Aria Remains
CHAPTER ONE

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The sound of the stars, their gentle shimmer, reached across the universes, immune to the ghosts of time, as much a part of the transient present as both past and future. As the very moment William East ran the blade of his shovel into the soft, dewy grass that had for so long remained undiscovered. He loosened the first mounds from the earth that would now be forever changed into something new, something that had and would always exist despite the burden it would come to face.

Even though there was no one beside him as he worked the soil, uncovering the tracts of land upon which he would build, upon which life would flourish as the reflection of his vision, still he was not alone. He would not be alone again for a great many years, not through the heady nights of summer he would return to this once-empty plot nor the legion that lay beyond, lighted by the hope that bloomed upon this sweet location, shadowed by the pain cast upon it from without. Twisting into itself, repeating each new moment in memory of the last, always fresh, always different. At each turn, as each season bowed and exited its stage and beneath every clear blue empyrean dawn and the grey and sullen clouds of storm and hail he would have his accompaniment, concealed as a silent indication, lurking just beyond perception.

The creamy light of an aestival moon embraced with its soft care and curious consideration what was to become the most important of places as William continued tirelessly, focused on his innovations and on the deal he had struck. The warmth of the previous day still held, haunting the air with the wings of butterflies, as William would be haunted by the understanding he had reached and the consequence for those who were not yet here but were closer than eternity. The centuries would be seen to pass yet no time was spent. There would be no pause between this night and the night on which a baby would once again be forsaken, left as a bereavement at a location as near to this nameless place as it was so very far away.

Eventually, as the sky brightened and presented itself with a renewed and exceptional pellucidity, and as the birds began their morning song, greeting one another, proclaiming their safe negotiation of the darkness, William straightened his back, wiped his brow and surveyed all he had already achieved. A dazzling emerald green flash suddenly lit the scene, directed from the topmost part of the sun as it broke the seal of the horizon. An atmospheric refraction, a distinct cypher from the universe that it was pleased with what he had done, having waited since its inception for this overture and, with the same anticipatory benevolence, reminiscing of this first night, a night that had established itself as legend long ago.

The clearing was large, an expanse of grass that had, until now, lay secreted in the forest atop the cliffs that, themselves, fell away into the mystery of an ocean without an end. He looked at the foundations he had dug, the land he had levelled, and imaged what it would become and what it would represent. It was only the initiation of a long journey but he knew the gesture he had already made, this initial advance, was one of great value regardless of the cost it might later incur. Satisfied, he let the shovel fall softly onto the grass, a shovel that until he had come to this place had not existed, had not found its place in the world, and then turned to walk towards the trees that had, for all the repeating rhythms of time that had come before, helped keep this hallowed location obscured from view, preserving it only for this evolution.

He negotiated his way between the full, heavy branches that reached to him in relieved congratulation and the thick brush underfoot that cushioned his steps, until he came to the dusty narrow footpath where the line met the cliff. The water at his left murmured quietly, restfully, as if in appreciation at what was happening, while the small village further ahead was beginning to stir with its own indistinct susurration. Soon the workers would be obligated to the fields once more and he, too, would be required to join them, yet he felt no fatigue, no torpor from his night’s work.

‘Good morrow, William,’ a greeting sounded, as he eventually turned onto the friable dirt road that marked the beginning of the village. ‘What be you?’

‘Away,’ William replied, shielding his eyes from the sharp sun and seeing the blacksmith, Cordell, preparing for his day.

‘Away to?’

‘Yonder,’ William said, jerking his head aimlessly. ’Took myself a walk, is all.’

He was a man within whom the past had carved a deep and intolerable channel of despair, the conduit almost overflowing before he had been intrigued by the arrangement and, once tended and hatched, had found the gully dammed, had seen the gleam of hope grow stronger and more profound the more he appraised the opportunity. In time he would call them together, those villagers he considered most suitable, most worthy of joining him once the venture was discharged. For now, however, he must keep the details of his scheme to himself. There was much to prepare, much to consider, and it must all be kept from those who held the power so sanctimoniously over their decaying dwelling. He must also, he knew, withhold the details from his friends and colleagues with similar furtiveness, not least because none could be made aware of the covenant that was helping him make this all possible. But then no one would, he thought, consider him anything less than unbalanced even if he were to reveal his secret, since he would not have believed it himself had he not been propositioned in such a way, offered such a bargain.

He continued on through the village, Cordell’s farewell adrift in the air behind him, following the road between the cruck houses, stepping aside to allow the wandering cattle and scampering chickens to pass, each bowing politely as they went. They too, he thought, deserved this chance, this scope, since he held each living thing with as much venerated import as the next and knew they deserved more, that they deserved better. Soon he reached his destination, seeing the young woman he would always return to waiting for him, standing in the doorway of their house, one of the village’s smallest, her arm hooked through the handle of a basket.

‘To where hath thy been?’ she asked in a tone as soft as the morning, her smile the most honied reception.

‘Bridgette,’ William acknowledged, raising his hand. ’No more than walking, taking the morning air. ’Tis a quiet sea, this day.’

It was the first time he had given his wife anything less than honesty, and the deceit cut into him before he had even finished speaking. He knew, though, it could be no other way; the agreement he had reached brought with it not a little danger and if he were unable to shield her from that then he had no right to have undertaken it at all. What good what it have been, he had asked himself the many times he mulled the particulars of the dark entente forged several nights before, if he had achieved betterment for the villagers yet lost the heart of the one person without whom it would be an almost valueless endeavour?

They had been married for almost two years, a union as inevitable as the rising of the morning sun and that had proved no less invigorating. Since they had been children they had been inseparable, and it had only been a matter of age and pubescence before their merger was ratified and their affiance complete. Soon Bridgette would be introducing their first child, another significant and fortifying reason that set William upon this path because the life he had lived, the deprivation and oppression he had suffered, was something he could not allow his child to experience. He would not permit any child exposure to the kind of intolerant drudgery he had endured, would not see one more forced to suffer on their knees when they should be standing tall, living a life of beauty and enlightenment, a life that would bring happiness and salvation. There would be more for his little one, just as he wanted more for Bridgette and for his friends, for the men and women who were perpetually engaged in labour so very onerous for so very little, whose futures were clasped within the treacherous hands of those who cared less for them than they cared for the stocks of corn and the sides of meat they produced. He wanted amelioration for them, for all of them, and had come to realise that the change he craved was something that fell to him to pursue and to engage, since there had never before been any sign of it arriving by circumstance, never any suggestion that they would otherwise be saved from the objurgation into which they had all been born. The means of attaining such improvement had been presented to him with provisos that had shocked him but, if these means to an end were indeed to play out in the ways he was assured they would, he had concluded that it would be worth its price.

Bridgette nodded, then moved aside so he could enter the house. Resting one hand against her hip, she turned her head to watch him pass, then began tossing feed to the chickens expectantly gathered around her. The straw scuffed beneath his feet as William took a wooden bowl resting close to the hearth and ate a few mouthfuls of pottage, the mix of the grains and meat that remained from the previous evening’s meal with which they always began their days and which now, with the opportunity of refinement in every way he could imagine so close, caught in his throat as though he were chewing on the splinters of the stockade to which everyone in the village had been shackled.

‘It seems to me,’ Bridgette said, momentarily placing a hand on his arm as he joined her again, ‘it shall be a daughter we are blessed with.’

‘And a blessing it shall be,’ William smiled, then said decisively, ‘as it shall be a daughter. I am a man who knows better than to disagree with his wife.’

She tapped his arm playfully, then turned back to the chickens who also seemed happily surprised with the news and knew, as did William, that if Bridgette had said it would be so then that was, indeed, the way it would be. A soulful woman of great intelligence and insight, a woman who had been taught by her mother at a very young age that what one sees is not always the complete and universal truth of what is really happening, Bridgette East was a generous and loving wife but one who would not stand any malversation and whose fiery reaction to profligacy and prevarication was matched only by her capacity for forgiveness.

‘Now off to the fields,’ she told him.

‘Off to the fields,’ William repeated, sounding both dutiful and resentful, sighing as he walked towards the road.

‘Until evening,’ Bridgette replied, tilting her head to one side as she watched him to the pastures.

It was just before 5am when William reached the others in the fields. Since it was high summer the men of the village were compelled to spend every hour of daylight ploughing the fields in preparation for harvest. Throughout the sweltering day, his shirt dampened, his tunic abandoned and providing impermanent interest for the bees and butterflies that circled and dived and meandered around it, William thought of little but the work he had begun in the clearing and all that he still had to do. He tried to imagine again how long it might take, how many nights he would need to spend away from the village, how many nights sneaking away from Bridgette as she slumbered, regretful for each secretive step, before his project was complete. It was impossible for him to know, not least since the arrangement he had made meant that what might take another man, a man as young, as strong and fit as himself, three days would only take him perhaps an hour. Still, he could determine no idea, had no way of knowing despite these advantages borne from mysticism how many nights the enterprise would account for since it was an exercise, he presumed, that had never before been embarked upon. All he knew, all he trusted was that it would be worth whatever price he needed to pay, that it would be of value not only to those he knew now but would also give provision to those who were to come later, those who were, even now, somehow aware that a change was happening despite being at such a great distance from him.

He could also not have known that there was, indeed, to be a daughter who would one day, on another page falling open amongst innumerable chapters, return to the cliffs beside the ocean, searching for something she thought lost and, instead, replaceing more than she had ever imagined. She would be guided by the same shimmering stars, the same summer moon that continued to light William’s endeavours throughout the coming weeks until he reached his triumph and came to face his inquisition. Perhaps she would be the answer to questions that were yet to weigh William’s mind, the resolution to each of the problems he was yet to encounter. She would certainly be the most important and special person, one who cradled the fates and the lambency and the hopes of many, but her very existence, her very presence would unravel impossible complications and require the crossing of inconceivable distances before the chance of reconciliation could be met.

There were to be no guarantees, nothing assured as a sequence of occurrences would need to align with precision and the breadcrumbs of opaque and abstruse signifiers would have to be recognised and understood, yet destiny was at play, should she be alive to its intimations and to the counsel of the universe.