Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
It should not surprise me, really. I hadn’t even known my current name until Theodore spoke it into existence.
What hope would I have of remembering one from even further back?
There is nothing there to remember—no faces of the parents I must have had, no names of the people I must have known.
I cannot even recall the face of my so-called husband or the sound of my own voice.
What use is a name without the life lived with it to make it matter?
“Kolfina Everleigh de Klein is the only name I know,” I answer.
It is baffling at first, the ease with which that name flows from me.
I half expect my hand to hesitate, to twitch with unfamiliarity, yet the gentle loops of the letters feel almost as easy as breathing.
I write the name with such ease that I haven't realized I've finished until I am already handing the notebook to the gentleman across from me.
Kolfina Everleigh de Klein.
That is who I am. That is my name, written with an unknown lifetime of ease and intimacy behind it.
How many secrets could those letters hold?
How many memories are trapped in my garden, locked behind gates with that name etched into them?
How many behind my other name? The one so deeply buried that I had not even considered digging for it?
Azizi had offered once to reach out to the former owner of my chateau for answers.
It would have been easy enough. He was my husband afterall, surely he would know of my past. But the mere suggestion of writing to him brought an ocean of panic and fear to my throat.
It spilled over my lips and flooded the room until Azizi’s words were nothing but garbled sounds in my ears, and the only way to escape it was to let the wallpaper drag me back to the safety of its darkened groves.
I do not know how long I was lost in my gardens that time, but she did not offer again.
Lord Macabre frowns, scratching absentmindedly at his beard.
“That is unfortunate. The de Klein’s have no innate supernatural capabilities in their ancestry.
None that I am aware of at least. If this strange vision of yours was from your previous life, it would likely be something you were born with.
Or, just as likely, it is no ability at all.
There is a lot we don’t know about our kinds, especially those tied to Death.
He is a secretive entity, for good reason, I am sure. ”
He does not have to elaborate for me to understand what he means.
If not something from my past life, then it means I am simply mad. The idea does not distress me as much as I expect it to. All I know is madness at this point. What difference does his agreement with it make?
“At the risk of sounding rude, I must ask… Have you reached out to the widowed Lord de Klein at all? Surely he would have answers for you about your past? About what you are?”
“I do not wish to bother him by digging up old wounds he surely struggled to heal,” I write back, the words true in some ways and a lie in others.
Is the overwhelming rush of panic I feel when thinking of Lord de Klein due to my own insecurities and inadequacies?
Or is it a fear of something else entirely?
I do not know, and thinking about it only tempts the gardens to return, so I simply ignore the prodding urge in the back of my mind to give in.
“Hm, yes, I suppose I would be rather upset if someone told me my late wife had returned some twenty years later with no memory of our life together.”
Blood pools around my hand where it rests atop the gentleman’s book, sinking into the pages and staining them a vicious, mocking red. I brush my hand over it to wipe it away, but it only serves to stain my palms instead, sinking into the valleys between my fingers like the echo of an embrace.
“It is interesting that you see blood in my walls, however,” the gentleman continues. “While it is entirely possible to be a coincidence, it would be a rather curious one.”
I watch as he plucks open the cuffs of his sleeves and pushes them up just enough to reveal the insides of his wrists.
There, settled beneath the curve of his palms, are two thick brands.
The skin is puckered and red in a way that seems intentional, crossing over and around itself in a strange symbol I do not recognize.
They look fresh, but something about the way they settle in the skin makes me think otherwise.
“I come from a very old line of seiemaer—witches, I believe you would call us. More specifically, I come from a branch which focuses on mixing blood and seier. Where the Alilovi?s use blood to sustain life, we use it to control magic.” While he does not seem shy about his scars, he quickly fixes his cuffs once more and hides them away before continuing.
“I cannot speak to your home and why you see it the way you do, but it would be no great stretch to believe the blood you see here is more a visual representation of my magic than a mere hallucination.”
The suggestion eases something in me, like a small weight being lifted from my heavy chest. It is not an answer, per se, but it is something.
“But what does that mean?” I ask him. “I can see magic?”
The man tilts his head back and forth, as if unsure how to explain it.
“That is entirely possible. There are psychics and oracles who have been known to have similar abilities, though none I have met in my lifetime, and none who present like you’ve explained.
That does not discount the possibility, however, and there are plenty of other species that have sensitivities to magic.
I am sorry I cannot give you a more precise explanation. ”
But it is more than I have ever had before, for which I am grateful. Perhaps Azizi would know more, or her father, who she once claimed to have a great knowledge of the supernatural and occult.
“I had a vision once, a few months ago,” I pen, writing the words slowly, carefully. “I visited a dying woman in our village, and I sang for her as Death came. Do you know what this means?”
The man stared at my words for a long while, his brows pinched and his fingers stroking absentmindedly at his beard.
“There are many creatures who work for Death in our world, all of whom do so in different ways,” he says eventually.
“Reapers, who come to collect souls on Death’s behalf.
Bean sídhe whose screams warn that Death is coming.
Valravne who feast on the bodies of the dead, and Helhounds which protect spirits and graves.
I know of none specifically that sing for the dead, but that does not mean there are none.
I would be happy to do more research into it, if you’d like. ”
His words are a kindness, though they yield little hope. For every question I manage to answer, it seems as if dozens more crop up from the woodwork. When does it all end?
“You have been more than kind,” I write. “Allow me to repay you. You wished to know more about my condition?”
Pale eyes light up with renewed excitement as Lord Macabre leans forward with his elbows on the table.
“If you are comfortable speaking of it, I would very much like to know more. My magic specializes in life and death, but spirits like yourself, who are powerful enough to interact with the living world are incredibly rare to come by—”
There is a youthfulness that returns to the gentleman’s wrinkled face as our conversation continues on.
To my surprise, I find it easier to answer his rapid-fire questions than I expected.
He has the same eager curiosity that Theodore did upon first meeting me, and though he is clearly delighted in the topic at hand, he is also patient as I write my answers and explain what I can—little though there is.
The occasional flash of disappointment twitches at his lips if I do not know something, but he does not grow angry or upset, only moves on to the next inquiry after leaving a quick note above my response to reference for later.
I find myself enjoying his company immensely. Until Theodore saw me all those months ago, I hadn’t conversed with another person in decades. I hadn’t hoped to. So conversation still does not come easily to me.
Now here I am at an intimate gathering of like minds, passing notes back and forth for what seems like hours, without a hint of the apprehension I’d felt at Theodore’s festival or upon arriving tonight.
It is freeing, in a way. The ability to communicate again with ease. While Theodore and Azizi have grown exceptional at interpreting what I’m trying to say, it is so much more gratifying for someone to fully understand, to respond back without the need for clarification or guessing.
With Azizi across the room with her brother, and Theodore’s laughter carrying in from the room next door, I feel like a bird finally released from her cage. No, not just her cage, but the room as well.
Like a window has been left open for me to fly out of, allowing the echo of my song to carry along the wind beside me.