The Tales of Tarya, Books 1-3

Chapter 4 - Washing at the Well-2

The water continued its frantic hiss. Jets of steam began rushing upward from where Uberto had disappeared as bubbles erupted, until a circle within the water was fizzing and hissing frantically.

Mina watched the churning water, her thoughts twisting. Uberto had not tried to kill her. Onstage at the palace he had not taken the form of a bat to try to suffocate her. It had been someone else. And until now he had not known the pain of those whose golden threads were broken, even if he had known there were lasting consequences. He had seemed truly horrified.

Straining to see beneath the churning surface, Mina remembered how Uberto had welcomed her into the playing, and given her a role befitting her gifts. Despite her suspicions, part of her had always felt affection for him. When he became Harlequin it was almost as if he was a different person, but when he was Uberto it was not hard to believe he could want to do the right thing.

Without further hesitation, Mina waded into the pool and plunged her arms into the seething water. It was icy cold, almost painful. In moments she was shivering. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she searched frantically for any sign of the Master Player, her hands touching nothing. She reached a little further, then further again. Still nothing. By now she was waist deep in the pool. The roiling water gushed upward in huge jets before plunging down to sting her skin with its coldness.

Mina let her arms go limp. The chill of the water seeped into her bones and her heart. There was no point searching for Uberto. He was gone. The pool had decided. Whatever her instincts, his disappearance told her otherwise. Tarya had ruled he was not a good man, that he had done what he had done with malice.

Yet Dario had loved him like a father.

She pushed the thought away.

As the water fell on her shoulders and ran down her cheeks, Mina was surprised to find it no longer had an icy bite to it. In fact, it was growing warm. A terrible thought came to her. If Uberto had been burned up by the water, then she was standing where it had happened. Maybe this warmth had been drawn from his body.

Yet the water on her now was strangely comforting, like a lover’s caress. Her mind was cast back to a time, years ago, when her father had held her up, arms wrapped tightly around her, so she could see over the crowds to watch the villagers of Andon perform a ceremony at the children’s tree, where they honoured young ones from the village who had died. That day, Mina had watched them place something inside the tree and sing a song. She couldn’t remember who the ceremony had been for but remembered feeling the grief around her as the villagers performed this sacred ritual.

Despite the sad occasion, which Mina had barely been old enough to understand, she had felt completely safe in her father’s arms, and the same feelings of sadness and comfort almost overwhelmed her now.

The bubbles were dying. Only the occasional hiss or jet of pressurised water escaped. With unexpected certainty, she reached into the waist-deep water with both hands. Feeling nothing, she reached down and down until, with a deep breath, she slipped beneath the surface without fear and plunged like a knife through the warm water.

Living in a coastal town she had learned to swim at a young age, with her brother’s help. She swam down to impossible depths. Even here the water was the same vivid green with no loss of visibility. Up ahead she saw water spiralling. Leaves in brown and green and gold and red were caught in the column of water, twisting around and up.

Without hesitation, Mina swam straight into the whirlpool. Closing her eyes, she reached with both arms. Almost instantly she caught something, and pulled her arms back. Opening her eyes, she saw Uberto clung to her, his skin white and his lips blue. With a strong scissor kick she pushed upward and an instant later broke the surface of the pool, as though she had travelled no distance at all. Standing, she found herself in waist-deep water again. She dragged Uberto to the shore, a few steps away.

Mina tumbled into a sitting position, the Master Player falling into her lap. Uberto’s breathing was shallow, his eyes closed. The patches on his Harlequin costume had faded to ghosts of the original vivid autumn colours. His hair was drained even of its earlier silver, bleached to translucent brittleness.

Mina pulled them both out of Tarya. She blinked at the unbearable light of the world and returned fully to her body. Sound and scent rushed back into her senses. Here too she was seated on the ground, Uberto across her lap.

Sofia rushed over and knelt beside them.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asked. She reached a hand to his neck. Her face relaxed a little when she found a pulse.

‘I think you’d better fetch Mama Tina,’ Mina said. She described Uberto’s wife for Sofia, who nodded and rushed off to find the players.

Paolo was pacing the garden, his movements jerky, sniffing his fingers in a self-soothing gesture Mina remembered well from her Uncle Tonio. Gently she lowered Uberto’s head to the grass and hurried over to reassure her brother. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and he cooed quietly as she drew him to her. Mina hugged him tightly and stroked his nobbly hair, sad at how the tables had turned. Once Paolo had been her protector, her brave big brother. Now he was a small child needing comfort.

‘Harlequin can’t be right,’ she said, to herself rather than her brother. ‘You can’t be trapped like this for the rest of your life. I know where the missing part of you is. All I need to do is find a way to restore it.’

Paolo whimpered. ‘Columbina help,’ he said.

Mina nodded. ‘Of course I will, Paolo. If it takes the rest of my …’

‘No, Columbina help,’ he said, more insistent, and taking her face in both hands, he turned her gaze to Uberto. With horror, Mina saw he was having some kind of fit, his body racked with spasm after spasm. His eyes were still closed, but as she ran to him she saw blood trickle from his nose.

Mina knelt beside Uberto’s jerking body. The only way she knew to heal someone was to take them into Tarya, so instinctively she reached out, preparing herself.

‘No,’ someone said as they seized her wrist before she could touch him. She looked up to find herself face to face with Miranda.

‘Leave him.’

‘I can help him,’ Mina insisted.

‘Not in Tarya,’ Miranda hissed. ‘He’s free, I can feel it. Don’t take him back there or he might get him again.’

A sigh whispered from Uberto’s lips as the seizure ended. If he had aged before, now the difference was even more frightening. He was almost unrecognisable, his white hair wisps that barely covered his scalp. His face was cracked and shrivelled, his hands curled into arthritic claws.

Sofia returned with Mama Tina, who rushed to kneel by her husband, pulling him into her arms. She began wailing, guttural moans punctuated by sustained screams. Miranda huddled with her parents.

Mina gestured for Sofia to follow her into the house, thinking to leave the family alone with their grief. She took Paolo’s hand to lead him away.

‘He didn’t look that old onstage,’ Sofia said softly.

‘He wasn’t,’ Mina responded. They continued toward the house.

‘Don’t leave,’ Miranda called, dark eyes pleading.

‘We just thought you might want …’ Mina began.

Mama Tina’s face held a strange glow, washed clean by grief. Her eyes were closed as she rocked her husband back and forth. Mina looked at her feet, shame descending on her shoulders.

‘Mina, thank you. Thank you.’

Startled, Mina felt tears lodge in her own throat. ‘What?’

Miranda beckoned for Mina to sit with her at the garden table. Mina reluctantly took a seat, watching Miranda warily, waiting for the accusations and blame. Miranda looked askance at Sofia, who had taken a position next to the table.

‘What is she, your body guard?’

‘I trust her,’ Mina said simply.

Paolo knelt beside Mama Tina and stroked the scant threads of Uberto’s hair, his coo reassuring.

‘Have you heard of Mourini?’ Miranda began.

Startled, Mina searched her memory. She’d heard the name mentioned once, maybe twice, but she couldn’t remember when, or what it had been about.

‘I think Uberto mentioned …’

‘You don’t know player history?’ Miranda snapped. ‘You performed at the festival.’

She shook her head and continued as though speaking to a small child.

‘He was the original player, the one who set up the first troupe. He started out selling things, remedies and so on, and discovered if he played a little music he’d draw a bigger crowd. He employed a few people to do acrobatics and got even better crowds. It all developed from there.’

‘But … wasn’t the first troupe started three hundred years ago?’ Mina dragged a memory out. ‘When Uberto mentioned Mourini, it sounded like he was talking about someone who is still around.’

‘He is,’ Miranda said. She glanced over at her father, unconscious in Mama Tina’s arms, then at Paolo, with his dreadlocked hair and vacant expression. The grief in her eyes deepened.

It struck Mina that Miranda had really loved her brother. Still did, perhaps.

‘Uberto says there’s no way to heal Paolo,’ Mina said, ‘but I want to try, Miranda.’

The other girl nodded and brushed her long black hair away from her face. When she spoke again the sharp tone was gone.

‘Maybe you can. But I suspect the only way will be through Mourini.’

Suddenly Mina realised what Miranda had said a moment ago. ‘How can he still …?’

‘… be alive after three hundred years? By finding a new body. I don’t know how, but he took over my father. Not all the time, just when he was performing.’

‘When he was Harlequin …’ Mina said slowly.

Miranda nodded.

‘And he’s gone now.’ Mina wasn’t asking a question. She had seen them split apart, seen Mourini leap away and vanish. She knew something else too. She needed Miranda’s help. This girl she had hated for stealing Paolo away might be her best hope.

‘Where’s he gone?’ she asked.

‘To find another Harlequin. He’s taken everything he can from Uberto: his energy, his life … Now …’

‘He needs to be part of someone who performs onstage, so he can draw energy from the crowd,’ Mama Tina interrupted. ‘That’s what sustains him.’

Mina remembered all the times she had watched Uberto standing in the wings, inhaling the excitement that buzzed toward the stage. She had seen it today, she realised, watching Harlequin draw in the golden sparks that floated from the audience.

Paolo stood and gently lifted Uberto from Mama Tina’s arms, carrying him toward the house as easily as though he were an infant. He cooed a soft lullaby as he carried the elderly man indoors. Mama Tina offered Mina her hand, drawing her out of the chair.

‘You’ve broken Mourini’s hold on him. I can never express enough thanks. Forty years I’ve had half a husband.’

‘But he’s …’ Mina’s words died as she glanced at Uberto’s broken body.

‘Free,’ Mama Tina replied. She clasped Mina’s hands. ‘Find Mourini. Wherever he has gone, whoever he is inhabiting now, he is the only one who might know how to heal your brother. After all, he’s the one who learned the secrets of the golden threads. He began the playing.’

‘I’m going to stop him hurting others as well,’ Mina said. ‘I have to. But what will you do?’

It was Miranda who replied.