Chapter Nine
Theodore
Ihave never truly been comfortable around other people.
There are always too many expectations, too many lingering glances, too many smells.
The more people there are, the harder it is to concentrate, to think.
My teeth begin to itch and my jaw begins to ache as I clench it shut, desperate to keep the beast within me from turning to the nearest person and biting down.
Yet for some reason, I have never felt that impulse around Louis. There is something about him that has always fascinated me—the way he simply exists in the world without a worry or care, the way he smells of honeysuckle and too-sweet wine and yet at the same time smells of nothing at all.
It used to draw me to him when I was younger.
That fascination blooming into something shaped like affection, then adoration, then perhaps love at one point.
All because he seemed to be the only person that my monster did not wish to eat.
I’ve never quite known why him of all people, nor why his mother feels the same.
Like they are both so distant from this world that I would not be able to catch them in my teeth if I tried.
Eventually childhood friendship became something more during our first few years of being out in society—barely fifteen, hidden behind trees and barns and shops. Anywhere the adults wouldn’t catch us with our hands up each other’s shirts and our tongues down each other’s throats.
I remember how relieving it had been to kiss someone without that ever-present desire to consume them piece by piece. How I could taste him without the desperate need to taste more.
And Louis knew me, even if he’s never quite understood that knowledge.
He never listened to the whispers or the rumors, never took much stock in Father Thompson’s preachings about a devil beneath my skin.
I’d known at that point that who I was didn't match what others saw—something in me that I have always known, really—but Louis never seemed to care when it was just the two of us.
Afterall, like recognized like, and though he never spoke it aloud, I knew the truth of him just as he knew the truth of me.
I saw the way his eyes lingered a little too long on the other boys in the village.
I understood why he always came running back to the "girl" who looked a little too much like a boy to be acceptable—he'd never be able to persue his true desires in a town like this, and so he settles, and he pretends. We both do, I suppose.
It's never been serious between us, not knowing what each of us knows, but there is a reassurance in knowing that he will always be a constant in my life.
An anchor to focus on, a wash of alcohol to clean the slate.
I find myself in desperate need of his blinding presence right now, when my mind feels too foggy to see the path before me.
What a beautiful little monster you are.
“You’re quiet today,” Louis says at my side, his sea-green eyes pinched with curiosity as he loads a stack of boxes into my arms from the cart. “Did the Father scare the words out of you this morning?”
I shake the blood-soaked memory from my head, focusing on the burn in my palms as the rough material of the bread boxes scrapes at the tender cuts. “Ah, sorry, no. I got caught in the storm last night, and I guess my head is still a bit weak from it.”
Louis hums, offering a smile and polite greeting to Missus Porte as he hands over her order. “Mama said you’ve got a new job up on Widow’s Peak. House cleaning and the like? Says that’s why we’ve not seen you lately and why Manon has been working part time at the shop now.”
I try not to grimace at the reminder of my father's new floor girl, though judging by Louis’ amused look, I don’t succeed.
It isn’t that I don’t like Manon. She is a sweet girl, barely the age of sixteen but with a personality that lights up the whole shop when my father sends her out on the floor, and she knows her way around a needle and thread when given the opportunity.
I just have never been very good with change, and when my father came home with talk of a new work position for me up on the mountain instead of in the shop…
well, I suppose it felt all too much like I was being pushed out, regardless of the fact that I knew my father only meant well for me.
“It’s easy work,” I tell Louis as we continue down the line of homes and pass off orders as needed. “The pay is certainly worth the inconvenience of travel, and there is something satisfying, I think, in helping clean up and care for a house as old as the Chateau de Klein.”
Louis gave a dramatic shiver and shook his head. “Not sure I’d be able to handle it, what with all the stories about that place. Is it true then? That it’s haunted? You see any ghosts and demons wanderin’ the halls while you’re dusting rotten doors and creaky stairs?”
“Oh, shut it, you.” I roll my eyes hard enough to hurt and bump my shoulder against his. “Just because no one has set foot in the place for near twenty years, doesn’t mean it’s falling apart. It’s actually well taken care of, all things considered.”
“And the ghosts? Heard any songful wails or seen any ghastly ghouls yet?”
The woman’s face from the music room swims to my mind immediately.
The haunting depth in her pale, hazel eyes.
Her lovely gown stained with dirt and torn in various places, as if she'd run through a patch of thorns.
And when she'd opened her mouth as if to speak, water poured from her lips in great waves, littered with blood-stained petals that pooled around her bare feet, casting her out into a sanguine sea of death.
I suppose some might call her ghastly. I cannot help but think her beautiful though.
I do not tell Louis this, of course. He may not listen to the other villagers when it comes to my wrongness, but I would rather not give him reason to reconsider.
“As if I would tell you,” I say with a playful smirk. “I’ve already been labeled a liar by your little group of rakes from when I first visited the chateau. No need to add kindling to that particular fire now.”
Louis huffs and juts his lips out in a terribly pretty pout. “You’re no fun, Theo. What about the new mistress?”
Confused at the question, I raise an eyebrow at him. “What about her?”
“There’re rumors goin’ around that she’s a ghost too.
” Excitement lights up Louis’ eyes like it always does when he learns something new and strange about someone, never one to shy away from fantastical tales and ridiculous stories.
Perhaps that’s why our friendship has lasted so long—I love to tell stories, and Louis loves to hear them.
“No one has even seen her since she moved in, just her steward,” Louis continues eagerly.
“A few of the men who helped unload her carriages said none but a few even caught a glimpse of her, but they did feel a wicked chill in the house. And she’s not visited the village even once, or I’d have heard about it. ”
“Loathe as I am to ruin your fun, I can assure you that Lady Alilovi? is no ghost, spirit, or otherwise undead ghoul.” Though I fear she may be a demon, I do not say, the memory of her sharp teeth and red eyes flickering in the back of my mind.
“Besides, you can hardly blame a lady of her standing for not wanting to visit a humble village like our own when she is accustomed to a much higher quality of life.”
Louis does not argue that fact, though I can still see the questions brimming in his eyes moments before they pour from his lips. “Well, tell me then, what’s she like? The men who saw her say she’s a foreigner, all pretty and brown like. Why move here of all places?”
Pretty wasn’t a good enough word for how resplendent she looked in the parlor that night. Blood dripping down that lovely dark skin, pooling between her breasts and staining her plump lips.
I open my mouth to answer, only to find myself pausing at his last question.
Though Azizi and I have been in each other’s company more often in the recent weeks, our luncheons now almost always spent together, I’ve not ever asked what made her decide to move to Sainte-Falaise. The thought never even occurred to me as strange.
Azizi has that lonely sort of air to her.
Like she enjoys being on her own, enjoys the silence surrounding her as she focuses on her paintings.
It’s something I can relate to. While I myself enjoy the company of others on occasion, I prefer being alone with my pen and journal more often than not, lost in my head with my stories and poems.
Did Azizi have another reason for moving to the strange, haunted manor atop our cliff? Surely there were other, nicer homes just as isolated that she could have moved to. So why here?
“I… do not know,” I say when Louis and I make it back to the small bakery cart being pulled by his family’s horse, Poulet, the cart now significantly less full than when we started.
I press my hand to Poulet’s neck just to feel him breathing, smiling when he butts his snout against my shoulder.
“She is an artist, a very skilled one, so perhaps she just wanted somewhere quiet to work. I never thought it proper to ask.”
Louis does not look satisfied with such a plain answer, propping himself up on the side of the cart with his chin resting in his palm. “No wonder you seem to like it up there,” he says with a smirk. “You posh artist types all flock together—or so I’ve heard.”
“What—I am not posh,” I sputter.
The other man laughs, his eyes crinkling in the corners as the expression spreads across his entire face.
“Are too! With your fancy words and your fancy way of speaking! I remember when we were still tiny, and you used to make up so many words, the Father was convinced you were speaking in tongues. Your da, me, and mama were the only one’s who could understand a word that came out of your mouth.
Now look at you. Talkin’ with fancy tongues to fancy ladies. ”
“Well, pardon me for having some class and manners.”
“Ohh, class and manners,” Louis mocks, straightening his shoulders and pursing his lips like he’s sucked a lemon. “What poise and propriety you ‘ave, monsieur. How will us lowly peasants ever compare?”
“I have the utmost faith in you, my friend.”
After a quiet laugh, the expression on his face falls to something softer, fonder.
He leans back on his hand and smiles down at me in a way that feels entirely too sweet.
It leaves me feeling wrong-footed in the wake of our friendly banter.
“I am glad for you, Theo. You seem happy up there on your little mountain.”
“Do I?”
The question escapes me before I can stop it, but I do not take it back.
I suppose, in a way, I have been more content in recent days. The hunger is still there, always present and always angry, but it is easier to ignore when visiting the chateau.
I thought perhaps it was simply due to the work Mr. Allard put me through. He is a dedicated taskmaster, unbending in his rules and strict in his duties, but he is fair as well. He has only given me as much work as I am able to handle and insists on breaks and lunch every day.
It is easy work, but satisfying in a way that I assumed kept my mind off things I would rather not think of. Now I cannot help wondering if it is something else entirely that has brought me this tentative peace. Or someone else, rather.
“You do,” Louis says with a fond smile. “It’s hard to see, but it’s there. In your eyes and your smile.”
I’m not sure how to feel about that. Is it a good thing? To grow content and happy like I have been? Is that not what led to last night’s events in the first place? Letting my guard down, allowing myself to fall into her spell, allowing myself a taste.
And now what? I can still taste the blood behind my teeth, can still feel her heartbeat beneath my tongue.
Will I be able to turn away when faced with her temptation again?
Will I be able to stare across the street at the butcher without losing control and sinking my teeth into him?
Is it not the Devil’s goal to make us lazy and compliant for him?
The thought terrifies me, pools in my stomach like molten lead.
I do not know what to want.