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Winters are quite cold at Naakiwan Downs, Tetia had learned.
Snow hadn't fallen yet. She hadn't even been going outside much, spending her days doing nothing but studying by the fire or laying next to it idly. She had been keeping herself fairly warm, like how their master kept reminding both her and Agott to do so nowadays. Still, being a sickly child prone to catch colds easily, she should have probably seen it coming.
As her dreams started to blur into each other that night, at some point, the same song kept looping in her head. Over and over, even though she could only remember a few lines.
Hold my hand and take me to the sea,
Follow the lantern birds above me.
Sing me a song 'till we get there,
And don't forget that you loved me.
The song had stopped when she felt herself waking up for a moment, fading into the sound of the rain pounding loudly against the window. Even with the blanket pulled all the way up to her neck, she was cold. So cold that she was shivering. She felt nauseous.
She didn't have the strength to get up, nor any clarity to even think of doing so. Right there, in the dark of her room where she laid, she thought she was going to die. No one would even know.
Towards the morning, she felt a freezing hand on her forehead. She didn’t open her eyes.
“My dear girl, you’re burning up,” a voice said, seeming to come from far, far away, as if through a glass dome. Or maybe it was her ears that were stuffed with cotton. She wasn’t sure. Her throat felt swollen.
She was then wrapped in blankets, layer upon layer. Someone lifted her and she heard a few muffled murmurs that were hard to make out.
The sound of rain, again. She felt a little more awake when cold air hit her face; the layers of blankets still keeping her wrapped in a warm cocoon. Arms carrying her laid her down on a hard surface but they didn’t let go. A misty sky passed before her eyes and the wind howled in her ears. Raindrops fell somewhere above her head and trickled down the sides. None of them touched her face.
Her eyes, about to close once again, turned upward a little only to met her teacher's anxious face from below, focused straight ahead on the road. She must have stirred a little, for the man's attention turned to her.
“Everything’s alright, Tetia,” he said. The arm holding her steady over the blankets tightened. “We are going to the hospital. You'll be alright.”
No, you don’t understand, she wanted to say. I am going to die.
She closed her eyes again instead. The sound of the rain died down, and the song resumed.
*
She saw the girl, her pink hair beautiful and frizzled, grass-green eyes smiling. Sitting with the hem of her worn dress tucked under her knees, she was watching her. On herself, the skirts of the most beautiful the lavender purple dress she had seen, and couldn't believe was wearing, fluttered in the air as she spun joyfully.
"You look just like a princess, Tetia," the girl chirped.
The younger girl curtsied in return, holding the hem of her skirt. Her hands were so tiny.
“Did she give you just one? Are there more?” she asked, huge crimson eyes sparkling with anticipation.
"Sorry, my flower. Just one. That kind lady gave this as a thank you gift. She said it used to be her daughter's when she was little."
"So beautiful," Tetia bounced up and down again. She suddenly threw herself onto the lap of the older girl; she toppled backward where she was sitting, caught off guard. "It's so beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes," she said, not wanting to cloud her sister's joy with her probably, soon to become purple elbow. "You are so beautiful."
Tetia sat up on her arms and looked at the girl excitedly. “I’m going to be a witch who helps everyone like you. Then will they give me thank you gifts like this too?”
“Of course. You’ll be even better than I am,” the girl lifted herself with Tetia still on her lap, sitting up straight.
“Then will we travel together all the time? Like those wandering witches in that tale. I want to see so many places.”
“Of course,” said the girl again. Tetia wanted to grow up right away.
*
She hadn’t even opened her eyes. She was crying. Her cheeks were soaking wet.
A warm hand cradled hers over the blankets and her fingers wrapped around it without a second thought. A few more sobs, a few more shaking breaths. She felt another hand landing on her forehead, ever so softly. The hand, from the roots of her sweat-dampened hair to the back, stroked her head soothingly, again and again.
She opened her eyes. The light of the lantern beside her painted enormous shadows on the ceiling of the dark room. They were unsettling, swaying along with the light as it flickered.
Her teacher, right beside her, looked at her comfortingly on the stool by the bed where he sat. Like an anchor, he squeezed her hand.
“It’s okay, Tetia,” he said. As he watched the girl with tears still streaming down her face, he tried to push the sorrow in his own voice to the very back. "I'm here. It's okay."
She cried even harder. She didn't realize she cried even harder as she tumbled back into the depths of sleep.
*
Hold my hand and take me to the sea,
The girl would hum, while cooking, while dancing to herself. While her sister would sleep, curled in her lap. She would always sing this while Tetia slept. Tetia didn't know where she had learned it from.
She would hum, even while studying hunched over among her treasured books she had piled in a corner. While her pen moved on the paper, so slowly, but without a single tremor.
She would teach Tetia sometimes. Not much; gathering water in a single spot, conjuring a small light. Her sister was still very small; not that she was too grown-up herself, but Tetia was at the age where she made her rag dolls speak, where she dragged her sister to play hide and seek around their home, surrounded by the similarly decrepit houses, all trying to stand up, leaning against one another.
All the magic the girl with the grass-green eyes drew was the most beautiful thing Tetia had ever seen. The girl had a pale, yellow cloak, bought from the shop down around the corner. And a hat, a pink bow at its tip, matching her hair. The tassel from her master she had parted ways with more than two years ago laid somewhere at the bottom of her closet. She had needed more time. She had needed more hands. She would prepare meals in the morning, run around all day at someplace, here and there, and return in the evenings, bone-tired, yet not one wrinkle in her smile.
When Tetia had made a star from water, stars had also sparkled in the grass-green eyes. "You're amazing, Tetia," she had said, clapping her hands. "Your magic is just lovely."
The younger girl watched the star spinning on the piece of paper, eyes shining. Then, she picked up the paper and crawled toward her sister sitting with a book on her lap, to show it to her up close. As she got closer, the spells on the book caught her crimson eyes, complicated to a fault.
"What are you drawing?"
The girl smiled. "These are the spells of grown-ups. You'll learn them later," she said. She took the spell Tetia had drawn, crookedly, lovingly, placing it right on the open pages of the book in front of her. “None of them are as beautiful as yours.”
"Really?" Tetia asked. At that moment, to her, her water star indeed was quite a marvelous thing.
“Yes. Really.”
*
She was alive.
She could see the sea from the window of the hospital room but it was hazy and pale. She must have been no older than seven, when she had first seen the sea. Her feet had sinked into the sand when the waves had rolled around them and tickled her ankles. She had never made sense of it before, but it was then she understood why that poet wanted to head towards the sea.
"Oh, Tetia, I was just about to wake you up," a voice said from the door. Carrying a tray in his hands, her teacher entered; tired eyes lazily traced his steps as he moved closer to her side.
Qifrey gently set the tray on the side table next to her head. Eggs, mashed potatoes, a few olives, erbe tea. Its smell was sharp. She felt queasy.
“How are you? Are you feeling better?” Qifrey warmly asked. The sky outside was the same color as his hair.
“I’m fine. I think.” That wasn’t quite true; her throat felt like sandpaper, it ached. She was still cold.
“You scared us a lot. You didn’t come out of your room yesterday morning, I had to come in when I called out a few times and got no answer. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Thank you, Master Qifrey,” the girl said quietly. She bowed her head when she felt her eyes stinging. “For not leaving me.”
He faltered for a second, a puzzled, grim expression passing through his face. In a flash, it disappeared, and got replaced by a softer one.
“Of course I wasn’t going to leave you, Tetia,” he said, sitting down on his stool, his place of duty the day before. He took the tray into his lap. The sharp scent of the tea stung her nostrils again. “I'm not going anywhere until you’re better, okay? Now, if your stomach’s bad, I won’t force you but you’ve gone without food for a long time. Can you eat, even a little? The doctors will come in the afternoon to give you your medicine.”
Her stomach was bad. She felt something rising in it.
"Okay," she said anyway.
*
Toward the evening, her fever came back.
The nurse gave her some medicine. One, sludgy and bitter, for her fever, one for her stomach. And one painkiller. Later, she talked with Qifrey outside the door, Tetia couldn't really hear much of what was said.
“I’m sorry. We’ll be here a few more days,” Qifrey said when he returned, apologizing like it was his fault.
“It’s okay,” Quilt tucked under her chin, she curled up where she laid. Merely a few minutes had passed before she spoke right in the middle of the silence. “Will I… be okay?”
Qifrey's brows furrowed in confusion. "What? Of course. The nurse just said you caught a bad illness. Lots of people apparently come in sick like this during winter." He studied the little girl, whose every word, every movement normally filled with a tireless vigour. Now about to get lost under the sheets, she looked like a wilted pink flower. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Tetia,” he reassured, softly.
"Okay," she whispered. Her stomach had started to cramp again. "It's just, I used to get sick a lot when I was little. The doctors had said my body was weak. Once..."
Qifrey listened. Waited, with an expression on his face that is hard to read, yet clearly, endlessly understanding. He wasn't going to utter a word even if they were to sink into silence.
"I had gotten very ill," Tetia just said. She didn't say anything more. She slept.
*
“Tetia!”
She was coughing so hard that her throat felt like it was being shredded. She couldn’t breathe. Even when she did, it stuck to the back of her throat like ash.
“Water,” the girl said, panicked. Her voice sounded like she was about to cry. “Come on, drink some of this.”
She drank, and fell asleep again. Seized by another coughing fit again. Vomited again. The girl slept beside her, cradling her like a fragile plant, a plant that was somehow burning up, holding her so close in her embrace.
Lights faded, flashed. She heard voices she didn't recognize. “I did all I could," they said, "all we can do from now on is to hope for her recovery.” The girl replied, voice trembling, voice loud. Voice cracking, crying. What was she saying, Tetia could not understand a word of it.
There was a lamp somewhere next to her, she could only sense its presence behind closed eyes. The whole room had already melted into a dark brown murk. Something was spinning. She was reaching for something. Something was grabbing her and puling her back.
She couldn't breathe again. At one moment amid that melting, swirling, intertwined chaos, the only thing she could make out was the pair of grass-green eyes, wet. When the blanket was slipped off her, she trembled from the cold.
When she opened her eyes a little more, she saw her sister leaning over her, sobbing. Eyes wide, eyes wild. Her pen in hand, she turned to Tetia when she noticed her watching. Her free hand reached to her eyes, closed over them, gently; even her eyelids were on fire under the icy palm.
“Don’t worry, my flower. Everything will be alright.”
Something thin, like the tip of a needle, moved on the skin of her stomach. It tickled.
"Tetia,"
That song again. Take me to the sea,
"Tetia!"
Follow the lantern birds above me.
"Tetia, wake up!"
Sing me a song 'till we get there,
And don't forget that you,
Don't,
loved—
The violent retching brought tears to her eyes. Qifrey held her disheveled, puffy hair back as she bent over the bucket, placed a hand on her back for support. The little girl rattled under it. She kept coughing as she heaved, acidic bitterness burning her throat.
“I’m sorry, Tetia,” Qifrey said, his voice filled with pain, stroking the girl's back. "I’m sorry there's nothing else I can do."
"I'm sorry," said another voice, somewhere inside her head. It lived only there. "I promise you'll be okay."
*
Every night, she would talk about what she had done in the day as they would lay in their bed. The villagers and their goats she had helped crossing the collapsed bridge. The family she had accompanied to the city. The farmer who kindly asked if she could quickly harvest all their fields, and nearly the rest of the whole village following him.
Some evenings she would come home so exhausted that she could barely stand. Despite that, she would indulge Tetia when she came running in circles around her with an endless energy.
Once, when the little girl had jumped on her back, she had collapsed on the ground. "Don't, Tetia," she said softly, not unkind. "My legs are so tired today."
“But why?” the little girl pouted. “You’re so tired every evening.”
To make the pout go away, she had picked the girl up on her back and walked her around the room amongst giggles.
I love seeing smiles on people’s faces, she would say.
"Magic really is something that brings happiness," she would say. "Not everyone is as lucky as us witches. I want to show them too the happiness that magic can bring, as much as I can."
That really is true, Tetia would think. She had learned to make sparrows out of water. They were very small, bit lumpy, but they still flitted back and forth across the room. She would sometimes open the window and send them outside, watching their wobbly wings flapping until they disappeared into the distance.
Magic enchanted her. It must have enchanted other people too. She too, would want to be a kind witch who bestows a little of this beauty upon people who knew nothing of magic.
"Thank you so much, miss witch," had said that old woman who had come to their door that one evening. She was on the verge of tears. Tetia, her head poking out through the inner door, was watching the entrance as best as she could. "We can never thank you enough. May stars protect you, my son was about to die. Please, ask us for whatever you wish."
Tetia saw the woman holding the hand of a boy around her own age. The child stood with his head down, shy. When his huge eyes noticed the girl staring at them, he looked away.
“Please, you’ve already paid me more than enough. Just seeing that your son is well is enough for me,” said her sister, voice kind as ever, just a little strained at the edges. “My only request is that you please speak a little more quietly. You know…”
“Of course! Of course! I’m so sorry,” said the woman, voice descending into a frantic whisper, bowing again. She held out the basket that gave off a lovely scent, to the girl at the door. “Please accept these. It’s nothing, but…”
A few more words exchanged. The door closed. As the girl stepped inside the room, pensive, basket in her arms, she bumped into Tetia standing in the doorway.
"Oh, were you here?" she asked, smiling and furrowing her brows at the same time. She lightly pushed the little girl with one leg, like she was sweeping her inside. She giggled in return and threw herself onto the ground. “We have fresh pastries.”
“Yay!” Tetia exclaimed, rolling around on the floor.
The girl set the basket on the table, ignoring the Tetia crawling toward it and lifting its cover. She headed to the cupboard, pulled out a small pouch, and counted its contents. The sound of metal clinked.
"What do you say we go to the seaside this weekend?" she then asked. "Maybe we can even swim if the weather isn't too cold."
Tetia was even more excited than she was about the pastries. They were going to see the sea together one last time.
*
“Thank the stars,” said Qifrey, when he placed his hand on the girl’s forehead toward morning. “Your fever seems to have gone down a bit. How are you feeling?”
“I feel better,” she wearily replied, trying to manage a faint smile.
“I’m so glad. You had quite the tough night. You talked in your sleep even more than the day before.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been such a burden to you.”
“Tetia— no,” Qifrey said hastily. “I didn’t mean it that way. You haven't been a burden or anything. Don’t even think such a thing.”
"Ah." Needles still pricked her throat when she swallowed but it no longer felt swollen. Her stomach was calmer, too. "Then, thank you."
"No need for thanks either. Above all, it's enough that you're okay." her teacher said, raising his hand. “Agott and Olly are coming to visit today. Agott apparently has been saying that the atelier is very quiet without you.”
Tetia smiled quietly to herself. She could imagine Agott saying this in both a good and a bad way, but either way it felt amusing.
The sky was still cloudy outside. Still, the rain had stopped. A tiny bird landed right outside the window, pale and blue like the sky. Bright, yellow feathers on its head, ruffled. It hopped back and forth on the windowsill. Then arrived another one; their heads turned, this way and that. One of them peered through the glass and stared at Tetia for a while. They were so, so small that she wondered how they could even fly. They should have been at the nest.
"Ah, lantern birds!" Qifrey exclaimed. “But it’s too cold here for them in this season. They must be flying toward the southern coast. Did you know they’re a symbol of healing, Tetia? This can’t be a coincidence, they must be heralding your recovery!”
Qifrey, hands clasped with a sweet excitement, looked at his apprentice still watching the birds. He knew from the time they had spent together over the past few months that talking about animals thrilled the girl; they would very often get into excited conversations, talking over one another, sharing what they knew. This time he didn't meet the enthusiasm he expected.
“Master Qifrey,” said Tetia, without taking her eyes off the window. “They’ll pass by Adanlee too, right?”
There was a long silence. Very fragile, just as hard to break. Tetia's throat ached again but this time, it wasn't from the illness.
“Yes, Tetia,” Qifrey answered, as quiet, as light as the wind. “It should be on their path.”
The birds stayed a little longer, then flew off, leaving them behind. Tetia wished that if they ever came across someone still humming that song along their way, they would send her regards to her.