Epilogue
Kolfina
“Just a little bit farther, we’re almost there. Two more steps down, there you go.”
Theodore’s fingers are cold where they rest over my eyes, but his body is warm at my back and his grip on my elbow is sturdy as he leads me down the stairs towards my surprise.
I am no fool as to where we are going. I have wandered these halls far longer than either of my partners, and I know them better than I know myself.
Sometimes, I even think the chateau is a part of me now—or rather, that I am part of the chateau.
I can feel it when the towers sway in the wind, as if I am the one swaying in time with nature’s breath.
I can feel it when the floorboards creak and bow underfoot, constantly aware of where my partners are in the house.
So I know we are headed to Azizi’s studio where she awaits us. A room I’ve since been banned from for nearly a month now with no explanation as to why. Of course, I have my suspicions, but I am loathe to ruin their fun when Azizi and Theodore have been so terribly excited.
The door creaks when it opens—I feel the vibration of it in my chest, the twist on the hinges in my joints—and I reach out my hands to make sure I don’t walk into whatever mess Azizi has littered the room with since my banishment.
Instead of a pile of discarded canvases or a toppled easel in my path, I find two hands that grasp at mine, pulling me into a kiss that melts my heart like candle wax.
It is still a shock to me, being able to feel them like this.
So long I have lived in a state of half-existence, unable to feel the carpet between my toes, unable to enjoy the heat of my lover’s touch or taste the sweetness of their kisses.
I had grown content with standing just outside of them, unable to love and be loved in the way they expressed with each other.
But ever since that night with Walden, I have been… different.
Babbo Alilovi? says it has something to do with my connection to Death and the gift the ocean gave me. He says I am strong, powerful, and that my unbending will to experience life has mended a connection that once was severed.
There are days still where I fade back into that half-life.
Days where Theodore’s touch falls right through me and Azizi’s eyes glaze over me as if I am not there at all.
There are moments when I cannot remember how much time has passed, moments where one of my lovers will find me standing in the hallway staring at the wallpaper as if once again lost within its winding vines.
But it is easier now to find my way back home.
I have found my anchors, my hearts as the woman in my visions once called them.
I know now where I belong, and while I struggle sometimes to stay within their world, I know that I am loved either way.
Whether they can feel me or not, I know that their hands will always be there to keep my heart warm and safe.
I know that I am wanted, and that is worth a few bouts of madness.
Finally, Azizi pulls away, a soft chuckle gracing my ears when I try to follow her lips for another kiss. “Hello, petal,” she whispers, her fingertips brushing over my cheek, just below where Theodore’s hands cover my eyes. “Are you ready for your surprise?”
I nod eagerly, allowing them both to pull me further in and maneuver me as they wish.
When I am suitably confused as to which direction I am facing, Theodore’s hands disappear and Azizi mutters a quiet, “Open your eyes, sweetling.”
It is, as I expected, a painting. But oh, it is so much more than that, as well.
I do not recognize it at first, the original that once sat in its place seeming eons ago, but then it comes to me. A messy desk covered in charcoal sketches. A half-finished canvas with a face smudged in frustration.
It is the portrait Azizi was working on when she first moved into my home all those months ago. The muse she chased for so long and never seemed to catch. Only now, it is finally finished.
The woman in the painting takes up nearly the entire canvas.
The neckline of her gown is draped in a way that shows off the sharp cliffs of her collarbones and the valley of her breasts, my pendant resting in the center of her chest. Her golden hair is pinned up at her nape, with soft curls framing her face and shoulders like little rays of sunlight, and there are small freckles of green and gold within the brown of her eyes.
Just like her sketched twin, the painted woman’s throat and chest have been torn open wide, gore and viscera spilling from the wounds and staining the front of her gown, but that is where the similarities end.
That is where the portrait of a stranger becomes a portrait of me.
Because it is not just blood and muscle coming from the wounds, it is a garden. My garden.
Bloodstained peonies and daisies crowd the space between her bones, forget-me-nots growing from the muscle and spilling petals across the bottom of the canvas.
Dirt clumps in the creases of her lips and is packed into the divots of her collarbones.
Vines rise and fall like mountain ranges between each bulb and stem.
The flowers follow the fissure of her wound, from the top of her throat down to the torn opening of her chest. And there, resting in a vibrant bouquet of carnations and lilies, is a crimson heart wrapped in thorny vines, bleeding gold where the thorns have pierced the ventricles.
My breath hitches in my throat as I stare at her. At me.
I wondered once what it might be like to be painted by Azizi, wondered what she might see if she looked at me.
I worried then that she would see nothing but my wallpaper, nothing but the rot that ate away whatever was left of me beneath my skin.
And she has, but not in the way that I expected.
No, she has not painted my garden as something ugly and festering inside me, she has painted it as something living.
Something that grows from me, that is a part of me—beautiful, even in its bloody decay.
I thought back then that Azizi Darling painted death, but as I press my fingers to the dried paint of my ichor-stained heart, I know it is not death that Azizi paints. It is life.
And as I turn to kiss them both—one, a monster who brings the dead back to life with nothing but oils on canvas, and the other, a beast who stands protector at the edge of our home and hearts—I know now that this is where I belong.
As I push Azizi back against her desk and lift her skirts above her knees, feeling Theodore slot in behind me, his hands guiding me and his breath hot on my neck, I know that I am alive again.
I grasp at that life with both hands, filling myself with every gasp and cry I pull from Azizi’s lips, every grunt and groan from Theodore’s. I sew their touches into my skin, brand their whispered praises into my ribs.
And when I find myself toppling over another cliff, this one built from ecstasy and devotion, I know that I am not alone.
I know I will never be alone again.
There was once a woman in my home, and I did not know her name.
She wandered my halls with feet that did not touch the floors and a voice that was more songful wail than anything akin to words.
When she stood before the mirrors, she wore my face as if it were her own, and she wept for things she could not remember.
There was a tear in her chest that festered and ached.
A wound she thought could not be healed.
She would trail her fingers across the floral wallpaper and ask questions she did not know how to voice. Afraid that one day the walls would open up and swallow her whole. Afraid that one day the peonies and daisies would drive her mad.
Late at night she would dig her toes into the dirt and grime of the rug, desperate to leave some epigraph to show that she was there, that she was real, but come morning there was nothing left but the mites and dust.
I think perhaps she was right all along. One day the wallpaper would swallow her whole; one day it would drive her mad.
And then the next, she would claw through the vines and dirt, and she would pry the walls open with her bare hands, until she was no longer a part of the garden, but the garden was a part of her.
There is a woman in my home, and her name is Kolfina Everleigh Daillant.
Her voice is still an empty song, and sometimes the wallpaper still threatens to devour her mind, but when the sun rises in the morning and shines through the open window, she looks down and sees the imprint of her toes on the hallway rug.