Transfer of Rule

She was sitting on the stone ledge again, as Seattle held her coffee, its dark, heavy aroma clearing the fog. She had returned a couple of days later. Not just to think, but also to retrieve the photo of Damish she wantonly discarded. After the phone call from Elias and helping him through his overload, she realized, after some self-loathing, she had given up so much in her life. She wasn’t ready to give this up either. After running her foot through the leaves, their voices of crackle, laughing at her, she circled back to the ledge. She knew it should be here. She remembered running and throwing it down close to the stone slab.

She took a sip, the steam swirling into her eyes as it mingled with the morning gloom. The sun cracked over the distant horizon, a bright spark that seemed to light a path forward. She blinked, feeling a new resolve taking hold. It was time to act.

‘You like my solution?’

Tears pricked as emotions swelled. Damish’s solution wasn’t what she wanted. They could have run. They should have. In the end, she understood. It was Damish’s answer for keeping Seattle safe. It wasn’t selfish; it was preservation. Not only for her, but for himself as they tried to crush his very soul. It was his way of maintaining the control. Yet, what gnawed at her most was the fear that she'd end up alone, abandoned to the vast emptiness she often felt lurking. She saw the faded yellow blanket from her childhood. The one she'd cling to during thunderstorms, edges worn and thin. Her last true comfort she allowed herself, a symbol of security long lost. Without Damish, she feared the echoes of those storms would return, drowning her in a more profound silence.

Another flash pierced her senses—a sudden sound, like the crack of dry leaves underfoot. Damish’s eyes, glazed over, lingered in her mind. A rush of cold air brushed her skin, followed by the unsettling image of rivulets of crimson from faint lines in flesh flickering across her vision. Damish turned towards her, smiling with an unsettling calm. His voice echoed in her memory, 'You like my solution?' The words reverberated her thoughts. She felt the paper's texture under her fingertips—'Tranlatio Imperii,' written on a document at the edge of a desk, a ghostly whisper of past decisions.

Her cry of pain echoed from the canopy above as she fell to the forest floor on her knees, clutching herself. The pain rocked her, as silence cradled her, the leaves of the past, gripping her. A past she wanted to return to.

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* * *

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The steam from the coffee kissed Elias’s face as he gazed over the reflecting pool. Reflection is what he needed. He needed it to understand. Seattle cracked his frost that evening, his finger tips cold, reminding him. He rubbed his sleeve as his eyes of ice looked through the swirls, the pool rippling with a slight agitation. Like he felt now.

He wasn’t sure what tipped him over. He had learned to analyze each to help future events be less severe. He even envisioned his mother there, helping him breathe, making the circle with her lips, blowing. It didn’t help. This one ranked among the worst he had experienced. Uncertainty lingered. Sights and sounds always plagued him, but this time it was a combination of everything. Everything he didn’t understand. Sensory, yes, yet this one wrapped his feelings and emotions tightly, like a cold front of an approaching blizzard. Which he made.

He smelled the snow again. The coldness crept in while he sipped his coffee. The warmth softened it slightly. He placed his hand on the bench. His long fingers against the aged stone, its marble cracked, lichened, and touched by time. A glance. Something caught. Flash. The smell of leather. Flash. Gold letters scrolled past. His hand reached for a volume. Flash. He felt a touch. Flash. A hand against his. A blink. Focus returned, and that familiar feeling stirred once more.

His breath caught, a puff over his steaming coffee.

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* * *

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The coziness of his bed cradled his back as Julian lay there with a book raised above him, eyes travelling the lines of text, while his coffee steamed on his nightstand. He had time to relax in a volume of art. He liked to start his weekend in pursuit of joy and calm, only for his anger to rise so unexpectedly. He felt a tingle in his hand. Anything to lessen it, and today was to be in the gardens, his watercolors in tow. An en plein air was on his itinerary. Today, he was studying how the impressionists changed the rules. They revolutionized art by moving away from historical, mythological, and polished studio paintings in favor of capturing fleeting, sensory moments. They came to capture light as a perception in bold color. This rebellion resonated with him, as he often felt confined by his self-belief. Like the impressionists, he longed to break free, to paint his path with fearless strokes, feeling that life, like art, should be vibrant and unbound. He needed to let go of his anger.

After he and M's discovery in the library, it was time to focus on his joy. This also brought him back to his mom. He was still at a loss about her absence, even her non-presence on the phone. He was trying not to take it personally, but it was starting to make him edgy. "Why don't you call anymore, Mom?" Julian whispered in silence. The question lingered in the air, chilling the ache he struggled with. Thank goodness his hands contained a book above him. He wanted to palm, he needed to focus. He remembered an outing that he and his mother had together, painting at their local garden, as a crow sat in a tree watching them, its steely eye on him.

‘You know they are harbingers?’ she asked, a sparkle of mischief lighting up her eyes.

Julian raised his eyes from his easel and smiled. It was genuine. He loved that his mother knew so many things, and he loved her deeply.

‘Perhaps, it’s foretelling that your future is going to be amazing,’ she said, as it flapped its obsidian wings and lifted towards the sky, tracing a path that seemed to curve subtly, echoing a direction Julian would soon find himself on. Perhaps a journey of change.

Oh, how his life had transformed, now in a new school, with new friends, and new challenges. He kept reading, enjoying his morning, the coffee’s darkness settling in his head, smoky and rich, mellowing him. His frost crackled. His fingertips flash-freeze. His brain stuttered. Flash. Frost crept across the spines in the library. Flash. Hair of night in a doorway. Flash. Frost spider-webbed on the manuscript. Flash. A hand touching another. Flash. An eye. Flash. Frost grew on his hand. Flash. Words unnoticed before. His throat tightened as he sat up in bed. Flash, brighter. The words again, menacing, dark, in Latin.

‘Translatio Imperii.’

How had he missed them? Small and below the banner at the bottom.

His hands squeezed the mattress, its edge hard like ice and cool against his skin, as his feet hit the floor. He heard the frost crackle as it bloomed across the book he had held, ice weaving intricate patterns over its cover. The chill seemed to seep through the pages, whispering something hidden. Julian's mind raced, his breath momentarily suspended in the crisp air.

He turned the volume in his hands, feeling the weight of its revelations before his eyes finally settled on the title.

"How the Impressionists Changed Everything."

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* * *

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The coffee erupted, the lid flying off the paper cup, as ‘M’ squeezed the vessel with fear. She saw it too. Felt it, as the volume of brown liquid splashed onto the glass counter in front of her. A few whispers rose from the surrounding crowd, their words cutting through the air. "What a mess. She must be so clumsy," one voice uttered just loud enough to reach her ears.

“Miss, are you okay?” the young man behind the counter asked, eyes wide like coins.

Others stepped back as the countertop became a coffee-fall of embarrassment for 'M.' Her eyes glistened with tension, and her grip on the edge of the counter tightened involuntarily. She had seen the words that flashed before Julian.

‘Translatio Imperii.’

She didn’t know enough Latin, but Julian’s reaction as she mirrored must have indicated something shocking or wrong. She blinked at the attendant.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, the embarrassment flushing her cheeks. As the other students snickered and pointed at her.

“No, it’s okay. You seemed shocked. Was the cup too hot?” he asked in disbelief.

‘M’ briefly held his eyes. She felt his true sincerity. This was a young man who carried no judgment or blame. In her brief seconds, she could sense the purest echo she had ever held. She cocked her head. ‘How would it feel to mirror purity?’

“Do you know what ‘Translatio Imperii’ means?” she asked meekly.

The young man stuttered, then leaned away from ‘M.’

“Well… if I am correct… it means. ‘Transfer of Rule.’ I think.”

The crushed coffee cup fell, slipping from ‘M’s hand. The implications felt. It hit the counter, adding to the coffee-fall as it bounced and dropped to the floor.

She couldn’t help but think: ‘So who’s in charge of whom?’