Chapter 8 #4
“Fair enough,” said Vern. “When you can spare the time, though, would you call upon me again? Just so I know you’re feeling better?”
“Of course!” Florrie exclaimed. To demonstrate the improving strength of her constitution, she swung her leg forward to take a bold adventurer’s step – and promptly tangled it in the quilt, which she’d left hanging over the side of the bed.
Before she could stumble, Vern reached out and caught her shoulder, balancing her in a way that was effective as it was surprisingly intimate.
For the briefest moment, he held her there.
His eyes were so large that he might have been looking at her through a magnifying lens from a conservator’s bonnet.
Then Florrie stabilised herself and Vern let go immediately, as though she were the most fragile of molten-metal sculptures.
“I’m terribly sorry! I couldn’t help it – you wouldn’t believe how often my loom falls over, and I’m quite good at catching,” he said, all without taking a breath.
“You’re sorry?” she said, trying to slow her own breathing. “For helping me?”
“For… touching you,” Vern whispered in a sweetly horrified tone.
Suddenly, Florrie came to a conclusion she ought to have reached earlier.
“You’ve never touched anyone.”
She’d not seen Vern discomposed before. He was still smiling, but he was also trembling, though he tried to hide it by picking up a nearby skein of yarn and unspooling it. Vern had truly known nothing but his own company until today. The poor man must be terrified.
“There’s nothing wrong with touching each other” – she immediately wished she had chosen a more elegant way of expressing that sentiment – “as long as everyone involved approves. I’m sure you’ve seen that in the museum.”
“Oh, absolutely!” said Vern. “Did you know, Florrie, that when Folk come into the museum together, they usually end up getting nearer and nearer to each other? Families, friends, lovers. I wonder if they feel intimidated by the art and seek each other’s company, or if seeing something beautiful makes them want to be closer. ”
It was perhaps the most thoughtful observation Florrie had ever heard – and one to which she had no idea how to respond. Instead, she extended her hand.
Vern froze. She took a tentative step toward him.
“Your observations surely taught you which physical interactions are customary when Folk meet for the first time,” Florrie said gently. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Vern.”
It took him a few moments. Florrie didn’t mind.
She wasn’t especially fond of handshakes herself, but something compelled her to keep her hand outstretched, palm open, with her fingers bent in the most welcoming way.
The cottage felt overwhelmingly quiet as she waited.
Candlelight gleamed on the metallic walls and highlighted the golden embroidery on Vern’s false wings.
They drifted behind him, with the winsomely gossamer material fluttering as his shoulders shook.
His hand didn’t shake when it took hers, though; Vern’s grip was surprisingly firm. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Florrie.”
Technically, Florrie supposed, they were merely holding hands, not shaking them. She could feel the basic contours of his palm through her glove – the weaver’s calluses towards the top and the smoothness of the centre.
“At what point am I supposed to let go?” Vern’s thumb toyed idly with the seam up the side of her glove as he spoke.
“There’s no hard and fast rule,” she replied faintly.
“That seems unwise. What’s to stop us from holding on like this for ages?”
He jolted, suddenly, and let her hand fall.
“Only joking,” he said. “You need to rest. Thank you for the, um… the introduction.”
They didn’t speak much when Florrie left the cottage.
As she made her way to the forest’s edge, Vern watched her from the garden.
He held a brass bell-lantern, which clanged in his grasp as it flung blue beams of light around the leaves.
Florrie marvelled at how the painted world before her differed from The Resolute Portrait.
In the painting, Lord Mauve was regal and bold in his flower-silk finery, tilting his face aloft as though everything in the world was beneath his notice.
Under his watch, the eventide scene seemed eerily enchanting – just as likely to bring bliss as doom upon an unwary traveller.
With Vern as its central figure, however, the surrounding expanse was quietly beautiful and gently welcoming. A sanctuary.
In truth, Florrie wished she could have stayed much longer.
Night had touched the real world, too, but it couldn’t compare.
The flat, grey darkness only heightened the liveliness and colour of Vern’s garden in her memory.
Florrie tried to settle herself by recalling everything: the flickering of the brushstrokes, the golden glow of the cottage, the densely painted face of the moon.
The press of an anxious finger against her glove.
Here, the world felt jarringly real, and her hand felt tragically empty.