the silence in-between
what i thought and what i said

The Peak rose high above her as she squinted her tawny eyes towards the clouds. Merete had explored a lot of the islands in her youth, but the Peak was a place she had never been to – her parents had told her to keep well away from the Lagoon, and her mother had never been complimentary about the Vulcans.

Dried up old hags, if she remembered rightly, was just one phrase she liked to use. At the time Merete had thought they must have been boring, scary old ladies living up on the mountain, but the older she got and the longer she spent away from her mother, she had come to realise there was hardly any such thing.

And so she lowered her gaze and made her way towards the base of the rocky incline that led up towards the mountain. There was nobody in sight, but the scents of several different mares seemed fresh enough as she slowly made her way upwards, careful where she stepped on the uneven terrain – she did not bother to call out, assuming that she would not make it too far up the mountain before someone noticed her arrival, and knowing that she had as much right as any woman to enter this territory.

Her mind wandered as she walked, although she was just a little less distracted than she had been on her trip through the common lands to get here now that she had had a little more time to process recent events. So this was the land where Inka had lived, and raised the brother she hadn’t known existed as if he were her own… It seemed so surreal.

Diamant had mentioned a young girl who still lived here too, a niece to her, called Jetta. There were other family members he had told her about too, another niece and a nephew, but the Peak was where she knew she had to come to first. There was history here, and if she believed in spirits then this was where Inka’s laid to rest, and she owed the sister she felt closer to now than when she was alive some thanks, at least.

MERETE

(het vuur x sterre)