I collected feelings the summer the Lady’s party retreated to the sea. I was a child with colored pebbles, savoring each addition with new-found greed before locking it away in a safe-hold.

(Words colors pictures oh so many.)

Joy etched into the face of Lady Vienna the first day she discovered the sprawling hillsides above the water. Twirling in place, her arms akimbo as if to embrace the salt-winds in their onslaught: a stance that would yet haunt me.

Power. Loud and free and curling as the mad sea far below. The great waves opening their claws for her figure, tumultuous crests lined with rows of foam-teeth.

She could afford to be beautiful.

As always I watched from a distance, waited with bated breath as the colors swirled around me and the roar clogged my ears. Always I would wait and listen for the end to come, for the high seas to grow bold in their hunger and envelop the glistening tiers of her skirts. Blue silk swallowed by bottomless green.

(But never did the bite of it reach her skin.)

The waves frighten me, I would tell her questioning look, although it was never fear I felt. I harbored anger at the laughing toss of her head, at the way her eyes danced silver with her smile. Come enjoy the view with me, she would call, her pealing voice entangled by the wind, and I would creep close enough to catch the frothing battles far below, the ever-changing scales upon the back of some immense creature.

(And oh it would take but a slip a single slip to watch her blood run wild among its jaws.)

He would join her often, but never by the living waters she so coveted. Motley auburn for his tossed hair, autumn-tinged when the sun crept upon it. Darien. His eyes were green as gems and even brighter, rimmed by emotion and teeming at the sight of her. I would stand guard as always Vienna willed me stand, apart but watching, held resentfully captive by the fiery billow of her hair as its locks found their places about his shoulders.

Red-searing disgust that sprang to life as her willow-arms surrounded his neck, as he closed the space between them and those jewel-eyes found place for her image alone. The bell-chime of her laughter as he offered her the words that should have been mine and my own. The sting of his injustice as wounded I could only look and harvest.

He would never look at me with my servant’s skirts and my hair bound tight.

Under refuge of night she would relate to me her feelings, while I passed a comb through her wind-nettled curls and strained to lock the loathing from my eyes. He would marry me if it were not for the war so close, she whispered, pink-cheeked and blooming, as over and over the comb gathered her hair into order. Rhythmic as the boiling waves. I know he would; he told me so. But not now, no one must know ‘til it comes, and I know that you will hold my secrets.

(Oh the rage white-hot but careful steady while it burns.)

You would guard what I tell you, wouldn’t you? A fever-chill as, fleetingly, her downy hand scorched my own. He loves me, and I love him, and oh! The things he says. Her arms snaked about her torso; beneath my fingers she shook with glee. He will be gone soon and I can hardly bear it, yet until all is done we will not let word slip that we are betrothed.

The word seeped into my skin like frost.

(I shouldn’t care I know I shouldn’t but his eyes swirl before me grass-green alluring.)

The silver pain of all my efforts to hold back, but mother found me despite my exertions. She looked on from my chamber mirror, eyes arched and lit gray. I clenched my fists against my sides, holding my breath, squeezing the air from my body for all the calm it would give. The scream rippled up my throat to perch on my tongue, loud and swarming and agonizing. A ribbon of spite, the fetid flash of many insect-feed on the back of my neck. The floor rose up against my knees.

Make it stop make it stop PLEASE anything to make it stop.

You have called me; tell me what it is you want.

Nothing mother nothing the pain make it leave please make it leave.

You lie to me; your wrath is carved into your skin. Your deepest thoughts call out for me. Come, daughter, what would you do to her?

Nothing nothing I can’t won’t it hurts –

Her eyes warped, inflicting, lidless. The brightest green, his green, the blaze of emeralds, but she is with him, breathing laughter against his neck. Darien (he loves me and I love him) no no.

I nothing no but she makes my blood run cold –

The slip of a knife no larger than the inside of your hand. No time to cry out, but the pain will be slow.

It hurts it hurts –

The essence of nightshade ground into her morning wine. The most damaging poisons; I will provide for you. She’ll never know, never suspect, not until she’s tearing through her own flesh to escape it.

I can’t… mother… nono…

Your cries grow weaker. Can you taste it, daughter, her agony ripe on the air? Her beating, living fear released? She is a lovely butterfly caught in your hold, but beauty rends easily.

No she trusts me told me so BETROTHED but yes yes yes the red of blood pooling fear twisting but NO it hurts…

He thinks her lovely, the soldier with hair to rival flame. See the way he cradles the very thought of her; to him she is beyond all riches. He is a lapdog in her presence, bent to her will and want. While she lives you are dead to him.

She infuriates me mother… anger beyond words… but trust she trusts…

You are a nameless nothing to them both. Look how low you stand, and here her empty words ebb within you! Am I not your mother? Do I not want my daughter aglow with happiness? You would fit far better in his arms.

Yes mother yes she watches the sea and she is lithe slender he loves her he loves her she dances in the wind gloating his love leering at me I can’t stand it CAN’T STAND IT it hurts wrenches stabs to see.

You know what you must do, then? For your heart to still, you must stop her’s beating.

Yes and the pain will stop the biting itching crawling when she is gone.

Mother’s smile was akin to the razor-teeth of some primal beast. Her face swirled before my green-splotched vision, thirsty, grating, as though to escape the prison of my mirror and drink for herself the sudden resolve screeching through my bones.

Yes daughter yesss. You will make me proud.

Her voice was a hiss in my ear, but I barely heard for the throbbing in my head, the restless heartbeat of the breathing tide. And she, miles above, blue-spun and marked crimson for the taking.

(Breathe in slowly steady will the pain to calm.)

I choked on the gold-laced air of early sundown. Vienna twirled ahead of me, arms open wide with the fluency of wings. Perhaps if I stood still long enough she would take to the air, a perfect songbird with gauzy flower-feathers. In my mind I could see the frail shadow of her shape, flying swift and free above the yawning seascape, reaching for the sundown-sky.

Was she searching, even now, to catch the wind-wracked sails of dispatched ships?

One step. Two more and she would be within reach, never to hear my approach. Over us the gulls shrieked their tragedies to the dallying sun; beyond the cliff edge the foam frothed its famine, sprouting knots beneath our precarious feet. As always she had come alone; not a word whispered as to her heartsick vigil.

A startled gasp was all she could offer me, yet it assailed my ears as though she had screamed. For once I did not begrudge her grace, the fragile limbs that turned her body into an art of silk and dance. Her stance fell apart in my grip, that noble pose roiling like dust beneath my unforgiving hands, and though I had ruined her flight her eyes glimmered with wild instinct. I could see the breath seeping out of her, dense and smoky and tinged pink, as though already her body had suffered a heavy toll.

One push; a single heave and her skirts would fly outward, the careless stone-face denting her body along the way. She did not, perhaps could not, cry out as I careened her forward, the better for her to see the bottomless pathway opening before us. She stumbled, once, and my hold tightened over her arms. Perhaps mother had a nose for weakness; my head teemed like a roaring stream.

(One shove just one and she’ll be gone flying into the waves.)

Seconds leaked together like black ink. Vienna stood so near the edge that the tips of her feet slid over the rock, jeweled slippers twinkling in the last sun; golden-bronze and edged with faintest violet. The final colors of her glory. I could feel her eyes on me although I held my face averted; from the corner of my sight her hair fanned out like a desperate banner.

(She trusted me she trusted me.)

Her gaze was as scalding as mother’s punishment. One step, one more, but I could not move. My fingers, unrelenting, locked like daggers over her skin. I could feel her bones, fragile as a wraith’s, quaking beneath me; or maybe it was I who shook. I could no longer discern her body from my own, and I would move back now, for surely I could manage that. One step and she would go free; the swarming in my head brought bile to my throat.

(Colors fresh green golden red raging black gray ocean colors.)

Why are you doing this, Invidia? The lady’s voice was breath-soft, but my name rung like a mallet. Invidia. My mother’s name: my own. I was not aware of snatching my hands from her, but already her hair was soaring past me; a dancing, billowing cloud against the cackling, darting gray. Her arms were open – the valiant instincts of a wrenchingly small bird – her skirts taking to the wind like sails. They welcomed her willingly, the sleek-backed giants far below; her wings did not turn from them as I might have hoped. Her flight was short-lived but graceful, ever majestic as the twirling dances I alone had witnessed, exquisite and flowing as the seas that howled her reception.

(She alone had been meant for this.)

Life. The vivacity of silk submerged by many eager fingers. Her hair was a curving ribbon, a dash of warmth-yielding hue, buoyant in the standstill of time and breath. A catch of air – a single change in the posture of the revolving creature – and the weighted skirts, the bobbing glitter of grace, fell to tangled gray.