The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes (17 page)

No matter how many people knew him, no matter how many
people he knew, he was not really close to anyone, except Bice.

“Mr. Steele, are you all right?” The nurse stammered. Her
hand flew from her thigh, quickly stifling her gasp.

“Just peachy.” He replied, as he flopped and jerked on the
bed. “Please leave. Thank you anyway.”

Time seemed to stand still, as he suddenly realized what it
must have been like for the lost souls aboard the Titanic.

His body slowly stiffened, as slivers of frozen ice shot
through his infinite thoughts. He was drifting downward, spiraling toward an
underwater stage. An ice-covered theater where no soul would hear him sing
again. A podium of warbled sound, frozen forever between an unseen kingdom
within a timeless era.

He thought of the ruined lyrics. Of the broken window and
the broken vases. His own near demise in the study and the suddenly healed
broken legs.

He could see the golden coins emblazoned with Heaven’s
likeness drifting across the ocean floor, along with his now-quieting libido.
His majestic ship broke apart, and slipped into its eternal mansion.

The magnificent clock at the top of the grand staircase
still ticked, temporarily oblivious to its motionless surroundings. The once
proud crow’s nest descended and collapsed in defeat, until it hung in limbo
beneath the icy waters. The great ship was down. It may never rise again.

Without further ado, he quickly pulled the soaked sheet over
his head and waited for the door to close.

* * *

Heaven trotted across the expansive lawn, carefully staying in the
shadows of the fragrant evergreen trees which dotted it.

The salty ocean was only yards ahead. She could hear the
moan of the waves slapping the cliff wall through the darkness. But there was
nothing left for her on the dark side of the crashing waves. The only peace and
solitude she’d ever known were now a wash of faded memories lying on the ocean
floor, thanks to a hurricane.

In the distance, a tiny light burned inside the gatehouse.
She caught her breath, seeing a movement within. What she hoped would be easy,
had in reality materialized into an unexpected complication. The shadowy figure
of a uniformed man stood within the small building.

Frustrated, but not ready to give up and slip quietly back
upstairs of the great mansion,

she gazed at him. He appeared to be reading a paper. Every
few moments, he quickly scanned the property and took a sip from a steaming mug
which sat near him. She’d have to look for another route. She’d show Harmon a
thing or two.

It was after all, his idea for her to live within the depths
of the great house. Because the man was on a nearly decade old guilt trip
shouldn’t disrupt the peace she once enjoyed. She knew he wouldn’t be pleased
when he found her missing in the morning.

Yet, she owed him nothing. Even though he felt he owed her
something, he’d have to move on. He’d seen for himself she’d survived fine
without him having a pity-

party for allowing her to be taken to the orphanage years
ago. Now here she was, seventeen years old and living within the depths of a
much-too-large house geared toward the older generation. She simply didn’t fit
in.

She ducked low and ran toward the far side of the massive
lawn, opposite of the churning waves. Ahead, the moonlight reflected off of an
enormous brick wall.

She sighed in exasperation. The fortress seemed inescapable.
The orphanage also seemed like a prison, but she and her friend found a way
out. She gazed at a large oak tree growing near the high wall. She glanced
around once more, and leapt up on a lower limb.

Along the thin branch she slowly slid, wrapping her legs
around its circumference with great care. Higher and higher she edged her way
toward the starry sky, until she was only inches from the foreboding wall. The
call of a gull in the night air echoed against the concret barrier. Although a
gentle wind from the sea caressed her skin, she began to sweat as she clung to
the thinning limb.

Finally, she made the leap. She dared not look down into the
darkened abyss.

She flew through the air, barely managing to catch the top
of the wall. She shook with fear as she clung to the edge, her legs desperately
flailing in hopes of finding a toehold. But there were none. The wall was as
slick as the fresh green lawn surrounding Harmon’s magnificent estate.

Gasping for breath, she finally managed to swing her leg
over. She lay atop the wall as the sweat from her brow formed tiny spider webs
of molten salt and marched its way into her eyes. She squeezed them shut, and
laid still atop the wall in silence. Her heart pounded and her ears rang.

The beat of the island drums sounded from somewhere in the
night. The last moments with her mother on the stormy sea came back to her with
fury. She was ten years old again and terribly frightened. Her mother was
dying.

“Momma, please come back to me.” She’d cried, gazing at the
injured woman who lay in the bottom of the rickety boat. Her wind-blistered
lips could not speak the words, but somehow she knew her mother could hear.

The woman’s parched mouth opened slightly and edged into a
faint smile. Her eyes flickered open, and she gazed at her distraught child.

“Do not fear, my child”. She whispered, yet her mouth never
moved. She spoke to her daughter from her soul. No human language was needed
for mother and daughter to communicate. She too had the gift.

She’d grown old and frail, and the gift of healing was no
longer hers. It now belonged to her daughter. But she could still speak to the
girl without words. “We shall be to safety soon. Yet, I will not be with you
any longer. Do not try to save me, for it is my time. You must carry on,
because the sea will claim your father soon. Do not despair dear child, I will
still walk alongside you, although you can not see me. Carry on the Gift.”

“No mamma, no!” She cried.

Her mother grasped her hand with the last bit of her ebbing
strength. Her eyes slowly closed and the faint smile trickled from her worn
face.

She knew as she gazed upon her mother, she would indeed walk
alone. Her mother had asked her to carry on the Gift. She would, and with great
pride. She brushed her hands across her mother’s frozen lips, and ever so
gently cradled her.

“Papa, mamma is no longer with us in flesh. She has gone to
greet the spirit world.”

“Do not fret young one, we have many golden coins. You will
earn us even more. They will take care of us for many moons.” He knelt over the
dead woman, lifted her up and tossed her into the churning sea.

Waves of sickness filled her belly as she watched her mother
slowly disappear beneath the waves. Tendrils of her long hair waved goodbye,
until she slowly sank beneath the churning waters.

She gazed in horror at the man who called himself her
father. He was obviously more concerned about the golden coins, not loosing her
adored mother. As she stared at him, a faint memory formed in her mind as the
boat rocked in the relentless waves. A realization burst forward at a dizzying
speed, nearly knocking her from the frail craft.

The many fights she could hear from her tiny room within the
island hut. Her mother begging her papa to let her child be. She’d told him she
and the girl were worn and tired from their many travels across the great seas.
She’d bravely told papa the gift was not his to profit from.

Angrily, he slapped the frail woman and stomped from the
hut.

But their travels continued until she and her mother were to
the point of exhaustion. After so long, she remembered the final moments on the
island. Bit by bit, piece by piece the puzzle slowly unfolded.

The kind island women had propped her upon a chair. By then,
she was so weak and frail she could not walk. They were forced to carry her
back to the hut, after she gave the gift of life back to their lost loved ones.

But by morning, her father intervened. He demanded more
golden coins. Only then, would he allow her to breath life upon the remnant of
their dead.

Alas, the natives had no more coins. The merchant ships had
not come in many a great moon, for it was monsoon season. Even if the ships had
come, they had nothing to trade for gold to stamp coins from, as the storms
caused their crops to perish.

Her father took her back to the hut, refusing further aid to
the children.

Horrified, the natives attacked and drove the small family
from their island. They’d tried desperately to keep the girl with the strange
eyes, but her father managed to toss her upon the rickety craft and make due
haste for the high seas.

The boat rocked and swayed as her father attempted to navigate
the tiny craft through the tossing waves. Grey winds growled their warning as
they swirled around the boat. The telltale smell of a storm was coming.
Saltwater spray pelted her until she was chilled to the bone.

Hour upon hour she endured in the boat. She’d clung to the
sides until her arms had grown weak, while the man who called himself her
father battled the demons of the sea. Finally, she curled up in the bottom of
the craft and waited patiently for the end to come.

Against all odds the sea finally grew quiet. She pulled
herself up and gazed across the vast expanse.

The seaside glowed with shades of amber lights from a great
city. A city she’d never before set eyes upon. Through the darkness a jagged
cliff line protruded into the foamy sea. Maybe, safety would come.

Not far beyond the cliff a great house loomed. Perhaps the
family inside might offer them shelter and warm food, until once again they
journeyed back across the mighty seas to help the little island children who
fell ill.

But no, she had traveled in despair cowering in the tiny
boat for too long. Recogntion had paid visit to her after so many years of not
knowing. The truth billowed in the onyx winds, waiting for her to grasp. It
whispered its secrets into her young mind.

She recalled the words her mother had spoken only once to
her. Words she’d quickly erased from her fragile mind.

“Child, this man is your uncle, not your father.” She’d
whispered. “There is no honor in an unmarried woman giving birth to a babe
whose father is a married man in a faraway country. You must call him papa for
the sake of our reputation with the islanders.”

Driven by greed and lust for pirating the open seas, her
Uncle one day discovered her gift. He’d immediately set sail under false
pretenses with the unsuspecting pair, taking the girl with aquamarine eyes from
island to island and making great profit from her gift.

Soon word spread across the seas about her, to which her
uncle greedily paid visit to each archeplago who’d succumbed to disaster of
hurricaine, monsoon or even disease. The girl with aquamarine eyes would set
foot upon the beaches, and all would be as it once was. She could turn back
time itself.

Soft drums beat in the distance. But, they were not the
drums of the islanders. She opened her eyes and gazed at the foreboding skies.
The clouds whirled and spun, weaving to her their silent tale of the future. A
future which did not include her greedy Uncle.

Her mothers voice fell from the sky, along with dozens of
shimmering raindrops. The drums beat louder as lightening zigzagged across the
horizon. Thunder boomed in the distance. Another squall was coming. But this
squall was different. This storm was sent by the Gods of the sea itself. The
waves around the aged boat swelled and surged above her, to greater heights
than she’d ever before seen.

“Child, you know what to do. Save yourself.” Her mother
whispered from the broken skies.

She stared incredulously into the rumbling clouds. Her
mother’s face was etched into the nearest thunderhead, smiling down upon her. A
momentary break in the storm allowed a golden beam of starry light through. It
fell upon her, igniting her golden hair into a fiery rainbow. The cloud
billowed and churned. In only moments the face was gone. The sky was gone. The
stormy seas once again let loose with a fury unknown to mankind. They seemed
without doubt, focused on capsizing the tiny craft.

She leapt from the boat into the churning water the moment
before a rouge wave slammed against the tired vessel. The boat rose high into
the air, teetered momentarily atop the mastodon of the deep and was quickly
slammed into the protruding cliff wall.

Her Uncle’s body fell limp as a snared tuna and plunged to
the beach below. It was as if mother nature herself had rehearsed this very
moment from the beginning of time. The seas had set her free.

She’d closed her eyes and let the waves wash her to the
ocean floor. The glittering coins drifted around her, falling silently into the
brine. She could not breathe. The water swirled into her ears and eyes and nose
and mouth, until finally her starved lungs fell quiet.

Heaven gasped and opened her eyes with a start, gripping the
wall tightly. The same wall which Harmon had found her near on the beach that
day. The beach where he mother had washed up on shortly after the boat was
pulverized against the cliff.

She couldn’t recall how she’d washed ashore after the
accident. She remembered being too exhausted to make a swim for land. Her
mother must have somehow lifted her up and laid her on the beach. Maybe she
knew Harmon would soon be out for an early morning stroll. Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t
her time to go. Maybe she had important things to do first. What, she didn’t
know. But one thing she did know, the memory of her childhood was back.

She gazed into the darkness. Lights from a distant highway
were smeared with the orangey-red glow of fast moving machines. The seaside
wind bristled along her prickled skin. A grey fog was quickly settling on the
low areas beyond the estate. Soon, it’d be impossible to see. It was now or
never.