11 ~ Daedalus

It was promising to be a very sound sleep.

Someone was still talking to her.

All she wanted to do now was sleep...

For days and nights, for ages to come.

She was feeling tired beyond comprehension.

As if she had never slept for years long.

She was abandoning herself to this slumber, but someone was still talking to her worryingly.

She had to reply. She felt so numb and tired, awakening for a moment again in an exhausting struggle.

Opening barely her eyes to a place she couldn’t comprehend. She didn’t know much anymore. Somewhere between dream and reality, memories in shambles.

- Can you hear me? What’s your name?

M - ...

- Do you... Remember something? Anything?

M - My name...

What name did she recalled hearing a lot?

M - My name is Mary... I can’t remember...

- It will be alright Mary. You were in an accident. Your memory will return eventually. Can you look this way?

She couldn’t. Something sweet was filling the air though.

M - M... Mom?

Yes sweetheart?

Something broke in her heart and inside her mind.

As if someone dear to her was gone or dead. The shock of a tragic event suddenly hit her. She felt lost, and still about to fall in a slumber from which she wouldn’t recover.

M - Wh... Where is Blue?

~

Mary-Esther was remembering a painful memory. Well, almost remembering she conceded... Everything was still in pieces for some reason, the whole picture still beyond her grasp.

Light, darkness, noises, pain, doubts and fear were orbiting around this memory. They were mixed in chaos around that time.

Where was Blue? Asking that meaningful question brought incredible suffering, almost physical pain.

At the time when she was with her parents, where was Blue again? Now that she thought about it, she realised she should have asked herself that very question a long time ago...

She had been too happy to see Blue again to dare delving into that.

Her father shouldn’t be there anymore, and Blue had been missing then. Why?

Where was it, at the time? When this all began, where was Blue?

Mary-Esther regained consciousness under the sky, a white veil of light, sky and clouds. The sun wasn’t visible, but some of its warmth still was reaching her.

She thought for a second that she was free. Her expectation however had risen too quickly, and she felt sad when the sounds of rolling train reached back her ears.

Her yellow dress had turned a little greener for some reason? Perhaps the light made it look that way.

Around her she could only see sky, but she could feel that she was still inside a train. What kind of prodigy was this?

She sat there, in the middle of a piece of sky. Now this really was surreal. Seeing her own reflection below her, she thought the floor could simply be a gigantic mirror. But if not for her reflection, it sure made it look like she was in the middle of the sky.

Somehow it reminded her of the rose garden, where she felt outside for a moment as well...

Standing up carefully, she began to notice the lines of the walls and edges of the floor of the wagon. The scenery beyond the windows reappeared too from this higher view point. The landscape of hills and mountains could be seen outside.

Blue was waiting on the top of one of the few benches set across the place. She just noticed them now, perhaps because of their unusual white and sky blue colours.

She walked closer to Blue instead of calling it to her. She looked at it closer and very carefully. She was searching for any clue that would trigger a missing piece of explanation or memory.

She thought that Blue itself was probably some kind of key for her. A key to more remembrance precisely. It might help her understanding the present better. That was the point of knowing about the past, was it not?

Blue shrieked softly and made a step back, as if her close presence was making it uncomfortable. She had kept a persistent gaze focused on it and scrutinizing it. Her hands were also patting it, checking the sensations of softness from the feather and temperature from the body below. Blue was alive.

Mary-Esther smiled and offered her left arm to climb on. She offered it spontaneously to Blue’s sharp talons. The bird jumped on it and clung.

She wasn’t feeling any discomfort anymore from it. The pain was gone and she had forgotten about it.

She moved on. There was nothing else to do there. The door and next airlock passed, she was back in the train. It was a strange feeling to see that world reappear before her when she opened the door painted in blue.

What was real about the world, as long as her memory was off tracks? And what was the world, so long she was trapped inside that train? She feared the future.

She entered the fourth floor of the kitchen wagon.

~

Mary-Esther used the stairway in there to get one floor below and moved further. She entered another two stories high level. It was an indoor terrace, built like the greenhouse. Only the air was more pleasant, and some tables were set to welcome guests. An elegant place opened to the scenery, with two tall trees growing inside the wagon. Fully grown trees, bringing some shades over the tables. Perhaps they were artificial trees, but they looked good either way.

Blue flew around apparently cheerful, twittering or rather cawing, a little like a crow would. Blue seemed happy to fly around that place.

Mary-Esther played for a moment in there with her bird, forgetting about everything else to enjoy the nice moment.

When they had spent enough time playing around, they moved again together, through places they already knew.

They passed through a few wagons more rapidly, without looking around. The main exception was the spring garden.

That one still gave her mixed feelings, though a few amongst them were still pleasant.

She looked again at the flowers. She kept seeing the scenery passing in the distance through the windows, reminding her she was still imprisoned, no matter how nice this place was.

She ended up feeling uncomfortable and continued further without patience.

Next was the tree stairway. She could then remember visiting the sawmill and an art gallery in the next wagon. Two floors were still uncharted in the eleventh wagon, and she had a hunch.

She first went on the top floor level, and entered an old warehouse. It was dusty and curtains were drawn over every window, filtering the light. There were piles of various wooden chests and crates, some of which were stacked up to the ceiling.

She expected to find someone or something, but nothing unusual happened. At the end of this floor she found the door locked, forcing her to turn back to the stairs circling around the bigger tree, to reach the first floor.

It was a sewing room then. A small factory even. Two rows of workstations ran along the walls. There were a dozen of sewing machines, of modern manufacture.

Rolls of various cloth were sorted in special shelves along a wall, and hanging from the ceiling in some places. Most windows were hidden by hanging cloth as well, making the place pretty dim. The light coming through these curtains was colourful.

Mary-Esther began to look around quietly. She liked that place. She had good feelings associated with sewing, rolls of cloth, scissors and needle working them into clothing. Although she had no clear memory to recall, she liked sewing.

Blue flew away in a dark corner and shrieked a moment later from the shades. It was calling her, so she obediently went to check on its discovery.

Under a table where the bird stood, looking at the ground, she found a large book wrapped in a fallen roll.

She released it from the silky cloth, rustling softly. As soft as the dress she wore but much lighter.

As she held the book in her hands, it reminded her of the one she owned before.

It was covered with rough leather. She opened it and started to check its content randomly.

She smiled, recognising these stories. Bed time stories from her childhood... Adventures, strange lands, queer beings and jinns... Notes of ideas bequeathed from father and mother in the past, before Elise inherited it...She could remember how her mother was reading them to her, when she was young. Someone else too used to read them to her from time to time.... Her older sister?

She couldn’t really picture Scarlett doing so, nor Elise. It was probably her mother.

While flipping the pages with different handwritings, she discovered that a few had been torn and were missing. Maybe the pieces she had found in the messy restaurant in the beginning came from it.

At the end of the notebook, there were still a few blank pages, but she could see some had been neatly cut and taken away. This paper had been precious for the sisters.

A letter that had been stuck at the end fell from the book. When she picked it up, she understood that the paper from Elise’s letter indeed came from that notebook as well. It was the same kind and warm colour and size as these pages.

Mary-Esther put the book on the closest working station with good light. Then she unfolded the two letters she now held in her possession. It was the same handwriting from Elise on both.

However her mind kept the same blank inaptitude to interpret the words of the first one. She was just unable to read it, no matter how hard she tried.

Oddly, the second one made perfect sense and she was able to read it normally.

Sitting on a stool, Blue at her side, she began to read it aloud.

~

M - For those we love so much... The blue rose recipe.

She felt her heart and head pounding. She took another glance at the other letter. There was something important for her written there. She could feel it... There was something of utter importance for her in both of these. Answers.

She was feeling like crying because of it. Something she couldn’t understand. Meanwhile, that recipe meant something strong for her.

She read it further, feeling a nervous lump in her throat.

M - For your love to last longer and flourish brighter, share that promise further. Maybe one day, she could even marry you, if she was to receive a blue rose from you...

But for that dream to come true, to make that one seed blossom, it will require the love from all our roots. You will need our help making it real again...

M - It will be your promise, but from all of us. Oh, Mary, may my spell bring hope to you...

The text was signed by Elise E. Herson. Mary-Esther was still on the verge of crying, unable to smile anymore. It was a little too much once more. What Scarlett had yelled to her earlier was apparently true therefore. They were sisters. They had died. And she forgot them? No matter how bad she felt now, she couldn’t fully believe it. It was impossible for something so sad to her to happen...

Still, that sorrow and that feeling of guilt were growing strong within her.

Blue shrieked, forcing her to daze off. She had troubles focusing. She looked at the next lines from the letter. The recipe began under Elise’s name.

M - To create your own blue rose, to make it bud and open, here are what you will need...

First this very letter and recipe you’re holding, to be its soil and spell.

Then some yellow and bright cloth. Its warmth will be sunlight.

You will need some precious dust from these animals, from which everything grows, to make your flower shine.

You will then pick a normal rose bud, to bring the sweetest perfume and heart to your vow. Even a blue rose comes from other roses.

You will need a memento to cement your memories. A precious item filled with souvenirs to grant a soul to your flower, holding the remembrance.

Then you will need some essence of blue colour. From sea, from sky, from other petals. You will need a sample of that purest colour, with all its brightness and might.

Finally the last ingredient is the drop of magic water that will truly bind the roots together. The tear from a daiûa that will metamorphose the gathered ingredients into the blue rose you long for.

Because that one ingredient can only exist as long as you remember... You. Succeed, and your blue rose will blossom under our shared blessing, making your earnest wish come true.

And your promise will remain for as long as you live.

M - That last and foremost ingredient is a tear from Esther...

~

It felt a little as if someone had just hit her on the head with something heavy.

It was not a funny joke, if only it had been meant as one. Was she trembling? No, she couldn’t admit that she was shocked to read something nonsensical.

A spell, from all things.

What on Earth was this letter meaning...

Though thinking about the ingredients at least, they all reminded her of something shed had recently encountered in this train... Things she saw, she held, and made her heart race... The rose perfume mostly did.

But more importantly, her own tears?

She felt that she could cry anytime honestly now.

Just as worryingly for her, although the letter clearly seemed addressed to her, she could not remember whom she could have loved so much...

Mary-Esther looked at Blue, bewildered. The bird was the only thing she truly cared for around here, but not in way that would spark such words. Blue was like the dearest friend to her, there was nothing else a bird could be.

Thinking about stronger feelings of love, about that loved one she might have forgotten, it reminded her of the overwhelming feelings she had when she was in the rose garden...

It did felt like something really precious to her heart was about to come back to her mind then, until it all faded away. The memory of someone... Someone more important than anything else...

A loved one she had forgotten along with her own family possibly.

And perhaps someone for whom she had been willing to get aboard this awful train...

Mary-Esther wasn’t sure, although some of these stronger emotions were resurfacing.

The truth was harder to grasp than reality around here. Everything she saw, heard and thought about came with its part of illogical aspects.

It was exhausting fighting a way through these obscure swamps endlessly...

Though she still had some hope between her hands.

She was still continuing to assemble the pieces of the puzzle that appeared to make some sense and logic together.

Feeling like a lost child in prison, with countless fragments of a broken key to hopefully escape.

Some points in time, in places, along with some memories, they were lining up into stories. Between her discoveries and what she heard from the other girls, from that giant soup her world seemed to be, she tried her best to mould something seemingly coherent and consistent.

If the full and clear picture was still a wild dream to her tired mind, she took some confidence in some of the shapes that began to appear as truth now.

A kind of skeleton. The outlines of a giant blue flower...

A hopeful seed was emerging from the sea of nonsense in her mind. She could picture it somewhere, slowly growing, repairing itself, drawing itself, trying to exist. Its gains were dim so far, but she could begin to picture something bigger coming to life.

For her it was now hopefully only a matter of time before the blossoming...

~

That sea of what seemed like sorrow before. That picture coming along with the roses scents...

So it was love...

That endless and overwhelming sensation, nauseous, nice, a little suffocating and dreamy, it had been love for someone before...

She couldn’t remember neither a name nor a face behind. The sensation had become a little twisted or rotten now over time and oblivion, but there was no mistaking it now.

It had been love, before everything else...

It had fuelled everything in her, at a time she had since forgotten...

Did she actually come there because of her feelings for someone she could not recall? That would be insane...

Mary-Esther didn’t believe in such romantic love...

And also, she was puzzled to read on that recipe that her love was a she.

What?

The reality seemed to stray away again. She still had a long way to go to figure out the end. Hopefully despite all the odds and oddities, some logic would prevail and coalesce everything in time.

At least she had more pieces for her jigsaw puzzle now, and that was some kind of progress, no matter what it did to her mood and what she thought she understood before.

That was nonetheless another step for her to find her way, and eventually to go back to the world of the living, wherever it truly was...

That recipe was maybe more of a way out, than a clue about her past. She was willing to try it anyway.

Even though cooking with alchemy the symbol of a lover’s vow, for no one clearly identified, was a little nonsensical.

At the point she had reached in this train, she was willing to try even that, hoping it would unlock other things along the way.

She took everything with her, and then Blue climbed over her arm again.

She had found Golden’s book and knew that one of the ingredients was likely still in a box in her room. A broken memento, she knew only one.

Golden? She could suddenly remember giving that nickname to Elise before. A nickname for her elder sister Elise, not so long ago...

For once she remembered something that didn’t seem like it happened a decade ago.

She had some sights coming back, of Elise climbing stairs in front of her, and replying with annoyance when she was called Golden... The woman with blond hair in that recent memory looked far taller and older than what Elise looked like currently in here.

Walking her way back toward her room, Mary-Esther began remembering a few more things about their identities. Their full names and ages came back to her one after another now, like opening a dusty book.

Scarlett Freyshja Herson, the eldest of them three. Born On the 30th of November 1902. Elise Eudzwynn Herson, born on the 12th of December 1903...

And herself, the youngest, born in November the next year...

Given the year they were in, this glimpses of the past, and how she herself looked, something was definitely wrong with how her sisters looked now. They appeared at least five years younger than they should have.

She feared that was because they died at that time. But she was deeply convinced that it wasn’t the case. She knew that everything went wrong far more recently... Whether they really died or not, something else was responsible for their current younger appearances.

What happened with them when they still lived together? When they were these ages? She wondered if something from that time when everyone was still alive could perhaps explain the present time.

A few things in the train seemed to remind her of moments from their past, as if there were direct influences between these past moments in their lives, and this current place and time.

If their memories had influenced how that place was built and its layout, did that mean that she was more in a kind of dream than anything else? Was it all but a long lasting nightmare rather than some unchartered limbo?

At least her mind continued to work trying to figure out the answers and putting together the pieces, but the more she had, the more unsavoury it became.

Mary-Esther found herself in the corridor of the offices wagon. She stopped there for a moment and looked a little sadly outside. She touched the cold glass with her left hand, making Blue move a little bit to keep its balance there as well.

She could feel the coldness of the glass and the vibrations reaching through. She could see the foggy but endless landscape. She could physically feel the train through her feet... She could perceive the world through all her normal physical senses. She was conscious, really conscious, and she was evolving in a physical reality as far as her body and mind could tell... There couldn’t be any doubt about it.

This was real...

This world where she was, it was real to her.

But that also meant that a few things like her sisters’ younger appearances were fully abnormal and left without any sensed explanation yet.

She was worried about what to think or which theory to focus on. What to believe? At a loss currently, she chose to play at following this magical recipe that would bind her to her true love...

She sighed and tightened her grip on the notebook. She was fonder of tales of adventures far more than love stories.

She removed her hand from the cold window, leaving a translucent handprint for a moment. She went through the pitch dark area once more, as easily as usual.

After the unsettling stairway, she had soon reached the restaurant again.

Among the broken setting, as expected for once, Elise was there.

~

Elise was sitting on the ground alone, in an odd manner, holding her feet between her hands, her head looking down.

Still feeling some unclear spite toward her, Mary-Esther dropped a little coldly the notebook at her feet.

Elise looked at it. She slowly picked it up and stood up, holding it.

She was looking sideway, not directly at Mary as if she was shameful of something, or unwilling to show she had cried.

Elise held the book close to her as if it was something really dear to her as well.

Mary-Esther brushed her yellow and green dress a little while waiting for Elise to say something. She still had dust and ashes over her clothes. But Elise was apparently still dreaming or lost in thoughts at least, her stare unfocused.

E - I guess.... Some pages are missing... Right?

M - I have the recipe and the letter you wrote with me, if that is what you want?

Elise’s eyes slowly focused on her. She seemed startled.

E - You have both?

M - Yes. I haven’t seen the other torn pages if there was more however.

Elise didn’t care about that. She sounded surprised by something else.

E - You have read the recipe and the letter?

M - Weren’t they meant for me? Shouldn’t I have?

Elise seemed horrified. She couldn’t speak it up. Mary-Esther let Blue fly to the tables nearby so she could pull the two folded sheets of paper out of her pocket.

M - The recipe helped me to remember a few other things. Your other letter, I wasn’t able to read it. I don’t know why.

E - You can’t read that letter? But... This one was meant for you...

She insisted on the last you with a face showing disgust.

E - So you read it uh... Tell me, what do you think of my recipe then? That little game is oddly more meaningful today, since my twisted fate brought us together here... Nearly all of us.

Was she thinking about Scarlett?

M - It reminded me of how much I don’t remember... It’s as if each step I make, the amount of forgotten things and illogical bounds increases... But... Why my tears? Why would I need my tears to create a blue rose?

Elise seemed struck by lightning again. She realised something shocking her.

E - Now I get it... I was wrong as well. We’re not here because of her... We’re here because of you! You’re not her! You’re... her. Oh my goodness, how couldn’t I see that... It’s worse... It’s hell!

M - For heaven sake, tell me! Name her! Tell me what I don’t remember!

E - You’re not Mary! You’re just Esther!

Mary-Esther had grabbed Elise’s arm forcefully in that moment, as she was stepping away from her.

Elise appeared scared to death and furious. Her free hand came suddenly to slap Esther with enough strength to separate them and make her fall. Anger replaced fear.

E - Don’t touch me, you monster!

Elise was about to hit her again now that she had fallen down.

Blue shrieked loudly and attacked Elise as Esther was on the ground. Elise tried to protect her head from the assaults from the violent bird. She cried, she begged Blue to stop, cuts appearing along her arms. Blue was hurting her skin and clothes without restrain.

When Mary-Esther managed to sit and realise what had just happened, she ordered Blue to stop. The bird obeyed and flew away.

She stood up and got closer to the poor little girl now crying over the floor, with bleeding wounds all over her hands and arms. She was pitiful and painful to look at.

E - Why... Why me? Why did Blue did this to me? Why did I have to die and end up here...

M - I’m sorry Golden... But please, tell me what you know that I forgot.

E - You... You witch! I hate you! You stole Blue away from us... You stole everything we loved... I hate you Esther... I hate you all, you and her...

M - I’m begging you, please tell me who... I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please tell me who is the one I loved?

Elise shrugged, still sobbing on the floor.

E - Does it matter? We’ll never return to the ones we love. You have Blue now... Poor Blue... I pity you... You chose her over us... You chose that monster...

She noticed that Elise was talking toward the bird awaiting a little further. Blue didn’t seem to react in any way to her words. Mary-Esther was confused, but still feeling sorry for Elise’s misery.

M - If you don’t want to tell me who is her, can you at least tell me why? Or anything else? I’m still just as lost as you are...

Elise stood up with difficulties, brushing her wounds and clearly in serious pain. She was showing complex emotions over her face. Which one should prevail?

E - I don’t think you deserve to win Esther. I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here... But I know that you certainly never cared for us, nor for anyone else... Not even Blue, before arriving here... You witch.

She wouldn’t help further, now from spite as well.

Without a warning, Elise ran toward the door, leaving her agape. She didn’t try to catch her. She only felt exhausted and confused, reacting to the new surprise.

She was the villain now?

At the door, Elise looked back at them with tearful eyes. She had a last thing to say. That sentence flew, grew and flooded the area.

Mary heard it as if the voice was surrounding her.

E - And yet, I gave you that recipe... And yet, I wrote you that letter...

Mary-Esther stood there, lost while the echoes faded from inside her head.

Before she realised it, the door was shut and Elise gone.

She felt empathy and sorry, but still unable to understand the events occurring around her once again.

It was as if she kept hurting them at each and every encounter, and that each thing she remembered would hurt them even more...

Blue came softly back to her, walking over the carpet. She kneeled down to cuddle her only friend in this dire time. Unfortunately even the blue feathers and animal behind weren’t enough to cheer her up this time.

She had again hurt someone deeply, accidentally but really.

She had tried to bring back something lost... And she probably shouldn’t have, if it brought more harm than good.

She had tried to help them with what she could understand.

Now that made her think that perhaps, everything would have been a little better, had she not.

Had she not open the door leading her inside this train...

Everyone would have lived or continued to exist a little better surely. Now everyone was suffering. Because of her?

She was exhausted. She went without thinking about it back to her room.

Scarlett’s box and its content were still there. The broken ceramic egg.

Mary-Esther put the letters and Blue next to it on the table.

When approaching the bed she realised it had been cleaned and made. The sheets had been changed.

It was as if her mother’s ghost had come while she was elsewhere. As if other spirits still cared for her...

Mary-Esther went into bed, head pounding from all she had gather and hurt herself against on this day.

It was sweet inside, but she still felt mostly sad and numb now.

She wondered what awful things were left to remember.

Each time she had slept or passed out lately, some different memories had come floating around her. It felt like a complex theatre show to put back together the pages lost from who she had once been.

But now she had mixed feelings about it. Maybe she wouldn’t like who she had been or what she had done before.

As she fell asleep, she was curious and concerned over what she would remember this time. What sad or terrible thing could be happening next?

More than hopes now, she had worries.

~