Mist upon the Marsh: The Story of Nessa and Cassie (6 page)

Nessa looked after her, until her grey form had been swallowed up by the mist. But then she recalled the chill of the night, and shifted form once again, so that her body became covered in the thick fur of her coat. She returned to her place at the edge of the crag, and lay down upon her stomach, with her head resting on her front paws.

Episode II

Chapter VIII:

Cassie MacA
dam

W
hen Nessa descended from the crag, and came again to Dog’s Hill, the night was advanced to the hour of one. Ceir and Ima had finished with their work, and allowed the others into the parlour, where they sat watching over Dechtire’s uneasy sleep. Nessa found Caramon with eyes red and wild, and face stained with tears, pacing in a way that suggested he was not able to make himself sit. So she took him by the arm, and dragged him into the front hall, where she left him while she went to fetch their Turins. After several long minutes, and as many instances of raised voices and physical expressions of anger, she convinced him to come along with her for a drive.

They rode on into town, where, in the lateness of the night, there were but few lights to be seen. When they drove past Wiley’s Diner, however, they found it still open. Expressing a desire for coffee, Caramon requested that they stop there for a little. Rather than sit at a booth, they took their places at two stools before the counter, and ordered cups of the strong black stuff. And yet, after hardly a minute, Caramon became choked again with sobs, and hurried away to the restroom.

Nessa sat in silence, sipping miserably at her coffee. She watched a lone waitress tidying the dining area, and took a thin sort of comfort in the steady rhythm of her movements, as she brought a wet rag round and round over the tops of the tables. She observed this cleaning ritual for a long while, for fear that either her anger or her fear (or perhaps worse, a repeat of their existence in the company of one another) would return.

So rapt was her attention upon the circular motions of the waitress’s cloth, she was rather startled by the sound of an opening door. She turned her head quickly, expecting the return of Caramon; but he was nowhere to be seen.

From a back room, it seemed, had emerged the waitress named Cassie. Even within the muddied and anxious storm of her own thoughts, Nessa found that she needed not glance again at the tag, before the name did come into her mind. She frowned at this; and her lips puckered; and her eyebrows knitted together.

As Cassie’s eyes swept routinely down the length of the counter, they fell with some surprise on Nessa.  But she smiled quickly, and came to stand opposite her.

“Well, hello,” she said. “What brings you here at –” (she glanced at the clock over the serving station) “– a quarter to two in the morning?”

“Nothing good, I suppose,” said Nessa. “What time does this place close, anyway?”

“Two o’clock on Saturdays.”

Nessa looked down into her mug, and swilled the cooling coffee about. “Is that what day it is?” she asked absently.

“Here,” said Cassie, holding out her hand for the mug. “If there’s no steam rising off the top, it’s no good for drinking.”

Her smile was so kind, and so true – nothing at all like the one she had worn, the first time Nessa saw her – that Nessa was almost afraid
she
might smile, as well. Yet she batted the impulse down with heavy hands, and secured it in its place in the footlocker beneath the bed of thorns, which sat now in her heart at the thought of Dechtire, so covered with blood, and breathing so shallowly.

“Are you here all alone?” asked Cassie.

“No. My brother is –”

She attempted an end to the sentence, but could not find one fitting, and so fell silent with a shake of her head.

“Hey there, Cassie!” said the waitress who had been till then occupied with her task of table-washing. Her voice rang out in irritation, and flew from its place in a corner of the diner, rather like an angry woodpecker. “Are you going to give me a hand with this, or are you going to chit-chat the night away?”

Cassie looked once more to Nessa, and smiled apologetically; but went out then from behind the counter, to assist her aggravated comrade.

Nessa’s eyes flicked back and forth, from the clock on the wall, to the restroom door, which remained shut. The minutes ticked slowly away, and took with them that final quarter of an hour, at the extinction of which she and Caramon should have to depart from the diner. When she was left with a mere five minutes upon her hands (and when she had already begun to suffer the agitated looks of the first waitress, shot towards her with every wish in the world that she would drink down the last of her coffee, and take to the darkened road), she rose up from the stool, and went to the restroom door. She knocked softly upon it, and spoke her brother’s name. She heard nothing from within; but only a moment later, the door went crashing open, and Caramon flew out even faster than had the woodpecker from the waitress’s mouth. He sped across the diner, to the exit.

“Half a moment, Caramon!” shouted Nessa.

By this time, of course, both of the waitresses were surveying the situation. Surprisingly enough, the hostility had gone out of the first waitress’s face, to be replaced with curiosity.

Without a word, Caramon reached up, and tore the chain from his neck. He threw it to Nessa, and she caught it up in her hand, before it had the chance to soar over her head.

“Caramon –”

But he would not stay to listen. He shot through the door, and ran as a furious wind out of his sister’s line of sight.

Nessa considered, for a moment, chasing after him; but knew full well that she would not catch him. So she undertook again the practice of exchanging her vision between two objects, this time from the Turin in her hand, to the truck in the lot. She felt the last of her five minutes expire.

So startled was she, at the feel of a hand upon her shoulder, that she nearly cried out. She whirled about, clenching her brother’s Turin in her fist.

Cassie stood there before her, looking not the least amount surprised at
her
surprise. She did not venture to smile, or to inquire; but said only, “I’ll be leaving in a few minutes. Do you want to wait for me?”

Nessa did not know what this meant. So she did not ponder, and she did not think, but merely spoke the first true answer which entered into her head; and so said, “Yes.”

“You might want to wait outside,” said Cassie, with a glance back at her comrade-in-dishcloths. “She’s likely to throw a chair at me, if I try to give you any more coffee.”

A single look more at the first waitress was quite enough for Nessa to confirm this theory. So she went silently from the diner, and rounded the truck, so that she might sit down upon the tailgate. This she did; and she gazed up for a while at the twinkling stars, though the sight, rather than offering her any sort of pleasure, served only to make her feel lonely, and – honestly – rather drowsy.

Guessing that she would be waiting for some minutes more than a few (though still not entirely comprehending why she should be waiting in the first place), she stretched out in the bed of the truck, and closed her eyes. Only to rest them, for just a moment or two, she thought – and so she was scared nearly out of her skin, when there came several soft taps upon the back of her hand, which had been lying atop her stomach. In that moment, of course, she could not remember what she had been waiting for, and so looked up confusedly into the face that was bent over her own.

“Hello,” said Cassie. “Are you all right?”

“Quite,” said Nessa, sitting up quickly. “I’m –”

What was she to be, again?

Cassie sat down beside Nessa on the tailgate. She said nothing for a little, but only looked to the same stars that Nessa had so recently concentrated upon, and seemed to wait for a certain and particular thing, which was indicative of the proper words next to be said. This thing was not long in the coming; but the space before its arrival was so very thick, that the soft
click
of its falling into place could scarcely be heard. Yet Cassie recognised it, anyway, and spoke without hesitation.

“And is your brother,” she began, “quite as well as you?”

“Maybe something less,” admitted Nessa.

“Does he plan on walking home?”

“He is able.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I –”

Here Nessa again fell short. And yet, though she could not quite determine the way in which to make anything the least bit clearer, she did go on to say:

“You needn’t wait with me, you know. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“I’m sure you will be,” said Cassie. “But only to be ‘fine’ – which I have learnt, by the way, hardly ever means in a person what the actual word defines – and nothing at all more than that, when you’re all alone, is nothing to wish for.”

Somewhat perplexed, Nessa turned her face to that of her tailgate-companion. “And you intend to help me accomplish more than that?” she asked.

“Of course not,” said Cassie. “I doubt that I could, even if I wanted to.”

Nessa could not resist it.

“And
do
you want to?”

Cassie smiled; but the resulting picture was ambiguous, showing simultaneously that she did, and did not, have that wish. Nessa knew that one of these things (though she did not know which) was the true thing; and that the other served only as a sort of buffer, so as to render the effect of the true thing neither excessive nor disappointing.

“I’m sorry,” said Nessa, turning her face away. “That was a ridiculous question – and I meant nothing by it.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Cassie. “And remember that I didn’t answer. For now, I think that’s best. But to tell you what I meant – well, I only meant that it might be better if you
weren’t
all alone, while you’re feeling, as it seems to me, much less than fine.”

“What would make you think that?”

“Think what?”

“That I’m not all right.”

Cassie laughed. “I didn’t say that. To be all right – well, that’s a pretty good thing, if you ask me. I only said you seemed less than fine.”

“And you maintain that ‘fine’ is not a good thing to be?”

“Not as good, I don’t think.”

“I suppose I always thought that the two were the same.”

Cassie raised her eyes again to the sky, and said, “Maybe you’ve always been right. It’s only my own opinion.”

Waiting several moments to ask it, for fear of seeming rude (most especially, after that strange but somehow poignant exchange), Nessa finally put the question to the waitress, who wore still her pink uniform, and her little blue nametag:

“Aren’t you tired? It must be nearly half-past two.”

“I suppose it must be,” said Cassie, her eyes still pointed upwards. “But no, I’m not tired. Are
you
tired?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then I suppose we don’t have anything to worry about, do we?”

“I suppose not.”

“But do you know what I just realised?” asked Cassie.

“I can’t say that I do.”

“I don’t even know your name!”

“My name is Nessa.”

Cassie finally turned her eyes from the stars, and offered Nessa a brilliant smile. “Do you know,” she said, “I sometimes think it would be better if we all wore nametags! What do you think?”

“I can’t say that I think anything, Cassie.”

“Oh, well. But do you see? I had to ask you; but you didn’t have to ask me. Oh, well.”

A moment later:

“And what about the rest of it?”

“The rest of what?” asked Nessa.

“Your name.”

Nessa frowned.

“There’s nothing more to your name, than ‘Nessa’?”

Here, Nessa was at something of a loss. There were no surnames among the Endai. Members were described by country; then by part of country; and then by house. And so, yes – she was only Nessa. Few human acquaintances as her family kept, this fact was one not learnt so very often. When it was, there was ever some proper cultural mask to assume. But at present there seemed nothing appropriate to say.

“There is nothing more,” she answered.

“That’s very odd, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I don’t.”

“And is your name short for something? Or is it the whole kit and caboodle?”

Nessa looked to her, and could not help but smile. “It is the whole of it,” she said. “And what about
you?
Are you only Cassie?”

“I’m Cassie MacAdam, to anyone and everyone. But then, I suppose, if you were reading my birth certificate – I would be Cassandra Elaine MacAdam.”

“That’s a very nice name.”

“I suppose there are worse.” Here, she laughed loudly and briefly – but then looked to Nessa, and asked, “What about
your
birth certificate? Last I checked, they ask for more than one name, on those sorts of things.”

“I don’t have a birth certificate,” said Nessa.

“Were you born somewhere else?”

“No.”

Usually (at least, when relating to the same subject) the answer to that question was “yes.” So why did she not say it?

Cassie shook her head. “You know,” she said, “I’ve been talking to you for hardly five minutes – and already you’ve managed to convince me, that you are the most mysterious person I have ever met.”