at Em with eyes soft as down, his shoulders huddled like a goose bracing a bitter winter wind. She looked back, eyes wide, the view before her, shades of shapeless golden colors dancing as the hope before a heart unscarred, her hand outstretched for the suitor. Trev stood to her side, his nervous hand on her right shoulder. Mairi, standing beside the doctor, refused to make eye contact. He tried to think his concern to her. The Dr sighed.

"Em." said Dr X.

"Yes," she replied, not allowing him to finish his thought.

"I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it. We have two options."

"Oh my Janus. What is wrong?"

"Nothing wrong. Everything is as it is."

"Then what? Options? How can we have options if the path is clear? What's blocking our way?"

Dr X drew a breath. "Your sight, the damage, is, more, how do I say it, delicate than I anticipated."

"You can't fix it?" Em stood as if standing to confront the news, her fist balled at the end of forearms flexed.

"As I said, we have options. We can--"

Tocsins blared and a faded red light flashed. "This is Kyra. I need everyone in the conference room. Now. Repeat. I need everyone in the conference room immediately."