No. 23 in E-flat Major - No. 28 in E- Flat Major - No. 31 in A Minor
The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.
-Emily Brontë, 1818–48
May 1867
James couldn't tell the difference between reality and fiction.
They were polar opposites. Red and Green. But to him, they looked the same. Lines between reality and fiction blurred like watercolours on a wet canvas. The red and green made brown. He navigated life as if it were a grand narrative, himself the misunderstood hero.
It first happened when he was eight. He’d been playing in the far fields of the land his parents owned, under the shade of an oak tree. His dad, Fleamont had called out for him. Called him in for dinner. He swore he heard it, but there was no one around. No father waiting by the manor doors. Nothing. Nonetheless, he went to his house.
It was a big manor, James often got lost. The hallways connected and disoriented. Like a haunted house that hoped to keep him prisoner. He remembers the old cottage they used to have before his parents had important business in Lancashire. The cottage was small and peaceful. Nothing like the manor he now had to call home.
But outside the manor, he could never get lost. He knew the rivers and the secret pathways, he knew the trees and the grass. He was part of it as much as it was part of him. One thing he dreaded every day was having to return indoors, where his mother would dust the dirt off him and demand he change before dinner.
He had walked up the stony steps of the manor. It had been a hot day, the sun pelting down on his skin. His shirt was stained with sweat from running around all day. He reached the door of the manor expecting the handle to be sweltering after a long day in the sun. It wasn't. That was the first thing he noticed. The second thing was that it was wet. Like it had rained and the handle had not dried. But it had been sunny for weeks. There hadn't been a drop of rain.
Nevertheless, he pushed it down and opened the door. When he stepped in, everything was darker. There was no sunlight from the windows. The torches along the corridor were lit. James just stood there confused. Usually, he could hear the sounds of the kitchen bustling, preparing for dinner. But there was just silence. One of the ladies who usually did the dusting around the manor walked down the steps, blankets in hand. When she saw James she stopped. She looked utterly terrified like she’d seen a ghost. The towels in her hands dropped to the floor. She dropped all but one.
“Madam Potter, your son has returned home!” she exclaimed, her head tilted slightly so that her voice would carry up the staircase. She took a towel and wrapped it around him. Why would he need a blanket on a day like this? He thought, looking behind him and out the door. When he looked he saw that outside, it was dark. Like the sun had set hours ago. And the sound of rain pattering the roof had caught his attention. It was raining especially hard, you could hear thunder off in the distance. Lightning lit up the entranceway. He was still staring at the open door when his mother pulled him in for a hug. He could feel his wet clothes mush against his mother's dry ones. He didn't even notice that he was cold until he felt how warm his mother's skin was against his.
“Go, send a man out to fetch Fleamont and the other men,” She said to the lady with the towels then she turned to James. “Darling, you gave me a fright,” She took his hands in hers and held them “Oh your hands are freezing, let's get you to the fireplace.” His hands felt cold now. The bones felt cold. Like he’d never heat up again. Such a drastic change from how he was only moments ago. He sat at the fireplace for a while. He could feel the ice around his bones start to thaw as he watched the flames and how they danced.
He saw figures in the flames, moving around, holding each other's bodies close then spinning apart. Embers danced around them like the movement of the music that silently played. It looked a lot like the balls his parents would have. The people moved around each other gracefully, sometimes switching partners to dance with other people. The girls moved around more, their dresses swished gently as they spun around. One of the women waved at him, laughing as her partner brought her back to the dance. She had red hair that seemed to fly with the licks of the flames. He waved back, smiling lightly. He wondered if he was imagining that too. But it all looked too real to be false, so he just swayed along to the music.
He was put to bed later than usual. The clock at the end of the hall read one am in the morning. He didn't have another night like this for quite a while. Everything was ‘normal’. His parents still let him out to explore. He was as free as he was before. His late-night wander was forgotten. Nothing had happened. He had wandered too far and got lost. Nothing more, Nothing less.
—
The people he saw in the fire that night kept turning up in the oddest of places. He saw them dancing in sunbeams that shone into his room every morning, whispering in the rustling leaves of the oak tree, lying in the fields of grass. The woman who waved to him was there every time. Sending him a smile and a wave before being pulled off by her partner. He found out her name was Lily. He was like him.
He found that out when he was sitting under the oak tree on the other side of the field. Under the leaves he watched the tree sway in the wind. He watched the bird fly through the blue sky. He noticed her walking in the field toward him. Her partner was further away waving at James. He waved back. She was closer now. Almost a metre away. He noticed her hair colour. Her hair was red. Ginger. Her eyes were green. She had a card in her hand. It was turned over so that the art on the front could not be shown. The bells on her ankles and necklace jingled when she sat down next to him. She wore bells. Beautiful sounds came from them whenever she moved. He loved it. She handed him the card and he turned it over. On it was an image. A man was sitting on a horse with a stick in his hand. Nothing more, Nothing less.
“Lily, what does this mean?” He turned to her but she was already gone. He pocketed the card and sat there still under the tree, watching the leaves wave to him. He waved back.
When it was dinner time he walked toward the manor, kicking stones as he walked. The sun was still in the sky. He wondered if he was imagining it all. What if it was all fake and actually just the middle of the night? Right this second it could be raining, it could be hours after his bedtime. But when he was welcomed home to the smell of food and his mother's smile. None of it mattered.
Lily visited him every now and then, usually just staying in the corners and dancing with her partner who he’d come to learn was named Pandora. Lovely name. She would bring him cards too. With interesting imagery. The cards confused James but when he asked, Lily would disappear. So he just accepted them and said thank you. His mother knew what the cards had meant and had dug around in the attic to help him find a book that could help him read it.
Sometimes music would play and Pandora would join them in dancing. He’d be spun around by the two girls, laughing and humming along to the music.
There were bad days too. In the dark, on the days when the sun didn't shine as bright, a man would stand behind the gates, or across the field and watch as he sat under the oak tree. The Man. It made him nervous. He didn't know who this man was. He didn't know why he was there. He just felt wrong. His heart hurt and he couldn't breathe. He was scared that the man would come bounding toward him and hurt him. That's what James feared the most. But Lily would always appear and yell at the man to leave them alone. He never told anyone about these new friends he’d acquainted. He once told his father though and his father responded in a way that made James stay silent.
“No one can get onto the property without going through the front gate first son,” He had clasped him on the shoulder, “the gates are always closed.”
So James didn’t tell a soul. Until him.
—
James was used to the current occurrences of Lily and Pandora. As well as the unwelcome presence of the man. But he never thought he’d meet another. It had been years since he’d met Lily. He was now 17. His 18th birthday would be in half a year's time and he’d be going to work at his father's gallery. Of the ten years he’d known Lily, he’d never met anyone new.
James had been walking toward the oak tree when he saw an unfamiliar figure sitting under it. A boy, probably his age. He noticed how dark the boy's hair was. So soft looking, James just wanted to touch it. The boy was small, definitely shorter than James, but much more poised. He noticed that the boy was holding a book in his hands and reading. The cover was tattered and torn, a page looked like it had been ripped out and put back in but the boy didn't mind. James stood there for a few minutes, watching. A warm hand rested on his shoulder. He turned. Lily. She smiled at him and began talking.
“That’s Regulus, he keeps to himself mostly, none of us really know who he is, not even The Man.”
The boy had the lightest skin tone James had ever seen. Regulus looked almost ghostly with his complexion. Almost as if he’d never seen a ray of sunlight in his life, but that wasn’t true. For example, Regulus was in the sun, this very second. Lily poked his back and forced him forward. He looked back and she urged him to keep walking. He didn’t mean to frighten Regulus, he just meant to slowly approach. His foot caught on a stick in the grass. Snap. Regulus bolted to his feet discarding the book on the floor as he balled his fists. He looked like a deer in the firing line.
“Who are you?” He asked, his tone was cold, uncaring. And let’s be honest he had a right to be that way.
“I’m James,” he put out his hand to shake “I live here.” Regulus didn’t take his hand, nor did he answer; he just nodded. “I’m leaving.” And he started walking, leaving his book there so that he could run off without hindrance. Off he went. But not without a little fight from James. “Hey come on, what ‘r you reading?” Regulus only looked back to answer him.
“Nothing.” James was smiling, like he’d won a prize. But the biggest prize would be earning Regulus’ trust. Then his heart. Regulus kept walking. James bent down to pick up the book from the base of the tree. James read the cover as he dusted the dirt off of it. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems. He started to talk as he walked toward where Regulus had gone. “Hey, you left your-” When he looked up, he noticed that Regulus had disappeared. Nowhere to be seen.
“Book,” He finished, sighing.
Maybe tomorrow.