It was the longest hour on the bleakest day when Florence Hughes came screaming into the world on November 19th, 1931. Just a mere babe, without memory, without thought, and certainly without comprehension of the weight of names or the cruel bite in a mother’s voice.
Yet, when her mother first called her a girl with no fortune, the words buried themselves deep. As if her fragile bones somehow heard the resentment whispered against her skin— an epithet which fed off her hope and, indeed, the young girl she might’ve become.
For eighteen long years, the shadow of what she was promised never fled. It did not vanish beneath the night sky when naturally all shadows took their leave. The invisible burden did not vanish when she curled her knees to her chest and lay in bed, holding herself with such fierceness, she should’ve snapped.
In another life, one might say it was as inescapable a fate as the forty thousand witches strung by the devastating noose.
It seemed all that malice, every man and his hunt for valor, continued to haunt the Scottish forests and whisper in the northern winds. The horrors were still there, still palpable. But six feet under came the witches’ cries— untamed and unrelenting— shaking the ancient stars themselves. And when the physician’s hand fisted up Florence’s dress, trembling as it touched her warm and wet skin, Florence swore she could hear them now. Those witches. Crying out for vengeance.
Something inside of her bellowed with that endless rage too.
But she continued to stare at the ceiling, her breath caught between her ribs, her gaze tracing the spider webs strung across the diamond underbelly of the chandelier above her. The ring on her finger— her mother’s ring— glinted dully in the dim light. Seven carats of yellow diamond spun loosely around her sweat-slicked finger.
It was beautiful, the ring. A vow that her marriage would be righteous, her body sacred and ripe like the bursting red berries which popped from bushes. But in the thick quiet of the physician’s home, it did nothing but spark with a light that mocked her.
Had she decided to take it off, there would be no indications of a tan line on her finger. No such proof that it had seen her through her days beneath the sun. Perhaps the woman noticed how oddly— how alien it sat on her finger. The way she had to curl the joint to keep her shield from slipping off.
Her pulse was hammering so loudly in her ears she thought they might break. Up, and up, and up, the woman’s reach stretched on without mercy. Fingers curled inside her like the stirring wings of moths. Knuckles grazed her innermost sanctum. She forced herself to focus on the cadence of her inhalations, and timed them with the drops of rain atop the tin roof.
The sound was a tether. Alongside the familiar purr of her grandfather’s Duesenberg parked just outside. Both, she used to restrain her anger from sounding out like thunder.
Her bare feet continued to shake upon the steel pedals that kept them aloft and wide. They were all too far apart for the possibility of comfort. And there was a twitch in her adductor that screamed to her. Each bolt of demand warned her to close her legs, to put up a wall between herself and the physician. Out. Out. Out, they bellowed through the vaginal exam. As if the elderly woman was a foe and Florence was unguarded. Defenseless.
A hand wrapped around her thigh, coaxing her legs to spread even further. The woman looked at her as if reading a book— narrowing, focusing, brows creasing in deliberate study and then scanning.
The wooden paneled walls pressed in on all sides. Either from the sparks of her own emotions or the small cabin’s lack of airflow, heat smothered her. So, so heavy upon her chest.
“Well, pet, no more hands or eyes up your bits now,” the woman said and slapped the metal table. Florence’s body jerked. A wet squelched filled the room and she fought the ever-present coiling in her gut, the undulation of her core. Then, with all the grace of a large mammal, the women rose, knocking aside a cart of rattling tools. “It’s best you close those legs of yours before they invite the mice in. Those pesky things are like my shadow these days.”
Before the words had a chance to leave the woman’s mouth, Florence’s legs snapped shut. The unaccounted for force rattled her own bones and shook the wheels bolstering the table. With the grace of a large mammal, she thought with resignation and wiggled her stiff joints.
“Mice?” she asked too thinly, flaming with humiliation. Muggy air found her inner legs and she fought the waves of nausea that rolled through her. “Would you say I’m healthy?”
“Healthy?” The physician clicked her tongue. “You’re an eighteen-year-old girl. So unless you’re with such a malady that remains to be seen up here—” She tapped on Florence’s temple with her clean hand. A small mercy. “I think you’ll live another fifty years. Give or take a reckless decision or two.”
Florence managed a weak smile. Five years from now and the Presbyterian Ministry might finally resort to hanging women who indulged in sexual pleasures. Detaining, questioning, abolishing them for their immoral agendas.Witches, wenches, whores, they called innocent women. And fifty years… fifty years sounded more like a death sentence than it did a blessing.
“Bold of you to assume that I’d choose to live another fifty years.” She moved to sit up and ran a hand through her hair. If only that would make her appear more collected.
“Well, you chose to come here did you not?” the woman insisted. She whirled her head just in time to catch Florence with her hips raised to the heavens. Undergarments twisted around her legs.
Using her heels and shoulders for a meek sense of balance, Florence pinned her eyes on the woman. She snapped the elastic waistband against her flesh in petty dramatics. It cracked like the sound of a whip.
“If I chose to come here, I would have knowingly left my dignity at the doorstep. Far from your reach and far out of my sight, so I wouldn’t have to relive watching it crumple,” she spat.
The physician’s eyebrows rose.
Florence dragged herself to the edge of the table, her legs dangling half-off, and took in the small living space. Oh, how it was a modicum of only such meek necessities! The green velvet curtains were tattered at their bottoms. Threads so errant it was as though they had caught on the teeth of mice, as if they too desired to escape. There was a sofa no bigger than a prisoner’s cot. Paper-thin, colorful fabric covered it. Perhaps the only thing that wasn’t decaying inside the living space.
Florence returned her attention back to the woman. “Do you sleep there?”
“Sleep?” The physician scoffed over the sound of running water where she bent at the copper wash basin. “If I’m crumpling so many dignities, I can’t turn a blind eye, can I?”
“You’re in the heart of the wood. The only being you’d call to attention is a wolf and I doubt the beast would come eager.” Florence shrugged.
The physician shut off the water and turned to face Florence, a towel in her withered hands. “But who better to sink their claws into than women?” Because women were scapegoats. Because men tied their blame to who they thought weakest.
She opened her mouth to say something and found it had gone bone dry. Words soured on her tongue; they tasted rotten as though the thought had gone bad. There— there, beneath the watery light, seeing now from a distance, she finally witnessed what lay across the woman’s apron: a series of stains blossoming like mold. Some fresher than the others, but still… How many girls had come here because the church demanded it?
How many girls carried lies between their legs and feared that the truth might kill them?
In a heartbeat, the seams of Florence’s composure split down the center and agony whipped through her. Her stomach echoed with a ripple, a stone that fell, plummeting down, down, down.
Then, so faintly she questioned if she had even said it, she replied, “One might not sink their claws into anything, if only there was no need to grow them.”
“What pretty poetry for a young girl.” The physician clucked her tongue. It wasn’t poetry. It was simply a matter of fact. She might not be so vicious if school girls and cruel boys didn’t shame her for sex. If the ministry didn’t look to abolish her for it. “Have you found the need to defend yourself? Or is your sharp tongue a gift from your mother?”
What a ridiculous question. “Have I any choice in the matter?”
“More than you’d think.” The woman untied her apron and slung it over an iron nail like a grappling hook. “Though you’ve chosen to raise a shield rather than a sword.”
“I do not raise anything,” she snapped, lifting her chin. But hadn’t she? Suddenly, the physician was beside her, her hand around Florence’s wrist.
“And yet it’s so odd…” The woman had plucked the wedding ring from her finger and held it up to the light. “That your husband wouldn’t fit the band precisely to your finger. I couldn’t imagine something so expensive, so dazzling slipping right off.”
Florence sneered. “If you’re trying to steal my ring, you’d do better than call it outright.”
“I think my dead husband would crawl from his grave if I were so child-ish” she answered, spinning the ring in her hand. “Either way, I was merely suggesting that what you boast on that finger tells me you’ve surrendered yourself to fear, girl. It is nothing but a white flag. And we both know it’s one big, foolish lie.”
“A lie?” Florence leaned back on the table and dredged up all her conviction. “I’m surprised that God hasn’t granted you the same fate as your husband for how brazen you are.” And then she snagged her mother’s wedding band back and returned it to her finger.
“Point that rage at the people who deserve it,” the woman said softly. With so much calm.
So Florence looked down at herself. At the ring. At the rise and fall of her chest. At the missing pieces of the strong- headed-self she’d given away to males— to all those she kissed and done other things with. And then those males she had feared. Like the sect of half-mad and misguided zealots. They had only grown more mad when Tuberculosis swept through Scotland and lingered. Lingered for centuries.
And the physician was right. Who better to sink their claws into than women.
“Just because the church looks for an outlet to blame,” she said and swallowed the rising surge of indignation, “Does not mean that I require one as well.” The purest form of medicine was being greater than. Stronger than. And then she said, “I’m sorry.”
There was a pause in the rain storm, as though the ears of the forest had perked up and the stars blinked to see clearly.
“Be sorry you wear a wedding band out of fear rather than a powerful promise.” The words seemed to part the stale air, and seize her chest. And whether the physician noticed the physical blow or the shame that curled in Florence’s gut, she added mercifully anyway: “I don’t have half the mind to judge you. If you think that’s my objective. I’ve dallied with and without a marriage vow, and it’s made no difference to me. Whether I’m found a whore or sick with Tuberculosis or taken by desire, I’ve lived with my choices and think them honorable.”
Up close, Florence could actually see her. Her sullied clothes, and strands of loose hair from her chiffon like a dark rose at the back of her neck. And she questioned whether there were different ways to fight a war. If the physician had all along held the front lines of a rebellion from her own home. Perhaps she took in girls who had been fighting and gave them a sanctuary for their truths. Florence’s eyes met with the woman who’s name she did not know.
Nameless, she assumed, for neither glory, nor the law would be capable of finding her.
The physician released a sigh, filling the space that Florence found herself unable to. She had turned to pull the velvet curtain aside as though she could see all the way to the church. Florence wondered if the woman dreamt of it burning too. If she dreamt of its fall.
And only once she had made it to the door, her hand poised on the knob, did she say, “Sìth maille ribh,” in Scot-Gaelic. May peace be with you.
She walked out into the rain, and there, even the heavens cried silently for peace too.
~
She cursed beautifully when she settled into the passenger seat of her grandfather’s Duesenbuerg. It had felt as though an ice beast had run its cold tongue along her spine, coating her skin with a frozen layer in the same way frost forms upon the surface of a pale lake.
She curled her knees to her chest, blessing her bare skin with the heat vents, and released a long, long sigh.
“Dying of disease yet? Was it smallpox? Cholera? Perhaps the devil’s bloody cough finally got ya, did it?” her grandfather, Thomas, mocked as he shifted the black vehicle into first gear. The engine toiled beneath them.
“Is society so perished that we’ve now resorted to jokes of Tuberculosis?” she said and rested her cheek atop her knee. She could feel the pulsing pressure of the water pump at her feet, and smell the remnants of the last cigarette Thomas had smoked.
“We’ve resorted to nastier things.” He veered onto a gravel path. The stones crunched beneath the wheels, and stretching into the distance were two shafts of golden light. “Like making a mockery of your mother’s wedding band.”
“You don’t say?” she said dryly, tired of the ridiculous remarks. Sure, she had taken the wedding band from the bin that held her mother’s belongings in her grandfather’s cottage, but was it a mockery? Or simply she had found a tool against judgement? Save for the pestering of her grandfather.
“She wore it like a crown you know.”
“I don’t recall you being so talkative.” Other than his rare droll remarks that often served to make her laugh. “My mother wore nothing but a scowl on her face. And if she wore her marriage to my father with any vein of elegance it was because he loved her so.”
“Your mother wore marriage with bravery, is what I meant. Sure, she was never any less pleasant.” Florence caught him smiling to himself in the moonlight. As though he were caught recalling just how unpleasant her mother was to be around. “But she had the power of love behind her actions. Even if you believe she didn’t have the heart.”
“There are many civil monsters,” was all she said— as coldly as she could.
“Because oftentimes an act of love can be just as consuming as cannibalism.”
To what end? She felt like she had been eaten alive all her life. Remarks on how to be proper, how to be kind, and lady-like, and even how to close her legs when she sat down. The girls at school chewed on her with their judgements. Her tongue was too sharp. Her mind was too wild, unpredictable in a world that savored control.
The evening was etched in so many shades of black and shadow when her grandfather pulled a cigarette to his lips and lit it. From where she sat, her vision blurry with exhaustion, Florence imagined it as a pyre. A flame so bright and savage and fierce at the peak of the Grampian Mountains. Though she hated the smell of cigarettes, she said nothing as he released a plume of smoke.
Well into midnight her cheek had found a resting place on the doorside, her stomach quieted after all those dizzying turns, and she strained her gaze on the blue-ish, silvery light that collected on the water. It turned the hours frozen as they drove.
It wasn’t until later that Thomas lit his second cigarette, and Florence cranked down her window, letting the smoke pass her by. She welcomed the wind of her face. Watched it catch on the blonde strands of her hair and twirl on a sea-scented wind. Now that they were so far north, she couldn’t help but notice the air had grown several shades cooler, too.
Thomas had driven them into the misty morning and over colonies of dew on a wide lawn. He’d parked beside another black vehicle right at the bottom of a knoll leading to the Hughes estate. It had been many, so many years since she had returned.
Today marked the day of Geraldine and her husband’s funeral. A day in which she thought, like the largest wooden brained ninny, would never come.
Indeed, her parents’ death, from what she remembered, had carved out a hollow ache within her. But now her sisters… Florence didn’t let herself get that far.
It didn’t help that Thomas hadn’t said anything after their first conversation either. Nor did he find it worthy of a comment when she suddenly asked him to pull over as they passed through Elgrin. When she had hurled herself from the car and sank onto her knees in the wooden chips, and hurled. Violently. Again and again. And even when she returned, wiping the lingering vomit from her lips, he did not so much as look at her.
Until, that is, he stepped out of the car and stood at the boot, pulling out her clothing carriage. “What did Magda say?”
Florence paused with her hand on the door, holding it open. “Magda?”
“The physician,” he replied without further explanation. How did he know her name? When Florence had asked her, she had pulled her lips back, so gingerly, and settled into her seat as if she hadn’t heard her. “You’re clean as a whistle, yeah?” Thomas pressed on through the mist.
She puffed air into her hands, shivering, and said, “In the ways which matter, yes. Though I doubt any whistle you’ve—”
“Oh.” He dropped her leather carrier on the wet grass. “ For fucksake, Florence.”
She laughed quietly.
“If I had a remaining death wish, now is the time I’d use it,” he barked, and then his stare found her face. “On you.”
She gave him her most winning smile and hopped out of the car.“If only God could hear you now, surely he’d give you another.”
“Because it’d be a mercy?”
“Because I’m certain talk of death wishes and dirty whistles on a funeral sight is a sin.” She unfastened her bag at a crouch, dumping all of her belongings into the grass. She felt briefly delighted.
“Fuckers,” he said. Florence looked up and watched as he tucked a ridiculously large bouquet of roses into his side. She then followed his line of sight to the mist veiled gardens and stifled a laugh. “How is it that your sister’s flower bushes still bloom in winter? I spent a better-off nine sterling on these damn daisies.”
“Roses. Those are definitely roses, pop.” He rolled his eyes and mumbled something characteristically miserable and uncouth before walking away. However fleeting, she was grateful she managed to laugh on such a dark day. Everything looked the same as it had eight years ago, since she’d last visited.
Pocketed with gold shafts, her family’s charming home was perched atop a knoll. It overlooked green lawns and gardens that undulated beneath it. The grounds stretched far and wide towards the northern shores of Inversgreen. But of course, the only difference was that what awaited her, was not the sister who had again, and again welcomed her. She used to hate sleeping next to Geraldine, sharing the same bedroom. But now… now…
She could hear the faint hum of music, the lightness of chatter and laugh, and unconsciously, hearing such warm and lovely things, Florence found herself tracing the second floor with her eyes. She counted each of the windows until she reached the fourth.
Years ago, she might have been witness to two young girls writing music without understanding its notes. Playing songs without understanding their capabilities to move someone and wrap around their heart. But now, the room was dark, empty.
A frozen breath rushed her lungs.
Cold flames of wind and prickles of mist touched her skin as she hastily stripped down into her undergarments. She bent awkwardly behind the car and pulled her head through the neck of a black dress— one she had haphazardly stuffed into her carrier— and cursed herself for being so lazy. Her hands attempted to smooth out each wrinkle, her fingers tugging on the lace and floral appliques.
But the way the gown fit—just five years ago at her own parent’s funeral, she had been swimming in it. Now, it hugged her curves, the neckline resting at her collarbones and the hem hanging loosely at her ankles. Step by step, the fabric sighing around her legs, she walked where death beckoned, her chin high.
~
Florence took all of one tentative step into the foyer and she froze at the sight of so many people. Suddenly the waves crashing amongst the shore seemed to grow in volume, in ferocity. From behind the windows came a snarling gust of wind and she felt the walls shake. Or was it her? Were her legs trembling?
She tried to concentrate on the faces. All of them blurred together; people in suits and dresses. She caught the gleam of jewels bathed in the rich light, swashes of skirts, and flutes of champagne. She snagged one from the nearest server. Placed it at her lips. Over the music and the chatter and the effervescence of laugh, she swore she could hear the champagne’s bubbles pop.
There was not a single darkened face, or a pair of shoulders that drooped inward with grief. Every corner and hallway was crammed with friends, family, whoever was resilient enough to face grief and… and celebrate it.
Somewhere— in some room beyond what her eyes could reach, a quartet plucked strings and played with an enchanting grace. Not enough to draw the crowds attention, but sway them with a lovely, wondrous melody.
Alas, Florence had found her grandfather. He was swarmed by a group of his old friends, a couple whom she could not, despite her hardest efforts, remember. But she named Elliot Sinclair, and Owen Finlay, and the Moss husband, to which she offered a meek smile. Then, she met her grandfather’s eyes.
His brown gaze glimmered, like molten bronze; his eyes creasing at the corners as he smiled and dipped his chin. Such warmth for such a cold man, and it told her that he had found a pocket of peace on a day so bleak, dark with storm clouds and death, but not enough to rattle him.
Even her brooding grandfather, who she managed to resent for the rest of the day, kept that casual composure about him when the guests had gathered by the beach grass. She could still recall the clink of pails she and Geraldine had once filled with sand, the warm sun on her back, and the gulls crying out tunelessly.
It was an unmarked grave for the most exquisite woman.
The stone hadn’t even been inscribed with a year, a name. And she thought, should a decade pass and a stranger come across this piece of land, there would be no remembrance.
So Florence continued to kneel even though the guests parted and returned to her home.
There was never a chance to introduce herself to her sister’s husband. She had childishly believed that time would carry them on forever. They were promised more of it, both her and Geraldine, together. Their bones hadn’t even begun aching yet. Another thirty years, she had expected. Then, and only then, when the time was right, did she plan on giving up her youth.
They had died of Tuberculosis and any sane person might have said it was a natural, honorable death. Yet, as Florence sat there, her forehead pressed to the cold sand, she couldn’t help but feel as though her sister’s death was a reckoning.
The physician’s words echoed, You’ve chosen to raise a shield rather than a sword. Her heart stirred with the din of battle. And Florence angled her hand, pointing it down and towards that unmarked grave.
She watched as the ring slipped off. As soundless as the break of a heart, her shield fell.
~
Later, she lay in bed, her feet hanging half off the edge— despite its wideness— and swirled her finger over the cotton sheets. For what must have been several hours, she tossed and turned, the emptiness of her home seeming to seep inside her very bones. She pressed her face into the pillow and groaned.
A part of her still remained fixed on that metal table just last night. The other half of herself was elsewhere, lost in time, long before her first bleed and the death of her parents.
Much, much later, when she did manage to fall fast asleep, it was to a vision that redefined dreams and everything within them that made one want to wish, and to hope on the stars.
The church had crumbled. Saints were in a rounded bed, their breasts full and milky white and peeking out from beneath tangled sheets. Men were there too. They lay on their savagely, broad backs. Their eyes closed in harmony, and breath coming from their chests with an even and hearty display. The strangers all appeared living, still with sleep.
And yet, pictured was the death of innocence. A smell of tangy copper hung in the stale air. It was so rare. It was as sweet as cherry wine. It was blood that puddled on the sheets as if those strangers laid in harmony over a bed of fallen rose petals.
~
Florence was both exhausted and restless. The vision had come crashing with a current of images. Adjusting her eyes to the gray light from the window, she crawled out of bed and slid her arms through her dressing robe.
Once she had put on her velvet slippers, she became a pin drop in a mausoleum of party goers. She stalked through the hallways like a wraith on the hunt for something to busy her mind. Everything she had dragged out from her memories was left looking for an outlet.
When she first came upstairs, she’d been too tired to notice the family portraits, but she took notice of them now.
Both of the blonde daughters— Geraldine and she— smiled at her. Radiance flared from her sister’s pink cheeks and round nose tipped with color. Beside her was their family’s hound, cradled in her sturdy father’s arms and appearing just as hungry as she. Had it been a day since she last truly ate?
Now, she had a destination in mind and it made for a quick walk down the stairs, and past the foyer that smelled of roses and toasted nuts. She stopped just before the walkway off to the side. To her surprise, the french doors to the garden had been left wide open, a breeze flowing through them. Without allowing herself time to think, she cupped several nuts in her palm and tossed them into her mouth.
She licked the salt at her fingertips as she faced the garden. She stood at the top of the stairs, pausing to take in the lawns. Evergreen and endless. Resilient against the snow storms, the hollow winds, the torrential rain. Above, the stars glimmered.
Out of habit, she took the path that snaked through the garden. She clutched at the opening of her robe and prayed to the thin layer of silk to keep her warm. She was grateful the hedges made for a fortress from the wind. Still, she moved faster. Her steps brisk as she neared the end of the gravel pathway, navigating the misty horizon.
She rubbed at her nose where water collected and stood before the greenhouse. Had it been summer, the sun’s nourishment would have bathed the room. Now, the glass ceiling was studded with felled branches and shattered in several panes. The walls were covered in an uneven layer of dust.
It was the place where she had been gifted her first piano. A birthday present from her grandfather where he had said, May the sun nourish you as you give sunlight to your soul. It’s up to you whether you let it burn or give it warmth. No matter her want, she could not have taken it with her to Aberdeen. And when her mother asked what she planned to do…
She had moved in with her grandfather. Her mother didn’t put up an argument and Florence never had the chance to thank her. She opened the doors to a swell of browning plants and broken leaves.
In the center, stood a black, glossy pianoforte.
Florence could almost see her fingertips upon the keys. Surprising even herself, Florence spoke quietly and into the bleak night, “You’re still here.”
She pulled out the seat, the sound of it echoing loudly through the glass house, and sat herself atop it with a deep breath. There, she faced the birthplace of music and her love for it. It took her all but a moment to master herself. To open the door within her mind where people, places, and voices resided. She willed them to be heard now. Then, she tested the pedals. A finger tentatively rested on a key, and with such little force, the note rang out. In her ears. Her heart.
Although she felt like a baby fawn learning to walk, Florence began to play.
They keys became an extension of her hand, and the girl with no fortune played, and she played, and played. She continued to unleash herself until her lungs ran out of air to fuel the fire of her pain, of all the unfairness stacked upon her.
“What is that?” came a male voice behind her. Florence’s pointer finger seized the low end E, the chord resounding like a thunderous boom in a cavern.
When the echo of sound tapered off, she replied, almost as if uninterested: “A pianoforte.”
“Let me rephrase, then. What was that?” She heard his footsteps, slow and cautious, and resembling the delicacy of the E5 key. “The music you play… I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Florence’s heart tightened. She slid her touch from the instrument as though it now had the power to burn her. “Was I suffering beautifully?” she asked. Her fingers were limp in her lap.
“Play it again and I might tell you.”
“I don’t do requests. And I certainly don’t entertain audiences without a fee.”
“I’ll not watch then,” he said after a pregnant pause. There was a hint of playfulness in his tone; though she couldn’t quite grasp, or begin to untangle, his cleverness from what felt like ridicule. “I’ll turn my back so you might forget I’m here.”
Now she could make out what kind of shoes he was wearing: Gray oxfords. They appeared at the edges of her vision—beside the bench where his legs stood a hand’s breadth away. Still, she hadn’t seen his face. A face she wondered in her mind’s eye, if it fit his confident and eloquent voice. Or if his name was just as mysterious. Was he one of the musicians who couldn’t sleep? Had he come with the intention of rewriting his thoughts— just like her?
Her chin lifted on its own accord. Slowly, Florence took in his tall, lean legs that led her gaze to his suit jacket. There, a lily in his breast pocket, matching his bone-colored bowtie. A white tie which grazed his chin as he pointed it towards her— at her. It was like looking down the barrel of a gun, so pointed, so dangerous and close.
Florence’s heart thrummed wildly when she beheld his many colored eyes. Golden threads mixed with pools of chocolate and green vines.
“You’ll not watch?” She bit her lip, considering, weighing. “If it worked like that, we all might just turn our backs on society.”
“So we can relish in the carnal comforts that keep us warm all night?” he posed while staring at her intently.
Florence couldn’t help it, she had looked away, her eyes seeking the comfort of the piano. Because sex had never made her feel warm exactly. Not before, or during. It hardly made her warm when she awoke to a cold mattress in the morning— her hand still reaching for an unlovable hand.
Once, she had imagined the experience might be freeing. But both times she was to be a wilting flower. Laying in the garden bed where the soil of her world was overturned.
She hadn’t realized the door to her mind had been opened again. Quickly, she scrambled to shut it, to snuff out the embers of pain. However, she felt them linger in her next words: “Only someone inferior in mind and experience would believe sex is the only thing they’ve taken from us.”
“Indulge me then,” he asked, and placed a finger beneath her chin. He held it there with a gentleness and nothing more. “Why do you play? If it is not to express the anger of being denied intimacy.”
“Perhaps I play because it is the only time a woman can sound beautiful whilst she lets go Or because it is the only exception to when a man will permit her voice and desire to be heard. Find them beautiful even.” His silence was answer enough, so she added with a hint of insecurity. “You must think I’m mad in the head.”
“Maybe.” The nameless male shrugged. “Though that would make me mad in the head as well. As I agree with you— I think you suffer beautifully.” Much to her wonder, he smiled down upon her, and then gestured with his hand in the air. “May I?”
“Not frightened of the bloody cough?”
“I would consider myself fortunate if I so much as caught it.” She shifted over, feeling like a buzzing wire, electrified. If he sat too close, too near, she might catch fire. “Just so that I may listen to you all evening,” he added.
“Everyone and their death wishes today.” She bit her lip, unsure of what she should have said.
“And yet we’re fortunate enough to have them.”
Something inside her fluttered, the barest essence of hope gathering. “What is your name?”
“William Beaumont,” he replied. She could feel the warmth of his through her robe. “And may I ask a question in return?”
Florence weighed her thoughts. What harm was there in a question? She could always choose not to answer. But she said, “I could fill a jar— a very large and considerable jar— with all your curiosities. But yes. Because it is not such a bad thing, is it? To look upon a cup that overflows.”
“Would you tell me a story then?”
Her hands found the pianoforte, and of course, it was due to the air so swollen with winter that she felt herself being pulled towards him.
She was edging closer to a cliff, and still, longing to curl into his warmth. In that same heartbeat, the most enchanting heartbeat she had ever felt, his parted lips found hers, and his warm mouth melded against her own, and Florence had no time to pray for a net at the bottom
Though, if she dared to admit it, she might have silently prayed for her sister, and the physician, and then herself, as she fell into the arms of another male— tumbling down into darkness and dead devotion.
~
In the garden, stood a woman in a white dress who looked upon the eddying shadows within her greenhouse, watching as they moved. She listened intently as the sounds of haunting, yet beautiful music escaped from the cracks of the glass. The moonlight gathered among two crowns of blonde hair, lost in their desires and the moment. But she knew her friend’s thoughts of her had dissolved. She understood even if it pained her.
She had lost track of time, for it could have been ten minutes or several hours, when her blonde friend exited the greenhouse. Florence Hughes stopped and looked up. The boy in whom the woman did not know, halted several feet behind Florence. Even from a distance, her sister appeared so young, her cheeks flushed, her chest visibly rising with the gallop of her hopeful heart. It caused the woman’s own chest to ache. She still had a heart. She had loved too fiercely to let death take that from her as well.
And then, the woman turned her back and began to walk away— the boy and Florence heading opposite to her, fleeing into the gardens, and then to the warm bed. But Geraldine Hughes, ghostly in skin and soul, floated on a lonesome wind to the shore.
But first, she had one more thing to do before she rest. She bent before the poor excuse of her own grave. There, she picked up the ring. Held it in her hands and felt its meek weight in her palm. A couple minutes was all she needed with it. That was all.
She now lay, in her grave beside her husband, folding herself into his loving arms. She laid in peace there. Six feet beneath the sand Geraldine Hughes could still feel that invisible burden. She could hear the witches’ cries. But even if her bones rotted beneath the earth, there was still fight left in their marrow.
She closed her eyes, listening to the sound that her mother’s ring had made when it hit the ocean. She could still hear the echoes of satisfaction now. Then came her voice, nothing but the whisper of wind on a still night, “Sìth maille ribh.” May peace be with you.
