Waiting
Edith sits with Mother and learns to be a proper lady. She learns how to sit with her back straight, how to look and how to speak, how to comb her hair out all dark and pretty and how to wear her dresses. She eats sweet cakes and fruit and wrinkles her nose at lemons and never licks her fingers in front of company.
In the mornings, she learns, and when noon comes around she plays with the servant children. They find secret places and play hide-and-find and sing rhymes until they all fall down, laughing. The older girls tell fantastical stories, about princes and princesses and dragons – and scary stories about monsters that want to eat children up. They warn, never invite a stranger in, and Edith nods very seriously but pays them no mind.
Night-time falls, and Edith lies awake. She counts the dollies on her dresser and watches her own dark eyes blink at her in the mirror and ignores the stars as they whisper to her about sunshine and ocean eyes that are deep and blue and endless.
She sleeps, and dreams of inviting monsters in to play.
Morning comes again, but she is older now. She has learned to be a lady with long pretty hair and dresses and when to speak and how to look. She has learned to ignore the Devil when he whispers awful lies in her ear and how to wish away the pictures in her head. She eats sweet cakes and shares pomegranates with little Mary, whose little hands and fingers and lips run all ruby red and gorgeous, and never licks her fingers.
She goes to church and repents for her sins and prays for God to save her from the Devil and his demons, but God is silent and the stars whisper to her. She remembers the older girls and their stories of monsters, and tells Mary never invite a stranger in. Not even a stranger who pretends to be an angel.
Night comes again, and she misses her dollies with their glassy eyes and illusions of safety. She plays make-believe with the mirror and doesn't listen to the stars or the Devil when they show her ocean eyes and a golden world.
She is scared of the dark.
She dreams of a tea party that goes on forever with an angel and a demon and a daughter and a prince, and the sunshine who takes it all away.
Edith Sees a monster in the street, and dances with him. They dance in the dark in clothes made of rose thorns and he kisses her until the world runs red. They dance along the shore and he waits for nothing and she waits for the ocean.
Edith sees a monster in the street and reminds Mary about strangers, and Mary nods very seriously but forgets because it is unimportant. Edith guides her away and watches the monster over her shoulder. She waits for the dance to begin and the darkness to swallow her.
She is scared of the dark, but the ocean will come.
The ocean and the sunshine are fire and pain and passion and dancing, and together they paint the whole world golden.
Mary is a proper lady – she sits straight and still like a pretty dolly at the dining table and holds her hands very primly in her lap. Her eyes are glassy and her rosebud lips are pale against her soft milky skin. The maid screams, but Edith thinks Mary looks very pretty in her Sunday's best, with her shiny shoes tucked together and ribbons all through her dark hair. She thinks about how Mother would scold Mary for spilling pomegranate juice – all bright, dark red and glistening – down her front and wonders why she is crying.
The dance has begun and he thinks he is leading, but the stars sing the music and the music leads the dance.
Morning comes and Drusilla hides. She has learned new lessons – lessons about the dark and the dance and the beauty of red. She has learned to be a demon and forgotten to be a lady – but Edith remembers, and from her cage she whispers reminders of cake and pomegranates and long pretty dresses and hair that curls and is soft. Drusilla clucks her tongue and looks upon her reprovingly, but Edith reminds her of the ocean and the sunshine, and the stars promise and Drusilla sulks as she waits for the prince to join their party.
Noon comes and the sun is high in the sky; Drusilla wants to sleep, but Edith misses sunlight. She misses church and God, and hates Him bitterly all the same. She misses Mother and Father and Mary and all the cousins and uncles and aunts and the servant children who would beg her to braid their hair or tell them stories. She misses being one of the older girls and warning them, never invite strangers in, even if they only nod very seriously and forget by dinner in the haze of warmth and safety and full bellies.
Night swallows them and Drusilla plays with children. She loves children and the taste of their blood and their fear and their pain. It is sweet on her tongue and slides down her throat like melting chocolate. She likes the little doll-children, who are porcelain pale and fragile and flawless, because she has learned to kill them without leaving a mark or breaking their delicate birdie bones.
She plays tea party with the pretty dollies, but Edith and the stars are stubborn and play no music for Princess – they do not like her parties.
All the places are set, but there is still an empty seat.
Edith drowns in the ocean eyes; Drusilla becomes the moon that commands their tides.
And they wait in the dark for the sunshine.
Yikes, it's been a while since I really wrote anything. I'm awfully rusty, but I rather like this. It didn't turn out quite the way I hoped, but... hey, whatever. At least I'm writing again (God I hate Writer's Block).
Interpretations? I know what I was aiming to share when I wrote it, but what did you think it all meant? :P There are two main ideas here, what do you think they are?