Chapter Thirty #2
Still, I swallow the flower bulb lodged in my throat and offer him a smile and a nod. I press my hand to my chest and take an exaggerated breath before pointing to the door leading out to the hallway.
Jonas follows my finger and hums. “Ah, yes, I suppose that was a bit overwhelming, wasn’t it?
” The man takes my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles, that charming smile back on his lips, though this time it is laced with fond understanding.
“You have honored me with your accompaniment, but I would be happy to continue on by myself if you’d like to get some air. ”
Grateful for the escape, I press a kiss to his cheek in thanks and allow him to help me up from the bench.
“Esteemed guests,” Jonas says as we stand before the gathered crowd, “our Lady Kolfina on the pianoforte.”
I offer the room a bow as the applause begins again, heat rising to my cheeks and ears at the onslaught of attention, short as it may be.
“You’ve not heard the last from me, however,” the gentleman continues with a sly grin. “As my Zagreus will tell you, it’s quite impossible to pry me away from the keys once I’ve found my way to them. Allow me to regale you with a composition of my own: Fa’ Che ti Brami.”
“Are you alright, petal?” Azizi asks when I meet them in the crowd, her hand already reaching for mine as if to reassure me that they are both still here. I do not hesitate to take it, using my other hand to repeat the gesture I’d given to Jonas a moment ago.
Theodore glances at the door with a worried frown. “Would you like us to come with you?”
But I only shake my head, pointing towards the hallway again and then to my ear. “I will stay close. I want to listen.”
“Go on then, dear,” Azizi says. “But do not stray far. I believe dinner will be served soon.”
The hallway is much quieter when I slip through the crack in the door.
Most, if not all, of the evenings guests have gathered in the parlor and adjoined smoking room, leaving the halls and foyer all but void of life.
I can still hear the gentle rumble as conversation begins to pick up once more, accompanied by Jonas on the piano, but it is a distant sort of noise.
Shut away enough for me to take a few breaths that I do not need.
I do not know why my chest feels so tight, nor why my fingers still buzz with the vibrations of the pianoforte. Was I always such a nervous thing? Did I play in front of crowds when I was alive, only to hide myself away afterwards like a frightened doe?
Music is the one thing I still know, the one thing I remember with such surety. So why then do I feel moments away from falling apart? Why do my hands shake as I begin to wander through Lord Macabre’s bloodstained halls?
Perhaps this is what Azizi feels when displaying her work.
Not the glowing passion that Jonas had, but the trembling anxiety that comes after a performance.
The flood of questions asking if it was good enough, if I missed a note or hit the wrong key.
The desperate feeling of doing something wrong that festers just beneath the skin.
Just as I’ve decided to find my way back to the parlor in search of Azizi and Theodore, sure they could help with the strange fullness fluttering around inside me, I turn a corner into the foyer and smack right into a suit-clad chest.
“Goodness,” the gentleman says, his hands grasping at my elbows to keep me from toppling over. “My apologies, madame, I fear I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
I want to assure him it is alright, but as soon as I glance up at the man’s face, something in me freezes, my imaginary heartbeat rising to a frantic crescendo inside my chest.
The stranger is a handsome one, with dark hair pushed artfully away from his face and a freshly shaved chin that shows off the sharp cut of his jaw.
He is not quite as old as Lord Macabre, but there are the faintest hints of wrinkles framing his light eyes and a few strands of silver peeking through his hair.
He is familiar to me in the way a dream is familiar. Like I know I have seen him before, but the memory of his face is blurred from the ocean’s spray and the sound of his voice muffled behind the roaring of the sea.
“Are you quite alright, madame? You look rather flushed.”
I take another unnecessary breath and step away, offering the man a polite bow in apology.
Curiosity paints across his face as I straighten back up, pinching at his eyebrows and tilting his head just so.
Unsure how to communicate with someone who does not already know of my affliction, I press my fingers to my throat and shake my head, hoping he does not comment on the way my hands shake.
He purses his lips for a moment, then realization settles into the wrinkles around his eyes and he nods.
“Ah, you are mute, is that correct?” I nod, and the man returns it, tucking his hands behind his back politely.
“I see. Well, I do hope I didn’t harm you in any way.
I am quite late, unfortunately, so I was in a bit of a hurry.
Still, that is no excuse for my ill manners. I must beg your forgiveness.”
Despite the strange emotions clogging my pores like sea foam, I wave my hands at him as if to say “no need.” The action seems to draw his attention downwards, his eyes locking onto my throat before narrowing slightly.
“Pardon my rudeness, madame, but I must ask. Where on Earth did you get that lovely necklace?”
The question surprises me, and I reach up to press my fingers against the pendant on my chest. No one had mentioned the piece tonight, other than the occasional compliment to its design, and a part of me had completely forgotten I was wearing it at all.
I do not know how to tell him the truth, but the man continues on before I’ve the chance to try, regardless. “Or rather, where did you get that pendant? I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before.”
Unsure of what else to do, I gesture to the small moth-shaped pin holding his cravat in place, then back to my necklace.
Surely he must know the event he is attending and the requirement of those in attendance.
Is it such a surprise that I have a crest of my own to wear?
Is there something about me that suggests I do not belong?
“Hm? Oh yes, I suppose that could be why,” the man mutters, sounding unconvinced as he reaches up to finger his own crest. “It just looks so familiar. I’m sorry, I’m being rude again, aren’t I? And you don’t even know my name. Lord Walden de Klein, at your service, madame.”
The man bows again, one hand crossed over his chest and a smile on his face that does not look real. He does not look real, all fuzzy around the edges. As if I am looking at him through a layer of moving water.
The piano in the parlor creaks and groans in the distance, the strings snapping one by one. Even out here in the foyer, I can feel them slice through my borrowed skin like butter, blood rising to the surface and staining my dress where my hands have clenched at the fabric.
A great, gaping wound rips open in one of the nearby walls, a sanguine river pouring out of it, twisting and curling in a mockery of the flowers on my wallpaper.
An ocean of red seeps from the floorboards and floods up to my ankles, then my knees, then my hips. The false vines reach for me, swimming through the darkness to latch onto my wrists, pulling and dragging until I am fighting to keep my head above the water.
“Those ill manners of mine,” the man chuckles, smiling with a mouthful of rotting flowers, “they’re sure to get me into trouble one day, aren’t they?
The laugh of society, I am. I even forgot to reply to Lord Macabre’s generous invitation tonight, and yet here I am, hoping he will not mind my sudden arrival. ”
Lord Walden de Klein.
That name. He’d given it so easily, offered it to me like a gift. Like I should hear it and thank him for bestowing it upon me.
Does he know? Does he look at me and see the decayed thing hidden behind my borrowed face? Does he recognize the shake of my hands and the trembling of my breaths?
Why does that thought distress me so? The man across from me is a stranger in the same way the woman in my reflection is a stranger.
I do not know the shape of him. I do not know the sound of his heartbeat or the touch of his lips.
He is nothing but the echo of a memory, so why then do the vines dig in tighter when I look at him?
If he is in fact the current Lord de Klein, then he is… was my husband, right? That's what Theodore said.
"May I carry you across the threshold, Lady de Klein?"
Did he love me? Did I love him? Did we mourn each other as lovers do in the stories? Desperately and with all our beings?
I want to remember. Why can't I remember?
I imagine the shape of his hands in mine, but they feel like seaweed slipping between my fingers.
I imagine the sound of his laughter, and it echoes like screams on the side of a cliff.
I imagine his eyes meeting mine from across a crowded room, and they are filled with hellfire.
"I will not let you take this from me."
"Madame? Are you sure you’re alright?" the man's voice interrupts the dull chanting that floods my mind. He presses the back of his hand to my forehead, and I wonder if he can feel the vines writhing beneath my skin, if he can see the sand spilling from my eyes with every blink. “Goodness, you’re downright frigid. At least let me take you to the fire to warm you up. It’s the least I can do, surely.”
I do not know what's happening. I do not know what's wrong, but I feel as if I'm drowning all over again. Please don't let me sink. Please, please, please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Forgive me. I can't breathe.
"What's going on here?"
I recognize the shape of Theodore's hand on my elbow, the sound of his voice at my ear. I recognize the scent of Azizi's perfume as she joins him and the gentle warmth of her skin.
“Kolfina? Dearheart, are you alright?”
Why can I recognize all those things, and yet I cannot recognize myself?
My head is barely above water. The weeds grasp at my ankles and pull.
I take a final breath.
And I sink.