Chapter 4
Wild Rose
Between the Living and the Dead
The acerbic smell of antiseptic torrents my nose, as well as a metallic tang, with a hint of peppermint and lavender from the flowers I set up on the side table in a vase. They make the bleached scent less stout to breathe in, however, the gun-metal gray walls to match the insipidity of this place make a bilious feel rack up my nerves.
This place saps the life out of you, and when I walked in through its doors, it felt forlorn. It felt as if you were chained behind these walls, like you had no one but yourself to fend for. Yes, sure , the doctors, nurses and even the priests that walk the halls with either patterned scrubs, bibles or clipboards might have been around you , but they weren’t with you .
They do not get to familiarize themselves with your misery and torment, your feebleness, because unlike you, they get to walk out beyond those gates, they get to see the sun and stars. They get to live while you crumble in here .
On most days it’s usually quiet, but at times, pain-filled screeches and wails bleed into the room, and moments like those tend to drag my feet to the burnt coffee and pallid food-filled vending machines. It’s a distraction from staring at those fucking gray walls and hearing the clock ticking. Silence has never been more unendurable.
The Sanatorium is small, with its structure hidden behind a timberline of trees and forestry. Most might never know of its existence, including myself, had a nurse from the public hospital not told me about it. I remember the day so vividly, like a cliche chanted by stereotypes.
“Listen, there’s somewhere for her to go, a place where they will take care of her. Not many have heard of it, but my sister works there and I can get you the address. The doctor you want to talk to goes by the name Whitmore.”
Her eyes were filled with so much heartache for me.
I was desperate.
My carmine nails drag over the cold metal bed rail as my gaze swivels over her. Auburn hair, woven with gold and ruby lights unlike mine, spreads over the soft pillow her head rests on. I reach to feel her silky strands but quickly pull my hand back. She looks like a corpse, dead .
I was desperate.
All it takes is a moment for the devil’s work to flourish, and at times, it takes even seconds. My trail of misfortune took seven.
Every Sunday, I step into this place, and minutes turn to hours while I stare at her, while I wait. The first couple of days, all I did was cry until my eyes flamed scarlet and my face grew puffy. Until the wells in my eyes dried and my throat ached for air. But now I just stare and wait with splinters of my heart lodged in the pockets of my hands.
Her lifelessness is like a cheval glass to my soul, and all that’s left is dust.
“I visited Papa—” my nails dig into my palm, it distracts the heaviness that settles in my heart.
“—I removed the old flowers, and placed some roses,” my empty laugh fills the room. “I know how much you loved roses, he hated them though, said they got bad too quickly.” A ghost of a smile forms on my lips. I blink a couple of times to push back the memory that wants to claw its way out. A memory that stings and reminds me of what I no longer have.
I was desperate.
The ticking clock serves as a reminder of my time coming to an end, and so does the darkness that shadows outside through the window.
I used to tell her about my days, but now I settle on telling her about my visits to Papa’s tombstone. I mean, what else could I possibly tell her? That most days I cover up bruises or that fear has become a constant friend of mine? Or maybe that I can not run away because I cannot leave her. She probably does not hear me, but I can never bring myself to say any of it aloud.
I stand from the chair I have been nestling myself on since morning. Then I grab my bag from the side arm and kiss her forehead goodbye.
“ I was desperate, Mama , desperate to hide you from him, desperate to keep what little of you I still have, and I make no apologies for it,” I whisper, and I am met with the sounds of her breathing machine.
Another glance at the window leads me out of the Sanatorium .
The thought of going home lingers, an early night to reclaim the sleep I’ve lost, but my body rebels. It itches, pulses with a desperate need to escape the tension that has woven itself into my very bones and frayed my sanity. A tension that begs to be released. The rain, threatening to shatter the sky, does little to sway my resolve. Under the sepia glow of silver-black clouds, my legs carry me toward the graveyard I’ve grown to know, where I am slowly, unwillingly becoming less a stranger in my skin.
It’s erroneous to be here, to sneak in behind these gated burial grounds, to be a thief in the night with only a conquest to show my talent and not to steal. It’s the audience that speaks to me, covets me even, and it’s the audience I gladly allow to see me unveil. Lightning strikes send heaven’s light through the stormy clouds and my response to its fury is dancing to the roar of its drum. Who needs music, when the storm is my opera, and when the rain becomes my instrument.
I do not see what lies beyond these graveyards, for a wall of roses stands like a sentinel, concealing all. For all I know, this ancient land could be cursed, steeped in secrets darker than any I wish to unearth. Yet my defiance runs deeper than my curiosity, and I care little for what lies hidden. My only desire is to be swallowed by this place, to sink into its silence and allow it to consume me whole.
The air here is dripping with a kind of darkness, a heavy cloak I can wield at my discretion, a pen I control with ruthless mastery. It is the only thing left that I can govern, the only thing in which I can rule with absolute power. Ballet.
As I jump over the cemetery fence, the rain bursts forth from the sky, and I let it soak me completely. I let it drench me, embrace me with its wild freedom, for it feels like being unshackled in a world so bound. The cemetery, with its discolored graves, shattered tombstones, and ashen air, is a haunting beauté. A few ceramic figures encircle me, some cracked and broken, others new and meticulously placed, yet they too seem as weary as the land they inhabit.
It is not that the place lacks a caring hand, because the fresh flowers in the vases do not go unnoticed, nor the weeds that seem to have been plucked out since the first time I was here. The grounds are clean, but there is a prehistoric brush in the air that saunters on this land.
Everything is the way it is for a reason. It’s almost like a pattern of sorts, but instead of dwelling on it, my body and mind fall in sync. While the rain is my tempo, I start to sing Les Champs .
The stage beneath my feet is the only applause I crave. Oh so I thought. My body runs on fumes, but still I twirl and leap over stones and tombs, moving in a dance of rebellion. My steps are illicit, graceless, and exactly how I want them. My grand jeté is to a broken tune, my plié too shallow and my pirouette far from poised.
Aux Champs-élysées
It is frowned upon, mixing the rigid grace of classical with the raw freedom of modern ballet, yet I find an undeniable beauty in it. How the old traditions, with their poised elegance, can be woven into something new and untouchable. How the ribbon of these two worlds gives birth to a creation that transcends, becoming something unearthly, a dance of contradiction, fragile yet fierce.
I cannot say how long I’ve been caught in this fever, but I never wish for it to cease. Even as the blisters rise on my feet and my legs burn with each movement. The inferno coursing through me is too intoxicating, too consuming to halt. It feels like poison, bitter and dangerous, yet there is something in its viridian hue that stirs a jealousy, a hunger for more.
Aux Champs-élysée s
My chest heaves with each breath, droplets of rain clinging to my skin, sweat beading on my forehead. The rain, though it fades, leaves behind a sky of muted pearl silver and somber hues, an almost mournful canvas. And yet, the celestial orb above, glowing with fragile brilliance, is the only source of light in these haunting grounds, casting its shimmer upon me like a watching witness.
I stand in the center of the cemetery when my steps come to a halt, and that inferno turns glacial. An applause leeches itself into the air. I spin riotously, trying to follow the sound that dribbles from somewhere behind the statues. An umbra melds behind one of the ceramic stones and I have a feeling it’s the same person that watched me dance that other night. I can not see them , but I can feel them .
“I believe it’s quite admirable to see the face behind the admiration,” I voice.
“Are you adjuring to see me, darling? ” His voice, deep and gravelly, carries a trace of an Italian accent—like dark silk wrapped in mystery. How rude.
It’s a man
“If I were begging , as you say, perhaps I’d be on my knees,” I have resorted to speaking with strangers, as if my life were not already teetering on the brink of ruin. Time lingers between us, stretching in silence, and I am nearly convinced that he will remain mute forever, until, of course, his voice slices through the air once more.
“That may be arranged.” I can practically feel the disdain in his tone.
“Doubtful.”
“Certain,” he challenges, and a feeling of sorts washes over me.
“Please, enlighten me.”
The rain softens to delicate droplets, but my clothes cling painfully to my skin, the cold biting into me like an insistent force. It’s unbearable, especially under his unrelenting, watchful gaze. I can feel those eyes tracing every inch of me, a searing, torrid path that leaves my skin tingling with discomfort. Heavens, Odessa, I think to myself, not only are you speaking to him, but entertaining him too.
I hear the faint shuffle of movement, as though he’s stepping closer, inching out from the shadows and into the open.
“Do you wallow in being places you are not invited?”
His statement could have very well slapped me on the face. I was aware I was trespassing, but I assumed in the back of my mind that he was too. I mean, there was not a sign that said do not enter , but then again there was not one that said do enter .
“Have words fallen off your tongue?” He mocks.
Bastard.
“You would find glory in that, wouldn’t you?”
“Your admission to trespassing wouldn’t gladden me, however a sight of you beseeching, on your knees just might,” he sounds lethargic, like my presence stultifies him.
“A carnal bid you are making, is it?” I would not be interested in entwining our limbs, even if a bounty was put on my head. I did not like how he could see me, but I could not see him.
“It is schadenfreude.”
It is chess and I suck at chess. Papa always told me life was like a game . Those at the top were the masters. They controlled those at the bottom like wooden puppets. I just happen to be a piece he has been studying, weaving, and stalking, and that gives him the golden hand, whereas I have no hand in this game of bane .
“Your game is becoming rather fruitless, don’t you think?”
“And what game might that be?” Like I said, weaving me, like Pinocchio.
“You are always there, ever since that night, lurking, watching, taunting me. I feel you around me, stalking me, and you fail at it, dismally too.” I grit my teeth, hard from the chill.
Should I not be concerned, should I not be worried, should I not —I stopped asking and needing answers to questions I found hard to fathom. Maybe that makes me sick, in some twisted way, psychotic even, or perhaps the human brain works in wonderment. Maybe, just maybe, something about the man in front of me ignites a wildfire of rarity. After all, mama used to say I found oddity a marvel.
My parents said a lot.
Or maybe I’m just suicidal, and chasing death. How poetic.
"Your delirium is troubling," he declares, his voice cutting through the air, again , as if my very thoughts are disintegrating under his scrutiny. "I have neither concealed my presence nor stalked you, for you have revelled in the attention. And one never exposes his hand, his cards, unlike you ."
"I have shown you nothing," I retort, though my words falter, the heat of his gaze holding me hostage.
"Oh, but you have, Odessa, " he replies, his voice cold as winter's breath. "You have shown me everything I need to know."
He knows my name.
I am reckless, yes, but never like a child enticed by the false allure of candy. This game, his game, I want no part of, nor the foul rules that bind it. The courage I draped around myself melts away the moment he speaks my name, as though the very sound of it unravels me. I try to voice my refusal, to push back, but the words never escape, for he is already gone. His shadow slips away into the night, and instead of dwelling on the absence, I vault over the fence and turn my steps toward home.
Yet, even as I walk the desolate streets, the feeling clings to me like a wet plastic bag. It enshrouds around my thoughts and tightens in my chest—the strange, disquieting sensation that he watches still, his eyes lurking from some unseen corner, hidden in the shadows, waiting for me to turn. To find him, my dearest stalker.