Midnight's Daughter

She gave me a strange look, then shook her head, bemused.

"It's strange. Sitting here, talking to you... it feels closer, somehow. Like you're talking about beings... people who existed, rather than names in books."

"People forget that names in books were once people like them. With the same wants, the same needs, the same loves... the same fears..."

"Mm. So... when will you write your book, Isea?"

"Soon," I said, grinning. "After summer, maybe I'll start..."

‷... liar...‴

The words were soft, and sad.

"No..." I breathed, awed.

And then my skin began to glow.

"No... no, no, no!" I cried out, as panic seized me.

"Isea? What's going on? What the fuck. Isea... oh, oh holy blood of Christ, what the fuck..."

"It's... it's not what it looks like, please!" I wailed, as my hair went silver.

She'd scrambled to her feet. She was staring down at me in horror...

"You're... you're glowing! You're fucking glowing! Mary mother of God, what the fuck! Who are you! What are you!"

"Please, please wait, wait, I can explain! I'm a... I'm a goddess of water, I live here, I've lived here forever... please, please, listen!"

"Fuck this. Absolutely fuck all this, this is mad, I'm out. Fuck this! And fuck you too!" she shouted, voice shrill with panic.

I moved to block her; I grappled with her, desperate to explain, to beg her to stay, to delay her...

"Dani! Please!" I screamed. "Please, just... just let me explain!"

"Get away from me, demon!" she screamed back. She hit me - a hard, ringing slap to my jaw and cheek that stunned me, and barged into me, tumbling me to the ground as she ran for her scooter.

I lay spread-eagled in the dirt, panting, my cheek stinging and ears ringing from the force of her open-handed blow. I listened to her kick her scooter into life; the wild scrabbling of little rocks as she spun it and rode off at a breakneck pace into the darkness.

Nobody had ever struck me before.

Nobody had ever used any violence on me.

Ever.

It... hurt. It hurt deep in me, like a knife that had wormed its way into my bowels and was slicing and rending deep within me.

Despair took me.

I stared up at the Great mother, her waning face mournful in the black night sky beyond my prison walls.

"Why?" I begged her. "Why?"

‷... because you lied...‴ came her distant, almost-forgotten voice, soft and beautiful and inexpressibly disappointed.

How much of her remaining strength had her four words to me cost her?

Too much. Far too much. Many times too much for me to bear.

I rolled over and hid my face as the hot tears of shame took me.

I had lied. I might try to squirm around the truth of it, but the Great mother knew intent. I'd lied to hide what I was. It didn't matter why, it didn't matter what modern man (and woman) didn't believe and wouldn't even entertain. It didn't matter that the truth would make the woman I adored flee in terror.

I was a kindly one. I was a Naiad. I nourished life, I guarded, I cherished. Lies were the province of others.

So how could I expect Selene to countenance my behaviour?

I couldn't. She wouldn't. It was against her nature. And so... I'd done this.

And this was my reward and the long-delayed beginning of my slow, final fading.

"Farewell, Dani. You were by far the sweetest of all," I whispered to the uncaring stones beneath me.

I slowly levered myself out of the dust, and crawled by slow, broken degrees to the bed I'd made for us on top of the inflatable mattress. I found my heart-stone and cupped it to my belly as I curled around it.

Now I truly had nothing remaining to me but the slow passage of those years still allotted to me.

I was too broken to cry any further. There was no point now, anyway.

Nobody would comfort me.

I was alone.

The flames grew lower, then flickered, then died. The coals cooled from red to black. The heat in the rocks around them faded. Selene's face dipped and disappeared. The pale blush of Dawn dimmed the watching stars.

I lay, still as stone, seeking comfort in Oblivion.

But even Oblivion was denied me.

She did not come to my waters.

She did not come to her bar.

I waited. And watched.

For three days and three nights I waited and watched.

I could be patient as the stars when I needed to; invisible to humans, my skin moving gently in the kiss of the wind, my body stirred to eddies by the multitude of boats that crossed me.

I waited. But I didn't hope. I had no right to hope any longer.

I just wanted to see her one last time before the end.

But even I can despair.

And so, I'd given up, and retreated to my redoubt, my little cave in the mountainside that I'd first curiously explored all those long years ago.

And now I sat, staring into the flickering flames of the fire I'd started for company. It was a calm evening, with slow-drifting clouds sometimes veiling Selene's face, and the heat of the day still lingered in the rocks. My waters shimmered and rippled in the night breeze, but I paid neither my waters nor the wider world any mind.

Instead, I stared inwards to the slowly-growing nothingness within me.

And then... I felt her.

At first I ignored the feeling. It was likely some critical need that had brought her back; I would leave her be. I'd hurt her enough. Why do more?

But the feeling persisted.

She was somewhere nearby.

Probably staring out into the night, crying and cursing my name.

I sighed.

It took a monumental effort, but I summoned the will to stand.

And I walked slowly to the mouth of my cave and stared out into the darkness.

Someone was moving out near the water.

I paused.

The gentle glamour of the place would hide my home from them. I would watch until they moved on, then go back to my home and wait, quietly, for my end.

Selene's face broke free from a wisp of entangling cloud; my breath caught in my throat.

It was her. It was Dani.

She was walking to and fro near the water, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. I could dimly hear her muttering and cursing to herself.

Then she stopped.

"Where are you!" she shouted, suddenly. "I know this is where we were, I know the mountains, I know these rocks! This is the place. Where are you! Isea, please!"

Her voice was shrill and ragged. I could see that she was exhausted. I could tell that she'd been crying.

I stayed where I was, cowering in the darkness, watching her and wondering if I was brave enough yet to go to her.

The words she'd shouted at me still stung. My jaw still bore the bruise of her blow. But... I had the benefit of age. She was young, she was passionate. Could I truly blame her for reacting how she had? She'd never been face-to-face with a being like me before. Honestly, her reaction should have been predictable. It was why I showed myself so seldom.

She was such a brief thing, after all. It was hard to face the reality behind the veil. She would be here a heartbeat and then pass on. My end would be different, the slow silt of years would be what finished me, the slow reduction of who I was by gentle inexorable erosion....

I sighed.

I envied her. I envied her youth, her lack of memories, her freedom to be whatever she wished to be. I could not leave this valley without losing all that made me me. Oh, I'd toyed with the idea, of course. I'd nearly done it for Callista, shortly before the fall of Rome... but she'd chosen marriage to Marcus Lucretius in the end and had left me forever for Messina and the sea, and, eventually, the fields of Elysium.

And... somehow down the long years since I hadn't thought about it again, despite the occasional lovers I'd found and lost along the way... until now.

Daniella...

Midnight's daughter.

Dark, beautiful, sweet as honey...

She had sunk to her knees in the mud; softly sobbing.

I watched her wipe her eyes.

She was so warm, so alive. And so quick to anger; she had a fire in her that was so opposite to me that I couldn't help but want her.

My waters lapped against the stones along the shore. I knew each and every one of them as intimately as my own skin.

They were the walls of my home. The walls of my prison. And now I desperately yearned to be free of them.

I took a breath and sighed it out. And then I stepped slowly down towards her, the fabric of my loose linen tunic teasing against my skin, my bare feet barely sinking into the dry sand beneath them.

"Hello, Dani," I breathed, only slightly louder than my ripples.

She jerked, leaped up and spun to face me. She was pale, eyes wide.

"Dani..." I paused, cleared my throat, then tried again. "Daniella, why are you here?"

Her mouth opened but no words came out.

"Have you come here to strike me again? Here, then," I said. "Here is my other cheek. Strike me again if you must," I whispered. "It will hurt me more than it will hurt you; that I promise you."

She took a sobbing breath, but still said nothing.

"Why are you here, Dani?" I repeated.. "Is it to just stand there and stare at the woman who wronged you? Well, here I am. I am sorry, for what little comfort that is now."

"I... needed to see you," she gasped, at last. "Dio santo, I am crazy to be here, but..."

"Why? Why do you need to see me? You left me lying in the dust, Daniella. You... left me," I managed, trying not to let the pain of the words break me.

"Because I was angry!" she shouted. "I was angry with you! Isea! You... you lied to me! About everything! What the fuck are you? Who the fuck are you? Why... why are you haunting my every waking thought like you are? I cannot eat, I cannot sleep, I am crying all the time! Why! Why did you do this to me? I was alone before I met you, and I'd made peace with that! I was okay! And... and now I'm not okay! Not at all! I had you and the joy of you for a heartbeat, at most two, and I was stupid enough to hope that it was finally my time to have something more! Why! Why did you do this to me? Why? What did I ever do to you to deserve this? Dio cane, why couldn't you just have left me alone! Isea, answer me! Why must I be so possessed by you!"

"Because I love you," I answered, when I could.

"Love? Love! You're... you're a spirit, a demon, you can not..."

Her words stumbled to a halt and she covered her mouth, as if horrified by what she'd just said to me.

I fought down the sob; I would not cry. Not here, not now. Later, when I was alone, when she'd left... maybe then.

Instead, I turned away from her and stared out at my body and the mountains that cupped me and at the sacred island I in turn carried.

""I'm actually a saint, you know," I whispered, when I could speak again. I cleared my throat, continued more forcefully. "It's farcical. Your Church did that to me in the fifteenth century. Saint Isea of the still waters. Nobody asked me if I wanted to be a saint. I preferred just being me. It's hard enough already... just being me."

She swallowed.

"Are you going to... kill me?" she whispered.

"What?" I gasped, spinning back to face her.

"Are you going to kill me? Drown me, pull me down... into the black... depths? Water... things... always do that... in the books..."

She was shaking, stammering with fear.

I stared at her, too shocked, too hurt by the question to even laugh at the absurdity of it.

"... Why would I ever do that? I've never done that to anyone, not even when the warlords made their blood offerings on the western shore and threw their gutted captives into the water. No. No, Daniella. I don't kill. I'm..."

I sighed. How to explain this to someone who didn't know the tales, who hadn't grown up knowing with every breath that creatures like me were everywhere?

"Listen. Just... please, listen to me. I'm what the Hellenes called a Naiad. A spirit of the flowing waters. I don't take life," I declared, almost insulted by the idea. "I give it. All the plants, all the trees that surround me, all the animals that graze on my banks... all the beautiful people like you that live near me. I could never harm you, Daniella. Neither willingly nor wilfully. It would be betraying everything that I am."

"I'm mad. I'm going mad," she whispered. She clutched her head in her hands. "Oh sacred blood of Mary, I'm going crazy like Nana Isabella did. It's the only possibility. Why! Why me? Why did you choose to torment me? Why did you have to come into my bar and... into my head and my heart and... and seduce me like that? I was content. I was alone, and not happy, but I was doing okay!" she added, voice trembling. "I'd made peace with being like this, with being unlovable and having nobody to love. Why, Isea? I would have been okay. I was okay until I met you. Now... everything is broken. Why me? Of everyone, why did you have to choose me?" she whispered.

"Because you're special. Because you're gentle. Because of the way you touch me. How you smile and laugh when you're... in me," I admitted, blushing at the double meaning of the latter. "I don't wander much any more. I can't. Men dammed my headwaters and my outflows, and people don't believe in beings like me these days. Your books and your strange machines have... have killed most of us; you've pinned our names to parchment and paper for men and women to scoff at or bicker over in their debates. My sisters are long gone. I'm the last of us that I still know of. There may be others like me, but even if there are then they are beyond my water's fetch."

I took a long, slow breath, and risked stepped closer.

She didn't back away like I'd feared she would.

"Humanity is old, Daniella. You are old and powerful. You believe as easily as you breathe, sometimes. Your ancestors made me, crafted me and others like me to help them to make sense of the spite of the natural world they could not control. My sisters and I... we were the gentle ones, the kind ones, the ones who brought food and water and plentiful game. Your daughters used to throw flowers into my waters for me - little field blossoms, sprigs of fragrant herbs to keep me sweet and benevolent. I liked that..."

I stared down at my hands, thinking of all the faces I'd known over the long and bitter years.

"It is so lonely," I whispered. "Being the last. So... I walk my narrowed and diminished world, and watch the beautiful people, and... very occasionally, reach out to the ones who can still see me. Not everyone does; not really. It's only the ones like you, the ones who still have the old names written in their souls, who will sit somewhere here and still really look at me. You, Daniella - you sit on benches or by the water's edge. You're always looking at me. You watch me dance, watch me sing, watch my moods written in the waves and the rain that falls on my face. You... swim in my waters and laugh and rejoice at my touch. You give me your time, your love, your praise. How could I not love you back with everything that I am in return? I am what I am. How could you not expect that of me? "

My voice had gone husky on me; I could once more feel the threatening tears. Out beyond us, my ripples became waves under the evening breeze, and Venus gleamed low in the darkening sky.

She stared at me, her perfect forehead marred by the frown she wore, her eyes red from the hurt I'd caused her.

The silence stretched out between; the moon slowly rose beyond the south-eastern peaks. High and cold, fair Selene glittered, casting her mournful, thoughtful gaze down on me.

I turned to face her; to bow my head and raise my arms to her in praise as I always did.

But this time, also, in contrition for my sin.

"Forgive me," I whispered.

And then my skin flashed pale, my hair to spun silver, lighting me like a beacon in the darkness.

"Oh Holy Mother of God," Daniella whispered behind me, awed.

I stared up at Selene; my heart aching with bittersweet longing. The Great mother had bestowed her kiss as she sometimes deigned to do. She, too, missed the old ways, when men and women stood on the heights and sang her praise, and when I and my sisters raised our arms and bowed our heads before her glory.

And she'd always had a soft spot for my lovers.

"See?" I said softly. "She laughs at us, at you and me and this squabble between us. She sees this little dance I do for you. It's an old dance. Older than names. And so she laughs at us and shines on my waters and I reflect part of her. From bronze I change to silver. And I am loved. For a moment or two... I know that I am still loved."

I sighed, and blew a kiss up to Selene. My skin and hair faded slowly back to what they had been before.

"Even Selene weakens and fades," I mourned. "Men have forgotten her. Your astronomers name the marks on her face, like... like teenagers looking for moles and freckles on their favourite model's cunt."

She flinched at the word. I glanced at her over my shoulder.

"You do not see her, just her body, and even that is just a curiosity now. Facts pinned to pages. Not deep truths that you feel in your bones. And the same applies to me."

I lowered my arms. I let my tunic dissolve. Now I turned to face her and stood there as I truly was - naked and alone.

She made a soft noise and clenched her fists; she stared - at my small, pale breasts, at the bare curves of my mound of Venus and my labia - and then caught herself and met my gaze again.

"I am Isea, Daniella" I whispered. "I have had other names, but that is the one I have always loved most. Tarquinius named me thus - back when the world was still bright and young. But now I am alone. The Hellenes are gone, the Etruscans too, the Legions and the Pax Romana are no more. I stand here before you as a shadow of what I was. Nobody remembers me, nobody throws flowers in my waters for me. I am forgotten. And yet, I live, and I remain. I am Isea. Look at me. Please... just look at me," I begged, desperate with the longing to just belong, even if for a moment.

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips just open in that perfect manner she had; she seemed stunned by the words I'd spoken.

"Am I not pretty enough for you?" I whispered.

"What? No! I mean, yes! Yes, you are!", she gasped in confusion. "You are! Of course you are! But..."

"But I am not human," I said, softly, mournful. "And... and I suppose that is a causeway you will not..."

"No! No, it's not that... it's..."

She clutched herself.

"What?" I said at last. "What is it?"

"I will die," she whispered. She bit back a sob. "I will die, and you will not. That will always be a wall between us. How? How could I do that to you, knowing that you would be left behind when I am gone? How can I do that to you?"

The chill in my heart melted. She was trying to... to protect me! Even now, even after how I'd hurt her.

I spread my arms wide, palms open, encompassing everything of me.

"All things die, Daniella. Even me. Another century, or perhaps two if I'm unlucky and linger. My waters grow shallow. I... dwindle."

"No!" She gasped, horror-struck. "No! Can't something... be done?"

I tried to be gentle, but the truth would be anything but.

"Oh, you could dredge me I suppose, and take my silt and put it on the fields, and take my sands and build more buildings with them, and take my stones and line the causeways and the roads with them, or, better yet, use them for your pretty ornamental fountains so that they are still kissed in some way by living water..."

Her eyes darted to the distant lights of Iseo, and her mouth dropped open again as she made the connection.

"We're... killing you," she moaned. She covered her mouth with her hands in horror, as if trying to call back the words so they wouldn't become real.

"You and Time - both by slow degrees. It happens. That which giveth taketh also away. So yes. Not as soon as you, my love, but some day soon, I will die. And no pretty woman will be there to mourn me. I will not even be a name in a forgotten book."