The Azure Bottle: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Thyra stood at the edge of the cliff. The dark sea raged out before her as boats bobbed in the harbor. Setting her hand on the rock beside her, Thyra felt the cold slick stone beneath her fingers. Her blond hair flew around her face and her black dress fluttered around her legs. Three years had passed since her mother and father’s death. Her childhood had ended that day. At sixteen, she had a tall slender frame and harsh lines formed her face. She set one slipper-ed foot in front of the other, heading down the slope that led to the sea. Wanting some level of protection from the storm, something that the cliff wall could provide, but not wanting to return to her misery which lingered ever in the city.

The waves were enraged by the sobbing sky above. Foaming at the mouth, the sea sprayed her dress with its flying spit. The dark stone beneath Thyra’s feet gave little security that she’d remain upright. Each stone felt slippery. Her soaked clothes clung to her skin and Thyra wrapped her arms tightly around herself. At last she sighed and prepared to turn back. Wanting to find solitude was little reason to get soaked through to the skin. 

    A clink to Thyra’s right drew her attention. She looked down at the frothing waves and saw a blue bottle being tossed like a rag doll as it got pulled into the open ocean. She stepped out into the water, careful to keep footing. She peered at the bottle. An object was curled up inside, tinted blue from the color of the glass. As the bottle went under, so did Thyra. She didn’t think of any potential costs. She hardly cared anymore if she died. The waves battered her, but her fingers managed to find the bottle under the water, and she clutched it to her chest. She tried to push herself above the waves the sea spun her around. She lost her direction. Her lungs began to scream for air. She struggled to fight the current that began to pull her out. Panic clung to her like claws, digging deep into her chest. 

    Two strong, rough hands clasped around her wrist. Her head reemerged above the water and she gasped for breath as a man pulled her to shore. She coughed and gagged the water from her lungs and collapsed on the rocky beach. Her rescuer flopped down beside her and gasped from exhaustion. Thyra looked at him. His red hair was streaked with white and his beard had grown down to his chest since the day he’d caught her mother’s body. Arne stared down at her, and Thyra caught the look of disbelieving horror in his eyes. 

    “Arne,” Thyra said and held up the bottle, “I went after–” His look of horror convulsed into one of anger. 

    “You deemed that bottle more important than your own life!” Arne basically spat the words. Thyra didn’t blame him. Had he thought she was drowning herself? He’d taken care of her and her sister, adopting them after their parents had died, and now here she was nearly throwing away her life over a bottle, even if unintentionally. She wasn’t sure why she’d dived for it. She simply hadn’t cared about the possible cost. She wondered if she had even hoped the sea would carry her away from her misery, not kill her, just carry her away. To some land far far away where she could anew. Any place where she could simply forget.

    Arne stumbled to his feet and motioned for her to stand. She did so and followed him as he led her back up the slope. Thyra stumbled on the rocks and fell twice, skinning her knee. She didn’t cry and was quickly walking again. She pressed the bottle close to her chest. Her slippers came loose and she kicked them off. Thyra moved in a blurry haze. She could almost feel the panic again as the water filled her nose and her lungs filled. The fear of not being able to breathe. Tears not caused by her bleeding knee sprang to her eyes.

    She quickly stepped into the foyer of Arne’s house. Memories of her father’s home, which had been sold, played through her mind. Her mother’s silk curtains, and her father’s muddy boots sitting in the doorway. 

    She didn’t turn to the old sailor. Thyra set one foot in front of another, heading for her room. She closed the door behind her and leaned her back against the frame. Her simple bed was pushed against the back wall and a basin of water rested on her nightstand. She looked at them without really seeing them. The tears that had rested on her eyes ran down her cheeks. She wanted to go home. To be in her father’s house, to wait at the doorway as he came in, to help her mother make her bed. She slumped to the floor, the bottle still pressed tightly against her bosom. 

    How often had she cried herself to sleep? How often had she wished she could turn back time? Arne was trying, but he wasn’t her father. She wrapped her arms around her waist and didn’t resist the flood of her pain that washed over her. Her wet hair and dress made a pool around her and her knee dripped blood down her leg. Unsteadily she forced herself to rise and walked to the bathroom to clean herself up. 

    She changed into a seemingly identical dress and cleaned the blood from her leg. Looking at herself in the mirror she hardly recognized the woman she saw. There wasn’t any fire in her eyes and the agony of that girl was written on her face plain as day. Thyra looked away. Anger boiled in her chest. Why had she lost her family and her home? Had the gods deemed her so terrible they had thought it best to rob her?

    Enraged, she threw the bottle she was still clutching with all her strength at the nearest wall. It shattered in a shower of blue glass. Thyra watched and listened as the pieces rained down on the tiled floor. These sort of outbursts had once sent her older sister running to Thyra’s aid, but not anymore. Tove had married and moved away, leaving Thyra alone.

    She stared at the paper that the bottle had held. It was battered and looked like an animal hide. Tears filled her eyes and she ignored them as she wandered over to the paper and grasped it with her shaking hands. She tucked it into her pocket and went to her simple bed. She flopped down on the mattress, completely and utterly spent. Her wet hair hung thick strings down her back and made her feel colder. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and snuggled in. This room always felt so damp and empty, each wall was bare and held little interest.

    She lay there for hours, hoping and longing to enter the painless world of sleep–her only relief from her grief and anger. At last, her eyes fluttered closed and she was capable of slumber. Memories felt like a current reality without the cruelty of the present to mock her. She could be wrapped in her father’s embrace without remembering he was dead. She could lean close to her mother like she once had and laugh with her sister till she was gasping for breath. It was all paradise. Arne was the uncle she’d once loved him as and her happy home was alive with the family’s struggles and joys. It was so perfect and beautiful. 

    Grief jabbed its fierce hook at her as she woke, reminding her that the past was gone. She was an orphan and her sister had moved away. Arne was her guardian and was seldom home. She was back in a lonely world, one not even similar to that of her childhood. Pushing herself up, she stared blankly at the wall in front of her. It was empty; she’d never decorated it. She looked out her window, and found that it had stopped raining and the sun was shining. Was it the next day? She wasn’t sure, but also didn’t care. Each day was the same and nothing ever changed. 

    At last she remembered the piece of paper that rested in her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at it. It was folded and wrinkled. The water stains made the writing almost illegible.

    “A stone…lost…sea to port…sail…” Thyra looked at the words, willing the faded ones to make some sort of sense. She surrendered and unfolded the page. The dark lines of a sea map were displayed across the surface. She almost dropped the paper. It all looked so familiar. Like she’d seen this before, but it couldn't be the same. Hope and longing surged for her attention. She pushed herself from the comfort of her bed and headed straight off to find Arne. If it was the next day she hoped she hadn’t slept in. Arne was leaving again at noon on a merchant trip.

    “Arne!” Thyra shouted as she hurried through the house. He stumbled out of a side room in his night clothes and with wild red hair. She must have woken him. “Arne,” she said again, “Look. Where have I seen this before?” Arne wiped at his blurry eyes as Thyra ran up to him.  She held open the map, the water stains growing softer under the touch of her sweaty fingers. 

    Arne blinked, yawned, then looked at Thyra. He seemed completely and utterly confused. She wasn't usually this excitable. Actually since her mother’s death Thrya wasn’t sure she had been excited about anything. Life was empty, devoid of joy or purpose, and yet… As the fold of the paper rested in her hands her heart was racing from something other than stress and grief, hope. Hope that this really was what she thought it was. Her father’s map. Arne looked worried as he glanced down at the paper, for a moment he didn’t say anything, but then his eyes widened and he snatched the map up in his hands. 

    “No. How?” he muttered as he flipped the paper over and his eyes wafted over the riddle. 

    “Is it it then?” Thyra asked, her voice rose with her excitement. Arne nodded absently. 

    “Is this what was in that bottle you went after yesterday?” He still sounded hurt and his gaze became more somber and subdued as he glanced at her. A spike of guilt formed in her chest as she nodded. She felt condemned by the reminder. Thyra didn’t have time to dwell on the feelings, the reality of what was at hand drowned out all her grief in the joy of a possible life. She wouldn't have to stay here, she wouldn’t have to live in pain. For the first time in years, there was another way. 

    “I’ll need to bring this to the king,” Arne said he didn’t take his gaze from Thyra, “My merchant will have to leave without me. As you found the map, you may come with me to the king’s council.” Thyra’s smile grew. She was headed to the king’s court! Arne looked at the marble tiles that decorated the floor. He was anything but happy. 

    “What’s wrong?” Thrya asked. How could Arne be upset? This was everything she needed to make a life for herself. A life away from all her pain. 

    “The king will want me to attempt the journey again.” He shuddered in his cotton nightdress. The journey, that failed journey that had cost Thyra so much. The journey her father had taken, that had claimed his life. The journey that had left her an orphan. 

    This was the map. 

    The map her father had followed. It was back, and it was calling her over the seas. Where her father had failed, she would succeed. She had to succeed. 

    Thrya held her head high and straightened her back. It was almost unheard of for a woman of respectable circumstances to become a sailor. The only woman she’d heard of was Farana the Great, and she’d been drowned four or five years ago. Thyra didn’t care, she would not be left behind again. She would not receive the same terrible news again. If this quest was doomed to fail, then she would die abroad in the ocean. Aboard a warship, standing at the helm, facing the wrath of the sea. 

    Arne seemed to guess what was on her mind, but he didn’t say anything. Probably too fearful, Thyra guessed. She had hated her life for three years, this was the most alive she’d felt in all that time. He doesn’t want to wreck this for me, she thought. 

    It didn’t matter to her. Whether or not she had permission, she was going to finish what her father had started. She would fix what his trip had broken, her heart.

. . . . .

    Thank you so much for reading Chapter 2 of my novella The Azure Bottle. I would like to thank my team of Alpha Readers: Adalaid, Renna, and Sara, and of course my team of Beta Readers: Cora and Heaven. Thank you guys so much for all you do! 

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