Apple Cores

By Angie Dilaj

Lunarbre, a lonely eighteenth-century Louisiana island, has been blessed with the gift of resurrection after death, bestowed by the lovely spirit, Lorelei. The islanders may live as they please, unable to remain dead, as long as they stay on the shore of her power. Yet the taste of eternal life has held all in repetition for years and begins to lose its flavour with a few of its citizens.
Jackson Grimm, the doctor and undertaker, has fallen in love with Lorelei at the crossroads of death but is unable to fully be with her. William Moreau, captain of the islands militia, has grown cruel with the impatience of a stagnated life. Edith Moreau, wife of William, longs to save what is left of their relationship. And Cosette Giroux, the islands prostitute and drunk, is seen as a mockery of her ancestor, Lorelei, and has thus lost respect for herself.
When a situation arises and islanders start perishing permanently, its up to the four of them to discover what has occurred with Lorelei before death embraces them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499084252

Angie Dilaj

Born Angela Lynn Dilaj on September 3, 1989, in Montreal, Quebec, Angie is a certified yoga and Hoopnotica instructor. Raised among her creative sisters, Loni and Teri Dilaj, she was encouraged at a young age to pursue her artistic abilities in drawing, painting, music, writing, and, more recently, doing contortion. She has published two poems, “Send Out the Pawns” (2008) and “With Light to Lead Them On” (2009), before finishing high school at Rothwell Osnabruck in Ingleside, Ontario (2009). Angie’s writing reflects her fascination of the natural world, with darker elements and the beauty withheld in the balance of life and death.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Angie Dilaj.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2014918832

ISBN:                  Hardcover                             978-1-4990-8423-8

                            Softcover                                978-1-4990-8424-5

                            eBook                                     978-1-4990-8425-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Angie Dilaj Photo by Jason Setnyk

Rev. date: 11/13/2014

Xlibris

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Contents

I

Jackson Grimm

O nce upon a time, there was a young ma iden.

Her raven hair glistened as deeply as the depths of the sea and the blue of her eyes shamed even the finest sapphires. She shone as if born from the moon herself and dusted her path with the stars that dropped from the sky, having longed to embrace her radiance as their own. The beauty of her ivory complexion was the envy of all women and the adoration of every man in the village. They would lavish her with gifts that, regardless of their grandeur, were denied and returned to the suitors shortly after delivery. None seemed worthy of the pleasure to wed such a being who lived in a world painted by the silver glow of night.

As equinox and solstice passed, the maiden grew weary of the loneliness that her own beauty imposed. She sought to seek love within the forest and came to gaze upon a young man out hunting with his father. Desire blossomed the petals of her heart and blushed the snow of her cheeks as she followed after him. When both youths broke into a clearing, neither could release their gaze from one another nor refuse the transfixion of love. They were married within the next days and moved into a cottage by a stream to begin their lives together.

Their happiness, however, began to wane with each fleeting year. The branches of their love had produced not a single fruit to carry on their family name. The man, now grown and following his father’s work as a fisherman, became impatient and confronted the maiden one day.

I grow tired of waiting for you to bear me a son of my own. Instead, you have left me to grow old and wither while you retain your celestial beauty, he confessed, anger burning from him.

We have tried, my love, and have done all that we can. Let us not quarrel over the future and simply enjoy the present that we share, she remarked, attempting to calm him. You are still the young man I met in the forest and shall forever be so.

He broke from her grasp, unable to endure the sight of her any longer, and stated harshly, I have brought us wealth by braving the elements day after day. What have you provided other than echoes within our lonely hallways? Why, if I had known of this hardship, I wouldn’t have let your spell encase me and should’ve likely turned and fled. My love for you now runs as empty as the cursed womb within you!

Heartbroken as he turned and left her, never to return again, the maiden broke into grief-stricken sobs. Abandoning her home, she fled deep into the forest and arrived at a lonesome dock overlooking a sparkling river. She collapsed beneath a crimson sky as the sun hung low before her, about to drift into peaceful sleep. Attempting to dry her tears, the sun sent his consoling beams her way and landed on a tiny wooden boat. The maiden spotted this and rose to climb inside, picking up the oars and taking herself towards the dying light.

With the sun leaving a red ribbon trail, she now drifted beneath a twilight sky without a care as to where she was headed. She coasted further still as her fellow stars began to blink into existence in their dark backdrop. Releasing the oars from her aching hands, she lowered onto her side and fell asleep from exhaustion. Hours later, she woke to the blue glow of a full moon and realized that the boat had come to a halt. Now on the shore of a remote island, she stepped out onto the sand and continued on foot.

Stopping at the island’s very center, she dug a deep hole and, facing the moonlight, spoke aloud, Oh, goddess of the night, release me from this suffering called love! For man is cruel and unworthy of devoting affection to. I, a child of your silver grace, consecrate the essence of my being to your splendour! There is not a soul alive who could love me as complete as your silken light. I give to you the very anguished heart within me!

Pulling out the dagger she always held on her person for protection, she caught the glow of the moon in its metallic blade and plunged it into her chest. Drawing forth her own beating heart, she dropped it into the hole and covered it with the rest of the dirt. Instantly, a tree began to grow from the exact spot and reached glasslike limbs to the sky. Fed by love and moonlight, it sprung higher and higher until it towered like a crystal titan before her. Silver leaves opened on its branches to capture the light and filled the tree’s entire upper half.

Tiny fruits began to take shape and soon matured into apples as blood-red as her solemn offering beating at its roots. She lightly touched one of the vermilion fruits and began to cry; her prayer had been answered and glittered beautifully above her. The moon had sent her and the tree to inhabit a realm in between worlds, accessible only to those who recently passed on and had not yet joined with the universal energy. There she lived in peace for many years, surrounded by the glow of her own embodied devotion and its forever ripened fruits.

It wasn’t long before a group of settlers came to the island and began to establish plantations. Here and there deaths occurred, either by accident or natural causes, and yet those who had passed on kept reappearing. Soon, rumours spread involving apparitions of a beautiful moon maiden, Lorelei, with raven hair and sapphire eyes. It was said that she could resurrect new life into the dead upon their request before they returned to their universal source. The island was named Lune Arbre in her respect, later merging to Lunarbre, or so it goes.

To a spectator, the very scent of such a tale is perfumed by myth, wrought with time and interpreted in accordance of tellers. But through my own direct experience over many setting suns, I can firmly state that such occurrences are regrettably so. And providently enough for you, I myself am awaiting the end of yet another Dying at the present.

As island doctor and, ironically, undertaker, if ever the need came about, I collect numerous medical and herbal volumes where I can. They’ve come to find themselves inhabiting most of the shelving on my wall with their mass. Evidently, it was only a matter of time that they would give upon their brittle frames with all the weight the shelves had gained. As promised, it came the day that they finally thundered down upon me from the sky, causing me to catch my head against the sharp corner of my desk as I fell. Yet another life claimed by the ignorant use of collected knowledge—a historical relapse, it would seem, and a foolish situation on my part.

So here I lay in a pool of red gathering like a halo beneath my white hair and wait to unite with the moon maiden again. The world is lost somewhere beyond the fading light of my grey eyes, my extremities lose their strength, and shallowness robs my breath. The Wait is the longest part of the Dying; the rest is fast, like extinguishing a weak flame clinging to its blackened wick. You hardly sense the detachment from the physical before you find yourself already beyond and standing in her realm, as I do now.

The great glass tree rises before me in all its brilliance, a titanic sculpture spun of moonlight and heartache. The air is still, unmoving, and cool as death itself—although death cannot begin to describe the wonders of this realm with mere earthly descriptions, as they would only lessen its splendor. Everything is like a dream here, both there and yet not, solid and bottomless all at the same time. Your subconscious is the only thing tangible, and in a place like this, who could say that what ‘had been’ had really been there at all? What makes the reality of Lorelei’s realm any different from the one we might or might not have left? To be lost in such questions would only madden the mind with conflicting thoughts, but who is to say that there is even a mind to madden in the first place?

Enough on that subject.

It is something one must appear directly and either rejoin the cosmos or make a deal to go back. If the desire to return overrules the natural balance to pass on, Lorelei will find you. So all I need to do now is wait until she answers—something you do a lot of if you also do a lot of dying. If life has taught us anything worth remembering once we leave, patience is definitely it. I always found that taking in the silvery view helped to fill the void that stretched on for what seemed like decades.

The Wait was also to determine whether the new soul would eventually make its peace and find rest or remain attached to what it had left behind. I have nothing physical and no one I feel the need to cling to, but in equivalent, I do not care about what the next step has to offer just yet. Perhaps there is something deep inside, a feline curiosity that longs to sink its claws into an answer. I may just have to ride it out for now in hope of one day scratching that surface and satisfying the itch for good.

She arrives now, like a blossom on the wind, and glides towards me with just as much loveliness. Her flowing long gown matches the sapphire of her eyes as her raven hair trails out from within a silvery cloak. A cunning smile lights her ivory face when she stops in front of me and tries to look disapproving.

Death by books, she states, her voice like silver bells through the quiet air. Your originality is always a joy to witness, Jackson.

Giving a bow, I reply, As is your exquisite charm, milady.

This marks our, what, eightieth encounter? she asks, crossing her arms and delaying the matter no further. You’re stretching yourself a bit thin these days. Soon there won’t be enough of you left to make the journey back.

Eighty, really? I acknowledge. Have I had the delight of knowing you that long?

A soft blush kisses her cheeks.

How could I forget my first visitor? It seems like only yesterday that we met. You were twenty-eight, with black hair and green eyes—so young to have experienced your first Dying. Every time you’ve returned to me since, I had watched you pale like the dying season to become as colourless as snow. My thoughts wander in these silver lands when I’m alone, pardon me for saying, but I worry about you the most.

If my heart was still in motion, it would have likely skipped a beat.

No apologies needed, milady. I must admit, our visits have always thawed the winter ice in me as well, but I do believe that there is still room left to make a return.

We hold our gaze as she searches for a way to sway my choice but, after all this time, knows that she had not yet discovered it. Breaking eye contact, she walks to the tree and holds her hands out to it. From one of the pulsing branches, the core of a once-plump crimson apple falls gently into her open palms. She turns towards me with it, places it in my hand, and solemnly lowers her own.

You do realize that less of you make it back with each journey? Why you have paled considerably and have lost fragments of your early years?

It is true that the more our essence passes from conscious to subconscious and back again, the more often we forget to return every piece of ourselves. Sometimes we leave remnants behind that, for long-term guests such as myself, start to add up as faded patches of thought.

I am aware of this, I confirm, noting her gloominess. I am also aware, however, that I am reaching my end. I have questions that, even after each passing tide, have yet to be revealed. I shall take my chances in losing a few thoughts as long as I can collect new memories of you.

A solemn but loving smile curved her crimson lips as she replied with a sigh, Silly fool, your honesty astounds me. If only we had met under a different moon.

And had been granted a few sunrises to share, I finish. I am ready.

Then it is time. With the power of the silver goddess, I, Lorelei, grant thee safe passage back to the living as twenty-eight years of age—for the eighty-sixth time, she added with a smirk, and bid thee a lengthy stay. Take now the fruit of your being and eat of it to make thy will complete.

Lightly turning my shrivelled apple core over, I find a tiny piece and bite off half of it. I swallow it and release my hold, allowing the fruit to float back up among the glistening branches.

Lorelei takes my hand, but there is no feeling in it and ends by whispering, May your heart beat steady until it is ready to sleep.

And in an instant, there is darkness. No glowing tree, no beautiful moon maiden, just endless nothing and the heavy encasing of a body once again. I made the Return and, for the eighty-sixth time, was initially met with the same question of why I had taken another bite. For now, that would be left as another day’s strife as we once again explore and conclude the resurrecting process.

After the Dying, we depart from the physical lands, and the body we leave behind vanishes without further use. Upon the Return, we will find ourselves submerged in the earth and must climb from its soils like the great tree once had. It remains uncertain as to where one will be buried, but you will always remain in the circumference of the same property that death took you. Once you climb from the earth, you are fully healed and of the desired age you have chosen to come back as. One may only wish oneself the same age the present Dying took place or younger, seeing as our future forms have yet to be imprinted in the universe.

With the rich scent of soil all around me, I push through the cool dense layer and breathe in fresh air. As a lotus would rise from the depths of a dark pond, I lie limply back on the ground with my white hair spread out beneath me like ivory roots. I close my eyes, listening vaguely to the earth’s vibrations, hearing the lonely voice of the wind and the transparent touch of autumn air. After the many voyages I’ve taken to the other side, I’d imagine that there is more of me left with her than there is here in this soil. Somehow, it has caused this reality to seem more like a dream to me … a dream that, perhaps one day, we of Lunarbre shall all finally wake from.

II

Edith Moreau

W e believe we are lucky…that we are immortal and untouchable. We are reckless because we can be, knowing that we will return with the bite of an apple. We only