The Known and Recorded History of Sarelle St Clair

Sarelle St. Clair

The day of Bella and Edward's wedding

The blossoms still effervesced their scent, clouds of hazed air swirled around the now empty rooms. Their fragrance will seep into the fabrics, the floors, the very foundations of this house and will act as a reminder for this day. An imprint of the hours passed as we entertained, celebrated, and watched with smiles on our faces as Edward and Bella were joined in holy matrimony.

But eventually that fragrance will sour and become not as sweet as it once was. It will show the sickly undertone of this day, the small fragment of time when all the wonder was dispelled and we all felt hollow. The prolonged moments when the laughter couldn't warm our hearts, the toasts didn't register in our ears, and the words spoken by Edward and Bella seemed to act like a double edged sword—carving a fresh start and new beginning ahead of us, but all the while cleaving away our past. Ending the era of possibility, the years of wondering, the days of looking for Sarelle.

I turned back to the remainder of my family, each perched in states of thought in our sitting room. We'd each lost something today and for just a moment we needed to recognise that. This day may have been focussed on Edward and Bella, but that didn't mean we should ignore the presence of the girl we each cared for deeply.

When I saw her sitting there, that look on her face, no words could describe the feeling that pooled within me.

Had I failed her, caused her pain somehow by not finding a reason for her jumps, for not finding a way to stop them? She was, is, like a daughter to me, a part of our family. She's always been a part of our family, from the very moment she offered us a smile or a word of comfort throughout our pasts. She's occupied my mind, held my attention, and stretched the very limits of my understanding and faith just by existing.

I could still remember the first time we met, or at least the first meeting I was able to keep with me in memory. That day when she came into the hospital with Esme clung to her arm, just two adolescent girls, so similar in age and yet just a glance into their eyes showed how different they truly were. Esme was so innocent, so open to the world and her emotions. It was that openness and innate ability to forgive which drew me to her on first sight. She was in agony and yet she seemed to forgive the very workings of fate without a single grumble.

Sarelle's eyes showed something else. Not only did they send a chime of recognition down my spine, but they seemed alive with flames and fiery resilience. Just one glance and I knew she wasn't settled or content. She didn't live life the way the other humans around me did and she wasn't one to forgive fate's workings so easily. The gold in her eyes glinted too vibrantly with determination, the hazel sparkled too much with recognition and relief, and the deep brown hid too many secrets.

Sarelle couldn't hide, not when her eyes lay open like a door to her soul. She may not have been able to hide, but she could certainly act and hold her composure. That was a trait that I later learned was a strong constant in Sarelle's character. Perhaps it had always been there, or perhaps it had developed naturally. Either way I couldn't stand the idea that it was something that had been forced into her, a mechanism that had been a by-product of mistrust, neglect, or hurt. I hated the idea that Sarelle could have been harmed or mistreated.

On that first meeting, our first true conversation, the burning curiosity inside me sparked. She was something new, something no book had ever revealed to me. A myth without an origin. If I had known then that she would become a solid part of my later life then perhaps I would have tried harder to make her explain. Then again she could never have done so because she already knew that it had never happened. She already knew of my ignorance because she had already experienced it in her past. She knew that my future self had no knowledge of her condition because it was with that self that she experimented and tested. Those few months in Belmore where we tried every medical examination and machine to try and unlock her condition and the cure for it.