by Emma Hamm
“I can imagine that you do ma’am. After all those years resting in a bed, you must be keen on moving around a little.”
The man who called himself maid did not move. Lydia lowered her hand from her brow to give him a meaningful stare. Still, he hesitated and then looked behind him as though she might be staring at someone else.
“Louis,” she began, “could you bring my wheelchair?”
“Oh!” He blushed again and rushed to the chair. “I didn’t know you were in a wheelchair miss. You’ve always looked fit as a fiddle.”
“I am healthy,” she admonished as she flung the bed sheets back. “I’m just not capable of walking.”
“Born that way? Shame miss. Legs are wonderful things though I suppose you wouldn’t know.”
The magic had strengthened her, she realized. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed didn’t take her breath away. Her big toe wiggled at her command.
She was getting considerably stronger.
“Legs are lovely,” she murmured. “I used to walk.”
“An accident then?”
“You could say that.”
Lydia didn’t want to tell this poor man his employer was to blame. And if she was being truthful with herself, she also didn’t want to blame Pitch anymore. He was an enigma of secrets but he also tried very hard.
She couldn’t fault a man like that. She could still feel the brush of his breath over her lips. Could still see the way his face had tilted into her palm as though he begged for touch.
A shiver ran down her spine. “Take me to the library, please.”
“There’s no library here ma’am. I’ve been living in this house for three years and I’d know if it was there.”
“Pitch’s study, then.”
She heard Louis shuffling before he tentatively replied, “I don’t think we’re allowed to go there ma’am.”
“I’m allowed to go anywhere. I’m my own woman, and if we get in trouble, I promise to bear the brunt of Pitch’s anger.”
“I don’t think he could be angry at you,” Louis muttered as he pushed her chair from the bedroom. “He hardly talks about you, but when he does… Hoo boy. You know there’s something going on.”
“Like what?”
“Oh I wouldn’t know, that’s far beyond my knowledge. Pitch makes little sense.”
He wheeled her down the hallway past macabre pictures of Revelations and screaming figures carved into each banister. All the while, her mind was racing. Pitch thought about her? Spoke about her? What an intriguing thing to think about while she was lying in her bed.
“No,” she replied. “I suppose he doesn’t.”
Apparently, neither did she. Lydia knew full well she shouldn’t be going back to his study. Pitch was a secretive man and she should ask his permission to invade his space.
But there was a burning question inside her chest refusing to stay quiet. She needed to know more about Sil. More about Pitch. More about the story she had been thrust into with no choice.
They had been intrigued by each other in that first meeting. They had hated each other first; the rage made the air vibrate. Then Sil pitied him. He seemed to accept that pity as she gave him more of the contact he craved.
“Mysteries,” she muttered. “This house is full of them.”
“Indeed it is,” Louis said as he turned her chair around. He backed them through the door of Pitch’s study. “But I’ve always thought it rather made sense considering the man who owns it. Pitch is just as curious as his home.”
“I would agree with that. Do you know him well?”
“No one knows him well.”
She furrowed her brows. “I remember a man he brought here. He was like you, but not. I believe his name was Leo.”
Her chair jerked to a screeching halt, nearly tossing her to the floor. “Leo is my father.”
“Oh.”
Lydia wasn’t sure what to do with that. She remembered Leo as a tall, swarthy fellow with a head full of messy hair and lion-like eyes. Some of that had transferred to his son, but she had expected someone much larger than Louis.
She glanced over her shoulder, and Louis nervously shoved his glasses up his nose.
“I should have guessed,” she said. “You have his looks. The shape of his face. His eyes. His… commanding stature.”
The last bit was a lie, but it couldn’t hurt to say. His shoulders straightened.
“Thank you ma’am. I believe you’re the first person to see my father in me.”
Her heart clenched. Lydia reached out and grabbed ahold of Louis’s hand. “My father never saw himself in me either.”
The magic in her heard the words he didn’t. He wouldn’t have minded being different if his family had supported his choices. His life was harder because he was always trying to win the approval of someone he loved. He didn’t care about strangers, he cared about his father. The bruises of blood relatives were difficult to brush off.
“You are uncommonly kind, ma’am.”
“Call me Lydia, please.”
“Lydia. You are, quite frankly, the kindest woman I have ever met. I am very glad you woke up.”
“As am I. It's nice to meet someone with a similar soul.”
His slitted pupils dilated as he stared down at her. He was a comfort she didn’t know she needed. Human, not sculpted by an artist, like Pitch.
Louis was normal. They might have met on a street and smiled at each other. She hadn’t realized just how much she had missed that kind of normalcy.
“Louis?” she asked.
“What can I do for you, Lydia?”
“Can you hand me one of the books on that shelf?”
Her slender hand pointed up to the highest piece he could reach. The journals were different there. Unlike the others, which were leather bound, the higher books were bound in fabric.
Louis reached, grabbed, and handed her a bright blue volume. Her hands stroked the worn edges.
“Thank you, Louis. You may go.”
“Ma’am?”
“I’ll be fine alone. This is something I need to do by myself.”
“All right,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “If you need me, just holler. I’m sure the house will let me know.”
“I’m sure it will.”
She smiled at him until the door closed. The book in her hands felt heavier. It weighed upon her palms and made her biceps quake.
“I need to know,” she murmured, “I have to know.”
Lydia licked her lips, opened the cover, and read.
She stepped into a world of swirling colors, bright lights, and strange creatures. The glow of the chandeliers blinded her for a moment, their Fairy glow burning above her. This memory differed from the first.
Gone was the beautiful forest; she stood in a grand ballroom. The floor was polished black marble and the walls were waterfalls of molten gold dripping from the ceiling. Crystal chandeliers the size of cars glistened with vines of diamonds.
All around Lydia, creatures of myth and legend mingled. A Minotaur, dressed impeccably in a brocade vest and emerald green velvet, danced with a Unicorn whose pale skin sparkled with rubies. A Banshee curled clawed fingers around the arm of a Shifter who growled under her breath.
Sil and Pitch paled compared to these stunning specimens. Lydia twisted and turned so she could glimpse all of them at once.
Though it was a memory, she felt as though it were real. These were her bloodlines. These were the people whom she may have met.
No one could have guessed what their creature’s souls looked like in real life. Some might have attempted to depict themselves in a drawing or painting, but none could do what was happening right now in Lydia’s mind.
She might have met that Nymph on the street. She might have bought groceries from the Sphinx reclining in the corner. All these creatures surrounding her in a whirl of fabric and movement were still alive to this day.
Everything was so opulent that it made her ache. The g
old. The jewelry. The impossible fabrics. Some dresses pulsed with glowing light. Others moved on their own accord only making their wearer more graceful.
She was drab next to all of them. Lydia was in simple pajamas Pitch had gotten her when she first arrived. If she had been in her own, it might have been worse. Lydia liked elephant prints to sleep in. As it was, she had on a peacock green nightdress.
It was hardly the outfit one would wear to a ball. An arcing hand slid through her stomach and reminded Lydia she wasn’t really there. She was a ghost watching a memory that felt more real than herself.
She stepped through the crowd as though parting a wave. The dancers moved away from her and few passed through her body. The floor gleamed as though lights sparkled beneath her.
Lydia paused and stared down at her reflection. Though it was a memory, Lydia’s presence was captured in the floor.
“What magic is this?” she murmured.
Her reflection looked up at her and pointed at a dark corner of the ballroom. She realized with startling clarity that she had done this before. In some other timeline, she had left a message for herself, hidden in the floor.
“Clever,” she murmured.
The shadowed corner wasn’t as intimidating as she had expected, and it hid an archway to a balcony.
Voices murmured in the private corner. Lydia crept carefully forward, pressing her back against the wall although they could not hear her.
“Everything will be fine,” Pitch’s voice was recognizable. “They will love you.”
“They do not know me, Pitch. An outsider is still an outsider.”
“This dimension is not the same as yours.”
“Please don’t trivialize my fear.”
Sil was as beautiful as the first time Lydia had seen her. Molten silver fell like a waterfall off her body in an ever moving wave. Diamonds swung from her horns as she gestured with her hands.
“I’m not trivializing-”
Sil interrupted him. “You think that I’m afraid because I don’t know what they can do. But I know what they are capable of, and how intelligent they are. They know what creatures they made, and I am clearly not one of them.”
“You were different to me,” the harsh expression upon Pitch’s face softened. He reached forward and brushed a silken strand of hair behind Sil’s ear. “And I fell in love with you.”
Lydia must have jumped forward in time farther than she expected. She hadn’t seen the tender moments leading to this point. The look in his eyes was painful to see. He adored Sil. He thought she deserved the world and would hand it to her on a platter.
Lydia wasn’t certain she could say the same for Sil. There was a tenderness there as she leaned into his touch. But there was a cold detachment in her eyes.
“Go ahead,” Sil told him. “I will follow you in a moment.”
“I should be here with you.”
“I just need a few moments to breathe. Let me make the grand entrance I had always planned.”
He nodded and pulled himself from the shadows. Lydia’s breath caught as she saw the black velvet which molded to his body. Gold buttons and thread created a sense of light within the darkness. A long cape fell from his shoulders and trailed after him as he swept from the balcony.
Although it was likely all in her mind, Lydia swore she could smell the sweet scent of roses and cigars.
“This is not an easy path,” Sil’s voice cut through her musing. “It will never be one perfect line.”
Lydia wanted to hear every second of the Goddess’s musing. Anything she could learn about Sil she would devour. Even if it took centuries.
She walked toward the railing and froze when Sil looked directly at her. Lydia blinked. There wasn’t a chance that the Goddess was actually looking at her. She wasn’t even there.
But Sil saw her because Sil was the Goddess of Time.
“You will have to make hard decisions. You will lose things you love and find new ones. Don’t end up like me. Don’t make the wrong decisions and end up alone, unable to feel because there are so many voices screaming in your memories. Time, although warped, is still linear in your world.”
“Sil,” Lydia whispered. “Can you hear me?”
“I trust you,” Sil continued. Lydia realized that this was all planned. Sil could not hear her, nor had she seen the future to know what Lydia would say. She had simply planned the impossible.
“I trust you,” Sil repeated. “My magic will change. It will become yours until I am no longer there. And I know you will make the right decisions because my magic would not choose you otherwise. All I beg of you is to take care of him. In another lifetime, I would have been able to love him as he should be loved. I am kind. I am giving. But I am not capable of devoting myself to one person alone.
“I am the people’s Goddess,” a tear trailed down Sil’s cheek. “I was never created to love a single man. You can love him as he deserves. To give him peace, clarity, soften his edges which so desperately need to be worn. And I need you to save the world while somehow saving him.”
Lydia leaned back against the railing of the balcony. “It’s a lot to ask.”
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Sil responded. “But it is not impossible if you put your mind to the task. And I know you will do the best you can.”
Lydia rubbed her chest. The words made the weight of her task all the more real and all the more heavy. Save the world. Love the man. Be the good woman.
They were all things that sounded wonderful in theory. But they were so difficult to bring to life.
Sil smoothed a hand down the moving metal of her dress. She pulled herself together in mere seconds. The expression upon her face became her mask and her body a weapon.
Her feet made no sound as she strode from the balcony. Lydia leaned to the side to glimpse delicately arched toes.
“Barefoot?” she whispered.
Of course. What else would someone like Sil wear? She wasn’t the kind of woman to be confined by the tight ache of heels. Of all things, bare feet were her way to hold onto freedom for a little while longer.
Lydia should have stopped the memory there. She should have pulled herself from the thread of the past and gone back to Pitch’s study. She wanted to remember every bit of what Sil had told her and pore over the words for hidden meaning within them.
If she left, she would remember each moment perfectly.
She didn’t leave. Like an addict, she wanted to see just a tiny bit more.
Lydia ran into the ballroom, bursting through the shadows and blinking in the bright golden light. She searched for the only two people in the room she cared for.
Where was the dark man with his moonlight woman?
Her eyes scanned the crowd frantically until she found them. Dancing in the center of the ballroom, they glided as though they were flying. Everyone else dimmed in comparison.
Despite how nervous Sil had professed to be, she held herself regally while the other dancers stared. Her head held high and her posture stiff, she was pulling it off.
A stranger among wolves.
Lydia crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall. They were beautiful. Two sides of the same coin, they glimmered like the night sky and exploded like a dying sun.
She stood in the corner of the ballroom for hours. Just watching them. No one seemed to tire here, the dancers did not pause, the musicians did not stop playing. Fabric continued to swirl in great swaths of color and false smiles on dancer’s faces.
Pitch and Sil never paused. Their bodies intertwined until the music stopped. Even then, they held on for a few moments longer, as though they could not bear to let each other go.
She wanted something like that. Lydia had never considered whether she would get married or have a partner. Her life had been fine without either. Independence was important to her.
Her heart now wanted what they had. She wanted someone to stare at her with the same tenderness with which Pitch looked at Sil. His
hand ghosted over her shoulder and lingered to tangle his fingers with hers. The heat between them was a raging forest fire Lydia could feel from across the room.
A voice boomed through the ballroom. “Who have you brought to our gathering, brother?”
Shadows behind Lydia coalesced into a being. Across the ballroom more shadows gathered from the door. Others slid away from the edges of other people’s shadows and from underneath the instruments.
Four beings created themselves. Tall and unyielding, they had no physical form. They were the shadow of people with no expression nor faces.
Lydia shivered. So these were the Five that were lost to them? Or rather, she supposed, the Four. Pitch stood apart from his siblings in such stark contrast she could not consider him to be among their ranks.
“I have brought a woman!” Pitch called back to them. “I would have you welcome her into our home.”
The shadow beings rushed to the couple and circled them. “She appears to be lacking.”
“How so?”
“She is weak.”
“She is not.”
The shadows grew taller as they argued. “She is not darkness. Darkness is what we have become. Shall we explain again, brother, why we are the way we are?”
“No.”
“Nevertheless, it is an important lesson for her to learn.” One of the shadows leaned close to Sil, who remained still and calm. “Darkness always blots out the light.”
“And without the light, darkness is nothing,” Sil’s voice was clear as bells ringing across a courtyard.
“She dares!”
The shadows swirled around her chaotically until Lydia could no longer see Sil. She rushed across the ballroom, hoping she might catch the last bit of the memory before it was gone.
A wall of darkness greeted her. Heart-wrenching fear froze her legs and locked her muscles. She breathed in a steadying breath. She was a ghost in a memory. Nothing could hurt her.
Raising her arms, Lydia plunged into the whirling black.
A bright beam of white light pierced. Sil stood tall and proud in the madness, her hands held loose at her sides. The diamonds in her horns clinked.
Lydia watched her chest expand in a soft sigh. Sil looked up, shook her head, and disappeared.
