Almost Lost

Eli removes from the pocket of one of his jackets a corn dolly, long removed from Bethany’s own collection.

Eli reaches up to his collar, where the ends of his hair curl around his fingers. Carefully, the boy holds a lock of hair away from his head, pulls it taut, and saws at it with the knife. Slowly the lock of hair is cut, and he secures it to the doll with a piece of string wrapped around its waist.

Eli removes the silver locket from around his neck and opens it. Beneath a lock of hair similar to his own, only a few shades lighter, is a picture of his deceased mother. He cannot bring himself to risk it in the raising. He removes the hair and ties it to the doll.

Eli replaces the silver locket around his neck, tucking it under his collar.

Eli approaches the centerpiece with the doll in hand, and gently rests it upon the open bronze pages of the book. The locks of hair shine in the flickering golden light.

Eli removes the knife from his pocket, and without hesitation, slices the skin of his palm. While he tucks the knife away, he holds his bleeding hand above the doll, until several drops of blood trickle and fall from his skin, soaking the doll.

He steps back.

His blood darkens in the firelight.

Eli stares at the doll several seconds before the wind picks up, and the doll begins to grow.

Bethany watches the sun begin to dip lower than the tops of the gate around the market. The iron spikes are edges with gold. As she watches, they are lit so from the sunset that they appear doused in liquid gold.

Bethany is preparing to depart the market – to find a café or a library in which to occupy herself before the market leaves that night – when something happens.

It courses through her like a wave, with such force that she begins to tremble. Her vision fades, then returns, and when it does so, she peers up and down the market pathway, but there is no one there.

Still, she can feel it. A disturbance in the air. It slithers under her skin, even before she shuts her eyes.

She concentrates on the feeling of the market, searching each avenue for the source of the strange feeling creeping up her spine.

His empty book flutters beside him, but Eli does not notice. He murmurs under his breath, an amalgam of English and the language of symbols that he normally traces with his fingers, rather than his tongue.

His gaze does not waver from the doll, as its corn limbs soften, lengthen.

The words become a litany as he stares at the entity. He does not so much as blink as it stirs.

It’s heart beats once. Twice.

In a terrible second, Eli’s intentions take form in Bethany’s mind. She is out of her tent and racing through the avenues toward the market square faster than she thought possible.

The doll lifts its hand. Hollows form where its eyes should be.

The locket burns where it rests against Eli’s chest.

Bethany runs through the avenues with her gown billowing behind her in a ripple of green silk, splattered with mud as she sprints through puddles. She is going too quickly to stop, yet when the pain hits her, in one wave sweeping through the entire market like a gust of wind, white hot and sharp, she crumples and falls to the ground. The pain sears through her vision as she staggers to her feet and runs.

The doll lifts its head, and its eyes have barely met Eli’s when it begins to collapse. Eli’s heart stutters. The flames around the bronze book shift, and they are black as ink, rising into the air with plumes of coal-dark smoke. The doll flares with light, golden and brilliant like sunlight.

From the end of the avenue, Bethany spots the market square, full of light. She blinks several times as she sprints, increasing speed.

Bethany pauses at the edge of the market square. When she finally spies Eli, he is just a blur of shadow before the light becomes too blinding.

Bethany closes her eyes and blindly grasps at the fading golden glimmer in the darkness behind them.

The light fades as quickly as it began.

For Eli, the moment of the resurrection lasts much longer. He floats in a colourless, timeless space. He feels suspended. Waiting. He tries to wander but he isn’t sure if his body is moving. He feels diluted, as though he is playing the market-game, but there is nothing to ground him to the market.

Eli tries to place himself somewhere in the market. He thinks of Bethany’s stall, pictures the cages.

What follows is a sudden and intense moment of pain. White hot, as though he is being pierced by hundreds of knives at once.

When the pain recedes, Eli becomes award that feeling and sound have returned. He blinks several times before sight also returns.

Eli is lying on the ground in the market square, his back flat on the hard packed earth, an hour or so before sunset.

Bethany kneels beside him, holding his hand in hers, watching him with concern.

“What happened?” Eli asks.

“I could not bind you to anything permanent,” she says, dark eyes glistening with tears.

“What do you mean?” The market is coming into focus, and there is something missing from the square that he cannot specifically place.

“The resurrection failed. It was trying to pull you in, to raise your mother with your life. I had to bind you to the market. And your mother… is gone. I don’t know where she is. She came back, but she isn’t substantial. I’m sorry.”

Eli sits up. He still feels light, but some of the weight of the natural world is returning to him. “You binded me to the market?” he repeats.

“I had to. It won’t last forever. The market cannot support you and your mother. We have to find a way to unbind one of you. Though I don’t think we an safely unbind you,” Bethany says.

She holds his hand even as he stands.

When Eli glances around the market square, he realizes the shadows are longer, the stalls dimmer. The flames that have burned around the centerpiece since the market’s opening night are gone. There are not even curls of smoke replacing them. It is light-less.

Bethany squeezes his hand, and his attention returns to her. A single tear is falling down her cheek as he takes her into his arms.

“We have to find your mother,” Bethany says, when she has found her voice.

Text by Lucie MacAulay