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Marya remembered music. The trill, slightly wobbly notes of a flute. Her fingers against the smooth keys of a piano. She remembered laughter, someone small jumping into her arms, tugging at her hands and babbling into her ear.
She remembered shouting, she remembered crying, she remembered pushing back as someone shoved her into a carriage. The details were foggy, always incomplete, but there were cold blue eyes and a stern voice. She called out for someone, someone she knew she loved, but she couldn’t really remember…
There are nurses – was she sick? She must’ve been sick, although she didn’t remember when and how, and she didn’t feel sick, just lost. Confused. Her memories were mist, impossible to grasp and difficult to see.
Still, the nurses keep a supply of paints and easels for her; it’s the only thing that calms her nerves, her terror when she awakes and doesn’t remember where she is. There’s someone missing, someone she needs to see – she can hear them crying, calling out to her, but she doesn’t know who they are, how to help.
“Who are you painting, Marya?” the nurse, the kind one with the dark curls and the gentle smile, had asked the first time the face had appeared on Marya’s canvas. Soft red cheeks, auburn curls painted with orange and brown, pale blue eyes…pale blue eyes. She knew those eyes.
“Painting…” Marya muttered. She’d heard the question, only she didn’t know how to answer. The face had floated around in her dreams the night before, but the mist was returning, even as she batted it away, grasping to see it again…see him again.
His face cropped up in many of her paintings…the nurses stored them away as she completed a new piece every day. The same images were repeated again and again. Marya remembered streets, busy marketplaces, long hallways, rooms filled with expensive art, music…the flute…the boy…who was that boy? Marya knew him, and she knew she had to remember him, so why couldn’t she?
Months passed, and Marya became more aware of where she was – a year later, she realised that she was at St. Hilde’s. She was sick, although she didn’t remember when it began. She didn’t even remember a time when she wasn’t sick, although she knew it hadn’t always been this way.
The nurses wrote ‘Marya Hendriks’ on her file, though she knew that this was not her name. Or at least it hadn’t been, not for…not for ten years. Ten years ago…what had happened ten years ago? Pale blue eyes…pale…hair. A man. Blond hair and pale blue eyes.
“Van Eck.” She muttered at the nurse who greeted her that morning, the redheaded one who complimented her paintings, jokingly asked for a portrait, and took away the canvases when her room got too full. That nurse always made sure she had plenty of paint, plenty of red, orange, blue…
“What was that, Ms. Hendriks?” She smiled, setting down a pot of tea. Marya liked tea. Rainy mornings, tea in the…the garden, no. The library. There had been a library.
Shouting, crying, the little boy. Red curls and…freckles. Just like Marya’s. There had been a little boy who had clung to Marya’s leg, kissed her cheek before bed and helped her blow on her tea to cool it.
“Van Eck.” Marya repeated, louder this time. Her name was Marya Van Eck. She had not gone by any other name for ten years, so why did the nurses all address her by her old name?
Marya never bothered to keep track of the days. She must have aged several years, but birthdays weren’t fussed over at St. Hilde’s. She wondered how the little boy celebrated his birthday this year…was he still a little boy? Was there a cake? The mist faded for a moment and Marya saw icing on cheeks, crumbs at the corners of a tiny, happy mouth. Baby teeth. Candles. Four candles. Five. Six…
The mist was covering her eyes again, so she took up her paintbrush.
She painted and painted and painted until the sun began to set, and then again until her candle ran out and the nurses came back to put her into bed.
Her dreams were strangely clear as she slept…the smell of oil paints and paint thinner vivid in her dream as she coloured trees, a street view. A front door, tall and decorated with…tulips. Red tulips.
He spoke this time. His words were muffled as Marya watched him run, laughing, his hands sticky…icing. Candles. Six candles.
“Mama…”
The nurses rushed to Marya’s room in the middle of the night, holding her down, soothing her…she was screaming, calling out…the boy…she need to—
“Wylan!” the name slipped out before she even knew she had remembered it. “Wylan! I need—”
“Shhh, Ms. Hendriks.”
Van Eck…Van Eck…Wylan.
Wylan .
The memory stuck, even the mist couldn’t cover it, couldn’t scrub his name from her brain. His voice, his face, his pale blue eyes…but Marya didn’t call out to him again. He never came running, never came to kiss her cheek, tug on her arm, play his flute…
“Is there a piano?” Marya asked on a day when the words came easier than usual. She didn’t say much, she struggled with conversations. She just need to hear the music again.
“Afraid not, Ms. Hendriks,” the nurse smiled. He had come to clear some of the canvases away.
Van. Eck.
Marya had given up telling them. He reached for a small canvas, a portrait on her bedside table. Marya reached forward and grabbed it.
“No. I don’t want you to take that one.”
“You’re running out of space, Marya.” Sometimes he would call her by her first name. He was young, with a cheeky grin, dark curls and a kind sense of humour. He told jokes and winked and brought biscuits, cakes and sugary tea for Marya.
He left the portrait, instead taking a few landscapes away.
She would only paint more over the next few weeks, anyway.
There was no piano, no music, but she began humming to herself. It took several years at St. Hilde’s, but she remembered some tunes…songs from a book of children’s rhymes. Children’s songs…sheet music…the flute…
Marya stopped trying to remember, she couldn’t cope with the pain. With the dreams. Instead, she spent her days painting. Humming. Eventually singing, but only quietly. She asked about the piano a few times over the next few years, but still no luck.
She was used to her own company, her own music, keeping herself busy. Nobody visited…Marya didn’t notice.
It had been years, and her red, orange, and blue paint were the only ones that constantly needed replacing, the tubes flattened and squeezed of every last drop within a matter of weeks…she only ever painted him.
She stopped thinking about who he was…she didn’t have to…she didn’t have to think to paint him. That face formed itself: his curls, his eyes, they guided Marya’s hands as she painted. Every day, she painted him…every day, she became even more exhausted…she was tired of the memories that didn’t form properly.
The laughter, the fighting, the music, the…the…how did she get here? Who had forced her into that carriage?
“You’re not well, Marya!”
“I am perfectly well—”
Who was she arguing with? Whose voice was that? Stern, commanding, ice-cold and cruel. Pale blue eyes.
Why am I here?
She added more paint to her palette, re-shaping the tips of her brushes with her fingers. Her shaky fingers. They didn’t grip well…it took her longer to paint than it used to when…when she lived there. When she painted there.
A music room. She painted a music room. Orange-yellow streams of sunlight through large windows, thick patterned curtains, a grand piano…the flute. The boy.
*
“Time to get you cleaned up, Ms. Hendriks.” The same nurse had been cleaning her up since she first remembered waking up here…how many years ago was it, now?
Marya sat still as they brushed her hair. She couldn’t remember when, but it had been cut shorter. It curled around her ears, lighter than it once had been, streaked with white. She didn’t protest when they moved her to replace her sheets, she didn’t insist she could do it herself.
Knowing that there was something you had forgotten was exhausting and, most days, Marya had very little fight left in her.
She asked to paint in the porch; its glass windows provided a better view for painting than her bedroom, small and dark with little to look at through its barely-there windows. The walls were too clean, too white, her bed too stiff. She moved slowly as she worked, wrapped in heavy blankets. She caught the cold easily.
Footsteps approached. Marya didn’t turn to look, only tilted her head, not drawing her attention from her painting.
“You have some visitors, Ms. Hendriks.”
Marya never had visitors, yet there were two standing beside her, bewildered and confused. They couldn’t have been more than boys…teenagers.
One was tall, with dark skin and grey eyes, a hand rested on the shoulder of the boy in front of him. His eyes were fixed on him, though occasionally flicking across to Marya’s face, his expression troubled, his forehead creased. The other was shorter, with dark hair and golden eyes. Shellshocked, ghostly pale, as if he could be sick.
Marya didn’t get visitors…did she? Was she forgetting something? The mist made her confused, unable to recall small details as recent as yesterday.
“Should I…should I know you?” Confusion clouded her brain, and she watched as the boy shook his head, seeming just as uncertain as she felt. Who were they? Did she recognise their faces?
She was sure she hadn’t known them…only two faces ever came into her mind…
Red curls…pale blue eyes…
“We met…we met long ago.” Marya didn’t remember. “When I was just a child.” Marya didn’t remember.
Why didn’t she remember?
There was plenty she didn’t remember.
“Hmm.” She responded, turning back to her painting. The boys whispered behind her, just too far out of earshot for Marya to catch their conversation. She simply painted, and the nurse spoke to the taller of the boys before guiding him back to the door.
Marya was left alone with the strange boy, the boy that knew her. The boy that she didn’t know. She had once, apparently, but his face didn’t register in her memory. He approached Marya, though he didn’t sit. He simply hovered above her, uncertain…
How old was the other boy now? The boy from her memories? Wylan. Would he be the same age as this boy now? Was he still very young?
“Hello,” the boy spoke. His voice was quiet, soft, uncertain.
What did he want with Marya?
“Did you come for my money? I don’t have any money.” Marya had nothing but her paints. Even her clothes weren’t her own, the blankets, the bed sheets. She had nothing.
“I don’t either.” A moment of pause. Marya was used to silence, but not company. “Do you like music?”
Marya nodded. She’d been itching to play the piano again. Her fingers longed for the glossy wood of the keys, the heavy click of the pedal, the loudness of the strings when the lid was lifted. She longed for music. She couldn’t express this longing properly, with how little energy she was left with these days.
“Yes,” she managed to reply, “but there isn’t much here.”
The boy reached into the pocket of his tattered brown jacket, the sleeves charred and covered with strange marks and stains. He removed several thin pieces of silver, and as he clicked them together, Marya saw that he had brought a flute with him.
A long, silver flute…a flute…Marya liked the flute.
He began to play, a children’s rhyme…melancholy and slow. Marya listened anyway – it had been so long since she’d heard proper music. Since she’d heard the flute.
“Play something cheerful.” Marya said when the song ended. She was melancholy enough. As he played a selection of different, faster songs, Marya felt a warmth filling her chest, her head. She didn’t smile, she didn’t hum, she simply tapped her foot and nodded her head. She recognised every one of them…had she known how to play this particular song on the piano once? Had she played it at…was it a party? A dinner? People had sung along…she thought she could remember some of the words…
*
The boys didn’t stay for long. The boy with the flute had tried to speak to her. Asked her questions that Marya didn’t completely understand. She had touched his face. His cheeks were soft, warm…he was young. Why was he there? Why were they there?
Marya hummed as she was led back to her room, remembering the sweet, cheerful music of the flute. How the notes had trilled, how the boy had moved quickly between the notes, barely pausing for breaths. How it had filled her ears and the air, echoing off the glass of the windows. She dreamed of a garden…a garden filled with spring flowers. Yellow daffodils. Red tulips. Painting as someone stood behind her, playing the flute.
Hearing the music had changed her thoughts…she still struggled to remember things. There were voices, loud and quiet, harsh and soft.
Marya kept painting…gardens…flowers…red curls…blue eyes.
The face never stopped appearing. The weeks after her visitors came were the same as they had always been – ‘always’ was how Marya considered the time she spent there. She couldn’t place anything from before. It was hidden behind that thin, silvery layer of mist. Marya was used to the clouds by now.
Still, there was comfort in the face that her paints created, the face that appeared on every canvas, whatever the rest of the painting involved.
The morning was quiet, she had been allowed to sit on the porch again, where she could watch the clouds drift slowly by as she painted. Where she could listen to the birds as they twittered in the trees…like music.
Music. Marya felt the corner of her mouth twitch – a smile?
It was a peaceful morning, and the face had already begun to take shape on her canvas. She knew the little boy before her, but she didn’t. She remembered him, but she didn’t.
And still, she knew that he was important, special…she knew that she loved him.
His face swam before her, drifting before her eyes – memories…new glimpses.
Older, now. Had he ever been this old before? Was this a new memory? Something was coming back to her as she stared blankly beyond her painting…
The pink cheeks had lost some of their roundness with age, though they were still soft, still rosy, still decorated with that same soft spray of freckles. His hair was as red as always…soft, auburn curls that she always painted with thick, sweeping strokes, making sure to capture all of their movement, the way that the sun caught them, bringing out bright golden strands. Hers had been similar, before it began to fade. When it was long, thick and curly. She remembered braids…golden hairpieces, hair pins, ribbons…
The boy’s face was almost fully formed. Sometimes the paintings appeared on the canvases before Marya was even aware she had been painting for so long. The final detail was his eyes, wide and…teary? Why was he crying?
Marya felt her insides twist…why was he sad? Her paintings hadn’t looked like this before…
Marya felt dizzy. Her eyes were playing tricks on her, and yet the mist seemed thinner than before…translucent and drifting. But her mind wasn’t quite right because…the face…it seemed to be moving.
Was she still sitting in front of a canvas? His mouth opened and closed…was he speaking? Marya couldn’t hear properly…the birdsong had be replaced by a strange rushing in her head…her ears…like she was underwater.
“Mama?” Faint, muffled, uncertain…and yet Marya’s mind began to clear.
Red curls.
Pale blue eyes.
Six candles…seven candles…eight candles…
The library.
The music room…the piano…the flute…
“Mama…” a warm hand rested gently on top her cold one, calloused finger tips, soft palms…red curls…soft red curls that bounced when he ran…pale blue eyes filled with tears…he was older. He was too old…when had he gotten this old? “Mama, it’s me…do you—”
He seemed like he wanted to ask if she remembered him, but thought better of it. There was so little Marya remembered, and it frustrated her. Especially this…she knew him.
She knew. She…
“Wylan?” A whisper from her own mouth, uncertain, as though saying it out loud would make it untrue. As though he would disappear as soon as she had him.
Until his face cracked open into a wet smile, the tears falling freely now as Marya found herself pulling him into a tight embrace. He used to smell of…the flowers in the garden, the wooden floors of their home. Now he smelled of smoke, a little burn mark on the cuff of his otherwise clean jacket, a small hole singed into the fabric.
“It’s me, Mama, it’s okay, I’m here now.”
Had he ever gone away? He was promising to take her home…he would buy her all the paints and canvases she desired…he would make her feel comfortable, safe…there was a piano at the house - his house, now.
“Wylan.” It wasn’t a question this time, it wasn’t a cry out in the night, searching for him…wondering about him and where he had gone. It was certain, it was concrete. She tightened her grip on his shoulders as they hugged, and exhaled a shaky breath when he didn’t slip through her fingers like mist. Not this time.
Marya hadn’t been good at keeping the time for a while, now. Years must’ve passed since she’d arrived…since she’d been sent here, but she hadn’t noticed them drift by. Similarly, she didn’t notice how long she and him… Wylan …stayed in that same position. Not talking. Not asking questions. Simply holding one another. She felt his soft curls between her shaky fingers, and he breathed steadily in her arms.
Marya still didn’t remember much, but she remembered this. She remembered him, and how they would sit for hours like this. She would read him stories, help him to move his fingers into position on his flute, teach him chords on the piano. His feet would probably be able to touch the floor now, they could probably stretch forward and press the pedals.
Marya noticed the days pass by as Wylan left that evening, promising to return tomorrow…she felt the hours drag on as she ate her dinner…time moved so much slower now that she knew that she had someone to wait for, someone who was also waiting for her.
Wylan returned to next day with a familiar boy…dark skin and grey eyes…a wide smile and a bright voice, a stack of papers that he and Wylan occupied themselves with all day. Wylan sat cradling Marya’s hand that wasn’t occupied by her paintbrush and listened as the other boy read through the papers…something about St. Hilde…release forms…stopping payments…
This carried on for several days. Wylan and the boy – Marya would learn that his name was Jesper, and she quickly began to trust his kind face, his jokes and comments that made Wylan turn pink and roll his eyes fondly – would arrive early, leave late, and Marya would anticipate being able to see them the next day. It had been so long since she’d had real company, not just from someone looking after her, but from someone who wanted to see her. To spend time with her.
The mist was still there, but she knew Wylan. She would forget he was there sometimes…jumping with surprise as she registered his presence, but one comforting touch of his hand would remind her. He was real. He was here. He wasn’t just a painting anymore.
She still painted him, though. He was her favourite subject.
She did paint Jesper one afternoon, though, grateful for a new muse. She painted them together as they worked. Wylan nodded as Jesper asked if he should sign pages after reading through them, answering Wylan’s questions, repeating sections that Wylan was uncertain about.
After about a week of this routine, Marya was being helped up into another carriage. She wasn’t dragged, like last time, but her blood froze as the carriage started – she squeezed Wylan’s hand, making sure he was real. He was. He squeezed back. He didn’t let go for the entire journey.
The further away from St. Hilde’s they got, the more things Marya began to recognise…the streets, the smells, the houses… her house.
“Okay,” Wylan said softly, helping her to step down from the carriage, “we’re home, Mama.”
Marya felt her back stiffen as she stared up at the building, too familiar, although she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.
Shouting. Arguing. The carriage…
Wylan must’ve noticed that she hadn’t moved. “He’s gone, Mama. It’s just us now – you, me, and Jesper.”
He’s gone .
Van Eck. Where had he gone? What had happened to him? What had happened to them ?
Wylan winced when she asked…he would explain soon, when she was settled in.
He took her to the music room first, though, and helped her onto the little wooden stool, the red leather cushion just as soft as she’d remembered.
The music room…it felt like remembering.
As she smoothed down her skirt, moving her fingers into position on the glossy keys, Marya’s mind was eased in a way it hadn’t been in years…since she had been here last.
She found middle C, and when the note hit the strings, ringing out through the entire room, Marya knew that she was home again.
She had asked about a piano for years at St. Hilde’s. Her fingers had ached for music for years .
Her happiest memories in this house had been from this room – they were the memories that were clearest to her. The mist was less thick, less suffocating in here.
Wylan stood in front of the piano as Marya got a feel for the keys…as she moved up and down the scale. She was stiff at first – the notes didn’t flow as easily as they used to. She was out of practice, and sometimes she would forget which scales required flats and sharps. However, by the time Wylan had assembled his flute and played a soft, high note, Marya had managed to find the right notes to play a chord…a D major…she remembered now.
Wylan placed a piece of sheet music onto her music stand. “This was your favourite, when I was little. You tried to teach it to me,” Wylan smiled. “I only figured it out this year.”
Marya returned the smiled. “I remember – you did a fine job, sweetheart. Will you play it with me?” Marya asked her son. Her son .
“Of course, Mama.”
They started off slow at first, struggling to keep proper time with one another – Wylan was nervous, and some of his breaths made shaky notes. Marya was uncertain, hesitating over some of the keys and missing a few notes. But after a few steady run throughs, they began falling into pace with one another, the notes matching and the harmonies falling into place. Somewhere in the middle of their sixth proper run through, Jesper had found them there, hovering over Wylan’s shoulder to see the music. Wylan must’ve played it for him before, as he knew all of the words – he had a gorgeous voice, too.
So the three of them spent that afternoon, Marya’s first afternoon home in years, in the music room. Singing together, playing together. The melody warming Marya’s heart, calming her shaky breathing, soothing her.
It would be the only room that made her feel completely at ease for a while. All of her painting materials found their home there, and her music room was filled with laughter once more. She had her son back, the boy with the red hair and the blue eyes had a name again, and she no longer ached for the piano, for the flute. They were always there, waiting for her, ready for her.