THE SPACE BETWEEN SILENCE(4)
984 Words
CHAPTER THIRTY
March 21,2014.
The cave pulsed with blue light, shadows rippling across the walls as if the stone itself were alive. The water at Clara’s feet mirrored it, glowing faintly, calling her closer.
Then, the surface stirred.
A woman rose, not fully. Her body remained submerged, but her eyes… her eyes cut through the dark like obsidian fire.
Clara froze.
She wasn’t young. She wasn’t old. Her face seemed carved from another time, a beauty too precise, too enduring to belong to the world Clara knew. Something about her presence felt older than the cave, older than the ocean.
“Come,” the woman whispered. Her voice was soft, but it filled the air as if it had been echoing there for centuries, waiting only for Clara.
Clara’s bare feet pressed into the stone, cold and slick. She gasped, stumbling forward as the pull grew stronger. Her skin prickled, first a shiver, then a tightening, as if the water itself was stitching her together.
Her legs burned. The ache twisted into something strange: a fusion, a binding. Clara’s breath hitched as her knees locked, her skin slickening. Shimmering scales unfurled like an impossible secret, catching the dim light with each frantic movement.
“No…” Her cry broke in the echoing cave. She clawed at her own skin, but the change surged too fast, too strong.
The woman only watched. Silent. Eternal.
And then, darkness.
A violent jolt snapped her awake.
Cold. Heavy. Wet.
Clara lurched upright, coughing. Her nightgown clung to her, drenched, her hair dripping down her back. She wasn’t in the cave. White tiles hemmed her in the bathroom. She was sitting in the bathtub, water sloshing around her.
Her hands trembled as she pulled herself out. The air felt thin, unreal. She wrapped a towel around her shoulders, shivering, but froze when she caught her reflection in the mirror.
Scales.
Faint, pearly, ghostlike, glimmering across her collarbone.
Her breath hitched. She blinked… it vanished.
The towel slipped in her hands. She gripped the sink hard, her knuckles white, her throat dry.
Had it been a dream? A hallucination? Or was something inside her breaking through?
The ocean’s glow. The voice. The water in her lungs.
It all pressed against her mind, relentless.
_____
Miranda sat hunched over her laptop, the screen’s glow painting tired shadows across her face. She hadn’t slept much, her thoughts kept circling, tight and restless. The clatter of plates downstairs was distant, unimportant.
A knock came at her door.
“Miranda?” her mother’s gentle voice. “Come down for breakfast.”
Miranda didn’t look up. “I’ll eat later.”
A pause. Then the sigh she knew too well. “Your father isn’t happy.”
Her jaw tightened. Of course, he wasn’t.
When she finally stepped into the dining room, the chatter stopped. Her father sat at the head of the table, his gaze sharp as glass.
“Since when do you skip meals?” he asked flatly.
Miranda slid into her chair, shoulders rigid. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“Don’t lie,” he said, setting down his fork. “You hide away upstairs like a child. Do you think wasting time makes you clever? It makes you weak.”
Her fists curled under the table. “I wasn’t hiding.”
“Then explain yourself.”
Her throat burned. “You don’t actually want an explanation. You just want control.”
“Watch your tone,” he warned.
Miranda’s laugh cracked in the air, brittle. “Tone? That’s all you hear. You don’t see me. You never have.”
“Miranda,” her mother said softly, but Miranda’s voice kept rising.
“I wish I was never your only child. I wish you never gave birth to me. Everyone thinks I’m your little princess, but they don’t see the prison you’ve put me in.”
Her father’s face hardened. “Enough.”
“No,” she said, standing abruptly, her chair scraping back. Her hands shook, tears burning her eyes, but the words poured out like they’d been waiting years.
“All I feel around you is fear and cold. You make this house as cold as Icelandia.”
Her father’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“You don’t even know me. You don’t know what I want, what I dream about, maybe you never cared. Maybe you just wanted a son.”
Her voice cracked, her chest heaving. Then the words she had buried for years tore out of her:
“Why does no one from your family ever visit? Or Mom’s side, for that matter? Do you even realize the Wesleys feel more like family than my own blood?”
For the first time, her father’s face shifted, not anger, but something colder, heavier, like a door slamming shut behind his eyes.
Miranda stared at him, her own eyes burning. “I’m tired.”
Her father’s jaw clenched, his voice low and sharp. “Sit down. We’re not finished.”
But Miranda was already moving toward the stairs. “Yes, we are.”
Her mother stood, desperation in her voice. “Please, Miranda…just eat something.”
Miranda’s throat tightened. “I’m tired, Mom. I can’t do this anymore.”
She ran upstairs, heart pounding, grabbed a bag, and shoved in clothes and a few of her things. When she came back down, her mother stood at the bottom of the staircase, reaching out.
“Where are you going?”
Miranda’s voice broke, but her words were steady. “I’m going where feels like home.”
Her father appeared in the doorway, fury in his eyes. “Miranda Jalenna, don’t you dare walk out on me.”
But the front door was already swinging open. The cool air rushed over her face, mixing with her tears as she stepped outside.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t look back.
- Writer
