Choosing Eternity

by Bridget Essex

  I was flustered, blushing. And when we finally reached the shore, I knew that she knew I’d watched her every step, had followed her motions with my eyes.

  She paused on the sand, and I thought she would step away from me, leave me.

  She had simply been being courteous, after all. I had nearly fallen into the sea. She had wished to prevent that from happening, so she had held me steady until we were safely on land. She had only given me her arm to avoid another show of my clumsiness.

  But when my slippered feet stood on the damp sand, she did not let go of me.

  And I?

  I did not let go of her.

  We stood side by side, our faces to the cliff, our backs to the sea. I had my head inclined toward her, but I could not bring myself to look at her once more. I’d stared at her during the trek across the rocks. She must have noticed—felt—my inquisitiveness, the weight of my eyes upon her. Though I was not typically shy, I was embarrassed that I had been unable to look away, so now I stared down at my feet, and at her black boots. The water sloshed up to our heels but did not dampen them.

  And though the waves still beat against the shore, though the wind wailed…

  Between us, there was only a heavy stillness in the sweet moonlight.

  I felt her presence beside me, and my body wanted to bend toward hers. She drew me toward her with a power I could not deny.

  “Tell me, Miss Westfall,” said Kane, then, and when I forced my gaze to meet hers, I noticed a merry brightness flickering in the depths of her eyes, her full mouth turning up just a little at the corners, “whatever were you doing so far from shore? Do you make it a habit to explore ocean rocks at night?”

  There was no cruel jest in her words; rather, they bore the softness of an intimate joke between friends. I couldn’t help but return her mischievous smile.

  “Sometimes…” I answered, raising a brow. “Sometimes, things require exploration.”

  “Or perhaps,” murmured Kane, voice low, a pleasing growl, “you are a siren from the deep, come to bathe in the moonlight upon a stone?”

  My heart thundered within me as I held her gaze, as I watched her eyes darken, her lips part.

  There had been weight to those words.

  “The creatures of myth who lured men to watery graves?” I answered at once, and with a little laugh. “Hardly.”

  And then I said, all in a rush, “I do not lure men, Miss Sullivan.”

  Our eyes met. We gazed intensely at one another, trying to work the puzzles and translate the clues of a language that was not ours, that we must subvert in order to possess.

  I hoped I had done well enough to make Sappho proud…but I did not know.

  I could only hope.

  I stared up at her, my chin lifted, my breath coming fast, my gaze defiant as I hoped against hope that we were the same, she and I.

  It was, after all, a night of magic…was it not?

  Hope and magic are destined for each other.

  Kane turned then, but she did not let go of my arm. In fact, when she shifted, her face cast in profile, she appeared thoughtful, her mouth curving into a secretive grin.

  We walked side by side up the thicket-lined pathway, the thorny branches often twining together overhead so that we moved in a lush and flowered tunnel. Here, within the thicket, the roar of the sea faded to a sweet whisper, so it was much easier to hear my heart pounding. I felt slightly intoxicated, as I felt the pressure of her arm against my side and breast, as I felt that weighty presence of her beside me as we ascended the path.

  I turned my head. I was, perhaps, about to ask her a question, about herself, about the inn…but before I could get out any words, planned or unplanned, I inhaled deeply…

  And the scent of her perfume filled me.

  We were deep in the arbor at this point, and I thought, at first, that the heady scent that filled my lungs just then was simply the perfume of the blossoms still open around us. But there was no trace of night blooming jasmine on this path, or in the gardens that I could see.

  Jasmine was my favorite flower. I looked for it, would have noted it.

  And that is what she smelled of, I realized.

  Jasmine, a deep enchantment of regal power that ascended from her skin like witchcraft.

  I was, at the very least, spellbound by it.

  Spellbound by her.

  When we reached the gardens once more, I realized there was no more reason for her arm to remain clasped with mine. If she was doing it to be kind or to make certain I did not slip again, why…her services were no longer required.

  But she did not let go of me.

  If anything, her arm tightened about my own as she glanced sidelong at me, offered a small, tight smile.

  “Have you supped this evening?” she inquired.

  “No,” I began, but whatever else I might have said was quieted by a voice at the front of the inn.

  “Melody? Miss Westfall?”

  Beside me, Kane lifted her chin, glancing toward the front of the building, her eyes narrowing, the blue in them dazzling as torchlight reflected in their depths.

  It was Tommie. She stood on the front porch of the Sullivan Inn with a torch held aloft, a coat about her shoulders—she looked like she was about to set out in search of me, and the tone of her voice was tight, worried. When we wended our way through the gardens, I called out to her.

  “Here I am, Tommie!” I raised my hand, hailed her from the darkness of the gardens, and Tommie was all smiles as she made her way down the paths toward us.

  That is, until she saw the shadow of Kane upon my arm.

  She paused, stopping quickly, her mouth immediately downturning into a tight frown.

  For a long moment, she said nothing.

  Taut silence descended about us.

  “Miss Westfall,” she said, nodding to me, her jaw tight. “I thought…” She cleared her throat, shook her head. “I was worried something might have befallen you, out here…in the dark.”

  “Worried?” I asked, and I could feel my cheeks flushing. “That’s ever so kind of you, Tommie—but there’s no need. Kane and I found one another and we were simply strolling and…chatting together.”

  “Chatting,” Tommie repeated, but it wasn’t a question. When she glanced at Kane, there was a tension radiating in her glance that set my heart uneasy. “Ah.”

  “Thomasina,” said Kane, inclining her head toward the other woman. “Has cook been notified of our guest?”

  “Of course. Do you think I’d allow her to go hungry?” Oh, the tension that radiated in Tommie’s voice.

  What was going on between these two?

  And why did I feel caught in the middle of a battle I didn’t quite understand?

  “You needn’t worry about her,” said Kane then, her tone a little softer as she inclined her head down to me, gazing down at me with those brilliant blue eyes. “I will take Miss Westfall to the dining hall.”

  Tommie was about to say something else, but ground her teeth together. She took a step backward, gave a curt nod.

  And, without another word, she rounded the inn, headed toward the stables with her flickering torch.

  “Is there…is there something amiss?” I asked Kane quietly. For her part, Kane shook her head once, twice, sharply, then she took a deep breath, gazing down at me and patting my hand on her arm.

  “Nothing to trouble yourself with,” she growled. “Thomasina simply seems to have…great affection for you.”

  This was, of course, still very dangerous ground. “Great affection” meant many things, and in this situation, it should, have course, simply meant that Tommie liked me as a friend.

  But it could mean that I had attracted her, and that is what I wondered on.

  As we made our way into the Sullivan Inn and down the red and black checkered hallway, I realized that my heart was pounding harder, my breath coming faster. I was trying to piece all of the clues together, and I hoped against hope against hope…


  Perhaps, just perhaps, I had found some women who…understood me.

  Oh, I was very hopeful indeed when we entered the dining room, a small, sumptuous room draped with velvet curtains and thick, red tablecloths on the little round tables that seemed cloistered about the fireplace. There was no one else in the room, but the fire was lit and crackling merrily in the place, and the gas lamps along the walls were turned as high as could be. The place was still dim, but cheery, and it was so lovely and warm from the fire.

  Kane let me go at this point, inclining her head to me, and I moved quickly toward the hearth, taking my gloves off and holding my hands out to the blaze.

  Kane, too, moved to the fireplace, leaning her arm against the mantle as she stared down into the merry flames. She appeared to be thinking on something for a long moment, her lips pursed, her eyes narrowed, but then she glanced my way, her mouth curving up deliciously at the corners.

  “Would you mind if I smoked, madam?” she asked in low tones.

  My mouth was open, my heart beating with an erratic nature as I stared at her. It was not done for women to smoke in these times, and I had only ever seen men do it, or the very poorest of women.

  It was a man’s dalliance.

  But Kane did not seem to care.

  As I shook my head woodenly—no, I did not mind in the slightest—she took a paper pack of cigarettes out from her waistcoat pocket, “Wild Woodbine” emblazoned across the little packet. She tapped out one of the cigarettes into her hand—her hand that bore no glove, I realized now, my heart hitching in my throat—and she leaned down to take up a little twig from the side of the hearth to light the cigarette.

  She took a few puffs of smoke, closed her eyes, let it ring her head like a halo. Oh, but she did look angelic in the bright light of the fire, with the smoke twining about her white-blonde hair, her sapphire eyes radiant as the blaze leapt up before her.

  I watched her leaning against the mantle, watched her strong shoulders as she bent forward, tossing the little twig onto the roaring flame, watching her sumptuous mouth close gently about the cigarette, and my fingers began to itch, and I wished—oh, how I wished!—that my bags were not in my room, and my little bits of charcoal were before me, and paper, too.

  I wanted to draw her so much that I ached for it.

  I wanted to paint her so much that I was possessed with the wanting of it.

  I cleared my throat. Before I could truly think of the consequences or even consider what I was asking, I’d crossed the little space between us and laid my hand—still bare from the warmth of the fire—upon her jacket sleeve.

  “Would you…Miss Sullivan, would you accept to be painted by my hand?”

  She turned in surprise, a single brow raised as she glanced sidelong at me. “Please,” she rumbled softly. “Call me Kane.”

  “Kane,” I murmured, a bright flush rising into my cheeks. “I…I am an artist. I am on my way to the Chautauqua artists’ camp in Northampton to teach other artists…like myself.” I reached up, pressed my fingers over my heart. “You have a very singular profile and face…I would love, so much, if you would sit for me. May I paint you?”

  She considered this, taking another drag of her cigarette, the smoke a spiral of incense now about her fair head, like an offering. She put that fair head to the side, regarded me with darkening eyes.

  “I would be honored,” she told me then, her voice a whisper.

  “Oh,” I murmured, suddenly breathless. I gazed at her, letting my eyes finally and unabashedly rove over her countenance. And what a countenance it was. She was utterly bewitching and beguiling, her face unlike any I’d ever seen, her very presence unlike any other person I had ever encountered.

  If I would live to be a hundred and a day, I would never be able to forget her.

  She had undone me.

  The cook brought me my cold plate, and I ate it quickly, sketching my fingertips over my cloth napkin almost nervously, tracing the contours of Kane’s face upon the napkin again and again, practicing.

  For her part, Kane remained by the fireplace, inclining her head to the blaze, her hands clasped behind her from time to time as she tirelessly smoked through several cigarettes as I ate my dinner.

  Finally, I was through, and the cook came to clear away the plate. “Will you be wanting anything else, miss?” she asked nervously, her gaze darting over to Kane, who did not look her way, as she was still staring into the depths of the fire.

  “No, thank you,” I told her, and then the cook did an odd thing. She reached out, touched the sleeve of my dress. I stared up at her in alarm, still seated at the table as she gazed down at me, her eyes wide.

  “You be careful, miss,” she murmured, then cleared her throat, for Kane had glanced her way now, her eyes narrowed.

  “That will be enough, Therese,” she growled. The cook, Therese, backed away, giving little curtsies to Kane, but she held me in her gaze, and I realized, before she turned the corner with my plate, disappearing down the corridor…

  She was frightened.

  I glanced at Kane, my brows up, but she shrugged a little, finally leaving the fire. “Did she disturb you?” asked Kane quietly, coming to crouch beside my spot at the table. Any worries that I had took wing and disappeared quickly when she crouched so near to me, one knee pressing into the carpet at my feet, the other bearing her elbow as she looked up at me with an earnest glance that made my breath hitch in my throat.

  “No,” I answered her, shaking my head. “But she bade me be careful.” I reached out, and I took Kane’s hand in my own.

  And my breath hissed out of my mouth.

  I dropped her hand, and we stared at each other, eyes wide.

  Kane, she who had been standing by the fire, letting the flames warm her, standing so close to the blaze that I’d worried her jacket might catch fire…

  She was as cold as ice to the touch.

  Perhaps colder.

  She rose slowly to her feet, towering over me. But there was nothing foreboding about her, as she gazed down at me, as she offered her hand to me again, even with the cook’s warning ringing in my ears.

  I had nothing to be careful of. I had nothing to fear as her cold fingers slid through mine, as she gently—so gently—drew me to a stand beside her.

  I thought, for a long moment, so tender a gesture as this was, that she would reach out, her fingers brushing an errant strand of hair behind my ear, or that her fingertips might follow the curves of my waist and rest there. There was such a subtle gentleness to her, something I could see rising in her when she spoke to me, when she touched me, which it seemed she found every excuse to do so.

  “Are you very tired?” she asked me, bending her head close to mine, her voice low…urgent.

  “No,” I answered, breathless, tilting my chin up to her. The air between us vibrated with unspoken words, and I licked my lips, sought her gaze. “Are you?”

  “No.”

  I seized upon this. “Well,” I began, drawing out the word, “then…my coach comes for me tomorrow afternoon. It would be best…” I cleared my throat, tried to choose each word with utmost care. “I think it would be best if you sat for the portrait this evening, if I…if I painted it now. I can get the rough lines of you down, begin the painting…and then…perhaps I can leave the painting with you to let it dry, once completed? And when I am come back this way again, this autumn…I can take it with me then.” I gave her the slightest, smallest smile, but the hope radiating in my heart must have been apparent.

  For she smiled, too.

  And it was as if the moon shone full and bright in the room with us, she was so lovely.

  “Yes, of course,” she answered, hiding a smile as she inclined her head toward me, gesturing back toward the corridor. “If I may freshen my spirits, I will be at your room shortly. I will see you there?”

  I tried to veil my disappointment that she’d be leaving me, but I don’t think I did a good job at such a thing, for her smile deepened as
I turned from her, nodding, making my way back down the corridor toward my room.

  True to her word, Tommie had fixed the door, the doorknob shining in the soft light from the gas lamps when I came upon it. I opened that door, shut it behind me, and then I pressed my fingers to my bodice, resting my shaking hands there as I felt my chest rise and fall with breath beneath the constraints of the corset. I was more than used to the tightness of it. Its constriction felt like an embrace, and it usually calmed me, if there was ever an instance that disturbed my sensibilities.

  But I did not feel very calm at the moment.

  I felt that there was a storm circling, just beneath my skin, a lightning of power flickering through my bones, rolling thunder filling every vein and my heart besides.

  It was an intense sensation of longing that consumed me.

  I longed for her.

  My fingers shook as I smoothed them over the fabric of my dress, trying to take nice, deep breaths and failing, my heart knocking at my ribs like it wanted to open a door.

  I needed to prepare for Kane to sit for me, needed to set out my supplies and prepare mentally for the painting, but all I could think on was Kane in this little room with me. She filled every space where she existed, and she would consume this place…like she had consumed me. I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply, saw in my mind’s eye Kane with her intoxicating perfume, her bewitching smile, her bright blue eyes that saw into the very depths of me. I felt unclothed before her, naked as a prayer, and that was a feeling I…was not used to.

  But…I could get used to it, I thought, as I smoothed my shaking fingers again over the fabric of my dress. I lifted my chin, saw the ghost of my reflection in the glass of the window, saw how wide my eyes were, my lips open, wet and shining in the soft light.

  I looked bewitched.

  But no matter…I was a professional, and professional I would be. So I pulled a little stool out from behind the bed and set it in front of the window, the window with its glaring crack across the glass. I took off my gloves, set them down upon the coverlet of the bed, and I unwrapped the handkerchief about my hand, intent on washing it and its wound in the basin.