Epilogue: Bianca
“ARE you sure you don’t want a ceremony?”
Asked the fiancé, sweat trickling down his brow, even though it wasn’t yet the hottest season. He wiped it away as he walked with Bianca down the sloping path to the beach.
“I’m sure,” Bianca replied. “We’re hardly kids anymore. Nobody wants to see that.”
Her fiancé looked down at the ground.
“What is it?” she asked.
He hemmed. He hawed. He wiped his sweat and cleaned off his glasses. Then, this nervous, underfed rat of a man looked up at Bianca with a sudden light of determination in his eyes…!
Only for his face to fall again. Just as quickly as it’d risen.
He said nothing. Just stared at her, like he’d forgotten whatever bold thing he meant to say.
Of course, this was exactly why Bianca was marrying him.
If he’d been the type to puff out his chest and declare, I think it’s a shame I won’t get to see you in a wedding dress! she would’ve wanted nothing to do with him.
She gazed out at the sea. The waters were calm tonight, the setting sun casting long streaks of red and orange across the endless surface.
The harsh, scintillating shine of the ocean at noon was already too much for Bianca. For a last date as a single woman, this place, at this time, was exactly what she had asked for.
The bar would be closed today. After this, they would go to a small church and swear their love to each other.
Then, they planned to head to dinner at a spot he was always talking about.
He’d said he had been going there for years, though he never really talked to the staff. He would come in every few days, sit at the same table, order the same stew, eat, and quietly leave. He wasn’t even sure if the owners recognized his face, he’d joked.
But Bianca knew better.
There was no way the owners didn’t remember.
Someone who had loved their little restaurant enough to keep coming back all those years—that was a precious customer if ever there was one.
So that the presence of a woman like her wouldn’t disturb the quiet peace of that place, Bianca had chosen a subdued, unassuming dress. Even so, she doubted she could truly conceal herself. To one in the same line of work, the old scent of blood, the stale breath of the night, would surely be sniffed out at once, no matter how carefully she tried to mask it.
But then again, she thought, if the proprietor were the kind of man who had allowed her fiancé to come and go in silence all these years, asking nothing, saying nothing, then surely, tonight and in the nights to come, he would leave them be, just as he always had.
Bianca loosened the bouquet of red flowers she held against her chest. White flowers were the custom for honoring those lost at sea; these, then, were not for mourning.
One by one, she set them adrift, each bloom trailing a faint red thread across the red waters as it floated away.
From tomorrow on, Bianca would no longer dream of setting sail on summer seas.
She would no longer wish to sink beneath the winter waves and die.
For Bianca, now standing at the end of her story, the sea was nothing more than something to be gazed upon from the land, with a distant fondness.
As if to etch that resolve into herself, she continued to draw that line into the sea.
The tears came unbidden. Her fiancé, noticing, looked at her in concern.
She was smiling faintly, still looking toward the sea.
A great ship drifted into view.
Her smile faltered. Her eyes followed its steady course.
“It’s a merchant ship from the east,” he said, following her gaze. “The blue coral they gather there’s in high demand.”
“I see,” Bianca murmured. Her eyes stayed fixed on the ship. “It’s just… It looks just like a pirate ship.”
“It seems that in imitation of the Olzon family, some trading companies overseas have started hiring former pirates for their crews as well. But from what I hear, it hasn’t gone half as smoothly. Pirates, after all, aren’t the easiest lot to tame. If anything, the whole business has only made clearer just how formidable in leadership the young Olzon company president really is, for all his age.”
“Really? Now, that I find very interesting.” Bianca smiled at the familiar name.
So that’s where she got it from. Her thoughts drifted to that seventeen-year-old girl possessing far more compassion, far more strength of heart than her lovely, delicate face would ever let on.
Turns out, it was a rare bloodline trait after all.
The towering sails of the ship cut across the last glimmer of the sun, the dying light flickering in and out through the forest of masts and lines. A serpent carved into the main mast caught Bianca’s eye. She blinked in surprise.
“Strange, the things that cross our path,” she said.
“What?” He looked at her in surprise.
“Or maybe we just keep coming up with the same old stories the world over.”
“What are you talking about, honey?”
“There’s an old tale,” she said. “It tells of the horned serpent—the charm that wards off lightning. They say lightning is no natural thing at all, but the wrath of a great bird. Long ago, the horned serpent sank its fangs into the bird’s leg, and ever since, the bird has hated it with all its being. And so, if you place a horned serpent high and in plain sight, the bird will turn its fury elsewhere.”
“I…can’t say I’ve ever heard that one before.”
“Aye—because I’m the one who came up with it.”
Her gaze drifted down.
“That boy was always… Always so afraid when it stormed.”
That boy.
It struck her as curious how, even now, though she knew what he looked like as a man, the face that came to mind was still that of a boy.
That sniveling, scared little boy who cried just as much as he laughed.
Whenever it thundered, he would cry and hide, and for that, he was scolded.
Bianca, wanting to help, had stitched him a charm—something that would promise, lightning will never strike you so long as you hold on to it.
She was no expert seamstress. The serpent she’d embroidered somehow came out with horns, so she made up a tale to suit her mistake.
The boy had believed every word.
He had clutched that terrible embroidery tight to his chest and grinned up at her, his mouth wide—a single gap in his teeth.
Bianca’s face fell.
On the ship’s deck was a tall, skinny man—not so young, or so Bianca thought. Life at sea had a way of tanning people into leather, making their age hard to tell.
A bandana tied around his head fluttered in the wind. His body, still as a windless night, was perched at the ship’s bow, staring out at the ocean ahead.
His profile looked familiar.
She stared a moment longer, then shook the thought away and gave a small, pained smile.
Coincidences like that don’t just happen, do they?
A sea breeze swept through.
That boy.
Why hadn’t he cut her down that day, along with her love?
It was a question that had always left a faint bitterness inside her.
The blade should have gone for her neck before it ever touched William’s.
That way, she would have left the world still young, still beautiful, her love unspoiled, never having known the pain of losing it.
On the deck, someone ran up to the man. He turned. Two, three words were exchanged—then he laughed.
It looked like there was a gap in his smile. But again, she shook the thought away and smiled. No such coincidences…
She quietly hummed the song they had all sung together back when the ship was still small and they were still young.
The star-filled sky.
Great, beautiful creatures. Glittering treasures.
Songs and dances, laughter ringing all around.
What a beautiful, dream-like time.
If someone in this wide world still kept the memory tucked away in the book of their life, then Bianca could think of no greater joy.
As she sent the last flower drifting away, she stopped humming and lifted her head.
“Sorry for making you wait,” she said to her fiancé. “Shall we go?”
“I’m fine. We can stay longer if you’d like.”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I’m ready to leave now.”
“All right, then. It’s getting cold now that the sun’s gone. I can lend you my gloves if you’d like?”
She gave him a look—half fond, half exasperated. “In moments like this, you’re supposed to say, ‘You must be cold—let’s hold hands.’”
He stared at her, caught somewhere between panic and confusion.
“Say something, dear.”
Still nothing.
She let out a dramatic sigh. “Ugh, look at that hill. It’s a beast going back up. Come on, escort me like a proper gentleman.”
“Sure,” he said simply.
“We hook our arms like this.”
“Right, right. Got it. Uh…do you still want the gloves, though?”
“I’ll take them, thank you. It’s rather chilly.
Sharing a smile, they set off on their merry way.
✦ ✦ ✦
✶✶✶
RED flower petals floated across the surface of the sea.
The ship, its mast carved with the figure of a horned serpent, cut cleanly through the drifting line.
A sun-kissed man, no longer young, stood on deck and, for reasons he could not name, found himself humming a familiar tune up into the sky, just slightly off-key.