Wanderlust (Olkhon Island | Baikal Lake, Siberia)

[Thalia]

Guided by her hand against the rock, Thalia pushed herself down and down and down. Darkness swirled now, like it was oblivion itself into which she was welcomed, and she saw little of the wonders she knew hid beneath the waves now the sun had died. In Estonia’s river, confusion and the current had thwarted an attempt to light her way (and then, of course, the terrible burning), but she felt calmer here. Patricius had warned her against the power, and once she may have listened. But there was no one to see the transgression down here, and its sweet temptations felt more like home than it ever had before, when the idea struck. Even the burning breath held in her lungs did not provide distraction.

Lights drifted like falling stars after a little thought, flickering to tentative life far easier than the coloured bubbles for Rasmus at the church. Thalia beamed, captured by the wonder, and reached to splay her fingers through the tiny glowing spheres until they spread like a dandelion blown on the wind. Shadows rippled distant, and her skin prickled all over; the light had an eerie quality, but it felt like the most glorious secret.

Caught in that unthinking moment she was not sure what even happened next, but when stars burst her vision a second time it was because she hit her head. Hard. The shock wrenched the power from any vestiges of control, and darkness plunged cold and furious. This time it scared her. Panic burst with the pain. She swallowed down water without meaning to. Kicked, disorientated, until air knifed her lungs as she broke the surface.

By the time she swam and scrambled ashore, her heart was still beating madly. 

She heaved herself out, throat burning, half in and out of the water. Her head throbbed, and she pressed it down into the rough pebbles, eyes squeezed shut, berating the stupidity. Half a sob squeezed for release between the wild coughing. Though there was no one to run to, with either fears or wonder. She wasn’t even sure which one she felt more.

A long time passed before she wobbled up to her feet, more unsteady than she would like. It was by now too dark to see anything across the lake, just the glistening reflection of the moon, but she turned anyway and spent a long, dripping moment staring before she finally pulled herself away. Practicalities were never forefront in Thalia’s thoughts; at least not until ambushed by the necessity. She hadn’t thought about getting back to the village, but the inky darkness spreading up the hill into the tangle of the forest trail offered no welcome. How easy to become lost in that wildness, like a fairy tale. Bones gnawed by bears and wolves was not how she envisioned her own story ending, though.

Fortunately her bag was wedged where she had left it. She pulled on the giant t-shirt she had purchased from a tourist shop on the mainland that morning, then let her legs fold awkwardly underneath her as the shock caught up with the heavy weight of a shroud. It took effort to drag the blanket from her pack, and loose drawings spilled out and caught the breeze. The shadows claimed them quickly from view. It was too dark to chase them down. That, and everything was spinning just a little bit.

Cocooned in the thick wool, she rested her head against the stone instead, and resolved to wait for dawn’s light. A poor idea to fall asleep out here, not that she had any intention. Honestly, her pulse was bursting out painfully from her temples with too much force for that to be a danger anyway. Her eyes upturned to the sky glittering above. Stars like that never pierced the city lights of Moscow. She traced her attention along the constellations she recognised, seeking one in particular, and the story that went with it, until some time later everything gently blurred.

[[The Little Jewell]]