M. Wren - A Gift Upon the Shore

And on Rachel.

This was the last day.

Mary knew that as she busied herself warming the stew and boiling the dried apples into a sauce for Rachel—if she could keep it down. Mary put a pot of water on the grate to make herb tea, for fever, for vitamin C, for B 12. She fed Yorick and wished she could do more for Epona, who hung about the campsite, no doubt hoping for hay. Mary ate heartily—for two—and couldn’t remember minutes later whether she had eaten or not. She was intensely aware of her surroundings, of every nuance of sensation, of her pain. Yet it seemed her nerves only functioned on the surface. Beyond a certain level was that impermeable mantle of numbness.

When at length Rachel woke, panting and crying out with pain, Mary offered her a cup of water laced with laudanum and waited until it took effect before tending her leg.

She hoped for a miracle still, but didn’t find it. The sphagnum that she had yesterday bound loosely against the wound with strips of gauze had had no effect, nor had exposure to air, not on clostridia entrenched in its airless pockets beneath the skin. Today the red tentacles reached above the knee. The lower leg and foot were nearly black. Mary simply covered the leg with clean bandages as quickly as possible. Rachel couldn’t face the broth or applesauce. Only a little tea.

The fog burned off by midmorning. Mary stood on the bank and watched the breakers emerge, the rocky point to the south, the cape in the distance to the north, finally the horizon. The vanishing fog seemed to take with it some of her protective numbness. She returned to Rachel, spread the blanket next to her, sat cross-legged on it, waiting. Yorick held vigil with her. Occasionally he went sniffing out his surroundings, but he always returned after a few minutes to lie close to Rachel, head on his front paws, eyes shifting from her to Mary.

Sometimes when Rachel woke she was lucid, although her conversation was disjointed, following her skipping thoughts with no transitions. “Can’t overcome instincts with persuasion. Draconian measures. China. They tried, at least. You know, they killed millions of swallows because they thought they ate grain. The pope went to Africa and told the faithful to multiply and be fruitful. Damn fool…”

At other awakenings she was confused and vague. She thought Mary was her mother or Connie Acres. Once she woke complaining that she had lost the right color of blue. “Cobalt won’t do. No blue can take the place of ultramarine. Lapis lazuli…” Mary assured her she’d find her lost ultramarine, held her hand until she sank into sleep.

Sometimes she woke weeping in pain. At such times, when she came fully awake, she was most lucid. She would try to put off taking more laudanum, asking Mary to support her so she could see the ocean, commenting on every detail as if she were memorizing it. Yet the pain always overwhelmed her finally. Panting, her pulse fast and erratic, yet so faint, Mary could barely feel it, Rachel would finally surrender to another cupful of water made bitter by the few drops of laudanum.

In the afternoon Mary went to the beach and gathered wood while Rachel slept. She kept a small fire burning all day. And she watched the sun moving in the sky with a solid sense of the Earth moving under her. She watched the shadows of the spruce trees move across hummocks of scaled roots, through drifts of fallen needles, red brown, the color of dried blood. Time was inexorable. It did not exist in static form, yet it was integral to the universe and life. She considered time and whether she would, if it were possible, stop time on this vernal afternoon. But perception depended on time. It came to her that death and the cessation of time were one and the same. And the Earth turned, and the shadows moved, and the tide that was at low ebb at noon moved up the beach, each wave leaving its serpentine mark in the sand.

High clouds began sweeping over the horizon late in the afternoon, and when the sun sank behind them, they caught fire, but it was the red fire of embers, barred with radiating shadows of gray. The wet sand burned with reflections, the water was dappled with the red and pale blue green of the sky. Mary knelt by Rachel, supporting her so she could see this phenomenon of light. She watched until the colors faded, but as the fire in the sky waned, so did her strength. She was shivering violently when Mary tucked the sleeping bag around her, and pain tripped up every breath. She asked, “Is there more laudanum?”

Mary shook her head, the word catching in her throat. “No.”

Rachel nodded. “Then it’s nearly time. I want to see the stars first. I can wait that long, I think. Shadow? Where are you, love?” Yorick nuzzled her hand. “No, not my Shadow. She’s dead, Mary, mercifully at my hand. So hard, mercy… for the merciful.”

Mary didn’t try to answer that.

When Rachel closed her eyes, Mary rose and built up the fire again. Its flames shimmered and blurred. Then she whistled for Epona, waited until the mare appeared, took her to another campsite, and tied her there. She stroked the massive, silken curve of her neck, her fingers finding the exquisite folds under her jaw, while Epona nervously rubbed her head against Mary’s shoulder.

She returned to their campsite, where the fire flickered in an echo of the fires that had faded from the sky, leaving only a glow on the horizon. Rachel still lay with her eyes closed, but she wasn’t asleep. Every breath ended in a soft moan, and the firelight glinted on the perspiration sheening her face. Mary sat down beside her, held her hand, while the night closed in like a tide around the island of firelight.

Finally Mary looked up through the branches, lace-patterned black on black, and saw stars shining out of the dark web.

The last day dwindled to the last minutes.

She felt Rachel’s hand tighten on hers, heard her say, “There… that ancient light. I lived in a golden age, Mary, when we began to learn the real dimensions of the universe. I hope it doesn’t shrink again in the human mind until those stars are only holes in a dome. What a small, cramped world it was….” The words sighed into shallow panting, then: “It’s time. Bring the first-aid box. The morphine.”

Mary couldn’t move. She stared into Rachel’s pain-ravaged face, and she had no intention of denying her the relief she sought, that in sound mind she asked for now. The paralysis was both physical and mental, and it was total. Only when Rachel repeated in an anguished whisper, “It’s time,” did the paralysis release her. Mary forced herself to rise, made her way to the table, and returned with the first-aid box.

Rachel had managed to brace herself on one elbow, and the fire shone full on her face. In her eyes, past the pain, was a transcendent light that Mary didn’t understand and knew she wouldn’t until she stood at the same point looking over the rim of time to timelessness.

Mary knelt and opened the box, found the morphine. A golden age, and this was an artifact of it. Mercy in amber glass. There was more of it at Amarna, she knew. She wondered if it would still be viable when the time for mercy came for her. She offered Rachel the vial and syringe.

Rachel reached for them, but her trembling muscles betrayed her. The vial and syringe clattered together, then slipped out of her grasp. With a groan, she fell back against the bearskin. When she didn’t speak, but lay staring hopelessly up at the stars, the transcendent light quenched, Mary said, “I’ll do it, Rachel.”

“No… oh, Mary, I can’t… ask that….”

“You didn’t ask.”

Rachel caught her hand, looked fixedly into Mary’s eyes for what seemed a long time. Then her frail hand slipped away from Mary’s. “It has to be given intravenously. It’ll take… all of it. The full vial.”