Chapter 13
Dani dreams herself in that little room again for the first time in what feels like weeks, but it is not how she remembers it. The chest is just where it was, inlaid in the wall across from the bed, and the vanity is where it was, too, only the mirror is laid bare with nothing to cover it. But there are bookshelves covering much of what had once been empty space before, and each of those shelves is covered with different books. She moves from the bed and goes to the shelves, examining them, and finds that each of them is a book she has taken from the library, each of them a book she has already read. Romeo and Juliet is set to one side carefully, as though somehow it is more special than the others, and she does not want to guess at why that would be.
None of the newer books are here, none except for the shell of one that says Twelfth Night on the side. But it cannot be the book itself; the cover is far too thin to hold the contents of the work. So, curious, she picks that one off of the shelf and opens it.
You tuck her away easily enough. It is always easy; you simply do not always choose to do it. There are reasons for this. You have reasons. You just cannot put words to them.
The books are easy enough to find, too, but you do not read through them as quickly as you read through the others. There’s something to be said about reading something through for the first time. Maybe not for the first time, but since you can’t remember any other time you read them, it might as well be the first time. Remembering your name might have brought your face back, but it didn’t bring your memories back. You don’t know what will do that. You don’t know if anything will.
Instead of curling up on the arm of the sofa with your chosen book, you meander into the kitchen. Your host and the brunette have a bowl of fruit much like your own sitting on the counter. Everything seems clean. Methodically so, perhaps. Either they are of the sort who like to clean as soon as they have finished a meal, or it was simply the day to clean. You cannot be sure. This isn’t one of the things that you’ve paid much attention to. Your host likes to keep her time with the brunette private, and you try to respect that as much as you are able. You don’t always, but sometimes. It’s certainly easier than choosing not to and then coming back to the rusted gate only to find that the defenses she’s trying to use to barricade you in your cell have grown larger.
Not worse. Just larger.
You run a finger along the countertop. No dust. No dirt. No crumbs. Impeccable.
After a few moments, you move to the refrigerator. Somehow, you know that you did not have one of these, whenever it was that you lived, and while you are not in awe of its existence, a part of you wishes that you had one then. You don’t know which part, but part of you, most certainly. You open it and look through the food that is within. It all looks good. You take one of the little glass bowls, open the top, and sniff at it.
Tucking her away like this, you smell through her nose and, you are certain, though you have not tried, you would taste with her tongue. You do not need this much. You probably don’t need anything. It probably would not do well for her to come back to you having eaten something. You close the bowl and put it back in the refrigerator.
Still, you want something while you read. You do not know what it is until you find the packets of tea hidden away in one of the cupboards. You smile with her lips. Then you pull out a kettle – a soft cream color with little pink flowers sketched all over it – and fill it with water. It takes a few minutes to figure out how to work the stovetop, but you had seen Owen using it before, and it isn’t nearly as hard as you might have imagined.
While the water boils, you find a cup. It looks like yours – dark blue and speckled with creamy blue stars – but with a crack along one edge, a chip just along its lip. That feels right, too. You run her finger along the lip of the cup and smile, setting it to one side and leaning against the counter with its sink to wait.
The kettle lets out a piercing whistle for all of a second before you pull it from the stovetop in a deft movement. You fill your cup with hot water, set your chosen pack within it, and let it steep. There’s a little sugar pot, and you take that with you, just in case. This one claims to be an herbal tea, so it should be sweet enough without anything added in, and you have no intention of leaving your pack steep so long that it grows bitter. You crack open your chosen book and settle in to read.
“Poppins?”
You look up from your book over to the brunette, who yawns, covers her mouth with one hand, stretches one arm above her head, hand pulling at her elbow, and then yawns again. “You’re making hot chocolate?”
On second consideration, hot chocolate would have been a better idea, but it pains you that these people make theirs with water and powder from packets instead of with milk and actual melted chocolate. Heathens.
You lift your cup of tea and take a sip.
The brunette stares at you. “You made tea?”
You nod then open yourher mouth and then shut it again, pressing yourher lips together. It has been a long time since you have spoken. You are not sure if you can. Still, you try, letting her lips move in the motion of the words, feeling her vocal chords rub together ever so slightly and making sound. “Yes. I was—” You hesitate, licking your lips. “—thirsty.”
It is…hard to speak, but you manage. Your tone takes on a question at the end of it, but you think you have done well enough. Before thinking about it, you close the book, place it on the side table, and get up to make a cup for the other woman in the same manner you would expect your host to do. She follows you, and you guess at which pack she will take – something harsher than the herbal you’ve taken – Earl Grey, perhaps – and you hand her a cup of her own with the pack just set to steep.
The brunette stares at the cup of tea and then at you. “Take the sugar, did you?”
You nod, pressing your lips together, gaze flicking to the side table where you left the sugar pot. “It’s just there.”
The more you speak – little as it may be – the easier it is. Still, the brunette keeps an eye on you as she takes her cup and curls up on the other arm of the couch. She moves her pack a few times – up and down, once, twice – and then pulls it out entirely, takes two cubes of sugar, and stirs them into her cup.
You curl up where you were before, but you do not open the book. It seems like a bad idea.
“What’re you reading?”
You take the book from where you left it and hand it over to her. That’s easier than trying to speak again.
The brunette runs her fingers along the outside edge. “Shakespeare again, huh? What’s this one about?”
This is a conversation. She is trying to have a conversation with you. You have a hard time speaking, and she is trying to have a conversation with you. But, then, she doesn’t know it’s you. If she did, you are sure she would have reacted entirely different. She doesn’t like you, after all. You remember that very clearly.
You swallow. “It has been a while since I read it,” you say, haltingly, your gaze focusing on the book instead of the young woman. Not entirely a lie, you think, not that it matters. You try to remember how your host described it. “Twelfth Night is a comedy. Everyone gets married.” Although it is easier to speak as you go, you still have starts and pauses, broken sentences. You hope it sounds like you are considering your words and not as though something is wrong.
Nothing is wrong.
You are uncomfortable with this. It has been a very, very long time since you have tried to have a conversation with anyone. You cannot remember the last time you did. This is easier than letting your host’s fingers roam your face, though. Even if this young woman doesn’t realize she is talking with you, she at least acknowledges your presence. That’s something. Isn’t it?
“Viola—”
You start, wince, and shake your head. Saying the name feels wrong. You force yourself to continue.
“—believing her twin brother to be dead, feigns his likeness in service to a duke. The duke, believing her to be her brother, sends her to woo and romance the lady, Olivia, to be his wife, while all the while Olivia slowly falls in love with Viola, who she believes to be a man.” You press your lips together and guess at the ending, even though you haven’t quite gotten there yet. “In the end, Viola’s brother is revealed to be alive. Olivia marries him, and Viola marries her duke. Everyone lives, everyone is married, and so far as we know, everyone is believed to be happy.”
You are not certain that is the case. Marriage is not so simple as plays like these make it out to be. You cannot say why you know that is so, but you know it, somewhere deep in your bones.
“And all of that just because this Viola character believes someone is dead who isn’t?” The brunette taps the book’s cover a couple of times. “Seems Shakespeare likes this mistaken for dead thing. It’s been in both of those books.” She looks up and meets yourher eyes. “Or is that just you? You like reading that sort of thing?”
You don’t know how to answer that. In absence of having a ready answer, you take your cup of tea and sip it. That gives you time to come up with something, to figure out how to form the words yourself. “I like Shakespeare,” you say, finally, stumbling a bit over his name. “He may reuse—” You pause, trying to think of how to word it. “—mistaken for death more than once, but each time he does so in a new and different way. He speaks of love, and it is as though I feel his words for myself. Here.”
When you reach across to the book, you sense the brunette stiffen, but you do not take note of it. Your focus is instead on the story itself. You open the book to the opening lines and tap your finger to them. You do not want to read them aloud; you feel that would have a most disastrous result, and you do not even want to attempt it. “This is poetry.”
You cannot say more than that. You do not have the words to adequately describe it.
The brunette reads the opening lines and then looks up at you. She finishes her cup of tea with a nod. “Maybe I’ll try to read this one, then,” she says, halting just the same way as you have, “and we can talk about it. Like I said, I’m not much on Shakespeare. You can maybe teach me some things.”
No.
That is a bad idea.
If she starts trying to talk Shakespeare with your host and referencing a conversation that your host doesn’t remember having, that can only lead to more attempted barriers along your path. They do not do anything, but the relationship with your host is of most importance. You feel this, too, deeply, even though you doubt your host agrees with you in the slightest.
“Don’t worry,” the brunette says as she stands, stretching again. “It will just be between you and me, ghostie.”
You stare at her, meet her eyes, and your head tilts ever so slightly to one side. “You knew.”
“’Course I knew. You’re better at this than Dani is,” the brunette says, gesturing to her empty cup. “She thinks you put a whole bunch of these packets in a pot and leave them. Doesn’t really get the idea of the drinker makes it to taste.” Her teacup clinks as it hits her side table. “She’s not much good at coffee either, but we’re working on that one. Once she understands coffee, she’ll understand tea.”
Heathen, you think again. Then you keep your eye on the other woman, waiting to see how she will respond to you, if it will be different now that she has guessed and you have acknowledged it.
The brunette bends her neck to one side until it just cracks. “You don’t want me to think Dani’s already dead. Fine. I don’t think she is. You, though.” Her eyes narrow. “I don’t know what to make of you. Nothing good, maybe, but you know how to make a good cuppa tea.”
“You made your tea.”
“Exactly.” The brunette grins. It doesn’t feel safe or calm or anything like that, but perhaps the slightest bit of merriment. You don’t know what to make of it. Then she waves one hand at you. “You put Dani back in bed when you’re done, and you clean things. Don’t want her going after me for leaving teacups out.” She starts back to their room, then stops, stares at you. “And don’t you stay in bed with me. Don’t really want to be sleeping next to a ghost.”
You watch as she walks away. A part of you thinks she shouldn’t tell you what to do, and that is certainly true. She could make your pathways a living hell – or a dead one, as it might be – but you don’t think she will. You think it is likely that she would be in just as much trouble with your host for speaking with you as you would be for speaking with her. You think this is a secret the two of you will keep.
As suspicious as you might be, you can’t help but feel warm at the thought that, after all this time, someone is willing to talk with you. Not just Owen, who is not around nearly enough to maintain contact, but someone who will actually take time to spend with you. It’s a blessing.
Well.
It’s something, at least.
The book continues to fill with writing as Dani glances through it. She takes the book with her to the bed and finds a bowl of fruit waiting on her. She isn’t hungry, but she takes an apple from the bowl anyway, idly taking a bite for no reason other than she can. It is not as sweet as she might have expected, certainly not as sweet as she wants it to be, but it is there all the same. Like sawdust, but with a slightly better taste.
There is a difference, though, with the lines and notes filling in the book. They aren’t exactly the same as the real book itself. Not that Dani has particularly read through the entire one that Miles and Flora gave her, but she is absolutely certain nevertheless that it does not have the name Viola underlined at every instance. She doubts that anyone in the Wingrave family – or whoever owned this prior to herself – would have done that.
Which means that it must mean something to the creature herself.
Dani curls up against the headboard. She is aware that this is the creature’s room and that this isn’t really a dream, only that she imagines it is one instead of believing that she has been tucked away into the back of her own mind, but she doesn’t like to think about that. She far prefers the lie of the dream to the truth of being tucked away.
What could Viola possibly mean to the creature who lives within her?
Dani tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. She doubts it has anything to do with the character herself. Viola may be the main character, but she’s not much compared to Hamlet, Romeo, or Juliet. She spends most of the play pretending to be someone she isn’t – pretending to be her twin brother, who she believes to be dead – but Dani can’t imagine why the creature would care about that.
On second thought—
Almost as soon as Dani begins to consider it, she feels herself beginning to fade away. Not fade – not in the way that the creature’s face is faded – but that slow shift that tells her she is moving from this dream into another one entirely.
No, she wants to say. No, wait! She feels as though she is finally beginning to understand something, to grasp at something just beyond her reach, something she knows she will lose if she slips from this dream into another one before she’s got it – something she might lose anyway, as is the way of dreams.
But her request is unheard, and she slips from the room just as the door begins to open and the lady resumes her place.