Chapter 26 #2
My months in Renaud’s home had made me forget these details of my life.
I was shocked to remember how small these attic quarters were, how many girls he had stuffed up there, how few belongings we had, and how thin the blankets were.
And then, too, there were the spirits. Girls without faces, girls with broken limbs, girls mute and desolate.
How had I lived among them for so long like this?
They clung to the rafters and the corners, always in the peripheries.
I had pushed away the memory of them as soon as they weren’t around me.
Beneath me, the women fretted together, shivering despite the heat.
Dacia kept to herself, dressed only in a thin shift with her legs pulled up and her sewing in her lap.
She sat in a corner, her curly hair bound back under a loose white veil, and though she sat quietly I could tell she was focused.
Her gaze kept flicking to the younger girls as she worked, listening.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to fall into her arms. I was relieved to be near her and see her whole, but it also made my throat ache.
Unbidden, all the memories of her body, opened and softened to me, leapt to mind.
But I would never forget her eyes when she saw me revealed, the rejection I had both feared and known would come from the moment we met. I was nothing to her.
“We’ll go together, two by two,” Dacia said to Christine and the two young girls.
“Is that enough?” Christine asked.
“How will we stay together when we are with the men?” another girl said.
Dacia and Christine shared a look.
It was clear much had changed. The air was thick, and no one really talked, whispering tightly, and moving as if they were being watched.
Signs of distress were everywhere—limp hair, ragged dresses.
Food left uneaten and forgotten. Even Christine, who was so careful she’d look well fed in a famine, appeared pale and thin.
Had there been a sickness? Had another one gone missing?
I counted the girls. There was no one new, but two missing.
Odette and … now who? I wanted them to talk about it more.
I wanted to shake them all until they told me.
A sudden tug in my throat yanked my attention. Another followed right away. The cord. The invisible thread to my body. What was happening? I could feel the pull, the demand of it. I wanted to fight it. To stay. But I closed my eyes and allowed him to reel me back.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the floor of the tower in the blackened stone chateau hidden deep in the forest, back in my healthy body, with my shining black hair.
But the pain and fear of the girls had followed me into this new world I’d been living in.
I cried and lifted my arms toward Renaud.
With a flicker of surprise, he caught me to his chest and held me close.
“Ma petite chou,” he murmured, soothing me. He brushed back my hair and held my face in his bare hands, pulling me back to find my gaze and pin me under the intensity of his own. “What happened? Why your tears? You are here and safe.”
“But they aren’t!” I cried. “Something is wrong.”
“Did something happen to you?”
“No, but—”
He helped me up, pulling me tight to his chest and shushing me like a squalling child. “You need to rest in silence for a bit to recover your strength. Casting yourself apart from your body …” He paused as if thinking about what to say.
It caught me strangely and I looked up at him. “What?” I asked.
“It can be dangerous. To separate yourself like that. With me here, I could keep your body safe. Under control. But with someone lesser, or on your own, there is danger you might lose yourself.”
“The cord between me and my body,” I mused, remembering the tug. I sniffed and wiped my tears on the back of my hands. I felt torn between guilt and comfort, held so safely in his arms.
“I thought you would come back to me exhilarated,” he said. “I had … wanted to give you a gift.”
“Oh!” I reached for him, trying to find his eyes. “It was a beautiful gift. I have never felt that way before, that freedom. I just … I wanted to check on Dacia.”
“Dacia. The one you sent the letter to.”
“She is like a sister to me. Was.” I flinched. “Dacia is the kindest, most purehearted person.” I had never dreamed of marriage, but I’d dreamed of Dacia being married and being able to visit and work alongside each other at chickens and children rather than men.
He pulled away from me and I felt the coldness of his sudden distance. “Would you prefer to go back to her?”
I blanched. “No! Never. That’s not what I meant.”
“Yet I gave you ultimate freedom and what you chose to do was return immediately to the place where you were imprisoned.”
It wasn’t until he said those words—so precise—that I realized my mistake. “No!” I insisted, but it was too late. He pulled away as if I’d hurt him, frustration in every line in his body. Clasping his hands behind his back he turned for the stairs.