Episode 30 - Seeds of Guilt

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There’s no good way to end the tale of The GiftedDuckling. And I’m not talking about a story The GiftedDuckling wrote or one that I wrote at her prompting. I mean the story of that connection between The GiftedDuckling and I: the story that I keep losing track of. It probably could have moved a lot more quickly than it has. Realistically speaking, this season did not need to be 15 episodes. While it’s nice symmetry between this season and the last, to be more respectful of your time, I could have cut it down. I could have, but I didn’t. I didn’t, and I tell myself it’s because this is my show, so I can do what I want. Or what I need to do. 

The story of the GiftedDuckling isn’t the sort of story that’s dramatic on paper, figurative paper or otherwise. Something like a computer doc perhaps? Though it might be a generation thing. But medium aside, this isn’t a dramatic story to anyone else. Or at least, it is not the way I tell it. The details that I let fall away are left strewn around the figurative floor, and while it might be wise to scoop them up or make do with some other manufactured substitute, because filling out the narrative makes it more enjoyable, isn’t that the conventional wisdom, I haven’t done that. That’s what I would think the conventional wisdom tell me to do to, but that’s not how I tell this story. Instead, I go with the the least painful way. 

It wasn’t a dramatic story on paper. But it felt that way to me. 

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The hour of this reckoning could not be known to the duchess. She knew it was to come. The writing on the walls proclaimed how inevitable it all was. And yet, the hours seemed to stretch into infinity, and from that growth, anticipation was rendered futile. The duchess could keep her vigil, but it would not change the final result. 

The baby finished eating, freeing up her mother’s chest. Small eyes drifted shut as she lay back. Any other night, the small child would be laid in her crib without a second thought, but there had to be a second or even third thought that night. 

At the end of it, the duchess knew the babe would be unharmed. Her baby, her child--the one she held so close to her heart--would be fine, she was sure. She did not doubt her ways. She did not doubt her powers. She did not doubt her magic. The final result that she had focused on would be there. But it was the cost of those results that shook her to her core. Because it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t justice to force someone to go through something so horrible and to take a life like that. It wasn’t justice for the life that was lost, certainly. It wasn’t justice for those who earnestly loved the life that was lost. And there had to be people who loved that life, circumstances aside. Perhaps it was not ideal. Perhaps  there were legitimate grievances and criticisms to be had. However, this could not be the answer. 

The baby stirred. The baby stirred in what could have been seen as a protest of sorts. It was time for her to be set in her crib, and she could not understand why it had not happened yet.

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The break happened in the same space that defined so much of our relationship. And in some sense, that’s not poetic, so much as it is inevitable. It was the space we had always talked in. Even if during our conversations the larger world we inhabited was something we forgot about, this was still the space we carved out for ourselves, and it was almost our home. But hey, as bold as that is to say, I can’t be the only person out there who has the sort of emotional attachment to online spaces that one typically associates with their childhood home. I moved around a lot as a kid, and my home life wasn’t too great. All things considered, you can’t really blame me for the emotional consequences of other people’s choices. 

And that’s why, maybe, The GiftedDuckling increasingly felt like my mother, including the transference of emotional significance and dependence that any therapist worth their salt would call disconcerting. Yeah, there are maternal figures out there, second mothers or the like that serve an important purpose, but in those relationships, typically all parties truly know and understand that they are entering a situation with renegotiated boundaries. The new mother can sense or know what is happening, and the child has likely made their needs known in some precursory conversation. And what trauma there is in that relationship, in no way could be considered, shared. It might be disclosed, yes. However, it sits firmly on the shoulders of one person, which might seem cold, but it is a fairly important distinction. Because you shouldn’t confuse the bonds of a shared trauma with parental bonds. Similar traumas are fair game. No one gets through life unscatched, and it only makes sense to find someone who walked the same path you did. Who else would be better to guide you down that route than someone who vaguely knew it. 

But to share a trauma--even different sides of it--only means that someone’s recovery is potentially going to be stifled or otherwise hindered by the other. You need this person to do x in order for you to feel y, y presumably being some sort of beter, but x--whatever that task is--may not be in their best interest. Or they might not be inclined to do it. Or they might not be able to do it.

The GiftedDuckling needed me to confess what I knew about my aunt, but I couldn’t do it. I knew she was scared because… Well, I know how those police visits go. I know how those interrogations go. Though the Queen from The Forum had told me how bad it can actually get, which apparently I had not experienced. And I… I know rationally, given how The Queen is, that it was probably one of those things that was exaggerated because she was talking to a child. I knew what she was doing, especially in hindsight, but there’s still a part of me that believes her. I’m not sure why I do, but I still… I worry, still, about the trauma the GiftedDuckling carries partially because I know it would have been my fault.

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The duchess did not want her child too far from her. Never once had she felt any differently. She certainly did not want her child in another room at any point and for any reason, but it was a battle she could not sustain, particularly after the birth as easy as it was for her. Her attendants were right; the duchess needed her rest if she was to recover from the delivery. And her baby was never going to be too far away or unattended, what with a small command of nannies waiting for the baby’s cries.

This had been acceptable to the duchess in the beginning. But circumstances had changed rapidly. Suddenly, the duchess wanted a new arrangement, but she knew she could not ask for it. That night, the duchess lingered at the door with her attendant waiting to help her into her bed.

“Is everything alright, Your Grace?” the young girl asked in a small voice.

The eyes in the shadows awaited the response. 

“There’s nothing that can be done about,” the duchess replied, before she retreated to her chambers for the night.

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Sometimes I think my mom knew I needed a mother or even both parents, other than the ones I had, but related to that is the acknowledgement that she and my father could never be the sort of parents I needed them to be. But that’s not something she could confess. She could not handle admitting something like that. And that was why she did what she did: letting me have that connection to the GiftedDuckling, not challenging it but never doing much more for me. Then again, I could be wrong. It’s quite possible I’m wrong. 

But it wouldn’t be my fault. The way we talk about motherhood might have led me astray a bit. Dialogue around it is always laced with the language of sacrifice and a passive martyrdom. The source of this perspective isn’t the point right now, though it probably does have strong footing in some less than ideal place. I just mean to say that I always thought the maternal relationship was one of sacrifice, and the problem was that I did not deserve the sacrifice. Or not another one. After all, my cousin was gone. Wasn’t that enough somehow?

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The man who stalked the shadows started his stroll back to the princess’s chambers. It was getting late, yes, but she needed to be informed about what he had done and that his pocket no longer had the small stones that he had assumed would be the solution to so many of his love’s woes. Right then and there, he was inclined to think he was proven right. They slid into the child’s mouth with great ease with the nannies and maids that should have been tending to her so lax in their duties. As he had asked them to be. Some might have been bribed, some seduced, and others threatened, but the final result was the same. 

The child would choke and be discovered still and cold in the morning. 

That was what the man in the shadows assumed before the princess’s scream cut through the chambers and through the whole palace, waking up everyone around. Guards and doctors swarmed the princess’s chambers. Even the king and queen were awoken, cut by a cry of the child they so often ignore. They could not help it. No one could. They all raced to her, though they all seemed to know there was nothing they could do. The tragedy had already happened happened. It could not be undone. For that was a very distinct cry. One that communicated the weight of the situation so clearly and concisely. 

The man who normally dwelt in the shadows recognized the cry as well, and he could not bring himself to move. From that spot, he heard the duchess’s daughter crying behind him, alive and confused at the disturbance. 

The duchess’s child had lived, and it was his child that was dead. And his lover that had discovered her. That, he knew, was the scream of the unimaginable grief of a mother who lost her child.

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You have to understand. You have to understand what the GiftedDuckling refused to understand. I was a sickly baby. My cousin was not. My cousin was supposed to live, and I was not. It’s cold to say, but I’m just thinking about the odds here. They weren’t in my favor but were in hers. She was a completely normal baby, and I was struggling to hold on. And yet, I was the child living, and she was the child gone. It doesn’t make sense. A death was going to happen, and it was supposed to be mine. So there was already a sacrifice interwoven in my life story. I couldn’t ask for any more.

I never tried to explain it to the GiftedDuckling in words, but maybe the GiftedDuckling knew after she read the story I’ve been telling to you all. There have been some omissions, sure, but you get the point. She got the point. She got the point right away and tried to reason with me. She tried so desperately to assure me that this wasn’t the case. That my life didn’t affect my cousin’s and vice versa. Our fates weren’t intertwined. There was no way we could have switched places. It was impossible. But even if she could convince me of that, it didn’t change the fact that I had no right to pull her into my world. I had no right to ask her to gamble with her life, to take the risks I had to take, or to undertake the suffering my family had always asked of me. And look, I was hurt and bitter, wasn’t I? They kept making demands of me, and I knew it was wrong, and I hated them for it. It was only a matter of time before she hated me too.

So I left. She asked me not to, but once again, I was gone. I was gone. I was off to some other space without her in it. And there was hardly a goodbye. It--At least from what I saw. I hope it was easy for her. I hope she didn’t care that I was leaving. But I’m not sure. Part of me is inclined to doubt that. 

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The death of the princess’s daughter was both straightforward and a mystery. She had clearly choked, but there was no explanation for the small stones found in her throat. There were none in the crib, in her room, or any surrounding room. And the guards did not see anyone entering that wing of the palace. But there were many things the guards didn’t see or couldn’t see, the duchess knew. She dawned the color of mourning for her niece. Her gold wedding dress became a gold funeral dress: a transformation that seemed appropriate to her. Because it was her spell that set the world off-kilter. It was her spell that exchanged the fates of their daughters. 

It was a spell she lost control of, the duchess tried to remind herself as consolation, but at the same time, she could have kept better control. She could have saved her niece. Having failed that, the next best thing, she thought, was to save her sister-in-law.

But the princess was not the same woman she had been, that much was clear. There was a brokenness to her eyes that the duchess had never seen. She did not know what to expect. More destruction, perhaps. But whatever was coming would not be good.

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Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. With music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show please consider leaving a review or posting about it on a website that might not be around in five years. Make the post vague and somewhat mysterious but still compelling if you want. Up to you.

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