Usually Thalia embraced solitude in the wake of these episodes, and in fact she could not think of a time it had been witnessed by anyone other than Aylin. She was silent and unfocused, drifting between the firmament of worlds, existing solely in the brief blinks between eons. This strange process took place curled tight on her side on the sofa she had been deposited on. Eha saw to her hand this time; it was swollen and angry, her fingers barely able to twitch without her face scrunching in agony. The brand itself looked bloated and bloody, and some of her nails had ripped from their beds under the desperate pressure to give form and shape to the secrets of her mind’s eye. Blood was as good an ink as any when the pencils snapped.
Koit had gathered all the loose papers, and he looked at her now with something meandering between wariness and pity. The household’s whispers washed over Thalia unheeded, and though she did watch them move quietly about the room she did not look beyond them, to the walls. She did not want to see the fruits of her labour. Closing her eyes was a worse torment, though.
Two days passed before she really began to sink back into her skin. When she sat up blinking from the blankets, Koit tentatively took the seat next to her. She did not know what to say, an unusual affliction, but he only sighed and passed her a glass of water.
“Eha went to the town today, for more medicines. She says there are men there looking for a girl with a scarred palm. On behalf of a priest.”
“What?” The glass wobbled in her grip. Koit reached to steady it, frowning.
“A priest,” he said again. “From Tartu. Are you in trouble?”
Her gaze fell to her throbbing hand, balanced palm up on her knee. Her fingers curled inwards like a wounded animal. She could feel her heartbeat there.
“I don’t know.” Her mouth was dry as bone, but she did not think she could get the water to her lips without trembling now. The wound was fresh, known only to Koit and Eha. Neither Aylin or even Nox knew of the injury. “Did they seem… did they say why?”
He shook his head. “The, ah, thing you found, perhaps?”
“I don’t know about that either.” She flopped back into the cushions wearily, but since there was a veritable queue of impossible things lined up patiently at her door lately, she did not let herself think on it for now. At least the heaviness had passed, and she could sleep easier tonight. Her eyes closed, braced. She thought about what Nox had said at the cafe; she thought how, on some deep level, she had always known there was nothing strictly normal about her art.
It was time to see what she had done.
She felt more human after a shower. Eha helped her work through the knots in her hair, and afterwards braided it around her crown. The woman hummed lightly while she did that, and seemed in a pleasant mood despite everything. Afterwards she threaded through some small yellow flowers, one of many varieties she appeared to grow in the window boxes around the house. Thalia had no idea what they were, but they did make her smile.
“I’m sorry about the walls. And the mess. And the imposing.”
Eha only shrugged the apologies away, and in the doorway Koit shook his head like something was irritating him, though Thalia did not get the impression it was her.
She sat at the table after, braced to finally look at what she had created. The drawings pieced together like a tapestry, some brief snatches of shape and form, others painstaking in their detail. A man's face, a creature with skin like bark, a totem with three animal heads and one human one. Out of everything else, those images repeated tirelessly -- those and the myriad flowers and vines and plants that circled everything like a frame, filling every margin and blank space left to the page.
It wearied her to look at them, like they stoked an echo of emotion unattached to any true memory. Worse, though, were the ones that spoke of destruction. Of fire and blood and the stench of death. She did not stare too long at those; she had seen them before, in dozens of her old sketches, the motifs piling higher and higher since that first painting; the one she had destroyed, right before the girl Kat had died on the metro. It turned her stomach, flooding it with a familiar creep of anxiety.
She pushed her chair back, knots in her stomach. But was not done. When her supply of paper had run out, the cottage walls had become the canvas, in any small space clear enough to make the marks. A lion prowled in all his splendor, roaring; an eagle soaring high above him, on the hunt. Somewhere else a handsome man in white turned to the watcher with a sly wink. Then, in another corner, disembodied hands held a shard of crystal. She turned again and saw a charging oxen, his lowered horns gored on her own bloody handprints.
By that point the memory of her own frantic desperation almost made her sick.
There were more flowers too, blooms like she had never seen, and amongst a proliferation of foliage there seemed to be words, though in no language Thalia knew. Eyes peered out; animal, it seemed, though she could not be sure. Even now her fingers itched with the imperfect; drawn to add colour. She blinked away.
Some of it was more difficult to look upon; bloodied pieces that made the injuries to her hand throb with pain. In one such, branches curved like a ribcage around a beating heart. Vines crept out from it, budding flowers twined amongst the leaves, and they seemed to pulse like arteries, connecting to giant clusters of flowers like nothing natural to this earth. They almost looked like faces. In the spaces between each of these connections there was only the bloody, frantic smear of her own handprints, and the memory of how hard it had made her sob.
That afternoon Koit sat with her outside in Eha’s wild garden, a plate of still warm kringle between them. The faint breeze took her away from the ruin, though the worries were all swimming around in her gut. She picked at a pastry, and watched Koit looking out into the forest. Eha seemed to have accepted all this strangeness in stride; if anything it had softened the woman’s disposition in a way that made Thalia feel like a cuckoo fussed over in a nest. Koit was as silent as he had ever been. She did not know what ebbed and flowed inside of him.
“Do you want to talk about him? Your husband?”
He did not look at her, but a sad smile eased the harsh lines of his face. Thalia did not expect that he would share the quiet thoughts within, but he did not seem angry that she had asked. She remembered the frenzy with which he had searched the river, and the desperate disappointment afterwards. She remembered the way he had held her hand as they trudged back to the cottage.
Eventually he shook his head, and she was content to let the silence continue. There was peace in that, for not all pain needed an ear; sometimes it just needed acknowledgement. But he did speak.
“Murumemm,” he said. “That’s what she calls you now.” The word had Eha’s familiar cadence. He turned to look at her, cast in skepticism but perhaps a little curiosity too. “The Mother of the Meadows. An Estonian myth… Well, a child’s tale really. I told you she was superstitious.” Koit leaned back against the wall. His lips pursed into a smirk, brows part raised. “She is a spirit who brings life to the forests. A story teller. Eha believes you bring a message. A story, and a promise. That’s what she says.”
“Because of my attempt at redecoration, or because of the priest looking for me in Viljandi?” She laughed, ran her good hand over her face to stifle what might have been a little hysteria. “Or gosh, maybe even the glowing pinecone?”
His lips twitched again but he only shrugged. “She says you have the essence of it in you. That it’s why she invited a stranger in from the forest.” For a moment he paused, thoughtful, and half-chuckled to himself. “Though if you asked me, I would call you Allikaravitseja.” The smile lifted and faded like the drift of evening tide. When he next looked to her, he was all seriousness once more. “What are you going to do, Thalia?”
She did not know what he named her, but it did not seem to be an insult by the way he said it. He did not smile again, but his eyes crinkled kind, like they held some small secret. “I don’t know.” It sounded tired, but it was not a new revelation; instinct had brought her here, and she imagined it would guide her path now too. It had to.
“Well, you are welcome to stay here for as long as you need to.” The last was said with a sincerity he made sure to catch her eye to impart, and it filled her with warmth, but also the uneasy notion that he might think she needed a place to hide. She nodded as he stood, lifting the plate alongside to take back to the kitchen, and then her gaze swept back to the solitude. Her hand twinged, and she finally brought herself to consider the immediate future. It clenched her with tension she could not place, like she should already be running.
Like the brand on her hand ought to mean something.
All she succeeded in summoning was a wave of anxiety. She dug out her wallet and dialled without thinking, to the only person she could think to reach out to. Please pick up, please pick up. The moment the click connected relief upended from her lungs. “Nox! You answered!” She didn’t mean to sound surprised, nor quite as panicky as she suddenly realised she was. Too much had happened too quickly. Why would they be looking for me? “I think… I think I might be in trouble?” There was a hitch where she might have paused to collect herself, but what actually happened was a floodgate. “There are people looking for me in town. That’s not bad though, right? They’re priests, they can’t be bad. Not like Atharim bad. I’m worrying over nothing. Tell me I’m worrying over nothing?”
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"Thalia? Nox hadn't forgotten her not so much as hadn't seen her in a while. Life got away - there was lots to share, but his immediate thoughts were pushed away when she started speaking about being looked for and by priests. It wasn't that priests were necessarily bad - but priests of his kind could be. "Uh - well they could be bad. The main body of the Atharim is inside the Vatican. The Historical Society leader is our Regus. That's the way it's been for as long as any living Atharim can remember. But priests don't usually hunt. They are our guides, our teachers according to Aria. In the States we don't exactly have a strong connection so I don't really know." He sighed. "Where are you?"
She leaned back against the wall, drew her legs up. The moment of Nox’s hesitancy spiked alarm, but it dipped again when he sounded so calm. The facts washed over her. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, that doesn’t sound…” She chewed her lip; fought for focus. “I’m still in Estonia. That’s why I couldn’t make it to your -- god I’m sorry about the show, Nox, I promised. It’s kind’ve a long… well, you see I’m not sure where exactly? The nearest town is called Viljandi. But how would they know I’m here? And why …? I mean I didn’t exactly go to Sunday School.” She laughed, but it sounded dangerously cracked even to her ears. “I got the news secondhand. Maybe I got the wrong…” she trailed off. “Just bad feelings on bad feelings lately, that’s all. It’s been a strange trip.”
Nox chuckled - she's worried about missing the show when she's got people looking for her. "Don't worry about the show. I will get the video from one of the girls and send it to you - just like you were there."
He wasn't exactly sure what to tell her about the clergy though. "Maybe it's just someone looking for a great artists - you do have them floating all over Moscow - maybe they saw some." He sighed. "If you want to meet with them, make sure you text me before and after that you are alright and if you go missing for an hour I'll call up an alarm out there and someone can go looking for you. I don't know if they are Atharim, but if you do see them and get names let me know and I think I can hit a contact who still is in the Atharim. At least that's my goal to get in contact with him."
“You should know that I would have cheered really loud, okay?” She half-grinned, then closed her eyes, absorbing what he’d said. “Right.” A pause, one containing a deep breath. “Right. Okay.” The tension eased. She let her legs fall straight. The smell of fresh paint mingled with the scent of flowers, and the hazy afternoon offered more warmth than the cool bite of previous days, like a tentative apology. “Eha said they were looking for a girl with a scar on her hand, but I only got the burns a few days ago. I haven't even told Aylin about that yet. She is going to freak, but then she thinks I'm crazy for being here anyway. There was something in the river though.”
Nox offered the rationale she hadn’t even known she’d needed. She realised then just how much she truly valued how he barely even blinked at the things she told him; that he took the most outlandish of concerns seriously, and made sense of them. Help was not something Thalia sought often, and it had been a long time since she’d had a friendship beyond her stalwart sister. “But you're right. That's probably right. I don't know why I didn't even think of it.”
Except she did. If she was really honest with herself. There was not much room for logic when your head was so full of Other. She took a small breath, stared out at the garden and forest beyond. It was like an oasis here. “Nox, remember what you said about my… dreams? Something bad is coming. Something big.”
The words whispered away. Thalia shifted, uncomfortable with the revelation. She didn't tell him in order to heap the burden on his shoulders. She knew what he was; knew too how fiercely he seemed to want to protect those around him. She told him because friends shared. She told him because she was scared. It was momentous really, those few little words; for Thalia anyway. The crack of a door that had long been bolted shut.
She frowned. “Wait, you're reaching out to them?” Nox had seemed happy the last time they spoke, and it had mostly been about normal things: the club and its people, the dance he had been working on at the time, the cute guy who lived in a room across the hall. No Atharim or ijiraq queens. So something had changed. ”Tell me how things are going with The Boy. Did you guys kiss yet? And you're still winning right? Limbs, fingers, toes?”
Something big was coming. The whole world was about to end if the Atharim had any prophecy to see. He commented as such. "The worlds always coming to an end. Someone always stops it." It wasn't always the Atharim, but now there were earth quakes and tsumani's and god knows what else. The Ascendancy saved them once, Nox just hoped he wasn't going to be the end of them too. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That wasn't just some saying. The gods were put down for just that reason.
Thalia's concern about his reaching out was surprising but would she be just as shocked to know he'd reached out the Ascendancy himself and was expecting someone to listen to him. He had met the man at least three times in the past nine months. And then in her fashion she went on to the next question with made Nox laugh and frown all at the same time. He took a deep breath "I started working with Domovoi - a special task force in the CCDPD and we went out on a mission looking for a man Dorian killed but couldn't find the body. Which isn't worrisome in and of itself in the tunnels, because monsters eat dead things. We found him, and a hoard of creatures. Nova saved me while I was saving a rookie cop with no power what so ever but took a bit to my arm. Needless to say, I'm down a useable hand. But I still have one good one, and two good legs. Plus the power and a cute boy who yes, I have kissed, and who is helping me as much as I'll let him. Which is probably to say not a lot. Though he's seen me naked, you can thank the hospital for that one. Or I can rather. But don't worry about me, I got people take care of me. I wish you'd taken someone with you. Specially since your sister isn't there."
Maybe he was right, and he would be the one to know, given his extracurriculars. But she was not soothed by his certainty, even knowing it was people like him who had been keeping the balance for eternity. “I hope you’re right.”
She was relieved to steer away from the topic.
“You’re working for the Custody now? Huh.” She listened like he spoke of perfectly ordinary things, these monsters and tunnels and zombie hoards. For him she supposed they were. He sounded glass half-full though, all things considered, and that lightened her mood as much as his approach to life. It was one of the things she liked about him. “Sounds like another day at the office. Bad enough to warrant a hospital visit though? Nox you still have the hand, don’t you? Actually attached to your wrist I mean. I’ve seen the old movies, you know. Though I might not believe it if you tell me you used a chainsaw.”
Laughter bubbled genuine, a far cry from her panicked tone at the start of the call. “Gosh I can practically hear you smiling. Oh I’m sure he’s helping you. I bet you two are just cute as buttons.” The concern touched her as strangely endearing, maybe because she had not anticipated it from him. Aylin was long used to her flighty nature, as frustrated as it usually made her. Thalia rarely thought things through, though there was an elegant sort of whimsy to the way she processed her life. She couldn’t think of a single person who would have uprooted themselves for the sudden spontaneity of this trip though. “Oh, believe me, Aylin would have hated it here anyway. It’s very outdoorsy. Rather beautiful, actually; the kind of place you expect to see fairy doors tucked into tree roots. I’m staying with some people I met when I got lost. Serendipity, see? So I’m not totally alone.”
Nox chuckled "No chain saw. The other cop with me has a decent understanding of the power and cauterized it as he sliced it off. It still hurts and it's a big adjustment. You don't really know how much you use your left arm till its gone. Dressing got a whole fuck harder - but cute boys help." Nox chuckled.
Someone sat down next to him. Nox smiled at the phone and wished he could chat a little more. He liked Thalia, she made life seem a lot simpler. A real friend was not something Nox had ever had. Aria was a friend, but he couldn't confide his dreams with her. He trusted her but he didn't trust her. It was hard to explain. And he never got to know Bas as well as he should have. Timing sucked. "My contact just showed up so if you don't hear from me send a message to the number in the text I'll send you. Sage can help find me, but be warned if you text him he might keep tabs on you too. But it's not really so bad as it sounds. He's not a bad creeper. Please take care Thalia. And call me if you need me I'm sure I can get to wherever I need to go to help you. It just won't be fast."
She’d been sort of mostly joking. Down a usable hand had just sounded like he’d broken it or something, and that had been her interpretation. She made a grimace at the thought of it actually having been severed, but felt remarkably little pity. Nox lived life on the edge of the blade. It was inevitable, she guessed, that sometimes he’d get cut. He was still alive, and he sounded like he was in a fairly good place despite whatever else he was dealing with at the moment.
“The non-famous one,” she said absently, about Sage. Not a bad creeper did not seem like a great endorsement, but when previously Nox had mentioned him it sounded like he dealt in information. She laughed. “You know, you have weird friends.” Herself included.
She was disappointed to cut short; she loved to talk almost as much as he did, and the essence of something so normal (whatever that even was, these days) had been more than welcome. But she was calmer now; soothed in a way she couldn't really articulate but was just grateful to grasp. “Careful is my middle name, and I have two hands to prove it.” Even if she could barely move one of them right now, but he didn’t need to hear that. “Thanks, Nox. Really. Try to stay safe yourself too.”
The next morning she knelt amongst the flowerbeds, helping Eha in the garden while the woman chatted idly about a dizzying etiquette surrounding the giving and receiving of flowers. The traditional colours; the meaning behind odd and even bouquets. Thalia wasn’t particularly green-fingered but she was content to feel useful, and quite glad not to have to look at her drawings on the walls inside. Eha never mentioned them, though Thalia had seen her studying them with a pensive look. She seemed particularly enamoured with the wizened face of the tree creature, and Thalia would have given it to her except it was so thumbed with bloody fingerprints it seemed a poor gift. She would remember, though, once she returned to Moscow.
After breakfast, Eha arranged cornflowers in a vase on the kitchen table while Koit tapped on an old laptop. Her injured hand resting curled in her lap, Thalia toyed with the pinecone they had dredged from the bottom of the lake. It still glowed softly, a steady streaming light, though she could not work out how.
“I’m going to go to Tartu,” she said suddenly. No new images had leaked out of her this morning, and she felt properly rested for the first time in a good while. With several days' distance from that night now, her mind had cleared its haze, and Nox’s reassurances took root. Mostly likely she had been sought out for a job, and all those other small strange details were just that. She was curious, now, at least. She twisted in her seat, holding out the gold inlaid object. “Eha, you should keep this.”
The woman barked laughter, and shared a look with her son. She pushed Thalia’s hand away.
There were no saccharine goodbyes, though Eha did watch from the porch of her cottage. Her pale hair looked almost silver in morning’s light, and Thalia had the distinct and surreal sense of walking away from a fairytale. Koit had offered to accompany her into Viljandi where she would catch her bus, though she doubted he had accounted for her diversionary nature, like a butterfly hopping blissfully from flower to flower on route.
The Rüki Gallery was based in an old barn building in the town, and its white washed walls were filled with all local work: paintings and photography, graphics, sculpture, and quite bizarre installations. Modern was not really Thalia’s thing, but she browsed curiously nonetheless. It was quiet, perhaps because the season seemed to have finally found her stride; outside was warm and bright, and it was not like Viljandi lacked for beautiful spaces to enjoy the weather. At reception a patron enquired after portraits of the Pope (of all things) but otherwise the gallery was empty. She bent to peer at a ceramic mask.
“My last date was in a gallery. Or should have been. He stood me up.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Koit stood behind, arms folded. She shot him a glare but spoiled it with a grin.
“You know, you should come visit me in Moscow.”
“You're going to miss your bus,” he told her, but he did smile back.
The bus station was bustling; there was some sort of festival on the hill with the medieval ruins, and it drew in tourists like nectar. Though she was sure he didn’t appreciate it, she stood on her tiptoes to give Koit a hug for his troubles. He didn’t say much, not that she expected him to, but he did at least awkwardly pat her shoulder. “There’s a big wide world out there, when you’re ready.” She hefted the bag to her shoulder, heels touching back down to earth, and smiled.
“Stay safe,” he told her. He’d never given an opinion on her decision to seek out the priest, but by the furrow in his brow she did not think he approved. Then again, he seemed to give such deep consideration to most aspects of his life.
She turned on the steps up into the bus to give a final wave. “Aitäh!”
It was only once she’d taken her seat and they began to ease out of the station that she caught, by pure chance, a pale face towering in the crowd. Sharp cheekbones and mild brown eyes. She knew their exact shade. Her heart hammered, and her arms clenched around the rucksack in her lap, her eyes squeezed shut. The fear was primal, from somewhere deep she could not name. She knew that face.
And she was glad when the bus pulled away.
Tartu was an hour or so’s journey east, across the Võrtsjärv, Estonia’s second biggest lake. It was a city that time seemed to have forgotten, made of charming wooden houses with quaintly painted faces, and large stately buildings. At its centre, handsome 18th-century architecture drew Thalia’s gaze upwards as she wandered, but it was to the river she flowed. The Emajõgi cut a gentle path through the city’s heart, and she spent some time following its green banks amidst the throngs of milling students and other tourists. She bought a crepe from a riverside vendor and ate as she explored, until she found herself spat out at the feet of the university. The church was not far, but she was in no real hurry either, and she slowed thoughtfully at the white, squat structure of the library.
It was a modern building, vastly different from the grandeur of the MSU library she’d spent time in as a student. She’d never been academic, at least not in the way her parents had always hoped; her energies had never been easily directed, nor her eclectic interests simply contained. When the stars aligned and her interest piqued, though, the force of her newfound focus marginalised other aspects of her life. Much like her art. She was a curious person, just not a learned one.
Several holodesks made up the wide reception area, spinning an interactive model of the library’s interior alongside a scroll of information including specialisms and collections held in the stacks and reading rooms. She spun it lazily before her eyes caught on an article lauding the rich vein of semiotic theory to be found here.
“No actual way.”
Enticed by the chance and coincidence, she found a desk and a terminal, tucking her bag by her feet. The box and its carved symbol sat next to her, lid closed. When she checked, the pinecone nestled inside just looked like an ordinary ornament again, albeit a fancy one. It seemed whatever mechanism inside that had made it glow in Eha’s cottage lay dormant now, or maybe had broken. It had a look of age to it, after all. The gutted remains of her sketchbook sat underneath the box, and the ripped pages Koit had gathered next to that, bound with a braided ribbon.
Nox had asked her once if she knew what any of her drawings meant, and until recently Thalia had turned a wilfully blind eye.
She took a deep breath.
And several hours later frowned at the screen and sank her chin into her palm, then winced and swore at the stab of pain inflicted. A quick check of the time sank her heart with how late it was.
“Shit.” She grabbed her things and left.
The church itself was beautifully Gothic, raised in vibrant red brick that stretched towards the sky. It sat at a leafy crossroads, and she paused at the steps to the arched doors just as people began to spill forth fresh from evening mass. Caught in that brief tide she retreated, though only to get out of the way. A little uncertainty swam in her chest, but she was curious now too. She adjusted her bag, glancing up at the spire high ahead as it caught the burn of the setting sun, then remembered her promise. She slipped the wallet from her pocket and snapped a picture, a silly smile brightening her face and her bandaged hand outstretched to the building looming behind. A location stamp sent alongside, and a brief message:
@"Nox" Welcome to The Church of Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary! Aren’t her spires lovely? Now heading in T x
ps, did you know pinecones are a symbol of luck in Sicily? The library here is AMAZING!
Inside it was cool, as these places mostly were. The chill shivered her bare legs after the warmth of the day, and her boots echoed every step a little too loudly. She wasn’t religious, and there was no great solace for her here, just an observation of peace and the feeling of being very small. Doors framed by stained glass took her into the church proper, and her gaze swept automatically up to the white vaulted ceilings.
Koit had gathered all the loose papers, and he looked at her now with something meandering between wariness and pity. The household’s whispers washed over Thalia unheeded, and though she did watch them move quietly about the room she did not look beyond them, to the walls. She did not want to see the fruits of her labour. Closing her eyes was a worse torment, though.
Two days passed before she really began to sink back into her skin. When she sat up blinking from the blankets, Koit tentatively took the seat next to her. She did not know what to say, an unusual affliction, but he only sighed and passed her a glass of water.
“Eha went to the town today, for more medicines. She says there are men there looking for a girl with a scarred palm. On behalf of a priest.”
“What?” The glass wobbled in her grip. Koit reached to steady it, frowning.
“A priest,” he said again. “From Tartu. Are you in trouble?”
Her gaze fell to her throbbing hand, balanced palm up on her knee. Her fingers curled inwards like a wounded animal. She could feel her heartbeat there.
“I don’t know.” Her mouth was dry as bone, but she did not think she could get the water to her lips without trembling now. The wound was fresh, known only to Koit and Eha. Neither Aylin or even Nox knew of the injury. “Did they seem… did they say why?”
He shook his head. “The, ah, thing you found, perhaps?”
“I don’t know about that either.” She flopped back into the cushions wearily, but since there was a veritable queue of impossible things lined up patiently at her door lately, she did not let herself think on it for now. At least the heaviness had passed, and she could sleep easier tonight. Her eyes closed, braced. She thought about what Nox had said at the cafe; she thought how, on some deep level, she had always known there was nothing strictly normal about her art.
It was time to see what she had done.
*
She felt more human after a shower. Eha helped her work through the knots in her hair, and afterwards braided it around her crown. The woman hummed lightly while she did that, and seemed in a pleasant mood despite everything. Afterwards she threaded through some small yellow flowers, one of many varieties she appeared to grow in the window boxes around the house. Thalia had no idea what they were, but they did make her smile.
“I’m sorry about the walls. And the mess. And the imposing.”
Eha only shrugged the apologies away, and in the doorway Koit shook his head like something was irritating him, though Thalia did not get the impression it was her.
She sat at the table after, braced to finally look at what she had created. The drawings pieced together like a tapestry, some brief snatches of shape and form, others painstaking in their detail. A man's face, a creature with skin like bark, a totem with three animal heads and one human one. Out of everything else, those images repeated tirelessly -- those and the myriad flowers and vines and plants that circled everything like a frame, filling every margin and blank space left to the page.
It wearied her to look at them, like they stoked an echo of emotion unattached to any true memory. Worse, though, were the ones that spoke of destruction. Of fire and blood and the stench of death. She did not stare too long at those; she had seen them before, in dozens of her old sketches, the motifs piling higher and higher since that first painting; the one she had destroyed, right before the girl Kat had died on the metro. It turned her stomach, flooding it with a familiar creep of anxiety.
She pushed her chair back, knots in her stomach. But was not done. When her supply of paper had run out, the cottage walls had become the canvas, in any small space clear enough to make the marks. A lion prowled in all his splendor, roaring; an eagle soaring high above him, on the hunt. Somewhere else a handsome man in white turned to the watcher with a sly wink. Then, in another corner, disembodied hands held a shard of crystal. She turned again and saw a charging oxen, his lowered horns gored on her own bloody handprints.
By that point the memory of her own frantic desperation almost made her sick.
There were more flowers too, blooms like she had never seen, and amongst a proliferation of foliage there seemed to be words, though in no language Thalia knew. Eyes peered out; animal, it seemed, though she could not be sure. Even now her fingers itched with the imperfect; drawn to add colour. She blinked away.
Some of it was more difficult to look upon; bloodied pieces that made the injuries to her hand throb with pain. In one such, branches curved like a ribcage around a beating heart. Vines crept out from it, budding flowers twined amongst the leaves, and they seemed to pulse like arteries, connecting to giant clusters of flowers like nothing natural to this earth. They almost looked like faces. In the spaces between each of these connections there was only the bloody, frantic smear of her own handprints, and the memory of how hard it had made her sob.
*
That afternoon Koit sat with her outside in Eha’s wild garden, a plate of still warm kringle between them. The faint breeze took her away from the ruin, though the worries were all swimming around in her gut. She picked at a pastry, and watched Koit looking out into the forest. Eha seemed to have accepted all this strangeness in stride; if anything it had softened the woman’s disposition in a way that made Thalia feel like a cuckoo fussed over in a nest. Koit was as silent as he had ever been. She did not know what ebbed and flowed inside of him.
“Do you want to talk about him? Your husband?”
He did not look at her, but a sad smile eased the harsh lines of his face. Thalia did not expect that he would share the quiet thoughts within, but he did not seem angry that she had asked. She remembered the frenzy with which he had searched the river, and the desperate disappointment afterwards. She remembered the way he had held her hand as they trudged back to the cottage.
Eventually he shook his head, and she was content to let the silence continue. There was peace in that, for not all pain needed an ear; sometimes it just needed acknowledgement. But he did speak.
“Murumemm,” he said. “That’s what she calls you now.” The word had Eha’s familiar cadence. He turned to look at her, cast in skepticism but perhaps a little curiosity too. “The Mother of the Meadows. An Estonian myth… Well, a child’s tale really. I told you she was superstitious.” Koit leaned back against the wall. His lips pursed into a smirk, brows part raised. “She is a spirit who brings life to the forests. A story teller. Eha believes you bring a message. A story, and a promise. That’s what she says.”
“Because of my attempt at redecoration, or because of the priest looking for me in Viljandi?” She laughed, ran her good hand over her face to stifle what might have been a little hysteria. “Or gosh, maybe even the glowing pinecone?”
His lips twitched again but he only shrugged. “She says you have the essence of it in you. That it’s why she invited a stranger in from the forest.” For a moment he paused, thoughtful, and half-chuckled to himself. “Though if you asked me, I would call you Allikaravitseja.” The smile lifted and faded like the drift of evening tide. When he next looked to her, he was all seriousness once more. “What are you going to do, Thalia?”
She did not know what he named her, but it did not seem to be an insult by the way he said it. He did not smile again, but his eyes crinkled kind, like they held some small secret. “I don’t know.” It sounded tired, but it was not a new revelation; instinct had brought her here, and she imagined it would guide her path now too. It had to.
“Well, you are welcome to stay here for as long as you need to.” The last was said with a sincerity he made sure to catch her eye to impart, and it filled her with warmth, but also the uneasy notion that he might think she needed a place to hide. She nodded as he stood, lifting the plate alongside to take back to the kitchen, and then her gaze swept back to the solitude. Her hand twinged, and she finally brought herself to consider the immediate future. It clenched her with tension she could not place, like she should already be running.
Like the brand on her hand ought to mean something.
All she succeeded in summoning was a wave of anxiety. She dug out her wallet and dialled without thinking, to the only person she could think to reach out to. Please pick up, please pick up. The moment the click connected relief upended from her lungs. “Nox! You answered!” She didn’t mean to sound surprised, nor quite as panicky as she suddenly realised she was. Too much had happened too quickly. Why would they be looking for me? “I think… I think I might be in trouble?” There was a hitch where she might have paused to collect herself, but what actually happened was a floodgate. “There are people looking for me in town. That’s not bad though, right? They’re priests, they can’t be bad. Not like Atharim bad. I’m worrying over nothing. Tell me I’m worrying over nothing?”
(written with Nox)
"Thalia? Nox hadn't forgotten her not so much as hadn't seen her in a while. Life got away - there was lots to share, but his immediate thoughts were pushed away when she started speaking about being looked for and by priests. It wasn't that priests were necessarily bad - but priests of his kind could be. "Uh - well they could be bad. The main body of the Atharim is inside the Vatican. The Historical Society leader is our Regus. That's the way it's been for as long as any living Atharim can remember. But priests don't usually hunt. They are our guides, our teachers according to Aria. In the States we don't exactly have a strong connection so I don't really know." He sighed. "Where are you?"
She leaned back against the wall, drew her legs up. The moment of Nox’s hesitancy spiked alarm, but it dipped again when he sounded so calm. The facts washed over her. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, that doesn’t sound…” She chewed her lip; fought for focus. “I’m still in Estonia. That’s why I couldn’t make it to your -- god I’m sorry about the show, Nox, I promised. It’s kind’ve a long… well, you see I’m not sure where exactly? The nearest town is called Viljandi. But how would they know I’m here? And why …? I mean I didn’t exactly go to Sunday School.” She laughed, but it sounded dangerously cracked even to her ears. “I got the news secondhand. Maybe I got the wrong…” she trailed off. “Just bad feelings on bad feelings lately, that’s all. It’s been a strange trip.”
Nox chuckled - she's worried about missing the show when she's got people looking for her. "Don't worry about the show. I will get the video from one of the girls and send it to you - just like you were there."
He wasn't exactly sure what to tell her about the clergy though. "Maybe it's just someone looking for a great artists - you do have them floating all over Moscow - maybe they saw some." He sighed. "If you want to meet with them, make sure you text me before and after that you are alright and if you go missing for an hour I'll call up an alarm out there and someone can go looking for you. I don't know if they are Atharim, but if you do see them and get names let me know and I think I can hit a contact who still is in the Atharim. At least that's my goal to get in contact with him."
“You should know that I would have cheered really loud, okay?” She half-grinned, then closed her eyes, absorbing what he’d said. “Right.” A pause, one containing a deep breath. “Right. Okay.” The tension eased. She let her legs fall straight. The smell of fresh paint mingled with the scent of flowers, and the hazy afternoon offered more warmth than the cool bite of previous days, like a tentative apology. “Eha said they were looking for a girl with a scar on her hand, but I only got the burns a few days ago. I haven't even told Aylin about that yet. She is going to freak, but then she thinks I'm crazy for being here anyway. There was something in the river though.”
Nox offered the rationale she hadn’t even known she’d needed. She realised then just how much she truly valued how he barely even blinked at the things she told him; that he took the most outlandish of concerns seriously, and made sense of them. Help was not something Thalia sought often, and it had been a long time since she’d had a friendship beyond her stalwart sister. “But you're right. That's probably right. I don't know why I didn't even think of it.”
Except she did. If she was really honest with herself. There was not much room for logic when your head was so full of Other. She took a small breath, stared out at the garden and forest beyond. It was like an oasis here. “Nox, remember what you said about my… dreams? Something bad is coming. Something big.”
The words whispered away. Thalia shifted, uncomfortable with the revelation. She didn't tell him in order to heap the burden on his shoulders. She knew what he was; knew too how fiercely he seemed to want to protect those around him. She told him because friends shared. She told him because she was scared. It was momentous really, those few little words; for Thalia anyway. The crack of a door that had long been bolted shut.
She frowned. “Wait, you're reaching out to them?” Nox had seemed happy the last time they spoke, and it had mostly been about normal things: the club and its people, the dance he had been working on at the time, the cute guy who lived in a room across the hall. No Atharim or ijiraq queens. So something had changed. ”Tell me how things are going with The Boy. Did you guys kiss yet? And you're still winning right? Limbs, fingers, toes?”
Something big was coming. The whole world was about to end if the Atharim had any prophecy to see. He commented as such. "The worlds always coming to an end. Someone always stops it." It wasn't always the Atharim, but now there were earth quakes and tsumani's and god knows what else. The Ascendancy saved them once, Nox just hoped he wasn't going to be the end of them too. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That wasn't just some saying. The gods were put down for just that reason.
Thalia's concern about his reaching out was surprising but would she be just as shocked to know he'd reached out the Ascendancy himself and was expecting someone to listen to him. He had met the man at least three times in the past nine months. And then in her fashion she went on to the next question with made Nox laugh and frown all at the same time. He took a deep breath "I started working with Domovoi - a special task force in the CCDPD and we went out on a mission looking for a man Dorian killed but couldn't find the body. Which isn't worrisome in and of itself in the tunnels, because monsters eat dead things. We found him, and a hoard of creatures. Nova saved me while I was saving a rookie cop with no power what so ever but took a bit to my arm. Needless to say, I'm down a useable hand. But I still have one good one, and two good legs. Plus the power and a cute boy who yes, I have kissed, and who is helping me as much as I'll let him. Which is probably to say not a lot. Though he's seen me naked, you can thank the hospital for that one. Or I can rather. But don't worry about me, I got people take care of me. I wish you'd taken someone with you. Specially since your sister isn't there."
Maybe he was right, and he would be the one to know, given his extracurriculars. But she was not soothed by his certainty, even knowing it was people like him who had been keeping the balance for eternity. “I hope you’re right.”
She was relieved to steer away from the topic.
“You’re working for the Custody now? Huh.” She listened like he spoke of perfectly ordinary things, these monsters and tunnels and zombie hoards. For him she supposed they were. He sounded glass half-full though, all things considered, and that lightened her mood as much as his approach to life. It was one of the things she liked about him. “Sounds like another day at the office. Bad enough to warrant a hospital visit though? Nox you still have the hand, don’t you? Actually attached to your wrist I mean. I’ve seen the old movies, you know. Though I might not believe it if you tell me you used a chainsaw.”
Laughter bubbled genuine, a far cry from her panicked tone at the start of the call. “Gosh I can practically hear you smiling. Oh I’m sure he’s helping you. I bet you two are just cute as buttons.” The concern touched her as strangely endearing, maybe because she had not anticipated it from him. Aylin was long used to her flighty nature, as frustrated as it usually made her. Thalia rarely thought things through, though there was an elegant sort of whimsy to the way she processed her life. She couldn’t think of a single person who would have uprooted themselves for the sudden spontaneity of this trip though. “Oh, believe me, Aylin would have hated it here anyway. It’s very outdoorsy. Rather beautiful, actually; the kind of place you expect to see fairy doors tucked into tree roots. I’m staying with some people I met when I got lost. Serendipity, see? So I’m not totally alone.”
Nox chuckled "No chain saw. The other cop with me has a decent understanding of the power and cauterized it as he sliced it off. It still hurts and it's a big adjustment. You don't really know how much you use your left arm till its gone. Dressing got a whole fuck harder - but cute boys help." Nox chuckled.
Someone sat down next to him. Nox smiled at the phone and wished he could chat a little more. He liked Thalia, she made life seem a lot simpler. A real friend was not something Nox had ever had. Aria was a friend, but he couldn't confide his dreams with her. He trusted her but he didn't trust her. It was hard to explain. And he never got to know Bas as well as he should have. Timing sucked. "My contact just showed up so if you don't hear from me send a message to the number in the text I'll send you. Sage can help find me, but be warned if you text him he might keep tabs on you too. But it's not really so bad as it sounds. He's not a bad creeper. Please take care Thalia. And call me if you need me I'm sure I can get to wherever I need to go to help you. It just won't be fast."
She’d been sort of mostly joking. Down a usable hand had just sounded like he’d broken it or something, and that had been her interpretation. She made a grimace at the thought of it actually having been severed, but felt remarkably little pity. Nox lived life on the edge of the blade. It was inevitable, she guessed, that sometimes he’d get cut. He was still alive, and he sounded like he was in a fairly good place despite whatever else he was dealing with at the moment.
“The non-famous one,” she said absently, about Sage. Not a bad creeper did not seem like a great endorsement, but when previously Nox had mentioned him it sounded like he dealt in information. She laughed. “You know, you have weird friends.” Herself included.
She was disappointed to cut short; she loved to talk almost as much as he did, and the essence of something so normal (whatever that even was, these days) had been more than welcome. But she was calmer now; soothed in a way she couldn't really articulate but was just grateful to grasp. “Careful is my middle name, and I have two hands to prove it.” Even if she could barely move one of them right now, but he didn’t need to hear that. “Thanks, Nox. Really. Try to stay safe yourself too.”
The next morning she knelt amongst the flowerbeds, helping Eha in the garden while the woman chatted idly about a dizzying etiquette surrounding the giving and receiving of flowers. The traditional colours; the meaning behind odd and even bouquets. Thalia wasn’t particularly green-fingered but she was content to feel useful, and quite glad not to have to look at her drawings on the walls inside. Eha never mentioned them, though Thalia had seen her studying them with a pensive look. She seemed particularly enamoured with the wizened face of the tree creature, and Thalia would have given it to her except it was so thumbed with bloody fingerprints it seemed a poor gift. She would remember, though, once she returned to Moscow.
After breakfast, Eha arranged cornflowers in a vase on the kitchen table while Koit tapped on an old laptop. Her injured hand resting curled in her lap, Thalia toyed with the pinecone they had dredged from the bottom of the lake. It still glowed softly, a steady streaming light, though she could not work out how.
“I’m going to go to Tartu,” she said suddenly. No new images had leaked out of her this morning, and she felt properly rested for the first time in a good while. With several days' distance from that night now, her mind had cleared its haze, and Nox’s reassurances took root. Mostly likely she had been sought out for a job, and all those other small strange details were just that. She was curious, now, at least. She twisted in her seat, holding out the gold inlaid object. “Eha, you should keep this.”
The woman barked laughter, and shared a look with her son. She pushed Thalia’s hand away.
*
There were no saccharine goodbyes, though Eha did watch from the porch of her cottage. Her pale hair looked almost silver in morning’s light, and Thalia had the distinct and surreal sense of walking away from a fairytale. Koit had offered to accompany her into Viljandi where she would catch her bus, though she doubted he had accounted for her diversionary nature, like a butterfly hopping blissfully from flower to flower on route.
The Rüki Gallery was based in an old barn building in the town, and its white washed walls were filled with all local work: paintings and photography, graphics, sculpture, and quite bizarre installations. Modern was not really Thalia’s thing, but she browsed curiously nonetheless. It was quiet, perhaps because the season seemed to have finally found her stride; outside was warm and bright, and it was not like Viljandi lacked for beautiful spaces to enjoy the weather. At reception a patron enquired after portraits of the Pope (of all things) but otherwise the gallery was empty. She bent to peer at a ceramic mask.
“My last date was in a gallery. Or should have been. He stood me up.”
“I can’t imagine why.” Koit stood behind, arms folded. She shot him a glare but spoiled it with a grin.
“You know, you should come visit me in Moscow.”
“You're going to miss your bus,” he told her, but he did smile back.
The bus station was bustling; there was some sort of festival on the hill with the medieval ruins, and it drew in tourists like nectar. Though she was sure he didn’t appreciate it, she stood on her tiptoes to give Koit a hug for his troubles. He didn’t say much, not that she expected him to, but he did at least awkwardly pat her shoulder. “There’s a big wide world out there, when you’re ready.” She hefted the bag to her shoulder, heels touching back down to earth, and smiled.
“Stay safe,” he told her. He’d never given an opinion on her decision to seek out the priest, but by the furrow in his brow she did not think he approved. Then again, he seemed to give such deep consideration to most aspects of his life.
She turned on the steps up into the bus to give a final wave. “Aitäh!”
It was only once she’d taken her seat and they began to ease out of the station that she caught, by pure chance, a pale face towering in the crowd. Sharp cheekbones and mild brown eyes. She knew their exact shade. Her heart hammered, and her arms clenched around the rucksack in her lap, her eyes squeezed shut. The fear was primal, from somewhere deep she could not name. She knew that face.
And she was glad when the bus pulled away.
*
Tartu was an hour or so’s journey east, across the Võrtsjärv, Estonia’s second biggest lake. It was a city that time seemed to have forgotten, made of charming wooden houses with quaintly painted faces, and large stately buildings. At its centre, handsome 18th-century architecture drew Thalia’s gaze upwards as she wandered, but it was to the river she flowed. The Emajõgi cut a gentle path through the city’s heart, and she spent some time following its green banks amidst the throngs of milling students and other tourists. She bought a crepe from a riverside vendor and ate as she explored, until she found herself spat out at the feet of the university. The church was not far, but she was in no real hurry either, and she slowed thoughtfully at the white, squat structure of the library.
It was a modern building, vastly different from the grandeur of the MSU library she’d spent time in as a student. She’d never been academic, at least not in the way her parents had always hoped; her energies had never been easily directed, nor her eclectic interests simply contained. When the stars aligned and her interest piqued, though, the force of her newfound focus marginalised other aspects of her life. Much like her art. She was a curious person, just not a learned one.
Several holodesks made up the wide reception area, spinning an interactive model of the library’s interior alongside a scroll of information including specialisms and collections held in the stacks and reading rooms. She spun it lazily before her eyes caught on an article lauding the rich vein of semiotic theory to be found here.
“No actual way.”
Enticed by the chance and coincidence, she found a desk and a terminal, tucking her bag by her feet. The box and its carved symbol sat next to her, lid closed. When she checked, the pinecone nestled inside just looked like an ordinary ornament again, albeit a fancy one. It seemed whatever mechanism inside that had made it glow in Eha’s cottage lay dormant now, or maybe had broken. It had a look of age to it, after all. The gutted remains of her sketchbook sat underneath the box, and the ripped pages Koit had gathered next to that, bound with a braided ribbon.
Nox had asked her once if she knew what any of her drawings meant, and until recently Thalia had turned a wilfully blind eye.
She took a deep breath.
And several hours later frowned at the screen and sank her chin into her palm, then winced and swore at the stab of pain inflicted. A quick check of the time sank her heart with how late it was.
“Shit.” She grabbed her things and left.
*
The church itself was beautifully Gothic, raised in vibrant red brick that stretched towards the sky. It sat at a leafy crossroads, and she paused at the steps to the arched doors just as people began to spill forth fresh from evening mass. Caught in that brief tide she retreated, though only to get out of the way. A little uncertainty swam in her chest, but she was curious now too. She adjusted her bag, glancing up at the spire high ahead as it caught the burn of the setting sun, then remembered her promise. She slipped the wallet from her pocket and snapped a picture, a silly smile brightening her face and her bandaged hand outstretched to the building looming behind. A location stamp sent alongside, and a brief message:
@"Nox" Welcome to The Church of Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary! Aren’t her spires lovely? Now heading in T x
ps, did you know pinecones are a symbol of luck in Sicily? The library here is AMAZING!
Inside it was cool, as these places mostly were. The chill shivered her bare legs after the warmth of the day, and her boots echoed every step a little too loudly. She wasn’t religious, and there was no great solace for her here, just an observation of peace and the feeling of being very small. Doors framed by stained glass took her into the church proper, and her gaze swept automatically up to the white vaulted ceilings.