40. December 5, 1916 Barnbow, England #3
Beatrix’s blood runs cold. London is going to burn, again. Will it rise this time? She’s too afraid to ask. “Then how can you expect me to leave?”
Oliver stands abruptly, paces the length of the room. He runs a hand through his hair, then turns to her, his eyes pleading. “I am trying to protect you.”
“You don’t have to protect me, Oliver. I survived a hundred years all on my own before I ever met you.” She doesn’t need him.
“But this is different—”
She doesn’t let him finish. “It’s my life.”
“Please,” Oliver says. “I just want to know you’ll be safe.”
Safe, while London burns. Safe, while everyone else lives and fights and dies for her home. Safe, because he loves her. The thought sends an icy flood through her veins. It pools in her chest, threatens to drown her.
Oliver sinks down onto the bed next to her. “Even you can’t survive a bomb.”
Beatrix isn’t so sure. “Why not? I survived the plague. Well, not exactly. I caught the plague. I died from it. I came back.”
Oliver stares at her, his face pale, eyes wide with horror. Good.
“I starved to death begging on the streets of London, until I learned how to steal. Came close to freezing enough times that I sold myself to any man with a warm bed. Froze to death on a night I couldn’t bear to do it again.”
“Bea…”
Tears prick behind her eyes. She keeps going.
“I jumped into the Thames in the middle of winter. Leaped right off the center of London Bridge. I went through the ice. I thought if I froze and drowned, I could escape. But I didn’t.
I drowned. I froze. I lived. I was stuck beneath the ice.
I lost count of how many times I died that night. ”
Oliver shudders. He looks like he might be sick. Maybe he’s beginning to understand.
“The bombs won’t kill me, Oliver. Nothing will.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“Then maybe I should stay,” she snaps. “I haven’t tried being blown to bits.”
“That’s not funny,” Oliver says.
“I’m not joking,” Beatrix replies. “It’s only the being put back together that frightens me.”
“Is that what you were doing in Great Yarmouth?” Oliver asks, more accusation than question.
Beatrix laughs, but it’s a biting thing. “No one knew they were going to bomb Great Yarmouth except for you.”
He narrows his eyes at her. “What about the Winfield house?”
She straightens and the bed shifts beneath her. “I thought I might learn something about ending faerie curses,” she admits. “I didn’t find anything.”
“But what if you had?”
“I don’t know,” Beatrix says. She waves her hand dismissively, as if she can wave the question away.
Oliver won’t let it go. “That’s not an answer.”
What would she have done if she’d found a way to end her curse hidden in the professor’s books? Would she have left Oliver to find nothing but her empty room when he came calling? Or is whatever they have enough to make her stay? That’s what he’s asking. Is he worth living for?
“It’s my answer,” she says. Because she doesn’t know.
Oliver scowls.
“You have no right to be angry with me.” Beatrix bristles. “Not when you’re—” She stops herself before she says something unforgivable.
“Not when I’m dying?” he guesses. “It’s not like I have a choice.”
“Neither do I,” she says.
He laughs, but it’s mirthless. “Not even close to the same thing.”
Anger flares through Beatrix, hot and sharp. “Is that what this is about? Are you… jealous?”
“No,” Oliver scoffs.
He turns away, but Beatrix has already seen the resentment in his eyes, dark and ugly. “You are, aren’t you?”
He won’t look at her. “I just think you shouldn’t be so eager to throw it all away.”
His words knock the air out of her. “How long have you known me?”
“That’s not fair,” he says.
“Weeks? Months?”
“The Globe was a month ago,” he admits.
A month is practically nothing, a drop in the vast ocean of her life. “The Globe was over three hundred years ago, Oliver.”
“I know,” he says.
“You don’t.”
He shudders suddenly, a shiver without the cold. “Fuuu—I have to go,” he groans, scrubbing his hands over his face.
Angry tears prick at Beatrix’s eyes. “Of course you do.”
Oliver throws his hands up. “I don’t know what you want me to do, Bea!”
Stay. She wants him to stay.
Oliver stands, leaves her sitting alone on their unmade bed. He grabs his shoes from the corner, slips them onto his feet. Shrugs on his overcoat.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she asks. “Wait until 1932 to continue this? Or shall I just forget it, just be happy to see you again in fifteen years?”
“I don’t care,” he says, defeated. Miserable. “It’s your life. You’re going to do whatever you want with it.”
She springs from the bed. It is her life.
So why does it feel like it’s in his hands?
“I won’t even bring it up,” she says. “Would you like that? You can skip all the hard bits. I’ll just smile and stay quiet so you can keep pretending it’s only been three days.
Keep writing in that bloody notebook of yours, like any of it matters! ”
She claps her hands over her mouth, but it’s too late. Her words have already struck home. She can see it in Oliver’s eyes, a moment before he disappears.
There, then not.
Beatrix sinks down onto the bed. Silence settles over the room. Her anger and adrenaline slip away, leave her hollowed out. She stares at the door, as if Oliver has slammed it behind him instead of vanishing into nothing. As if she can will him to knock, to come through it, to come back to her.
The silence remains unbroken. Even the alarm clock on the bedside table has stopped ticking, its hands frozen, time stopped.
Waiting.