ÉLUCIA'S GARDEN

By Arana Ciel

Élucia is stuck on the family house and garden, only wanting to escape. 

Revisiting her memories accompanied by a child, and meeting some strange characters along the way, she is encouraged to examine her past and move beyond the reasons for

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arana Ciel
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9791221007718

Arana Ciel

Born in 1987 in France, Arana Ciel's writing explores deep themes such as love and attachment, life and death, soul and spirit.Arana studied storytelling at The Mezrab Storytelling school of Amsterdam where she wrote her first show, performed at the Podium Mozaiek theater of Amsterdam. She also studied creative writing with The Writers Studio of Amsterdam; and acting at the Studio Théâtre of Geneva in Switzerland; and later studied acting for movies and script writing at the Florence Movie Academy in Florence, Italy, where she co-wrote the screenplay "LA TOURISTE".In 2015, she graduated from UWS the University of the West of Scotland where she obtained her Bachelors Degree in Art in Commercial Music.  ÉLUCIA'S GARDEN is her first novella and is the first part of the DILIGITIS series. Arana is currently writing the second book, "LUMEN'S CASTLE".She is dealing with dyslexia, which has given her a great imagination from which she draws all her inspiration. She is a passionate hypersensitive person who is strongly guided by her instinct and intuition. She also admires symbolism, which is reflected in her writing, and she sees stories as a valuable tool to open the minds and understand life a little more.Arana Ciel resides in Florence, Italy.

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Élucia’s

Garden

Arana Ciel

Copyright © Arana Ciel, 2022

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

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

First edition

Book Designer Coverkitchen

Translation Editor Tim Daish

ISBN 979-12-210-0771-8

Published by Arana Ciel

[e-mail]

aranaciel.com

PROLOGUE

Cinderella loses her glass slipper and leaves it behind. This shoe becomes her calling card, the fragile, thin and transparent mould of her foot, her identity. Without it, Cinderella would not have been able to get married, because the prince would never have found her.

As Andreas Gryphius said, In the face of death, there is no use for strength: you are glass.

So maybe this slipper is more than a calling card—maybe this slipper is a symbol of her life being lost.

At the stroke of midnight, as the spell ends, Cinderella runs to hide.

Should she be ashamed to show herself as she is? Is it only by her dress that her presence is accepted? Do we have to be hidden in order to be appreciated?

Having lost, by the death of her parents, the social status that her family gave her, this is what Cinderella seems to think.

But after all, what is needed is to accept oneself and what has happened. What matters is today and what we do with it, because the past can become a prison.

THE HOUSE

A friend whose eyes never close,

making memories seem eternal.

The sound of an old clock counting the seconds.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, and it is morning at last. Has he closed his eyes? Where did his dreams take him? Has he reached the bridge of wishes, or is he still walking in the shadow of the one I used to be? Another day, which always begins and never ends, since I can no longer dream, with only the memory of what it is to sleep, a young girl says to herself while staring at sunflowers on the ceiling. The sunflowers her mother painted before the girl was born.

She sits up in her bed, a porcelain doll held in her arms, and looks at her pale pink wardrobe, her dressing table, her hair clips, her rocking chair and her little slippers. This world of childhood objects, all lying still around her. Oh boredom, boredom, when will you be gone so that I may admire the things around me again? Are you not tired, you things? Of standing still?

Élucia, my darling, her father in the hallway calls.

Élucia looks down at the doll, At least you understand me, Auden, my dear friend, for your eyelids never close.

Auden, through his winter-sky, grey-white eyes—grey apart from the perimeter of his pupil, which is encircled with a jagged light-white almost silver—stares expressionless towards the windowsill where a miniature sailboat is displayed. Today, like every other day, he wears his navy blue overalls, his white collared shirt and his little furry boots.

She places a kiss on Auden’s cheek and stands. On the white sheets of the bed, where the doll is lying down, there are no creases. The lace edges are perfectly aligned with the goose feather pillows. She turns around the bedside table, looking down at her golden-tipped pinecone that lies on it. The bedside table is covered with a light layer of dust, except for an oval shape made by the pinecone, which has been moved.

If there is one object that should not be moved, it is you. Maria knows this only too well, Élucia tells the pinecone. She walks in circles in her room, then stops and looks again at the pinecone, You are still here though, and is that not the most important thing.

She goes to the window of her room where thick, velvet purple curtains hang. Standing between them she seems to be on a theatre stage. She looks out to the apple-green lawn of the house, perfectly mown and bordered by dozens of red rosebushes. Not a single leaf sticks out; not a blade of the closely cut grass stands taller than the others.

At the end of the garden stands an old oak tree, with branches like wavy hair, thick and knotted. Its low branches fall and sink into the earth, while its high branches fly and disappear into the pink morning sky, and do not let any sunlight reach its bark. Withstanding the wind for thousands of seasons, its brown and black bark is held in an eternal winter. In the middle of the tree, some way from the ground, there is a hole, where one of the main branches is missing. Beyond the oak tree hangs a wall of thick mist that encloses the perimeter of the garden.

Élucia looks up to the clear sky over the garden and toward the bright sun without squinting. The sun’s rays illuminate her large green eyes. Her rosy skin is smooth, and her cheeks flush when a smile reveals itself on her dark red lips.

She peers into her wardrobe, looking at all her childhood dresses that hang there, now far too small for her, and runs her fingertips over their fabrics with melancholy in her eyes.

Élucia, her father calls again.

She goes to the large golden mirror above her dresser, looks at her hairbrush and runs her fingers through her long blonde hair. Is it me, Auden, or is his voice heavier? Does he not want to hear the sounds of spring, rather than the silence of winter, which has been present for far too long? Oh, how I wish I could sing for him, to make him realise how much spring is needed.

In the mirror, Auden seems to be staring at her from the bed.

She arranges the last strands of her hair, stands up and delicately picks up the doll, There, now you are ready too, she says, moving the doll’s brown hair into place with her fingers.

She leaves her bedroom, and her hand finds the golden bannister that encircles the upper hallway and leads downstairs. She moves past the grandfather clock, whose ticks and tocks accompany the twenty-six steps, in her black patent leather shoes down to the lower hallway.

Élucia passes her father’s black grand piano at the bottom of the stairs and goes through a white door decorated with hand-painted green leaves into a high-ceilinged breakfast room with large open windows looking onto the garden, from which a warm breeze now lightly blows the linen curtains. A large, white wooden table is filled with delicious food. On porcelain plates are butter croissants, chocolate bread, sugar pancakes, strawberries, raspberries, apricots and peaches. She looks up at the swan frescoed on the ceiling, which is flying through a blue sky punctuated by fluffy white clouds, and smiles.

Perhaps you would like some, too?

From the kitchen, Élucia hears a comforting and familiar sing-song voice, "Sweets-sweets-sweets-sweets-sweets."

Maria, the family’s housekeeper, half-dances into the room in a grey dress and lace apron and places a pot of hot chocolate next to the pastries.

The table is set for Élucia, and she takes her place in front of her pink bowl. Next to her is a baby’s wooden high chair where a small glass bottle of milk waits on its little table. She places Auden in the high chair. The doll’s head is upright, his eyes staring into space.

Maria pours the hot chocolate into Élucia’s bowl.

Good morning, Maria, he’ll only have milk this morning. He’s a bit tired—he woke up a lot in the night.

Maria goes into the kitchen.

Élucia stirs her hot chocolate with her forefinger, as her face turns to look out onto the garden.

Auden, shall we play?

She takes the doll by the arm and runs down the hall to the big French doors that are flanked by two large ceramic black vases of freshly cut red roses and lead to the garden. She moves close to the bouquet to the left, where the roses are level with her nose. She breathes in deeply, all those red velvet hearts unfolding before her eyes. She sighs, blowing out black ash onto the flowers.

Élucia is outside. In front of her is the garden, with its green grass and hundreds of red roses. All around, the thick mist encloses the garden as if forming three walls that touch the sky.

She goes to the foot of the oak tree with the long branches to put Auden down in its shadow. She skips towards the rosebushes like a child, then circles them, singing and clicking her fingers to the rhythm:

Good morning, my roses,

Again today,

You are all here.

Good morning my roses,

A little like me,

You are still here.

But tell me, my roses,

What is the perfume,

The bright morning wears?

From the centre of all the rose flowers, drops of water begin to flow. Élucia looks at the drops and keeps singing:

But you weep, my roses.

To you the petals

Still comfort your tears.

Élucia stops her song to lie down next to Auden by the roots of the oak tree. She looks up at the branches where long departed buds have left pock-mark indentations with no sign of new growth.

Looking at the doll, whose eyes stare up at the sky, she tells him, "Did I