CHAPTER 1
Rachel's father had been half Russian, half Japanese, and he died when she was four. He was hit by a car crossing the road, but Rachel likes to think he simply had his duties somewhere else – probably along with his mother, who is also deceased.
When her father died, his father – the Russian parent – came to live with Rachel and her mother in London; he was their 'man of the house', and he knew it. However, Rachel's mother was the woman of the house and she made it into very much the same job. She was a beautful woman, with dark skin and hair and soft, blue eyes. She was only thirty three when Rachel was fourteen and she always allowed plenty of cleavage to show. Her grandfather could do nothing about it.
Rachel's grandfather also had blue eyes. They used to sparkle with his head of white hair like a strange little iglu in the north pole. her mother's blue eyes, however, were like the soothing sea on a beach, drawn in by the wind, and thrust out again. Rachel's mother was half Morroccan, half French.
She was a very young-spirited woman. She said that you grow more stupid as you grow older, so you just have to ignore it and keep thinking you're smart. Well, Rachel and I don't think we agree with her, but each to their own.
Rachel remembers Hanna wistfully saying how much of a Leo her mother was – terribly playful, with a seemingly unbreakable spirit. She never said sorry, but she never cared if you did either. At the end of the day, her mother never went to bed without being on good terms with everyone with whom she had argued, or with whom she had not argued.
Hanna, their cook, seldom argued. She was from Norway, and she had pale white skin, and shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair. Her eyes were hazel. Hanna was terribly young and terribly pretty. She had been only sixteen when she had emigrated and started working for them – and Rachel had been twelve – just a baby. And now Hanna was eighteen.
And so they were the Zayorevs: Her mother, Sonja; her grandfather, Mikael, and herself, Rachel, and Hanna Eike. The Zayorevs – all for one and one for all. Well, who isn't?...
And so, they, the Zayorevs, lived in a small café in London and breathed the smells of Norwegian and Moroccan and French and Russian food, and secretly ate some sushi on the side when they could afford it; and although Rachel's grandfather, Papi, as her mother always used to call him to get on his nerves, and as he thus came to be called, always had something cynical to say with a twinkle in his eye, the twinkle in his eye was always a good one, and her mother's flirtatious antics only added some zing to life, and Hanna's perspectives made it all sound mystical... and Rachel. She was Rachel, the sweet little Rachel; the empty centre turning the vortex around and around.
She was Rachel. She had long, wavy black hair, and skin a shade darker than most British, but only one obscure shade. And green eyes, almost having reached her full height.
It was in December that it all started for her – December 2010, when she had just turned fourteen on the first. Rachel felt herself grown up. She called for it. It was a wonderful day. She vividly remembers the warmth in the café in contrast to the cold outside. Hanna was baking lefse – a type of Norwegian pancake made from potatoes – and the whole room smelled absolutely divine. As was so often the case, customers came in that day and said, "Whatever I'm smelling right now, I want it on my plate!" and Hanna was more than happy to oblige. Gracefully glowing with soft love, Hanna handed Rachel two plates of the glorious dish.
"But I only needed one for table four,"said Rachel, hearing the response as she said the words.
Well, I don't suppose she heard it, really, because Hanna only smiled silently at her, as if to say "you need it, Rachel – here..." and Rachel giggled gratefully in response.
She delivered the lefse to table four, and then stodd in the corner eating hers. As she stood there in that warm corner in that wonderful café she called home, Rachel imagined herself cuccooned inside a lefse pancake wrapped in green silk, like one of Hanna's dresses – like one of her mother's many pairs of boots – like her grandfather's old Russian book, what was it called? I don't know.
Rachel's family was not perfect. Her mother always used to try to get on Papi's nerves, and he always used to complain about the modern day, and Hanna used to say nothing, but she had a little fire inside her that she could never put out. But there was one thing that held them together, and that thing is what rachel felt in that corner, eating, breathing in that green smoke from all the hours of the day and the seasons of the year.
And so, on that December evening, Rachel's mother suggested that they go for a walk, just the two of them, and she happily agreed. Shops were open late for Christmas, and they could go window shopping.
It was a good walk, Rachel got the chance to open up a little box – pandora's box. It was the best thing that ever happened.
The cold wind hit Rachel as she stepped outside. It caressed her head in between her hair and gave her whispery chills down her back. She breathed it in, but her mother promptly thumped a warm hat on her head. "You're welcome!" she teased her, with a gleam in her blue eyes, drawing Rachel in and out the other side.
The pavement felt solid beneath Rachel's feet as it wound into the distance like a web. Her mother took her hand, and said to her. "So, let's catch some moments, eh? I'm going to tell you my story today."
Rachel knew that she was French-Moroccan, but she had never received any answers about her parents' lives, and she had never began to mind very much before recent years. So as you can imagine, she was very pleased to hear this from her mother, if a little irritated by the cheesiness of it all.
"I'm all ears," she said.
"Wonderful!," replied her mother. "Now where shall I begin? Hmm, well, I was born in Marseilles to a pair of Arabic Moroccan parents. I was a quiet child, if you believe that! And I was a good student, but my father pulled me out of school at age sixteen, and I was not allowed to go to university to study. So I ran away, Rachel.
My mother and I wanted to run away together but she fell very ill. And so I ran away alone. Her last words to me were this: "Sonja, do me a favour and marry for love, ok?" and so I did, and I am now married for love. Rachel, I want you to go to university and I want you to do well in life. My mother inspired me, and I want her to inspire you too. You will marry for love, won’t you, Rachel?"
‘‘Course I will, mum!‘‘ replied Rachel.
Sonja‘s blue eyes looked emerald to Rachel for a moment, like a glimpse of light on a secret. She smiled at her mother and asked, because she had to know now,
"So what happened after you ran away?"
"I told you, Rachel – love happened."
"But Mama-" she began.
"Rachel I just told you something important. Think about it for a while, for goodness sake."
So they walked in silence for a time, still holding hands.
Rachel had never imagined her mother as a runaway, but she was somehow not surprised. She felt like they were constantly running away from something. No, they were running inside it as if to show it we weren't scared. But at the same time they had grown to love it, and watch it as it flowed past them every day from 8am to 2pm, and from 6 till midnight.
All throughout, Rachel felt green. She felt like She was walking connected to a green vegetable dispenser and that all the vegetables were taking up a lot of space inside her body and pushing out all the fruit. She felt hot, even though it was cold, and she took off her hat and held it in her other hand like an appliance on a circuit of green electricity.
"Rachel, it's cold." said her mother, breaking the silence. Rachel smiled at her.
"And I am ice," she said.
At that moment, a glimpse of red caught her eye. Rachels mother and she had long since turned and were walking down Regent's Street and, of course, they were window shopping. It felt good to have something complimenting the green.
"Look at those shoes!" she said. They were red leather boots with four inch heels.
"Haha, you like them, do you?" teased her mother.
"Yeah" she sighed.
"Let's get them, then!" she replied, with a gleam in her eye. It was late, but it was Christmas soon and the shops were open much longer than they usually would have been.
The warm air felt pleasant on Rachel's skin as they entered the shop. It was lit with warm, yellow lights and a mellow, dizzy song was throbbing softly on the radio. Sonja strolled in, and said "Hello!" just as normal.
Rachel tried on the shoes, but they were slightly too big for her. Nevertheless, she said thay were fine and her mother bought them without question. The lady working at the till looked at Sonja and Rachel with a strange, if not slightly amused look. She put the shoes back on display and handed them a box with another pair which were the same. Rachel opened the box and let the boots out into the air of the room – giving them life. The brand was called 'black rose'. She put on the shoes and they went out, the door closing behind them with a stiff sigh.
The cold air was a hit to Rachel, and she felt unstable wearing the shoes. The pavement was like a row of stepping stones that she had begin walking but had proven to be less safe than she had anticipated. However, determined to prove her being grown up enough to wear the shoes, Rachel picked up her feet one by one until they reached home again; and by that time she felt herself quite stable in the shoes, if not entirely comfortable. Or perhaps one might say instead that she felt herself quite comfortable in the shoes, if not entirely stable.
Anyway, Rachel was releived to take the shoes off and walk just with socks when they got home. Hanna was already clearing up and the last of the customers were leaving. (The café was closing early that day because of the preparations that were to be made for the following day's festival – Yuletide.)
The first year that Hanna came, when the family put up the Christmas decorations in the café, Hanna had seemed slightly uneasy. She sent everyone Yuletide cards and did not like putting up Christmas decorations. After an interrogation from Sonja, they had discovered that Hanna was a neo-Pagan, and that she would have preferred it if the decorations were called Yuletide decorations.
Sonja, intrigued to hear about this 'Yuletide', was very happy to rebell and stop celebrating Christmas altogether – except they did: they put up decorations; a tree; sent cards; made a large dinner – but they called it Yuletide instead. I understand nowadays that most neo-Pagans do not do quite the same, but Hanna did not mind which tradition she was in; her religion was the only thing she was persistent about.
Yuletide is the Pagan festival of winter from which most Christmas traditions have been borrowed. It is a celebration of the end of the darkness of winter and the start of the light of summer. It is the dawn of the year; celebrated on winter solstice.
The date was the twentieth, and Rachel's family were going to celebrate tomorrow by lighting a bonfire in the private grounds of a house called Turnhill House which was owned by a Lord Turnhill in the 1960s, who started a cause for neo-Pagans in London. Every year since then, the eight Pagan Sabbaths are celebrated in the grounds of the house, among other things.
Each family or group lit their own bonfire in the grounds and everyone celebrated together with food and music; and even to the most mature eye, the festivities had an energetic splendour which could awaken the most childlike wonder in any grumpy old man or woman.
The family was going to make a huge party there, as they always did, thanks to Sonja. Hanna was about to prepare massive amounts of food and drink to bring to the party, and everyone had to help her. Rachel didn't mind. Some of them did, though.
"When I was your age," began Papi, referring to Sonja, "I wasn't made to do women's work!"
"Oh shut up Papi," said Sonja replied, smacking him gently with a wooden spoon.
"It's true!" he retorted, "My wife always cooked for me, and I went to work, and she cleaned -"
"And you went to work! And she brought up your child, and you went to work! And she kept your home warm, and you went to work!-"
"And good work it was too!"
At this point Hanna intervened.
"Please, Papi, help me. But you don't have to."
"Yes Papi!" replied Sonja with a grin. "This is a general arena of work, and we must all fight to get it done as a team – like a fencing team and -."
"What's a 'general arena'?" Papi – Mikael – cut in, "There's no such thing."
"Of course there is; i'll show you," replied Sonja with a certain tone in her voice.
"I tell you, there is no such-" started Mikael as a handful of spinach flew into his face.
"Sonja!" he shouted, but he was smiling now, and he aimed a piece of lettuce at Sonja. Unfortunately, his aim was rather poor and it landed right inside Hanna's cooking pot. Hanna calmly took it out of the pot, and turned around to face the three of them with a look that until today I am not sure how to interpret – it was a look of fire nurtured inside a single feather. All three of them walked out of the kitchen.
And so, Rachel and Sonja and Papi didn't have to cook that Yuletide, but they all felt compelled to help in the kitchen for weeks afterwards.
Mikael marched into the main area of the café and sat down at a table with a mixture of humilation and triumph. He picked up a newspaper that a customer must have left on the table and checked the date.
"This newspaper is old." he made sure to say; but he opened it and started to read it anyway, flicking and skimming through the pages as if he was checking them for mistakes.
Rachel's grandfather was a retired violinist, and he had been quite an attractive man in his day. Now, his skin was wrinkled, but the wrinkles looked like perfectly folded creases; his hair was white, but it looked silver and striking. His face was often in a frown, but he had a set of perfect white teeth that seemed to nostalgically recall being shown off often in wide grins. His eyebrows were bushy and unruly, and his arms were flabby, but you could tell by his bright blue eyes and by his posture that he had once been well kept and muscular.
Rachel sat down softly on the chair opposite him and let her mind wander. She wandered what her father had been like. There were no photos of him in the house and she was told that he was just like Papi, but something told her not to believe this. Always she felt someone inside her shout not to be forgotten, a voice that belonged to a deep vault inside her soul, but that she could only trace back to a shallow depth – to her father.
Rachel wandered what her father had been doing, where he had been, when he was her age. Maybe he had been sitting with his father across at a table just as she was right now. Maybe they could touch each other through time. Maybe he had been practicing his violin, maybe Papi had taught him. Maybe he would teach Rachel one day...
She watched as Papi's eyes darted through the texts of the newspaper like a violin bow. What music was he dancing to inside his mind? What secret record was there to play? Where was her father locked inside that figure of a man that she loved so dearly, and yet found empty when she looked for what she needed – what she needed from somewhere else?
At this point, Rachel must have given a sigh, because her Papi looked up from his newspaper. Their gazes met for one second, and he returned her sigh on a different key, his eyes like weeping sapphires, holding strong to truth.
"Rachel..." he offered, as if there was something more to say but it was said in only a silent language. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, seeming more to Rachel like they were turning backward into his face in a way that made his face look odd, but a smile nonetheless.
She felt the corners of her own mouth returning his peculiar expression, half of an uncertain smile.
"I know, Rachel..." he said.
"What do you know, then?" she asked, a little fish swimming in new waters, and yet already having picked up technique.
Mikael sighed a sigh of a man who had spent his whole life weaving the liquids of music for everyone to drink; a man who was breathing out salty tears of it, year by year, day by day.
"You remind me of another girl I once knew, thats all."
"Who's that?" asked Rachel, but all her grandfather did was get up slowly and heavily from the table, and proceed towards the stairs. And as she sat there looking after him, Rachel noticed her mother standing and staring at her with a look on her face like she had never seen before.
"What is it, Mama?" she asked, quite directly, but Sonja looked on, as if she'd just seen a ghost.
A while later, Rachel was lying in her bed in her room, and she was letting her mind wander. Home was a part of her, but there were other parts that she was growing to find. She thought of her new, red shoes, but her mind soon fell into another zone. Rachel remembered what had happened at my school a few days earlier.
She could have sworn...I swear, that she had seen a burning butterfly fly past her. Now, of course this was impossible. It was December, and a burning butterfly? Strangely enough, the butterfly had seemed to be doing very well. It had glided along beside Rachel quite naturally, quite fluidly.
In fact, it seemed to have purpose in life. It was saying to the wind, "I am burning! Wow! And I am flying high – high into the heavens!" That butterfly had seemed to Rachel as the best thing one could ever aspire to be. It was burning even in the cold starkness of London's December. Nothing could stop it from flying. Nothing could stop it from dreaming of flames in it's eyes. Knowing that this fire would never go out, Rachel knew that this was the best kind of fire. While it may hurt, it would tingle; it would be a fire of growth – of smoke to make the trees breathe in your soul, but never all of it.
And what's more, she could have sworn that she saw a burning rose petal drawn after it in the airy current that she was encompassed in. That rose petal was burning with a flame that was shaped like a green, thorny, twisting stem. That rose petal was in pain, to Rachel. Nevertheless, it kept following the butterfly as if it was the butterfly's soul itself.
The wind kept telling the butterfly, "Destiny watches as you ascend to glory..."
Rachel also thought of a candle, floating on water down a river. Where was it going? She thought it was much like a lighthouse for the waves...but at that moment, the bell rang and it was time for her to proceed to her lesson – time to stop reflecting, and start thinking. Rachel felt like wax.
As she walked to her lesson, she thought she saw a boy with fair hair, and deep, captivating grey eyes that she had never seen before walk past outside the gate of the school. Rachel dismissed this without much thought.
Sasha walked along the street. It was sunset, and he was coming back from the shop – only having bought milk and bread. He would later see that the shopping bad had left some slight red impressions on his fingers, but presently, Sasha hardly felt the weight. All he felt were the smell of the air and the dazzle of the colours, because something was about to change.
Anticipation was something that spurred Sasha on, and put him off at the same time; but one thing was sure: he saw sharply, and lived sharply – roundly, but sharply, like a playful bullet of water from a water pistol.
The cracks on the pavement were like slits in reality to which Sasha's mind averted its gaze, but always made sure they were visible from the corner of his eye. Each footstep carelessly avoided stepping on them. Each breath stumbled into life with a vigour on his ruddy cheeks and melancholy brown eyes. Well, one minute they were melancholy and the next they were viciously playful, like a cat.
Sasha was unaware of all of this as he walked along, thinking deeply about something or other – he was never able to recall these things. His upright torso and long legs slid through life like music on a stave. Unaware of glances that went his way, Sasha walked on, tasting the air of each passing stranger, unafraid.
The city buildings loomed over him like trees in a forest – the concrete jungle – wild and untamed. The river flowed on his right hand side, caressing his right ear with each rippling wave. Sasha returned this affection with his silent breath, secretly whispering nothings.
His brown eyes, with long, sophisticated eyelashes, lashed at life, and unleashed gusts of dewy air all around the aura of his being – unknowing – young at heart and old in the creases of the shopping bag he carried so dearly home.
At home, a tall, skinny girl with blonde hair and light blue eyes – almost turquoise – with plenty of mascara opened the door for him with unintentional grace about her carelessness. Tatiana was Sasha's sister.
"Got bread then?" she demanded.
"Got bread." he replied. Without a further word, Tatiana took the bag from his hand and marched with it off to the kitchen. It was a warm flat, a warm home. Sasha took off his coat and shoes to reveal two black socks and a red pullover. Soon, he would take that off too, to reveal a green T-shirt, hidden under which was a white vest. A red hankerchief was also concealed in the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms.
For now, Sasha slumped down on the sofa, and watched some Russian television. Nothing interesting today. After a while of letting his brain relax, he walked past his sister's room to his own, where he curled up on his bed with a copy of Audrey Niffenegger's 'The Time Traveler's Wife." Faint noises of Russian rock music could be heard from the next room, where Tatiana was scribbling down a poem in messy handwriting. It was entitiled 'I hate seeing straight lines.'
Scattered all around her room, were these poems that she would churn out from her heart day by day, week by week. Piles of years on yellow paper were stacked in the corners, but the recent sheets were strewn about like a web of black ink. At nineteen years of age, Tatiana had an immaculately tidy room. It was all except for this paper – it was all as if the paper was intentionally placed there as a mark of anger.
The poems could be read, but mostly they were not. It was usually the title that mattered, sticking out in huge lettering like menacing eyes. The titles read various things, like 'Midnight feast of cannibals', 'smooth grace', 'blood stained tears', 'Wilting roses'...
When Tatiana finished, she threw down this poem on the floor as well, and proceeded to check her face meticulously in her mirror across from her desk. After she had done this, she took her box of makeup and began thickening her mask, finishing herself off with two bright, red lips that would have kissed the frame of any photo. Tatiana put away her makeup box, and blew softly in the mirror, making a windy mist appear on it, which she let fade away.
She got up, and opened her window. In her mind, whenever she did this, she would whisper "bring forth all hell's winds!", although she always kept her window firmly shut at night, and her door firmly locked.
Later that night, when she was completely fortified, Tatiana reached under her bed. Her black fingernails gleaming provocatively in the yellow light of the room. They fumbled and pulled out a little pink case, removed the lid, and spilled out some cards.
Tatiana didn't believe in that stuff, but something compelled her to use them – picking a scab – as she put it to herself when she was in a frank mood. But she wasn't now. Adeptly, Tatiana shuffled the cards, ripple upon ripple, wave upon wave in the grey cloudy sunset that surely must be happening in some depressing corner of the world. But thw waves and ripples soon became colourful, and just as they were shining like the silver and gold of London's December twilight, Tatiana spread them out, closed her eyes, and picked one out.
It was not like the other cards, it was not an angel or a faery, or something. It did not have a caption. It was simply a picture of a red flowerhead. That was all. More like a playing card, thought Tatiana.
As she pictured this in her mind, she remembered a boy she had seen earlier that day. She had been sitting in the canteen of her university, making notes on her physics module and gnawing on a sour, green apple, when suddenly, a boy had come to sit in front of her. Tatiana remembered being particularly repulsed by his long, thin nose.
"With hair that light, and eyes that piercing blue, anyone would think that your a nazi, my dear," he said. At that, Tatiana raised her eyebrow and said nothing. What could she say to something like that?
As if it was scripted, or as if the boy was particularly good at deciphering raised eyebrows, he smiled the smile of a proud father, and slid a card out to her across the table. The card that she held now in her hand. He then promptly got up and walked away. Tatiana could see the top of a book she had seen in the library protruding from his bag. The book was called "Fated thoughts – Philosophy of Religion."
Now, in her room, Tatiana wandered why she had included the card in her deck, but it had had the same back. It had not been in the original deck...and how had that boy known? In any event, Tatiana dismissed the card back into her box along with all the rest, shut the box, and stowed it away again.
The next morning, she awoke with a feeling in her chest that this day would be like one petal on that flower. She had the notion in her mind that something was going to happen – something was going to change. It is this that lead her to agree to come to this year's Yuletide celebration, instead of lighting candles on her own in the dark as she usually did.
"I can't Luke, and that's final!" shouted Zoe into her mobile phone. Everyone in the next room knew what she must look like now, her shock of red hair flaring and her deep brown eyes seeming to shout "Why am I not blue, or green? I'm supposed to be blue or green, dammit!" They knew her pink lip was curling and her nose twitching.
"Oh Luke, I never loved you. I never said it, you can count on that."
"No. It can't work. I need to be touched more odten than that."
"How dare you call me a slut, you childish idiot! That’s it, Luke!"
The walls seemed to vibrate, but it was almost like a massage. Nobody minded her shouting for less than ten minutes, and it never lasted longer than that. After ten minutes, end of discussion. This is exactly what happened now. Zoe hung up her phone, and silence ensued. She never spoke to Luke again. It was final – indeed it was.
Zoe was Rachel's age, but she was, in many ways, much older. She stepped onto the scales. 57kg. She smiled. Her goal was 54. That would put her right on the BMI 20 mark – as thin as allowed.
Zoe's family had recently moved to London from Dublin. However, they were not Irish. Zoe had been born and lived in London for the first six years of her life, before following her father to Dublin for his new job placement which he had just lost. So now they were back after eight years of corporate descent and Guinness.
Zoe was glad to be back in London, because she had fond memories here. Every Christmas, she had used to come and visit her extended family and she thoroughly enjoyed it.
This time, Zoe was here to stay.
It was 10am on the 21st of December, and Zoe proceeded to exit her bedroom. She told her parents that she was going to explore the city, put on her black coat, took her handbag, and proceeded directly towards Regent's park.
In her bag, apart from her trademark pink lipstick, and the general other utilities, there was a pair of sunglasses out of season, a skipping rope, and two thick books. One of them was 'Ancient and Modern History of Europe', which Zoe was halfway through reading, and the other was a notebook, half full of short stories that she had written. It was simply entitled 'Woman'.
The grass swayed in the breeze, and Zoe calmly tightened her scarf as shivvering strangers walked by: couples hand in hand; mothers and children; adults with their elderly parents; people of all sorts walking their dogs; various loners; joggers, but nobody else was sitting beside Zoe on the bench.
With a tint of grey, the sky was a stark blue that cradled Zoe in her wintery fire. She breathed in the air like an elixir of life and let it back out slowly, playing with fate. As Zoe opened her history book to start reading, and put it down for one second on the bench, the wind blew it open on a particular page. It could not possibly have been him, but the picture of the blond man on that page made her think for some reason of Geert Wilders.
Geert Wilders. He was a Dutch politician, and in 2008, he had released a film making various controversial statements against Islam. Why on earth would someone like that spring to mind? Oh well. Zoe looked more closely at the page, and saw that the picture was captioned 'Alexander The Great'.
It took Zoe a few moments, but she was soon writing in her book, 'Woman'. How did this idea come to her? I don't know, but she began writing about Alexander the Great, pinning a woman to the wall. "I conquered the world for you! I fought, and sacrificed lives for you! And this is how you repay me?" Zoe wrote that the passion in his eyes was that of a stallion-unicorn. She chuckled silently to herself, but it was serious.
"For me? Hah! You know exactly what thing you conquered it for, and it sure wasn't me!"
Zoe chuckled further in glee; she wrote that the woman's piercing green eyes glowed with a passion of unimaginable depth, and her fiery locks of hair seemed as though hey were about to slap Alexander across the face.
"You know you want me," he whispered. And Zoe put down her pen.
No. She does not want you, Alexander. And her mind drifted to a certain thought. Looking up at the buildings in London only reminded her of one thing, one hope. The skyscrapers looked glorious in the sky, like gigantic flowers, blooming in this city full of life, because somewhere about, he was hiding.
Every time she came to London, Zoe had caught the eye of one particular boy with a mop of brown hair, and deep, lovely eyes. This time, she knew it was promised as always. Promised by destiny to change her life.
"You know you want me," said Alexander. "If you don't take me, your face will never look the same again."
Hanna's white hands held a knife steady, and cut through a carrot. Slice, slice, slice. She already wore her celebration outfit, and she was just preparing the salad last minute, so that it would be fresh; the stew's ingredients were all ready for the fire, and everything was packed. Hanna wore a simple blue frock, but it matched with her eyes in a way that made them glow like sapphires in the darkness. That's what a romantic man would have said, but Hanna would have looked past him at the stream of strangers.
All the cutting had stained her fingers red and yellow and orange, as if she had committed some kind of veggy crime. She wore it like a sign. Her fingernails were unpainted, and she wore very little makeup – she had no need for it. Her frock was covered by a pristine white coat – Hanna shone best through simplicity. That was her style.
What Hanna looked forward to most about Yuletide was to see the stars in the skye, and then to look around her and see people around the various campfires – like little solar systems. It reminded her of how every time you look up and wish, the answer is all around you, swarming in the city lights.
The smell in the kitchen was like Yuletide. It was the smell of a meal prepared and ready to go, but it also smelled like a clean and empty kitchen with only a simple salad being cut. Hanna felt the tranquility of the moment, even though she still loved that spark of excitement in her belly like a crystal cave of fire. Mikael was whistling Sarasate's 'Zigeunerweisen' in the background – the last movement – the fast bit. And Sonja was mindlessly dancing to it, clomping her shoes on the floor.
Rachel was sitting in the corner, seemingly overtaken by the air of the fest.
Hanna's peachy hair was tied back in a ponytail, and it seemed to flip along with the breezy draft that flowed through the ventilation. The white light of the kitchen seemed like a sanctuary of production with it's silver, tin surfaces. A slight whooshing of the wind could be heard from outside the window, but Hanna was undisturbed. She was finely cutting the carrots for the salad. Slice, slice, slice.
Much as the moment was plain, anyone standing next to Hanna would have smelt her perfume, and the world would have seemed much less plain to them. Seeing the swaying of her hips, and the fluid motion of her chest, breathing back and forth, one could not help but feel that there was a certain music to her life – a music that could not be easily entered.
The truth of the matter was that there was indeed a music to Hanna's life. But at this moment, that music was one peaceful note. It was a note that said, "I yearn," but it was in a harmonic with the world – a harmonic that said "I don't want to." And thus the simple note and the symphony of life played together like a silken scarf flying from a single rod; undulating around each other – one controlled, one chaotic.
At other times, Hanna had two notes playing in her life, or maybe three. In fact, she could have many, many notes playing, but Hanna always knew which ones they were. That was why the music was so harmoniously mysterious to the beholder's naked eye.
Presently, Hanna was thinking about how although this was a simple café, what made it less simple was the fact that she could not rid herself of the urge to believe that its future was looking at it back in time, through knots of twisted steel. That was what Hanna loved about life. Although it was simple, the more you looked, the more you saw complexities that you could choose to delve into should you so wish, but there was no need to delve into those which didn't have any bearing.
Looking up, Hanna was sure that she saw across the bar to the window that a boy was looking in through the glass. He was medium height, and had two striking grey eyes. But before she could catch them, he walked away like a ghost from the mist in the December afternoon light.
Suddenly, Hanna heard a shrill note in her ears. She knew she was just imagining it, or not imagining, but it was somehow in her mind. Through the note, she could hear a sighing and a whimpering like a small child crying, like someone who had exerted all their effort, like someone dying, like someone being born. Hanna closed her eyes, and opened them. The sould slowly faded away, because now she knew; but what she knew, she didn’t know.
It was four thrity in the evening, and it was the most beautiful sight to stand there in the field watching the day meet the night; life and death embracing in passions that bloodied and brusied the sky with an unimaginable grace. Golden sunrays penetrated white clouds in the misty darkness with a silence so loud that it deafened Rachel from the noise around her. She truly felt as if Yuletide was here inside her heart. Thus, in the cold air, blood rushed to Reachel's face and her hands just as if it were warm. Rachel was the cold wind blowing about in the heat, and she was soon to live and breathe her scenery.
However, there was one thing that could seperate her still from her fated meditation.
"Hey Rache!" she heard a voice say – Rachel heard Sasha.
"Hey Sasha!" she replied, "what's up?"
"Just setting up, you know. What are you doing all the way out here? Hanna's really worried, looking for you; I've got to admit, this isn't like you at all. Is everything ok?"
He looked at her, Sasha, with his brown eyes that drew you in and his head of floppy brown hair; his pale skin and his rosy cheeks and lips; his tall but muscular phisyque – but most of all his smile that made you forget everything else, and he looked like a comfort Rachel was not supposed to have. The wind forbade her, but she didn't take notice enough to remember.
"Oh, I'm perfectly fine!" said Rachel, waving his words away. "Let's go back."
Sasha's family's bonfire was right next to Rachel's, just as every Sabbath. He was very close to her family, seeing as he spent such a lot of time in the café talking to Rachel. Safe and warm in her coat, Rachel loved the yellows and reds of the celebration in contrast with the silvery whites and greys of the turmoiling sky. She watched these as they walked back.
"Rachel, where have you been?" a voice lulled. It was Hanna's this time.
"I just went for a walk, that's all," smiled Rachel, two new ice crystals behind her eyelids. Hanna looked at her with a trusting speculation, her soft, red hair stirring with an enticing serenity.
"Put some dishes out, Rachel." she said, and glided away.
Sasha and Rachel chatted as they layed out the dishes on the picnic tables.
"Don't you just love the cold?" Rachel remarked.
"It's alright, I suppose." he replied.
"I do so love it, it's so...glamorous," she continued.
"I do so love it," he echoed, twinkling.
"Shut up," she giggled, slapping him lightly on the arm.
"Owwwwww!"
"I'll get you again, if you don't stop fussing,"
"Oh really?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die."
"Noooo! You mustn't dieeee!"
Sasha lunged forward in a mock act of diving after Rachel, but at this point, they heard someone's voice calling.
"Dinner is ready, everyone!"
So Rachel went to dinner and Sasha went back to his family.
"Where has Sasha gone?" Hanna asked immediately.
"He's gone to his family because it's dinner," Rachel replied.
"Why? Go to tell him he can eat with us!" smiled Hanna.
Tatiana may have agreed to come to the Yuletide celebration, but that didn't mean she had agreed to be with her family. She walked, in trainers and tracksuit bottoms, her hair flying wildly white across ther shoulders, gleaming like pristine fire. Her manner was flaring but graceful, and her blue eyes shone like the coldest imaginable Russian winter. Tatiana felt warm inside her thick, soft coat.
She had already been inside the nearby woods; nothing of interest was to be found there. She had already skimmed the sides of the field and the walls of the house. All that was left for Tatiana to explore were the people.
Tatiana found herself walking towards the family bonfire again. "No matter where I go, I always have to return and return until I decide to sever myself off completely," she thought. But now, she passed the oh-so-famous Rachel family. She knew this because she had once met Mikael when she had come to look for Sasha on one occasion a few years ago.
Tatiana remembered the occasion vividly. She had walked into the café and asked at the bar for Sasha. As you may expect, Mikael had been at the bar, and he had said that Sasha was there, but he had also said "Ah, so you must be Tatiana! Nice to meet you!"
Tatiana and Sasha's parents had originally spoken Russian to Tatiana as a baby before they migrated to England, but when Sasha was born they hadn't bothered. It was because of this that Tatiana was bilingual, but Sasha was multilingual only. Mikael had taken this opportunity to practice his Russian, and had kept Tatiana waiting in the café for almost half an hour before she could speak to her brother.
Although Tatiana liked not to admit it, she had actually found Mikael to be a fascinating conversationalist. "Oh no," she thought to herself now, "I am probably going to run into that Mikael again..."
"Tatiana!" said Mikael at that moment, upon seeing her.
"Mikael!" she returned.
"How long is it since I saw you that time?"
"Several years now, I should think," Tatiana said in Russian. Mikael replied in Russian too.
"Such a long time? Why, It seems like only yesterday that we had that wonderful conversation!"
"It does!
And so they continued to talk for a while, but soon, Sonja came to occupy the conversation.
Tatiana felt herself wandering about again, with a bowl of vegetable stew in her hand; locking her into the grip of the Zayorevs' bonfire site. She saw a little young woman of her late teens standing melancholy by a huge pot of stew. The girl had the most serene rosy cheeks and matching bronze hair, which sparkled in the sunlight. Her style of dress was simple, but her eyes radiated a compled pattern of misty love.
Tatiana cautiously walked up to her like a fly to the flame.
"Did you make this stew?" she asked her.
"Yes, do you like it? I think it's quite overly salty. You must be Tatiana."
"Yes, I am. And no, the stew is perfect! Better than anything my mum could have made."
"The world can provide the best mother," speculated Hanna.
"Hmm. I've never thought of it like that..." Tatiana continued, "I suppose mothers tend to keep you from the true mother of the world."
"I suppose they do, but sometimes they can be wonderful. Reality doesn't always have to be the basis for life."
"Now that's where you're wrong, in my opinion. We can't forget reality ever, otherwise we simply become airy wishful sheep. Have you seen some of the people here? That's why I usually stay home by myself. It takes great power not to be knocked into this flow."
Hanna gave the stew a little stir.
"I agree," she said, "but we mustn't allow reality to overlook that which is in our heads. Imagination and tradition, I find, seem to make for a biased person, but that bias is not often a bad thing. The world is full of biased people, but that makes it more interesting, don't you see?"
"I do suppose..." replied Tatiana, "That danger can be rather like our mother."
"Yes, but also the homes we can create."
"Homes stink!" remarked Tatiana. Suddenly, the black of her outfit seemed to greatly contrast the white of Hanna's, and Tatiana felt compelled to take another spoonful of stew.
"This really is the most remarkable stew!" she said.
"Thank you." Hanna said.
A silence ensued.
"You know," said Hanna after a while, "I do find that I can be rather up in the clouds sometimes; you are right, now that I think about it. I don't know if it's good or bad, though."
Hanna smiled, and Tatiana smiled back at her.
Rachel began walking to Sasha's family to give him his invitation from Hanna, but as she approached the bonfire site, Rachel saw that he was on the opposite side of the fire next to the family from the other side, which she had never seen before. He was deep in conversation with a slender girl with long, ginger hair and a pale, but beautifully formed face. Her eyes, also, were a deep brown; unusual for such a hair colour. She seemed to be the type of person to look down her nose at people, but her turn-up nose was today turned up in admiration and faith.
Rachel felt too hot inside, her blood rushing frantically. There was a little girl inside her that awoke – a new little Rachel. She was only very young but she felt humiliated and giddy at the same time. Rachel held her hand, but she shook it away. She didn't need her, and Rachel felt a hot flick creep up to her face. The wind said "You don't need her, Rachel, she is a stupid little brat with no knowledge of anything. Come with me, instead."
Rachel walked faster than normal back to her own site, passing a wandering boy of perhaps seventeen. She didn't even notice him.
All Rachel wanted was to take off her coat. It was too hot for her and she wanted to be cold. Forcefully unzipping the front and tearing that oppressive bundle of familarity, of ease, away from herself, Rachel felt the wind urge her to fly.
She didn't notice the boy until she tripped over, and he came to stand over her.
"Nice shoes," he remarked, seeing as Rachel was wearing her new, red shoes. That had been why she tripped over. Without any further words, he held out his hand and pulled her up, seemingly with ease.
He was a medium height boy with long, narrow eye sockets, and a beautifully tanned complexion. His nose was long like a hawk's, but turned up like a cat's. It suited his natural blond very well. His smile was thin, but his forehead seemed to be built in a more boyish way. His posture was manly but playful; his eyelashes long and his irises a clear grey.
Rachel felt his cool hand with a spark as he lifted her off of the ground, just like a rope from which a dancer hangs in a flying routine. Niether red, nor white, she brushed herself off.
"The black rose..." he muttered, for a black rose was painted onto the side of the boot. "What's your name, then?"
"Rachel.You?" but he just smiled and walked away, leaving Rachel almost more calm, but in an even greater daze.
Rachel felt her heels digging into the grassy, wet ground as she sauntered heavily back to Hanna. She told her that Sasha had declined her offer, much to her disappointment. But her face soon regained its wishful smile, and she poured Rachel a bowl of hot vegetable stew – Rachel's favourite of her stews.
Rachel took her stew and went to sit down in the corner of the picnic mat, alone; but her granfather soon came to sit next to her.
"Hello," he simply said.
"Hi," she replied. Not much else was said.
Thoughts were rushing through Rachel's head; I don't remember any of them now. In fact, I can't possibly imagine what she might have been thinking, but she was intently concentrating when Papi asked her some superficial question. As Rachel later learned, she didn't hear him, and he thought she was ignoring him.
Rachel did, however, notice him get up and go to sit next to Sonja. At this, she felt a mixture of grief and release. The stew was too hot and the icy breeze felt cool on her face. Leaving her stew nearly untouched, Rachel walked away and took a deep breath. She thought she heard her mother ask where she was going, but Rachel ignored her. Sonja seemed not to mind so much anyway.
Images of Sasha and the redhead girl fought their way into Rachel's mind, and then fought their way out again, until her brain was as bloodied as her two red boots. She broke into a run.
The wind was speaking to her again. It said "Join me, fly with me; soar with me, be one with me. Forget all the rest and fly like a bird, Rachel, be a bird, Rachel!"
Suddenly, as if by magic, Rachel found herself flying. She felt her feet leave the ground and She saw the trees change an angle. Her stomach turned and her head started fluttering. Could this be really happening? But it couldn't, and seemingly it was as soon as Rachel had thought this thought, that she began to lose height, and in slow motion she felt herself descend. The churning was a different kind now.
Rachel hit the ground with a bump on the back of the head, and the world split in half, in four, in five – all the numbers were the same.
Sasha floated with the redhead girl towards the wall and pinned her up against it. Turnhill House was a perfect shelter to hide behind. Like a hot metal worker, Sasha licked her tongue and she licked his back. Somehow, they both knew exactly what to do instinctively.
They both breathed heavily, gasping for breath every few seconds before diving back into their secret little world. He moved down and held her tight, beginning to kiss her neck and feeling her heavy breaths in a pulse as the air streamed through his heartbeats. The girl was gripping his hips now, like stirrups on a stallion. They smelled each other and swam even more deeply inside each other's open eyes. Niether of them could have cared less about conventions. They drank each other up and heaved and hoed until they couldn't stand it anymore and they both fell to the floor, panting.
Sasha lay on his back, legs bent up, and his companion lay on top of him and smiled as she kissed the tip of his nose.
"I knew I'd find you..." she whispered.
"I knew it too," he replied, even though he hadn't, but he felt like he had known her all his life. It was only his heart talking.
They stared into each other's brown eyes and Sasha thought of the way that life can go from sleeping beats to perfect heavenly sense in a matter of minutes. He was very fit, but he was still panting. So was she.
"You've taken my breath away," he told her shyly.
Zoe smiled even more widely. Sasha felt her slender physique with his hands, and she felt his. Her face was perfect, her smile was perfect...her eyebrows were perfect. Everything about her was perfect.
"You are so perfect, Zoe," he told her.
"Only for you," she said. And she kissed him again. It wasn't a passionate kiss this time. It was a kiss of lying on the grass in the sunset with your ordained lover and reminding yourself that life was ahead, and that you would soar the skies together at the speed of light, and never any slower. It was that sort of tranquility.
"Do you have a motorcycle?" she asked him.
"No, do you?" he laughed.
"No."
Sasha and Zoe felt the pulses of their trembling bodies laughing together like kites tied together in the crazy wind of life.
"I don't need a motorcycle, " said Zoe. "I've got a mental ride already, and it's incredibly fast."
"I see," said Sasha, for even though he didn't know in the least what she meant, he felt that he fully understood her.
Presently, Zoe rolled over and sat up. Sasha followed her and sat with his legs wrapped around her from behind. Playing and fondling with her hair, he allowed himself to enter a sort of trance – a trance where no gust of wind could possibly make him escape the warmth of Zoe's soft, ginger hair that he caressed with such an ownership, and yet such awe. He felt that he was in trance where even without doing anything other than sitting there with him, probably with various other thoughts in her mind, Zoe was telling Sasha something in his ear that he should never forget, and so even though he may not have heard the words pulsating through her veins at that very moment, Sasha never forgot that moment in his life.
He slowly ran his finger over the contours of Zoe's ear. That – that touch of skin on skin – was their true first kiss.
The next thing Rachel knew, she was inside a tent of some sort. It was still the end of sunset, so it couldn't have been more than about ten minutes after her fall, but she felt there like it had been an eternity. Rachel was strewn in the corner like a sack of flour.
She slowly got up and started to brush herself off, but she felt very dizzy and lost her balance. Also, she felt that her shoes were off. The fabric floor froze Rachel's bare feet. She saw her shoes beside her.
As Rachel started to put them on, a figure walked past wearing a tight, black felt coat. It was the blond boy. He looked at her with his grey eyes, and said.
"Oh, you've awoken. You took quite a fall, then."
"I'm fine, really." she said, and got up briskly. The dizziness was only very slight this time. Rachel felt another shiver of cold as she realised that her coat was off as well. She looked around for it, but this time, it was on the other side of the room next to the boy.
"You have my coat," said Rachel.
"Yes," he responded. She was about to reply, but when I
Rachel opened her mouth he continued to speak.
"I do have your coat. You can have mine if you like." and with that, he took off his coat and threw it at Rachel; revealing a muscular torso covered by a thin white tee-shirt. Rachel was confused, but she put on the coat, recalling herself as she had chosen her outfit for today – long jeans and a crimson tank top, perhaps revealing a little too much cleavage – especially since her breasts were not yet fully developed.
Adding to the bizzareness of the whole situation, Rachel felt something in my throat, and before she knew it, a silent burp escaped into her mouth. The boy did not notice this, but Rachel did, noticing a strange, bitter flavour that she recalled from somewhere, but she couldn't think what. It reminded Rachel of fancy chocolates, or maybe Christmas pudding.
Rachel found the situation slightly amusing.
"So you didn't tell me your name yet, blonde boy." she said.
"No, I didnt. You should call me blonde boy though – I like that." His smile was just as thin as before.
"I shan't call you Blonde Boy – that's not a name."
"Ok then... call me Dick." he replied. Rachel giggled. He took a step towards her. Rachel felt those red shoes on her feet like weapons.
"You like my shoes, don't you," she started. "Would you like me to kick you with them? ...I know where." For some reason, Rachel found this hysterically funny, and collapsed laughing on the floor.
The boy knelt down after her, reaching his hand towards the zip of her shoe.
"You know," he said, "If my name really were Dick, I might just have let you."
His breath felt warm on Rachel's face, and she remembered her mother and her clients at home. She was never in this situation. Suddenly, the cold air seemed even colder, and the strange, bitter taste went away.
Like a snake, the boy started to unzip Rachel's boot, but she put her hand on his arm.
"What are you doing?" asked Rachel. But the boy ignored her and continued to calmly unzip the boot. She pulled at his hand, but he was too strong for her and it didnt even show on his face that anything was stopping him.
It was with the same grace that he gently placed his arm on Rachel's shoulder as though lost in a trance, while she tried to get up, and restrained her. Rachel tried to shout, but he looked her in the eyes, and his gaze kept her at bay. It was as if the greyness was taking Rachel over. SheI was lost in a clear, grey world where only him and her existed.
Rachel felt the cold air on her now bare foot, and her other bare foot. She felt the chills on her spine as it was exposed – vertebra by vertebra. He swiftly pulled off her shirt as if he were peeling a fuit. Her breasts seemed to shrivel up and die before him like shameful magicians whose trick had been discovered. Although Rachel tired to move, she couldn't. She felt her legs being bared, and finally, her one last garment.
She felt a certain little Rachel deep inside her cry for help, but she didn't listen to her as she was forced out from between her legs – naked. This was just a nightmare where the dreary world drips on you like hot flames; burning with a nude coldness that freezes even the greenest flowers and turns them grey. Like his eyes.
Rachel barely had time to notice that the boy's bare body was on hers, and that his surreally cold fingers were weaving her fate on her skin: her arms, her underarms; her back, her stomach; each breast, each hip; each finger finding a niche, finding a place to cleanse of childood like bleach. She felt naked in every way.
Suddenly, Rachel felt a sharp pain as if her little Rachel had been killed in an instant, blood dripping out onto the snowlike floor. Rachel yelped, but his eyes flashed silver and the wind spoke to her through them.
"Now I am inside you, Rachel. So play with me and this nice boy here. Go on little girl, and play in the wind."
Air blew through the opening of the tent and chilled Rachel and caressed her from every angle, turning her heart into ice.
The boy pushed further. She felt as if he was cutting through her organs, and that she was choking on her own blood. Rachel closed her eyes, and she could feel his scent soothing her nostrils like a candle in the dark. His smooth body was like a joke.
"Shhh," said the wind "shhhhhh...shhhhhhhh," deafening Rachel's ears. It was a barren moment. She felt her little Rachel's ghost scream in pain; but her screams were just another note to harmonise the "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".
In discord, the two sang together, painfully cutting through, bar by bar, in a repeating cell. One, two, one-two. Each push and pull was a relief and a new pain at the same time. The smoothness felt like sandpaper and the changes were almost too quick and vicious to comprehend. Rachel felt like a piece of firewood. Her head began to hurt and she started to feel sick. The boy was kissing her neck, and warming her chest.
Gradually, a fire crept up from inside her. The screams grew to overpower the wind. These were no longer the screams of a little girl – these were the screams of a woman. A euphoria overtook Rachel as she took the boy by surprise and opened her eyes, pushing with all her might. All she could hear were the screams. Rachel was shouting them with all but her mouth.
But the boy was too strong for her. When Rachel saw his eyes, she cooled down. "Shhhhhhhh...". The screams turned into the sobs of a little girl once more. The cells of music continued to repeat. In the dawn of Yule, the sun had set. Rachel closed her eyes, and her little Rachel retrieved what life she could have by sleeping a strange sleep from a fairtale. She no longer felt the cold.
Suddenly, the boy got off of her. His grey eyes were still enchanting, and his exposed body looked silver in the low light. Not even bothering to take his clothes, he walked out of the tent. Rachel quickly gathered hers and put them on, feeling strange. I now know to say that the boy never 'finished' inside her. I never found out why. As Rachel came out of the tent, the boy was nowhere to be seen. He was gone like a ghost – leaving no memory.
Rachel was not scared. And when she got back to the site she never said anything. For that night, it was just her and him, and the wind, and nobody. Shhhh...
And also, I'm not sure if this came up on the screen or not, but the rating for this is 16+
