Work Text:
Down by the sea where nobody remained
I thought of you all and how everything changed
What will you do when the river runs dry?
Bury our heads in the sand till we die
There were stories, in the village, about the lizard-woman who spirited a child away three summers past. Everyone knew the tale. They told it different on every street, but the crux was ever the same: a fairy, or something like one, and a fortune in exchange for the babe. It was a simple transaction sometimes, other times a fantastical fight, but in all the tales Renzolla was chosen for a life of wonder and magic. Gabrielle, and the other ten sisters, were not.
She ached for fairies. She ached for the glow of subtle magic, for the majesty of the great fabled palace, for the lithe swish of a lizard’s tail which, in some versions, was rare as unicorn’s blood. She ached for the stories, for something beyond the dust and nothingness that comprised her life. She ached, yes, in between sewing and cooking and childminding, she ached when her mind went empty, ached as she lay in her straw bed with her sister’s elbow in her side. She ached whenever she got the chance, but aching never got you anywhere.
“Do you think,” Gabrielle asked her mother, “that Renzolla is having a grand time?”
Her mother stiffened: that old wound, again . She scowled whenever anyone brought her up.
“We don’t talk about Renzolla,” she insisted.
They were sewing, as ever, and Gabrielle’s stitches suffered for her distraction. It was hard, she knew, to focus on the task at hand when your mind was full of fairy tales. She was thinking of princes, or kings, or knights of old. There was always a palace, always true love.
“I know,” Gabrielle pressed on, “but mama, she still lives. She’s still out there, somewhere.”
“Yes,” her mother frowned. “She has a new life now.”
“Do you think she’ll return? For a visit?”
Her mother’s face was pale as a milksop. That wound, once scarred, was set to festering. It had been three long years. Her father had squandered the fortune and still they’d lost Renzolla with nothing to show for it.
“I do not know,” her mother said at last, measured, frugal, not a whit of emotion to be heard. How could she be so cold? “We will never know. We must make peace with that. She is gone, simply gone.”
Gabrielle was the middle child; there were five before her, five after. And Renzolla, but everyone wanted to forget about her. Gabrielle wondered, as she sewed, as she bathed the little ones, as she waited for her father’s sullen appearance with a pittance for supper, she wondered: why not me ?
As she milked the goat, fed the birds on yesterday’s bread, swept endless Mediterranean sand from the faded old floorboards, she thought: what if ? As she scrubbed worm guts from betwixt Liotte’s toes, she thought: why not ? As she lay in bed listening to her sisters’s snores she realised: I can .
Over breakfast, polenta boiled to death, floating dully in her bowl, she cleared her throat.
“Mother,” she said, for her father had long since gone to work. “I am going to seek adventure.”
“Are you?” said her mother mildly, and without looking, for after ten children one got used to hearing such things.
“Yes. I seek a prince to marry, and probably a dragon.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” Her mind was made up.
“And where will you find a dragon and a prince?”
“Perhaps not in the same place. But I will scour the outer edges of the Empire for both, and I won’t be coming home until I’ve found them.”
“I hope you don’t expect me to feed your prince, or your dragon for that matter.”
Gabrielle scowled. Her mother was not taking this seriously.
“I mean it,” she insisted. “I’ll leave and never come back.”
“You just said--” her mother swallowed her own words. “If you want to go, I support you. There’s very little I can do to stop you.” Was her mother really willing to lose two daughters?
But, really, what loss was a second, when you’ve already been torn from one? Maybe it got easier with time, maybe she got better at hiding it.
“Are you really going?” Liotte whispered. Gabrielle was stripping the little ones for bed; they made a game of it, and there was not often speaking, but today was a weird one. She inched Liotte’s dress higher, but her arms were bent in all the wrong ways and she was wriggling.
“Yes,” Gabrielle said, without looking. Her youngest sister, save Renzolla, Liotte was a curious one. “Adventure calls me.”
“I want to come,” she said, with utter seriousness.
“Someone needs to keep an eye on Bianca. And who will bring mama flowers if not you? Mama needs her flowers.”
“Will you come back and visit?” Her little voice is sad, and why not? Her other sister disappeared.
“Of course,” Gabrielle flicked Liotte’s nose. “Of course I will.” If she sought adventure and found it, maybe she could raise her family from poverty, only this time she wouldn’t let her father have charge of the fortune. Maybe Liotte could even go to school. That would be nice.
“Adventure calls me too,” Liotte insisted as Gabriella lifted her soft linen shift over her head.
“Get your own adventure,” she said, bitter as old milk. Mean, perhaps, but life was mean.
Gabrielle was perhaps too old for stories, too old for wishing, but adventure came in many forms and Gabrielle was willing to seize it where she could.
She dressed for the weather. It was summer, and sickly warm, everything smelled of citrus and olives and there were lizards about, undulating across the brickwork. She wondered if one of them was the witch who’d spirited Renzolla away. She didn’t have the heart to squish them just in case.
She packed lunch, thought about it, and packed dinner too: bread and cheese, a pesto aioli in a little jar, three ripe and bursting tomatoes, a jar of pickled olives, an apple for good luck. It was probably more than they could spare, but she took it anyway, because life was cruel, because she hungered for more than stale ciabatta.
She drank her fill of fresh water fetched from the well that very morning, because she didn’t know when she’d next see drinkable fluid. Did all adventurers worry about food and water? Was there usually this much preparation?
She bid goodbye to her sisters, she gave her father a cursory farewell, she fixed her hair, straightened her best dress, brushed the dirt from between her toes and slipped her feet into her third-generation sandals. She stood before her mother, who would not weep for anything.
“I’ll be off, now,” she said.
Her mother nodded, twice, a sharp inclination of her head.
“I’ll be back soon,” Gabrielle said, more to herself than anyone else. It was a crutch, of sorts. She would not be going too far, too long. She was not going forever, not like Renzolla.
Her mother nodded, again. She wasn’t even looking. There were many things that frustrated Gabrielle, many thoughts fighting for attention in her head, but her mother’s lack of care stung like an insect bite.
“Goodbye,” she said, and did not move. She was waiting to see if her mother would break, would look, would say something. Anything was better than nothing.
Her sisters chorused “goodbye” and something flickered across her mother’s eyes, some kind of desperation, a panic blooming in her passive face. Another daughter gone. What was one more?
Gabrielle opened the door. The world outside awaited.