Chapter 25
Dante
SHE IS OMbrA WHEN THE WORLD BECOMES OBSCURE. When my eyes witness her in flesh, but my soul remembers the years when she was the shadow that haunted the corridors of my tormented mind only in memory. My last dream in a world that has forsaken hope like an incurable disease.
Mia cara, when her soulful gray irises, harboring silent storms, meet mine, making me want to melt her archaic essence into my skin. To adore her from the echo of her dried rose fragrance clinging to my coat, down to the arch of her ankle as she falls asleep covered in Egyptian silk sheets.
Tesoro, when I look at the translucent veins on her wrist and see what generations of my bloodline have searched for in countless museums displays and treasure chests – the greatest jewel that divinity could have ever created and everything I ever wanted, laid out like a vision in our bed. Tesorina, when I want her like the rarest pearl in my mouth, so I can protect her from the little I cannot see or control; that I may let her rest in me, so that no one and nothing can touch her.
Seductricce, because I am under her spell without her even trying. My skin will always seek the mark of her sharp nails; to have her teeth sink into the space between my shoulder and my neck, to feel her nipples following a sinful path from my feet to my lips, for her hair to rest on my stomach like a curtain made of silk while I make a home out of her mouth.
Vita mia, when I hold her to my chest and forget for those revered seconds that once, not long ago, I wanted to drown myself in misery for what seemed like an endless winter until I finally found her. That I can have a slice of heaven because she unlocked that door for me ever since we recognized our rawest selves in each other and didn't close our eyes in fear.
Amore, when the world evaporates in those secret moments when our eyes lock. It is then that something of a mystical quality unfolds and I can see her soul clearly as if through a mirror; it speaks only of rest, of the fact that, at last, the security she has never known is slowly settling into her being.
Ophelia, when she adopts that providential, faraway look, before traveling into a world of her own – in all probability drinking her tea with the dead and gathering petals in their valley like sacred anecdotes whose meanings are known only to her.
Never could there be a more haunting vision than the one in which she sips her coffee and suddenly searches for me for a split second.
And it brings me to my knees – the subtle realization in her eyes the second she returns, that she is safe and no longer alone in her travels. That I will always wait for her to come back to me.
She is now sleeping. Unaware that my ring rests on her finger.
It's been ninety-three days since I found her and felt her skin for the first time. But over a decade in which I've built ties with fate, so this ruby, now sitting on her ring finger, would surround her delicate bone.
However, it is never too late. Not for us.
I would have waited a lifetime and countless others only for the feeling of her head resting on my arm as she does on this gloomy morning. Our favorite kind.
The windows of the balcony door rattle hopelessly against the harsh wind of the storm outside, the skeletal branches of the old oak tree near it creating thick shadows in the room.
It's loud yet quiet. Ideal.
I sigh, content and somewhat at peace for what seems like the first time in ages as I descend down the column of her neck and pull her back closer to my chest. I let my hand explore the soft skin of her stomach, drawing infinities across her navel.
"Dante," she sighs sleepily my name with unbridled pleasure and how I love to hear it slip from her mouth. The things it does to me.
I palm her left breast and knead it slowly, my hips pushing against her heat as I tease her entrance until her moans coat the walls.
Needing her closer, always closer than our earthly bodies allow has become a necessity impossible to contain. But I take comfort in knowing that we will find each other time and time again. That one day we will be one and the same, as I know in my heart it was written since the dawn of time.
"How did my life sleep?" I murmur in her ear as I gently move my arm that she loves to use as a pillow while my fingers wander over the pendant coated in my blood; along her ribs, the smooth slope of her stomach and finally between her quivering legs.
"There was constant darkness. God, your fingers…" she moans arching her back as I enter her with excruciating slowness.
"They don’t hold a candle to yours," I say huskily in her ear, letting my nose get lost in her endless waves, feeling legless myself as I inhale her alluring scent that smells of the afterlife.
"What?" she asks breathlessly, her nails grazing my thigh and resting on my hip, tracing the bone.
"One glance and you will understand," I say, pausing and allowing her a second to digest my words.
"Come back," she cries as she teeters on the edge of the precipice in acute need, blindly covering my hand still palming her breast.
"Oh, I will, cara mia. But for now, I think you'll want to see what I see," I say, smiling into her hair. Anticipating.
"What...my fingers?" she asks in confusion, her breathing abruptly stopping the next second.
Something transcendental unfolds between us as she slowly turns her divine body into my arms and her eyes, glistening with awe, meet mine. Lost in them, I remember and forget everything in detail – while also forgiving what kept us so close and yet so far away.
Through her, my shadow, I feel that I have been baptized, that I have found a religion, an altar. And I am whole.
"Yes," she murmurs against my lips. "Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes!" she professes over my mouth with the force of all the years we have suffered apart, with an intensity under which I want to rest my soul for all the lives to come with her by my side.
Delirious with pure joy, she wraps her arms around my neck, and for a split second, I see and experience this very moment a thousand times over. I look at my Ophelia, the one in this lifetime, but my mind's eye sees us in different bodies; hearing the same words spoken in different voices, but with the same boundless love confessed in every single syllable. It all seems like eons ago, but somehow it tastes like seconds. We've been here before. And we will again. What a relief to know, to have the certainty…
God, it’s good to finally rest.
I hold her close to me with all my longing, with all the love that cannot be contained in words and with every drop of my devotion, knowing that she feels it all without me having to say a word.
Beyond grateful, I lower my lips and whisper a simple "I love you" in a secret vow. And no truer words have ever been spoken in the whole of my existence – one dedicated to her only.
"Pour it all into me," and I do, now and for the rest of my days.
* * *
I've always had a certain affinity for the little things, the ones that everyone overlooks or considers redundant. Such as picking the lint off her clothes, rubbing her feet when she's so lost in her world that she forgets to move, making her coffee at three in the morning just because she wants to stay awake and talk the night away. I live for those little moments that are just ours.
I smile tiredly, my slowly healing heart growing fonder by the second at the sound of her elegant walk across the hardwood floor as I pour coffee into two cups.
When I turn around, however, she's not sitting at the table, but standing under the kitchen archway – white as a chlorine-soaked sheet, gazing in my vicinity with both unwavering dread and fascination.
"Ophelia?" I ask, slightly taken aback by the glazed look in her eyes, as I place the cups on the table.
"Dante?" she asks back, looking over my shoulder as if seeing right through me.
"What's wrong, Ombra? What are you seeing?" I ask, without turning around, given that I don't care if an inferno now burns a hole in the wall if she's not alright.
"I...God," she cries, raising her hand to her mouth with eyes misting with unshed tears. What on earth could possibly trigger this kind of reaction?
My crescent panic takes me to her, leaving me feeling completely overwhelmed as she grabs my shirt and peers in the immediate vicinity, shaking her head.
"Dante, I think you need to take a seat," she says quietly, her eyes growing clearer with each word, as if gradually taking in what she's just seen.
"Only if you’re coming with me," I say into her hair, as my cold hands stroke her back, trying to comfort her in the face of something I can't see.
Her pale eyes beckon me to follow her as she makes her way to the table, her troubled gaze remaining unblinking as she pulls out a cigarette and lights it with trembling fingers.
"Tell me what happened," I'm not beyond pleading, the foreign look in her eyes making me feel uncertain of what or who I should protect her from. I pull out a chair and slowly ease her onto it before I take her hands in mine and I kneel down so that I can look into her eyes properly.
"Dante, my love, your mother is here," she says, but I only hear white noise.
My mother? But it’s impossible, she cannot be…
"How?" I ask while in a state I can't even begin to describe.
"She's been here ever since the coffee started brewing," Ombra says, her eyes dancing between me and…my mother that might be watching us from my right. Could it be?
"I don't know what to say, I..."
"She loves you very much," my ombra whispers, stroking my cheek and smiling with a sadness that pierces the core of everything that has ever hurt me.
"Tell me what you see," I say, closing my eyes tightly, unable to grasp the magnitude of what is happening.
"You have nothing to fear. She's so beautiful – your mirrored image," Ombra says, absentmindedly running her thumb over my lips, back and forth, back and forth...
"Is she hurt?" I ask with dread, remembering the last time I saw her. The blood, the despair, the irrepressible sorrow...
"She seems more alive than I am," she says, laughing softly. The sound alone makes me open my eyes, unable to contain my urge to see her serenity, even though all I want to do is...I don't know – for the first time in years I'm at a loss.
What should one do when given a second chance to reconnect with someone they thought was gone forever? Where do they plant that bitter acceptance and what do they replace it with?
"Do you want to talk to her?" she asks, brushing her hand over my curls, her eyes glowing.
"How?" I ask with overwhelm, grabbing her wrists in a desperate effort to anchor both myself and her.
"In this type of scenario, I usually play the role of an intermediary. Essentially bridging the gap between worlds, but in our case I'll make an exception," she says, her eyes carrying a silent conversation with...with my mother.
"What do you mean?" I ask as I take a seat in front of my beloved future wife, numb fingers running over her knuckles while I try to soothe the unsettling feeling in my bones.
"I will let her take over," she says with quiet conviction, meeting my eyes with an unshakable certainty.
"What?" I ask in disbelief, hoping that what my ears have just heard is a simple misunderstanding.
"Spiritual possession. I will give her my body and implicitly my voice for a short period of time," she says softly," I've done it before, and with a certain kind of spirits I am confident that I will be unharmed in the process. It's a safe practice for the both of us."
"No!" I say vehemently, standing up. I refuse to put her under any kind of danger, especially the sort where I am powerless to protect her from.
"Dante, this is a rare opportunity. Time is already running out, and she's making a great effort to be here. By finding asylum between worlds through my body, you two will have more time together," she says, restless herself.
"How do I get you back if something happens?" I ask, biting the inside of my cheek and crossing my arms. I want to talk to my mother desperately but not at the cost of putting the woman I love in danger.
"Place the pendant on my forehead. I have sealed on it sacred sigils that will always bring me back, under any circumstances, and instantly remove whoever has taken possession of my body. If it takes me too long, just shake me or put something cold under my feet so my body will react. But don’t worry, there will be no need for an intervention," she says, beckoning me over to her. Now she's Ophelia, all business with the unseen, trading roses with the dead.
"You don’t have to do it; we can take the safer route…" I say, but I see the sheer resolve in her eyes. With reluctance, I come to terms with it as I sit down and face the faceless ; the other side of the world.
"Trust in me, everything I do is for you," she says before she mouths her love for me and closes her eyes.
A minute or five pass by as the clock above the archway ticks its arms in a slow, permissive motion. At some point, like a whistling kettle, it all becomes too much, so I take the abandoned cigarette and put it in my mouth.
"Dante...my boy," says Ombra.
No, it's a graver voice I've never heard her use before along with an accent that brings me to my knees. The cigarette falls from my fingers as I look up and see my Ophelia. I witness the same body, but not the same gaze. No, it's not her looking at me, but my…
"Mamma?" I ask in disbelief, when I see the way she looks at me with such maternal warmth, with a sadness that could shatter the earth and split me in two. Surreal.
"I am so happy for you Danni, you suffered for so long," she says, tears flowing in rivers on a face that is both so intimate to my eyes yet foreign in this otherworldly moment.
"Mom, I…I miss you so much," I whisper, raising my hand to my mouth, burning tears streaming down the side of my face as despair for her last moments grips me with both hands.
"I know, but we'll be together again sometime in the future. You stayed here for a reason," she says, her cold fingers, encasing my shaking hand and feeling vastly different from my Ophelia's touch.
In an instant I remember all the times she'd scooped me up when I'd fallen out of the cherry trees in the garden, when she'd run her hand through my hair when I was too lost in a book to hear her call me to dinner, when I was astray among thoughts that now no longer matter.
"What they did, mamma…there are no words," I say shakily, sinking my head in my hands, unable to voice the torment of what has been ever since.
"To us it doesn’t matter anymore, but I imagine it still affects you. Have you finally found peace?" she asks, placing her hand on my shoulder and squeezing in the same way she did every time I was upset and kept to myself.
"Yes, Ophelia saved me. I don't know where I would be if she hadn't..." the unsaid words themselves strangle me, being unable to express even the possibility that she might not have existed in my life.
"What you two have is a slice of heaven. The rest is unimportant, a passing thought in a desert of ever-changing winds," she says, lifting my chin. "Live a beautiful life, cuoricino. Like I told you so many times before, la dolce vita is not found in a place or final destination, but in two pairs of eyes gazing lovingly at each other. And you found yours in spite of all odds," she says, smiling at me knowingly.
"Arya?" I ask, struggling to ignore the image of her head resting on my mother’s knees. Devoid of life.
"She is at peace," my mother says, shaking her head as if remembering something.
"What about you?" I ask, finding it hard to grasp the notion that they are so far removed from the tragedy that has unfolded down here and in my soul over the years.
"We are and now you have vivid proof. Maybe this will help you sleep better at night," she says, squeezing my hand reassuringly.
"Have you been here for all this time?"
"Lately, yes. At first it was a struggle to get back, but if a mother feels her baby needs her, nothing can keep her away," she says, heavy as a feather; tilting her head in her characteristic way, as she used to do when she admired us.
It's bizarre how at this moment, though she's inhabiting her body, she looks nothing like the woman I would give my life for in a heartbeat, but like the one who gave birth to me – whom I mourned every second since she took her last breath.
This surreal metamorphosis is unfolding before my eyes, and I am rendered mute with gratitude as I witness it.
"My boy, with an undying heart," she says with adoration in her eyes, which gradually change color the more I look at them. Something is shifting and my panic is growing by the second.
"Aren't you going to ask about him?"
"He's not worth mentioning," I say, looking at the floor.
"You should know he’s deeply sorry. He regretted it long before it happened, but sometimes egos can blind the lost yet good-hearted. Forgiveness is key if you truly want to move forward," she says, peering into the distance.
"I'd say no, but if that's your wish, I'll try to consider it," I shake my head with years of regret, unwilling to waste the few seconds I have left with her talking about the one who destroyed and betrayed us for nothing.
"Someday," she says faintly, her voice becoming lighter, more like my Ophelia's. "I have to go," she continues weakly.
"Mom?" I ask with tears coating my mouth.
"Remember one thing," she says on a long breath as if aging five years with every passing second.
"What?" I ask, grabbing her hand and watching as Ophelia's face morphs into a myriad of emotions, twisted features contorting as mask after mask struggles to take hold of my beloved trapped underneath. No.
"No matter what…love," she breathes out before I take the necklace and frantically press it to my Ombra's forehead.
A terrifying string of seconds pass before she seems to emerge as if from underwater, gasping for air and grabbing my arm before her haunted eyes find mine.
There has never been another more beautiful.
Misaligned, she clings to me, crawling with a desperate spirit to her hiding place and squeezing me in a soul-stirring embrace as she settles into my lap.
"Don't you ever do that to me again," I say into her hair before taking her face in my hands and drinking her in, rememorizing every detail that makes her the center of my existence beyond flesh.
"How was it?" she asks breathlessly in her velvety voice, which is both gentle and deep in essence.
"It was otherworldly, and I'm so grateful for the gift of this experience, but not seeing you while looking into your eyes is not something I ever want to repeat again."
"So, no further possessions for me?" she asks with sleep starved eyes.
"Oh, I am dying to possess you every night and day for the rest of our lives," I say, before catching her lips in mine with unquenchable thirst – forever bound in the midst of her silken web.
cuoricino, it . n. (endearment) little heart
* * *
Altered, in the most decadent and profound way, I raise her higher to my chest as we silently watch the misty sunrise from the terrace. The barren hillsides have never seemed so peaceful, this heavy to contain. I don't think I've looked at them in the same way since that day.
"Beautiful, isn't it? To live yet through another sunrise," my Ombra says from under my chin, sipping her wine as she nestles further into my neck.
"The beauty you see exists only because it reflects you," I say, stroking the side of her face and wrapping her tighter in the blanket.
"Dante?" she asks, lifting her head and meeting my eyes.
"Yes, mia cara?" I ask, touching our foreheads and experiencing the miracle of her, of us in flesh and spirit.
"I fear a lifetime won’t be enough," she breathes, the air between us tasting both holy and sinful.
"It certainly won't be enough, but do you want to know a secret?"
"Tell me," she says over my lips, living within me.
I look at her and find immortality, love, the meaning of it all before I whisper: "Together we will live forever."