Chapter Twenty-One
Kolfina
Sometimes, when I am drifting through my halls, unseen by the others who inhabit them, I think I have somehow come back wrong.
Time is a crooked thing when one is dead.
It is hard to know how much of it had passed between my body sinking into the ocean and my hands clawing up from the dirt in my garden, but I remember the stench of rotting plants stinging my nose; I remember the salty brine pouring from my lips back into the sea; I remember standing there on the edge of that cliff, staring out at the ocean and begging for it to take me back.
I remember screaming, I think. Opening my mouth as wide as it could go and hearing no sound aside from the ocean’s waves crashing into the cliffside.
I remember clawing at my throat until it tore open in the hopes that some kind of sound might release.
Some kind of proof that I am still something to be heard.
My mouth is open now, my borrowed lips parted and my throat trying to produce a sound that does not come.
Yet this time, it is laughter trying to pour from me instead of screams. This time, I do not need to tear myself open to prove that I am real, because when Theodore reaches out and says, “Come dance with me!” I can feel his touch upon my skin, can count the beats of his heart in his fingertips, and I know that I am real.
I try to say no at first—I have not danced in over twenty years, and even so, I’m not sure I remember how—and I duck behind Azizi as if she might protect me from Theodore’s enthusiasm.
Alas, she is a traitor, one whose laugh follows her gracefully as she catches me around the waist and pushes me in our lover’s direction.
“Go on, petal. We’ve come to celebrate, have we not?” she asks with a playful smirk. “Let yourself have some fun for once. Put those new feet of yours to work. I am perfectly content to watch as I recover.”
Though I try to glare at her in betrayal, Azizi offers me no sympathy as Theodore drags me to the center of the banquet hall—a building near the schoolhouse that we’d taken refuge in when Azizi began to feel too sun-weary.
Music fills the hall with a jaunty tune I vaguely recognize, and though the dance has already begun, we slip into it effortlessly.
Or rather, Theodore slips into it effortlessly.
My first few steps are awkward and stumbling, embarrassment flooding through me when I’m a moment too slow on the next spin and I knock into Theodore’s shoulder.
He only smiles at me, taking my hand and guiding me into the next turn, his voice pitched just loud enough to be heard over the music. “Relax, Kolfina! No one else is watching you, just let the music guide you. If anyone can pick it up, it’s you.”
I cannot tell him that a sense for music and rhythm does not a dancer make, so I pout at him instead—for all the good that does, since he only laughs again at the look.
Still, the dancing does get easier. I’m unsure if it’s due to Theodore’s guidance, the simplicity of the dance itself, or my subconscious somehow remembering the steps, but the longer we go, the less and less I stumble.
At one point, Theodore’s hands find my waist and he lifts me into a spin, my own fingers grasping at his shoulders to keep us steady. It feels a bit like flying, and when I close my eyes to imagine it, I am reminded of the little bird painted on my attic door.
That room has always felt as much a cage as it has a sanctuary.
A place I can sing to my heart’s delight, but where my wings cannot spread or fly.
I wonder if this is how it feels to be free for the first time.
Free from that too-small birdcage and its stained-glass bars.
Free from that rotting house and its cloying, crawling, consuming wallpaper.
Just… free.
I want it desperately. To stay here in the loving cradle of his arms and beneath the protection of Azizi’s watchful gaze.
Perhaps I can. We’ve no idea how long this body will last with me in it, but maybe—if Theodore’s god is a kind one—maybe I can stay.
Maybe they will keep me, a songbird free to fly wherever she wishes with the promise of an open shoulder or outstretched hand for which I can return to. A nest, rather than a cage.
That hope is what carries me into the next dance without hesitation or argument. It narrows the room down to a singular focus, colours blurring and faces vanishing until there is nothing left but distant music and Theodore’s happy smile.
He is beautiful like this, I realize. Not just with his handsome suit and his silk tie, but with the easy joy that lights up his entire being.
His tongue pokes through the small gap in his teeth when he spins me; his curls bounce and sway with every light step and playful bow.
He looks completely and utterly at ease—something that surprises me as much as it warms me.
It is so rare to see him without worry or stress.
He lets himself relax at the manor with us, lets himself stretch and take up more space more often, but there is always a darkness that clouds his pretty eyes when it is time for him to return home.
His shoulders always tense and his skin always pales when the topic of his life in the village comes up.
So to see him now, so uncaring about the people around us and the eyes he no doubt feels on our backs just as I do, it fills me with my own happiness.
I wish I could keep him as well, wish I could open the bars of his village-shaped cage and let him run free. If only to bask in the sunshine that pours from him when he smiles, the music that spills around us when he laughs.
For a moment, when the music changes and Theodore pulls me into his arms for something slower, more intimate, I swear the dead heart in my borrowed chest sputters to life.
It throbs against my breastbone, dancing to the same beat he guides me to, skipping every few notes as if stumbling beneath Theodore’s undivided attention.
And I decide that I love him.
Or no, perhaps that’s not quite right. Decide.
That suggests that Theodore’s mere presence at the manor has not pulled me from my own ruin, that he has not dug his fingers into the dirt I am buried in and pried me from the earth with the sheer force of his affections.
Decide suggests this feeling is new, that it has not been growing and blooming with every long conversation he blesses me with or every whispered secret he entrusts to me.
Every day he speaks to me, whether he can see me or not.
Every day he tries to play my songs and laughs in self-deprecation when his fingers fumble over the keys. Every day he is there.
No, I have not simply decided to love Theodore, just as I have not simply decided to love Azizi.
My love for them is a death of my own making.
An undoing and a remaking. It is a pathway guiding me through my garden maze until I stand with my bare toes hanging over the cliffside.
The path to this spot, this threshold of past and present and future, is still there behind me.
It has brought me this far, kept me safe from the darkness and the vines that hide within it.
It is my choice now to fall or fly, and here in his arms, I’m not sure I know the difference.
I wish I could tell them. Wish I could whisper those three words into Theodore’s lips anytime a hungry frown mars his face. Wish I could press them into Azizi’s fingertips anytime her insecurities claw canvas from frame.
But my voice has been stolen by the sea for the sirens to use, and there is nothing but echoing silence left behind in its wake.
So what can I do but hope that he hears me when I rest my head on his shoulder and mouth the words into the wool of his coat?
What can I do but hope Azizi sees my devotion when our eyes meet over his shoulder and across the crowded room?
“You’re awfully quiet for a songbird at a party,” Theodore says in my ear.
The world expands around us again, the banquet hall filling once more with loud chatter and the twirling colours of dancing couples. I pull away just enough to glare at him for ruining our imaginary solitude, and I make sure to step on his foot for the tasteless joke.
He laughs quietly, eyes crinkling beneath the shelf of his curls. “Now I thought that was funny,” he counters in mock offense, “but I suppose not everyone can be gifted with my dashing sense of humor.”
I roll my eyes, pretending to step away in playful exasperation, but Theodore only pulls me closer, holds me tighter. His grin turns rakish, entirely too handsome on his freckled face, and he ducks down just enough for his lips to brush my ear as he speaks.
“Come with me. I know somewhere quieter without so many eyes watching us.”
A spark of heat runs down my spine, and I nod before I realize what exactly he is asking.
His fingers slip between mine, his grip strong and steady as he leads us off the dance floor and through the crowd.
We pause briefly at the edge of the room where we’ve left Azizi.
She’s found a seat at a small table with a woman I feel I should recognize—her face is unfamiliar to me, pale and plump, but I’m sure I have seen her eyes before, sure I have felt the same unsettling strangeness beneath my skin when she glances at me.
Theodore places a hand on Azizi’s shoulder to earn her attention, though we both know she has been aware of us no matter where we are in the hall.
“Apologies for interrupting, Madame Fortue,” he says to the other woman before turning his eyes to our lover.
“Kolfina is getting a bit overcrowded in here, so I’m going to take her out for some air. You’ll find us when you’re ready?”