A Girl Called Battle

Part II The Quiet Arrival of a Pearl

Before we fully descend into didactics regarding magic and metamorphoses, let us return to our heroine, Battle, who we left in the company of her grandfather. Over time, her grandfather, as the designated patriarch, grew weary of his family, whom he regarded as a bunch of louts made useless by leisure and a crippling sense of entitlement, but in Battle, he recognized a mutinous spirit. So as a last-hope maneuver to groom a capable heir, he insisted that Battle should shift residence and live with him.

Her grandfather arranged for a pick-up, late at night, to diffuse any fanfare and overwrought good-byes. While waiting for his car, Battle sat quietly and patiently in the parlor, cutting a small but formidable figure among the shadowy pile of trunks. She pressed smooth the hem of her frock and tugged on her coat, trying her best to suppress the sense of anticipation. After some time, she wandered to the front windows, disappearing among the heavy drapes and pressing her forehead against the cold glass. She eyed the desolate streets at night, her breath clouding the glass, fogging the lamplight and when she wiped it away in a single streak, there it was, waiting for her, as if summoned from from the sleight of her hand---her grandfather's sleek, black automobile.

Her grandfather's building, the tallest in the entire metropolis, emerged from the stunted scenery of stacked edifices like an imperious dark monolith, checkered in windows and tapered at the top as a means to comply with pesky zoning clauses preoccupied with the blockage of sunlight to the underlings below. Though most floors housed the various enterprises that kept the family coffers well-fed, her grandfather sanctioned the topmost floors for his own personal space. It was here, hidden in the geometric arrays of marble, glass, steel and all variants of gleaming surfaces, where he situated his secret study, the one place in the whole austere, over-polished spectacle where he could truly be himself. He shared this room with his granddaughter under sworn secrecy. No one, not even his late wife, knew of this special secret wing. Except for his architect, steward. And solicitor, of course.

Battle spent hours in the evening, in this very room, sitting in a dusty landscape of toppled books, peeling Chinoise wallpaper, bottled boats, unfurled maps, disemboweled toys from curiosity shops, animals skins and relics from extensive travel that her grandfather gently pillaged from natives through feigned comraderie. Her grandfather regarded this room as an education, a rare and real oppurtunity to undermine an upbringing intent on fashioning her into an accomplished lacy bauble and subsequently, unbeknownst to everyone else, he groomed her with a freer sense of destiny.

However, just as soon as could realize a certain emancipation for Battle, he fell ill. He spent his last days in a bed, pouting with a pipe in his mouth, which he refused to relinquish even when his forlorn physician occasionally pressed two fingers on his wrist while eyeing a pocketwatch. Lying in bed for a prolonged period of time, he found, much to his own amusement, that his room resembled a family tomb, with tall dark marble walls, vaulted ceiling, windows composed of large sheets of glass faceted against each other, overlooking the clouds, the sky, the oblivion beyond. It also did not help that the usual entourage of stolid spectators parked themselves by his bed, waiting for the inevitable cue for tears, the usual histrionics, and eventual inquiry regarding assets.

So while he did derive some temporary pleasure in using his illness to emotionally blackmail his family members, he was determined that his granddaughter did not become a part of the farcical moodpiece surrounding his demise. In an act that many chalked up to senility---though those who knew him, knew better---- he sanctioned the construction of a darkwood dory/miniature ship with old sails that his granddaughter could play in during the day and sleep in at night. He enjoyed seeing the people seated at his bedside, dressed in black, frowns on their face, stoically braving clouds of sawdust, hammering and drilling. The project helped dissipate the whole lot of them, so that finally, the only people left in the room were those that were absolutely necessary. And Battle. When the ship was completed, she dangled off the masts, looking beyond at the stretch of clouds from the windows with a telescope and wishing her ship could set sail, with her grandfather onboard, onto the welcoming sky of clouds.

From then on, everything that happened in Battle's life happened in the company of her bedridden grandfather: her lessons, her meals, her manufactured adventures on her ship. For a period of time, it was their own little paradise and it appeared that perhaps her grandfather may have warded off the grim predictions regarding his health. But one morning, he knew it was time. Last words were spoken, but the very last was left for his grandaughter. She was kept aside dutifully by his steward, until she was led to his bedside. For once, he had nothing to say to her, seeing all that he constructed and built left on her brave, little shoulders. He tirelessly made all necessary arrangements to ensure her future and finally, at this moment, he could lay his eyes on her, knowing that it was up to her what to make of these next chapters. He quietly placed the key to his secret study in her palm and slowly raised his arms for a final embrace. As he held her in his arms, she rested her face onto his frail chest, feeling it rising and falling, the muffled sound of his heartbeat beneath, until she felt it all collapse, with his last breath. It was then Battle, who had been so brave through the whole ordeal, who gladly played on the ship he made for her, finally let out a sob. And the tears would not cease. Not the day after, months after. Not a year after.

She refused to leave her grandfather's bedroom, even when his furniture was shifted away into storage. Eventually, her own furniture was moved into the room, while she continually cried, sitting in her nightgown at all times of the day, in her ship, under an over-sized chandelier. Her grandfather's old solicitor who was given the responsibility of over-seeing her upbringing and financial security made sure she had some level of education. So she'd be dressed, fed, and taught in her bedroom, which happened, even through a perpetual syncopation of whimpers and sobs. It almost became like breathing to her, and regarded as such by most who encountered her on a daily basis. The tears, though, functioned as a self-imposed shield by which to preserve the grief, that last moment with her grandfather, keep everyone and everything else away. It was, after all, the last time she really felt love.

One night, Battle slept in her ship, quietly sobbing, burying her face into the white pillows and sheets that glowed in the moonlight, when suddenly she felt something bounce off her quilt and roll onto her hand. It was a single radiant pearl, warm, iridescent and beautiful in the blue light of the night, when suddenly she stopped crying momentarily and her eyes trailed up the ripples of the sheets up to the side of the ship, where she saw the beady eyes of a little brown mouse, perched from the edge of the ship, its fur mangled, its little paws hovering below its face. For a moment, she almost felt she could speak to it, and it could speak to her in plain language, that it came to her bedside as if to comfort her; it understood her tears, her sobs; it understood her; however, realizing herself, her momentary bout of insanity and the inconcievable notion that this residence--this sanitized fortress sealed in marble, concrete, and steel, suspended so high in the sky--- could be suspectible to vermin, she let out a loud scream, that vibrated through the hallways and woke up the entire staff.

From the bottom of her door, she saw the lights darting below, growing brighter, the scurrying footsteps rushing towards the door. At that moment, she felt a cold hand on her own and looked at the mouse and realized, the mouse was not a mouse anymore but in fact a boy. A boy with light brown skin and soulful, jewel-green eyes, soot on his cheeks, shivering and frightened---it was Rust. He had turned himself into a mouse and her scream woke him up from his own self-imposed transformation. He pleaded with her, his hand on hers,"Please! Help! I mean no harm!"

Hearing the footsteps stop at the door, Battle motioned him to one of the long, large drapes by the window, "Hide there!" He slid behind them swiftly, just as the doors crashed open. Her grandfather's old butler stumbled at the entryway, halting an eager army of of maids in nightgowns and shawls, armed with lit candles. "Little Miss, whatever is wrong?"

Embarrassed and puzzled, she wiped away her wet cheeks and smiled, which alarmed the entire staff even more than her scream, as they regarded her perpetual stream of tears as a tiresome yet routine by that time. She assured them, "Oh I'm sorry. Just a bad dream."

"Anything we can do for you?"

"That'll do, " she insisted. The butler nodded, in slight disbelief, unsure of what to make of her suddenly docile, even cheerful behavior, and reluctantly closed the door. When she was sure they were gone, Battle whispered, "You can come out now." When she heard nothing, Battle quickly rushed behind the drapes in search of Rust but could not find him. She looked, wandering around her ship, peering in her wardrobe, lifting the lid of her jewelry box, crawling under tables, yet suddenly she noticed the secret entryway to her grandfather's study was ajar, letting out a cold draft. She walked up the old wooden staircase into the room that she did not have the courage to reenter after her grandfather passed away. The boy was nowhere to be found, but she rediscovered all the knick-knacks, the old books and maps, reentering memories so vivid that they ressurected an old sense of love, and just as her fingers traveled along these objects, she found a hole in the small glass window in the room---the only way by which the boy/mouse entered and escaped. She slipped her hand through the window, her fingers feeling the cold, thin air, wondering if that mouse-boy grew a pair of wings and flew away,yet half-expecting to feel him touch her hand once more, whisking her away into a starry sky, far away from this mythical tall tower inpenetrable to the rest of the world.

When she returned to bed, she found the pearl nestled in the soft, white sheets. It was likely dislodged from a disregarded piece of jewelry from her own collection, some little trinket she must've worn without thinking many times over, yet sitting in her palm, in the dark, it never looked lovelier.