Chapter Twenty-Four
Kolfina
Living is a disgustingly real thing, and there are times that I find myself hating it.
The body I have borrowed, no matter how much I wish for it to be, is not my own.
The legs are too long, and the hands are too weak.
I sit at my piano and my fingers ache after only a few songs; my hand shakes after holding a quill for too long.
The face in the mirror is not mine, and with death slowly eating away at it, I can no longer bare to look at it.
I stare down at her toes, see them press into the rug at the top of the stairs and leave their imprints. I step away, and I watch as the fibers slowly shift and rise, returning to their previously proud state. Like weeds crushed beneath a boot only to sprout again come the next rainfall.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if I did not still feel like a ghost within this body. If I had a voice to speak and sing with, or a heart to beat and flutter in my chest. I have been given a body to do with as I please, and yet still I haunt my halls, doing nothing but what I have always done.
Mourn.
Perhaps I am fading again, in that same way I have done when I had no body to anchor me down. My days run together; my mind is lost in the wallpaper, even though it cannot reach me within this prison of flesh I have trapped myself in.
I wish to say Azizi and Theodore have made it easier, but that would be a lie.
Things are different in the days that Theodore has grown ill and refused to visit us. Once, I thought there might be hope for another life, something happier and more exciting waiting for me in the arms of not only one but two lovers. But now my home has returned to a mausoleum, desolate and empty.
Azizi has taken to her studio with fervor, her worry for Theodore causing her to shutter herself away with a strange desperation I cannot help her with.
At first, she allowed me to sit with her, allowed me to pluck away at my harp in the corner of her room while she muttered to herself and sketched, painted and discarded, ground and mixed.
But then I became a distraction, the blood from my uncalloused, decaying fingers too much for her to handle, and I was cast out from the room so she could finish her work.
She would never finish, I knew that. Azizi chases a muse that she cannot see, one that she refuses to see, and I fear the day that she catches up with it.
Nearly a week goes by without word from Theodore. My body grows weaker, my vision fading as each day passes until everything is a haze of colourful fog around me.
I feel as if I have only moments before fate draws us back to our own monsters in the darkness. Before this body gives way for vines and flowers to consume instead.
Sometimes I wonder if that is the fate of monsters, to always be drawn back to the dark. No matter how much we claw and fight, no matter how we tear through the walls that try to hide us, there is always a cage waiting for us on the other side.
For where else do monsters belong?
It is at night when I feel most comfortable to wander my home.
Even with my eyes failing as they are, I have walked these halls for as long as I can remember.
I know each twist and turn. I know each room and door.
I know the shape of the windows and the sound of the winds howling beneath the floorboards.
Now though, in this borrowed body of mine, I can feel it. The floorboards warping beneath my feet, the grain spiraling in the wood banisters. Perhaps that is why have found myself at the bottom of the stairs again, my fingers brushing over the faded moth carved into the post.
It feels almost real, the way the wings have softened over time. They flutter beneath my touch, the moth skittering over the wood and onto the back of my hand. It stays there a moment, a fuzzy oak stain balancing on my purple fingertips.
Hello, it says with a twitch of its wings. Welcome home.
Is it home? I wish to ask, because while I have called it such before, I cannot help but wonder if it ever truly was. Or is it simply a place in which I have lived?
The moth flutters again, shaking the wood grains from its wings until I can just barely make out the blacks and yellows of its design, the skull on its back now painted a beautiful white.
Come, come. Let me show you, it says as it launches into the air, circling my head and brushing against my cheek like the sweet caress of a kiss. A watery giggle escapes my lips, and I watch as it makes its way up the stairs, its wings still sluggish and its flight a little crooked.
I follow as quickly as I can, my feet as unsteady as its wings.
By the time I have made it to the top, another moth has joined the first, this one still donning the marbled white colour of the crown molding from which it likely came.
They lead me down the hall and up another flight of stairs, more moths joining the eclipse the higher we go, peeling away from the wallpaper and spiraling up the tower to my little attic room.
I do not want to go there, I try to tell the little things. Without Azizi and Theodore here to hold me steady, my music room has felt all too much like a cage from which I will never escape. What happens if I let the moths lead me back there now?
The moth from the banister comes to rest atop my nose, her wings spreading out far and wide, shielding my borrowed eyes from the blurry world around us.
Come, little one. The Night will keep you safe from the terrors of the Day. Let us show you.
When the moth does not move, I stretch out my hands in front of me, feeling for a railing or the wall—anything to tell me where I am and how far I’ve left to go. Instead, I find a dozen petal-soft wings that guide me forward, so unlike the harsh tugging I am used to when the wallpaper calls to me.
I do not know how long I walk before my fingers touch wood again, but when I open my eyes, only one moth remains—the first one, resting in the center of the attic door where an old golden bird is flaking away.
Please, I wish to say, there is nothing for me here.
The moth flaps its wings once, twice, and I watch as more golden flakes peel away from the bird and tumble to the floor.
The Night will keep you safe.
There are no painful vines around my wrists pulling me toward the door. There are no flowers clogging my throat, threatening to drown me if I do not comply.
Perhaps that is why it’s so easy to reach out and push the door open, to step into my birdcage despite the fear of it snapping shut behind me. There is no pressure, no demand, just a beautiful creature luring me in.
The room looks no different than it has before, but as soon as I step across the threshhold, the moth takes to the air again, circling my head like an eager puppy. I follow its path through the room as it flies, watch with dying eyes as it lands atop a warped floorboard beneath the piano.
Come, let me show you, the moth says again, and this time I do not hesitate to listen.
A small notch winks at me from the weathered plank, and my fingers fit perfectly when I use it to pry the board away from its resting place. The space beneath is dark and cold, deeper than it should be, I am sure.
I am frightened, I tell the little moth which has come to rest upon my shoulder. I do not wish to get lost again.
None are lost beneath the Night sky, little one. She protects all her children. You simply have to trust her.
I do not know who this ‘her’ is that the moth speaks of, but my curiosity outweighs my fear, and I plunge my hand into the darkness without another word.
At first, I am sure there is nothing there to find.
The empty void beneath the floorboard swallows me up to the shoulder, as cold as the ocean floor, until finally there is warmth.
Not a burning warmth, but a gentle one. Like that of a mother’s bosom or a lover’s embrace.
I grasp for it, desperate and wanting, and when I finally pull that warmth from the darkness, I find a small silver trinket box resting in the palm of my hand, a beautiful moth carved into the top of it.
Go on, little one. It is yours.
Mine.
Of course it is mine. My music room is the only room in the house that went untouched when the previous owner left, according to Mr. Allard and Azizi. So it would follow that the secrets hidden within it are mine as well.
And yet, something about this secret feels different from the rest. More important in a way I cannot find words to explain.
It is yours.
With a deep breath, I press my thumb beneath the latch and pop the box open. Inside, resting on a bed of black silk, is a stone pendant. I’m sure I’ve never seen anything like it before, all swirling ocean blues and sea foam greens set in a beautiful golden frame.
And in the center of the stone rests the most beautiful carving of a moth, as beautiful and detailed as the one outside my mausoleum.
There you are, little one, my moth companion says as it flutters down to the pendant, its wings matching perfectly to its stone counterpart. Now, you are home.
“Kolfina?”
The sudden voice makes me jump, and I clutch the box to my chest as I whip around to see Azizi gliding into the room, her brows pinched in confusion and her eyes sparkling with worry.
“Dearheart, what are you doing on the floor?” she asks as she kneels beside me, those clever eyes of hers finding the missing floorboard instantly. “Digging up secret treasures?”
For a moment, I consider closing the box before Azizi can see what rests inside. There is so little I know of myself, of who I was before all this, and a part of me wishes to keep this new part of the mystery for myself.
But then I remember the room next to Azizi’s chambers, and I remember her hesitance in showing us what lies within it. How terrified must she have been to show us such a deep part of herself? How strong must she have been to overcome that fear and let us in?
My hands shake when I hand her the box, and when she pops it open, my moth companion is gone, leaving only a stone-carved echo in its place.
“Oh,” Azizi says quietly, her eyes wide with an emotion I’m not used to seeing on her. “Well, this is a surprise, isn’t it?”
Her tone brings me up short, and I frown at her, gesturing to the pendant and then herself in question. You know it?
Azizi shakes her head slowly before plucking the stone out of the box to observe closer. “I recognize the design, but I had thought—”
When she doesn’t continue, I lean closer and rest my hands on her arm, all but begging her to tell me what it is and how she knows it. If it is indeed mine, then perhaps it could tell us something about my past, about anything.
She must see the desperation on my face, because she offers me a gentle smile and lowers herself to sit beside me fully, her red skirts like a pool of blood around her.
“I am sure you’ve seen this design around the house, yes? Carved into the railings and the moldings?” she asks, and I nod eagerly, wishing I could tell her of the way the other moths led me here.
Azizi hums and reaches down to her chatelaine, choosing what looks to be a thick locket and popping it open. To my shock, a dark red and green stone pendant sits inside, the same moth design carved into its surface.
“There is a society of people like me—like us, I suppose—that operates all throughout the world. It protects and watches over those of supernatural descent, those protected by the Night—strigoi, witches, selkies, even those we have no names for yet.” She holds her pendant up next to mine, and while the designs were clearly done by different artists, they are the same.
“La Cour Macabre,” she says quietly. “We use this symbol to show that we are a part of it, and to show that we are safe for others like us.”
Others like us.
The words echo in my skull like crashing waves, wrapping around my heart like seaweed, squeezing all the air from my withered lungs.
I brush my fingers over the blue pendant and glance up at her, wondering, It is mine?
Whether she understands me or not, I cannot tell. Still, she smiles at me and places the box back in my hands.
“I had seen the design carved throughout the house and assumed the former owner was a member of our court. It is why I chose this home instead of the many others my brother showed me,” she says. “Perhaps it was not him who was a member, but you.”
Me? A member of this court? But how? Why? What would I have been before my death that would allow me entrance into a society of those who lurk in the night?
None are lost beneath the Night sky, little one. She protects all her children. You simply have to trust her.
The confusion must be written across my face, because Azizi closes the box and places a hand over mine. “There is no need for answers right now, petal. Now that we know, I can ask around. My family is very important within the Court, if there are answers to be found, then I will find them, yes?”
I do not remember being such an impatient thing, but the thought of waiting churns my stomach. I want nothing more than to pry up the rest of the floorboards in search of more secrets, to tear down the walls in hopes of finding answers to questions I do not even know how to ask.
Azizi’s fingers are warm when she cradles my face in her hands, her thumb tugging my lip out from between my gnawing teeth. Her eyes are gentle when she turns me to face her, understanding.
“It is hard, not knowing,” she tells me, brushing a strand of loose hair behind my ear, “but this means that not all is lost to time. I will find your answers, petal. There is an event being thrown in a few weeks time. My brother will be there, as well as many other older members of the court. Perhaps they will know more. Would that make you happy?”
Would it?
I want to know what happened to me, I want to know who I was before the ocean swallowed me up and spat me back out… and yet part of me is terrified of the answer. Terrified of learning the truth and not being able to unlearn it.
I think of the paintings hung up in Azizi’s gallery, hidden behind lock and key. I think of the journal Theodore carries with him everywhere he goes and the heart he has trapped inside it.
Is that what I wish to be? A bird locked away in her cage with no knowledge of the world outside? Safe and protected within the bars, yes, but unable to spread her wings and soar.
And oh, how I wish I could fly.