The Sky Inside

Ella’s hand held the water pump’s handle; its metal was cool against her calloused palms. She started to work the metal up and down with a practised efficiency until water slowly dribbled into the bucket. It was the last one of the night - just enough to wash and make her mother some tea that she wouldn’t drink. As she continued pumping, her eyes looked upwards to the fading sky. There, in the back of her mind, was the thought that what existed in her dreams might become a reality. That recurring dream with a world of darkness and echoing heartbeats where she - or whoever it was in her dream - would run for their life until they got to the edge of a cliff where there was more darkness below but above there was something in the sky.

 Something purple, shaped like a sideways feather and shining with a fluorescent opacity. It hung low in the sky and would glow and pulse like it had a heartbeat until she would wake up.

Her eyes scanned the sky again in the same way she had done every night for the last six months. That was when her mother had fallen ill. And when the dreams had started. She couldn’t explain why she thought that the thing she saw in the sky in her dreams was real or would become real - it was just the feeling when she woke up that if she looked carefully enough, there would be something close behind the clouds obscured by a thin partition and waiting to be seen. And yet, every night, the same routine, the same bucket, the same pump and the same result - nothing. Just the darkness above her and the restless sadness within her. 

Ella picked up the bucket and started walking back to her house. Her father was, more than anything else, opportunistic - hunting and trading furs, chasing seals on the ice - the work didn’t matter. What mattered was that when he was home it was never with much money. Her mother would never had said anything but even in Ella’s short eleven years on the planet, she knew that they couldn’t rely on him to bring any of that money home. 

But where the money ended up didn’t matter as much as the absence. With her mother barely able to stand up due to an illness that left no symptoms except for unending waves of exhaustion, Ella was required to run the household - she did the washing, the hunting, the cooking, the gathering food and wood and tending the fire. She was barely holding on and knew with each passing day that winter was getting closer. But she tried not to think about that. 

She placed the bucket on the ground and caught a glimpse of herself in the water: her narrow face, thin lips, round eyes and dark hair seemed to glow in the dusky light. She was about to go inside when she took one last look at the dark sky above and found nothing. As she picked up the bucket, she paused as a memory presented itself in her mind: it was years ago when her grandmother was still alive and living with them. She was teaching her how to make a quilt and Ella, thoroughly frustrated after making another mistake, threw the cloth down. Her grandmother took it and told her to put it down on the table. To take a step back and look at it from a distance. And then, she said as she picked it back up, look at it from a different angle. That’s true for all problems, y’know, she said as she looked at Ella over her glasses.

Ella dropped the bucket again and went around the side of their house - to get a different angle. There was a small slope that led towards the woods that encircled them and as she descended, her eyes took in more of the sky and she saw it. Hanging in the distance, like a painting stolen from her dream, was the purple shape that she had seen every night for the last six months. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the sky and its now pulsating purple adornment. Her feet brought her quickly back to the house and she opened the door and placed the bucket inside. Her mother lay in the corner on a thin cot with her back to the door. 

‘Momma! It’s the sky. It’s like my dream.’ 

Silence was the response from her mother. If it weren’t for the gaunt shoulders rising and falling, she would have seemed dead. And so, Ella’s decision seemed to have been made for her. There was something deep inside of her that had been realised with the sky’s offering and she knew instinctively that she needed to find it, to follow it, to see what the sky wanted her to see. 

Picking up the rifle that lay beside the door, however, was not an instinctual decision - Ella knew the forest well enough not to go in without protection. 

*

She walked with the sky as her guide and went down the slope to the edge of the forest. It was this forest that had been the playground in her formative years - the trees her ladders, the hills her slides, the fallen branches her swords. She had had, for the first five years of her life at least, someone to play with in these woods - her sister, Lilly. She was two years younger and every day, once she was big enough to walk around safely, after they had finished their chores, they would down to the forest to explore until dinner. Ella would show Lilly how to find the best trees to climb and the best branches to pick up. They would sing songs - mainly the song they heard their father sing on the rare occasion he was home.

Fair these broad meads - these hoary woods are grand;

But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

They didn’t know what the words meant but they excited them. But then, one afternoon, her sister got sick. Ella could not remember much about what happened - just some shouting when her father left again and hushed conversations between her mother and grandmother until Lilly was no more. She couldn’t even remember her face fully, just that she had a freckle on one of her cheeks and raven-dark hair and eyes like hers. Sometimes, when she laughed, she would snort a little, which only made them laugh even more. 

As she walked into the forest under the sky made darker by tall trees and the purple shimmer that beckoned her even without seeing, she hummed the tune she had sung all those years before with Lilly. Like it had back then, the song made her feel older - like someone who didn’t need to be afraid of the darkness of the forest and the danger it held. She moved through the bush with practised ease, using the rifle to deflect the heavier branches. Ahead of her, in a clearing, there was a break in the canopy and the silvery moonlight flooded in on a valley. The gentle ripple of a stream became louder as she approached. As her vision widened, she saw a fawn drinking from the clear water. Behind it, moving with cautious glances, was its mother. There, framed in the moonlight, they were as pure as the earth had intended them to be. Ella watched them - watched the fawn drink and the doe look around until, in the distance, sharp howls and yelps of nearby coyotes were heard and the doe’s ears stood up straight as she nudged the fawn forward and into the darkness of the surrounding brush. 

Ella moved through the clearing with the rifle held tightly until the howls subsided. She placed it on the ground as she cupped her hands in the stream and drank the cool water. 

*

With the exception of a couple of trips over downed trees, the rest of her journey was uneventful. As she approached another clearing, there were questions burning in her mind: how would she know? How would this strange dream-sign make its purpose known to her? 

There, framed by moonlight and a purple glow, was a decrepit cottage on a hill. Above it, a stone's throw away, was the sideways purple feather, once of her dreams and now of her reality. The decision to move towards the cottage did not take long; the part of her mind that had been tapped put action ahead of consideration. She knew not to approach the front and made her way along the side until she got close to a window. Breathing deeply, she looked up again and saw the undulating purple sign in the sky. For a moment, its light shone through her and she felt the purple light inside of her eyes as her world of dreams became real. She felt powerful in a way she had never known and would have basked in this interior glow for longer had the invisible urgency of the moment not pulled her back to reality. And to the window. 

She carefully slid beside it and crept an eyeball over the edge of the bottom corner. Inside, a sparse room with some chairs, animal fur rugs, a barebones kitchen stove and shelves and a table. Seated at the table was a ragged man with an unkempt beard wearing filthy overalls. He swigged from a bottle of dark liquid and was staring at a girl in front of the woodstove. The girl in question seemed younger than Ella and had long blonde hair that curled in ringlets. She wore a plain dress that was caked with dirt and was stirring a pot with a wooden spoon.  

 The man barked something to the girl that was muffled to Ella but caused the girl to start. She quickened her movements and reached onto a shelf for a bowl that she placed on the table. The contents of the pot that were poured into the man’s bowl were dark, some kind of a stew, though it seemed runny. The man lowered his spoon into the bowl, blew the steam away and brought it to his lips. It only took one spoonful for him to throw the spoon at her - his shouting was loud enough that it shook the house in a way that Ella could feel in her bones even if she couldn’t make out the exact words he was saying. She watched as he stood up and grabbed her by the wrist and screamed into her face; little flecks of spittle flew from his drunkard lips and landed on her unblemished skin. Ella would have kept watching had he not picked up the pot of stew.

She averted her eyes but heard the scream and the scream was enough to know. 

To know why she had been brought there. 

*

The girl came outside not five minutes later. Hearing footsteps approaching the front door, Ella sprinted for the forest’s edge and hid herself behind a tree. 

 The girl stepped into the clearing, and her burns were visible even under the cloak of night. She knelt beside a metal water pump; her hand moved until water started to flow and she placed her head under the spout. The water splashed on her face and trickled down her arms until it started dripping onto the ground. The girl stopped, evidently aware of Ella’s presence, and looked around her. Sensing an opportunity, Ella stepped away from the tree and found the girl’s eyes which widened with fear that had built on top of the fear that had built a home inside of her. Ella put a finger in front of her lips and mouthed the words it’s okay. The girl stood transfixed by the stranger behind the tree under the stars and the purple sign of dreams. 

Ella put her hands together and placed them beside her head, then pointed to the house. She shrugged her shoulders as if to ask the question. The girl understood immediately and shook her head; fear flooded into her eyes like the water from the well as it flowed onto the ground. Ella held her finger up to her mouth again and pointed to the cottage. She pointed at her own eyes and then pointed to the window. The girl nodded. There, under a watchful purple glow, a plan was formed. 

*

An hour passed. Ella took the occasional look into the cottage and only had to see the level of the liquor in the bottle. The lower it got, the closer the man was to sleep. Eventually, he tottered his way to the filthy bed in the corner of the room and collapsed. Ella waited a few minutes until she raised her head into the window. The girl was seated at the table in the chair facing Ella; her eyes were wide again and this time, the fear was mixed with anticipation and a brazen excitement. Ella gave her a quick smile meant to hold confidence and pointed at the door. The girl nodded and there, in that moment, with her burned skin and bruises and frailty that had become her, saw a new life flash in front of her eyes. 

Her opportunity had arrived. 

Ella put her fingers in front of her mouth again and pointed back to the door. She mouthed the word wait and wasn’t sure if it was received until the girl mouthed back okay. She crept around the outside of the house and heard only the ever-present chirping of the insect world and the rush of a cool summer breeze. She got to the front door and waited. Her heart thudded and she wondered if it was loud enough to wake the man up and ruin the whole plan before it had even begun. 

The door creaked open an inch and Ella saw the girl and her bewildered doe eyes. The light from inside was weak as the fire had died down. Ella motioned the girl towards her, to freedom, to the cool night air and the awaiting, comforting darkness of the forest. The girl looked behind her. Ella locked eyes with her and radiated the feeling of the purple light that had shone above and that now shone through her. She radiated strength for the girl and the girl felt it. She opened the door and as the door opened, the door creaked (and oh, it creaked, a mighty yawning creak that struck with the discordant groan of a death rattle), and as the door creaked, the man woke up. 

Surprisingly, for such a drunk man, it did not take him long to figure out what was going on and reach for the pistol that he evidently slept with. Ella, having swung the door open, saw this and pushed the girl down, moving her own body into the doorway so that when the shot was shot, it hit her in the shoulder. 

The man, seemingly shocked that it was, in fact, a girl not much older than his own daughter who was attempting to abscond with her, was frozen. It was enough time for Ella to steady her rifle - for the pain was nothing to her now and it was just a dull throbbing anyway, and what was pain to someone whose life had been a synonym for pain - and to fire. 

She hadn’t aimed for his considerable mid-section or bulbous head. In fact, she had aimed for the hand that held the pistol and she had connected. The man let out a howl of pain as his bedsheets morphed from dirty to crimson and he frantically tried to wrap his hand with them. 

Ella and the girl didn’t stick around for much longer for the night beckoned them.

And so they went. At the edge of the forest, Ella turned back towards the cottage and looked above it, expecting to see the purple feather-shaped symbol that had started this whole adventure except it was gone. The night’s sky had returned with a smattering of thin clouds and some stars but nothing purple. The urgency returned and she grabbed the girl’s hand and looked at her again: ‘Listen to me. Follow me and don’t stop running. No matter what you hear, what you see, or think you hear or see; just follow me. Okay?’ 

The girl nodded and her eyes were full of moonlight now. Ella lifted her already tattered dress to her teeth and rippled a strip of it off that she wrapped around her shoulder and under her armpit and tied tight before setting off at a jog back through the forest the way she came, the dark woods as known to her as the back of her hand. 

*

Ella stopped running once they were within sight of her family’s home. As they crossed the threshold of the tree line, Ella was more startled than she had been all night - there was smoke coming from the small chimney of their house. Ella dropped the girl’s hand and approached cautiously, her finger ready on the rifle’s trigger. A face appeared at the door as it opened - her mother. Her face had regained some of its usual shade and her eyes were again a deep tawny colour that used to fix Ella to a spot on the ground if they had suspected her of mischievous behaviour. Ella ran inside and hugged her mother and her mother hugged her back. They moved inside the house together and Ella started to cry big fat tears and one fell into her wound but she didn’t feel the sting. 

At the door, the girl stood as she held it open. Ella’s mother’s eyes found the girl’s and she smiled: 

‘Well, come on in, then. And close that door quick, don’t let the bugs in.’