Chapter Six #2
Theodore’s voice filters through my walls, and when I find him again, it is on a ladder pressed up against one of the walls of my room.
Azizi’s steward stands below him, a bucket in hand which he holds up for Theodore to dip a thick brush in.
I watch as the boy slaps glue on the wall, lathering it thick enough for the curling yellow wallpaper to stick when he smooths it back down.
“I am aware that she passed a few decades ago,” Mr. Allard says easily.
“Master Jonas and his solicitor purchased this home for Mistress Azizi, so we have not met the previous owner, but from what we were told, he fell into despair upon his wife’s death and sold the home to escape the memory of her and move on with his life. ”
There is that word again. Memory.
I remember so little of myself, much less the life I supposedly lost upon my death.
Could this mysterious husband have loved me so much that the mere memory of me drove him away?
Why can I not remember him at all? Why do I only remember wandering empty halls, accompanied only by the song of the sea and the creaking of the garden that haunts me in the walls?
“Maybe that’s why he left all this behind,” Theodore mused, pressing harder on the wallpaper to smooth out the wrinkles.
“I have noticed that he didn’t leave much in the way of personal items. Furnishings and little things here and there, but he’s left nothing that could be considered sentimental. Yet this room was entirely untouched.”
“Grief is a heavy companion.” Mr. Allard watches him, consideration creased into his face. “May I ask you a question, Master Theodore?”
The boy frowns down at him. “I’ve told you to call me Theo, haven’t I? I’m not your master any more than you are my steward.” When Mr. Allard does not respond, Theodore huffs a quiet laugh and nods. “Fine, yes, you may ask.”
“Why are you so intent on repairing this room?”
They fall into silence for a long moment, Theodore fiddling with the glue brush in his hands and Mr. Allard waiting patiently for a reply. I find myself waiting as well, even though Theodore had already told me pieces of why.
I’ll remember you.
Dark, hazel eyes find my portrait across the room, and though I am standing on the opposite side, I feel his gaze upon my face regardless. I wonder what it is he sees there. Wonder if he’d see me again if I stood in the path of his gaze.
“I think…” Theodore takes a deep breath, his knuckles turning white around the handle of his brush.
“I think it is a cruel fate to be forgotten. To go through everything you’ve gone through in life only for it to mean nothing in the end.
Is there anyone out there who remembers the woman who lived here?
Not just the stories the village children whisper about her spirit, or the tragic tale of her demise, but someone who truly remembers her? ”
“And what will all this work do in the end?” Mr. Allard asks, not unkindly.
I get the sense that he is truly curious, though it is hard to tell with the constant stoicism he expresses.
“Even if you restore this room to its former glory, its occupant will still be gone. Her memory will still be reliant on those who have known her.”
He is right, of course. I could not say how many people I have known in my life, nor name a single one who might miss me. Who might think of me and wonder if I am well wherever I am.
Were there those who mourned me? Is there a stone out there carved with my name, an empty casket buried beneath it?
I wrote music, played it apparently, but did anyone hear it?
Was anyone walking through the streets humming it, sitting at their own piano plucking away at the complicated chords inked into paper?
Perhaps Theodore was right. Perhaps this room, these things that have been left to decay and rot, were all that was left of me. Of my memory.
“Maybe so.” Theodore’s voice is quiet when he descends the ladder and sets the brush back in Mr. Allard’s bucket.
“Maybe I’m the only one who will remember her, which is a little sad considering I’ve never met her, but…
well, I can’t help thinking that she lives on here somehow.
In the music she’s left behind, or the books she used to read.
And if she is still here somehow, if she hasn’t passed on to whatever God has waiting for us in the end, then it must be a terribly lonely life to lead. ”
Am I lonely? Before Lady Azizi moved into my home, I could not remember being anything, much less lonely.
If they left again—her and Theodore and Mr. Allard—would I go back to that same empty existence, haunting the halls of my home with no sense of time passing?
Why did that thought make my chest ache so terribly?
“May I ask you a question now, Mr. Allard?”
The old man raises an eyebrow but nods all the same. “You may ask.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
If the question surprises him, I cannot tell, but the man takes his time in answering. There is something strange in the look on his face, in the way he moves to put the glue away. Not strained or bothered in any way, but quiet in the way people are when they need to tailor their words carefully.
I don’t know much about Mr. Allard—he is, strangely, more aloof than his mistress—but there is something about him that has always felt…
off. Not wrong, but not quite right either.
The same way Lady Azizi feels like an animal hiding in the shadows, so too does Mr. Allard feel like the shadows in which she hides.
Sometimes I look at him and I cannot tell if he is young or old, handsome or ugly. I look at him and his features blur into something ever-shifting, something unknown entirely.
“I believe death is very rarely the end most believe it to be,” he answers after a long while. “Perhaps that leads to ghosts, or something else, but I do believe there is much more to this world than we can see.”
Theodore bobs his head at that, his dark curls bouncing eagerly around his face. “And—and do you believe people can see them? See ghosts, I mean?”
He sounds as desperate as I feel. Like he needs to be told that what he saw was real, as much as I need to hear it. I dread the answer. Dread the idea that I am nothing more than a figment of Theodore’s imagination. That I am not real.
I want to be real.
Mr. Allard hums, the sound discordant and low in his throat.
His wrinkles shift again, new canyons being carved through his skin.
“There are many people in this world who are closer to death than others. I would not discredit those who claim to see the unknown simply because there are others who say they cannot.”
A long-winded way of saying that he believes him, if I understand correctly.
It eases something in Theodore's shoulders, and I feel it ease something in mine as well.
I loose a breath I didn't need to hold, relax the hands at my sides that have curled into sharp, thorned fists.
Sap oozes from the crescent shaped wounds in my palms, dripping down my fingers in bloody rivers and leaving dark stains on the new rug.
"Does that frighten you?" Mr. Allard asks, watching Theodore with a deep-seeded interest. "The idea of something else out there? The idea of the unknown and unexplained?"
To my surprise, Theodore's gaze finds mine as easily as it had that day he found my portrait. My heart throbs in my chest, and I wonder if he has seen me this whole time. If he knew I'd been watching him as he worked, watching him babble on to me with not a hint of a response.
"A little, maybe, but I think it's more relief than fear."
Mr. Allard folds down the ladder and sets it off next to the door. "Relief?"
Theodore glances at his satchel where it sits on the window seat. He swallows, and I hold my breath again.
“Relief”—he nods—“that I am not the only unknown in the world. That maybe there’s someone out there who could see me, know me, and not be frightened by what they find.”
The old steward smiles—nothing more than a small twitch of his thin lips—and tucks the glue bucket beneath his arm. “I can see why Mistress Azizi has taken a liking to you. You will fit in well here, Master Theodore. Please give the spirits my regards.”
He leaves without another word, but if Theodore even heard him, I cannot tell. His eyes meet mine once more, and I imagine my cheeks flushing at the intensity I find within his gaze.
I open my mouth to speak, to sing, to do anything to show him that I am really here. That I see him just as he sees me.
Water pours from my lips, and my voice is lost at the bottom of the sea.