He's dead.
He's dead.
How is he dead?
He'd berate her if he heard her ask that question, or at the very least smile indulgently while plainly thinking her an idiot. She knows he's dead. She was there. She held him in her arms as he took his last breath and wiped the blood from his lips and kissed his forehead. She knows he's dead; she searched in vain for the pulse that beat beneath her fingers only a few minutes before. She felt the fluttering of his heart stilling in his chest pressed against her.
He's dead.
And still it refuses to sink in, refuses to permeate through the fog of her brain, even when she breaks it down and thinks each word separately, weighing it up. He. Erik. He is. Dead. Erik is. Dead. He is dead.
And she is alive. And where is the justice in that?
It's disjointed, the knowledge refusing to align, like two different pieces of one of his shattered inventions that don't match up with each other and never will. He's dead. And she must keep on living. She promised him that, didn't she? When she became his living wife? Promised to have a life without him, promised to be happy (and how can she be happy when she knows that he's cold and stiff and his heart has stilled?) promised not to blame herself.
So many promises, murmured words into his ear, carried through the night, and they're all so difficult to keep.
She's dried out, hollowed and emptied, all of her tears spent as she held him and felt it coming and kissed away his own tears. She couldn't even weep as she lay beside him, couldn't let out the throbbing in her throat. After, pressing soft kisses to his throat, body so still against her, her eyes stung. A couple of tears trickled down his skin, but inside she was – is – a desert.
What sort of a bride is she that she cannot cry when her husband lies dead beside her?
God knows she'd breathe life back into him if she could.
He's dead.
Is he really dead? His ring is heavy on her finger, and that damned cat (no, she can't think ill of poor Ayesha now) whimpers her way around the apartment, grieving for him the way they both should be able to. And all Christine can think is that it's ludicrous for a husband to die the day he gets married, and perhaps he was married to death already, after all he was dying as long as she knew him.
What shall I do if you die?
What shall she do? What is it within her power to do, now? Her body rebels at the very idea of him being dead, demanding that she curl up in bed and hide on the world that so cruelly lies to her that he is no longer living.
Hide your face so the world will never find you.
Oh, God, no. No.
She's coming apart at the seams even as she sits on the edge of this bed. Her head swims, the room dancing before her eyes. When did she last sleep? She doesn't remember. She couldn't sleep down there. How could she? If she slept she might miss him. It was her duty to do him the honour of seeing him slip from this life, to hold him until the end and memorise each murmur, each breath, each groan of pain, each twitch of his fingers. It was her duty to be sure he knew he wasn't alone. How could she let him die alone? (He wouldn't be alone. Nadir the Persian would have stayed with him but it was her duty to be there too. She was – is – his wife, how could she not be there? How could she do that to him?) Though she can't be certain how much he did know, even conscious, the starry half-blindness of his eyes showing him two different worlds at once.
Was it easier for him to die with her there? Or did she only make it that much more difficult to go? She had to stay. There is no question of that, even though he tried to send her away. She had to see it for herself, though how it hurt to see him struggle so and know it was coming, a knife buried to the hilt in her side, piercing. Perhaps that's why she has no tears, they all bled out as she held him.
A breeze through the hanging drapes, faintly cool on her skin. The touch of a ghost.
It is Erik, come to check on her, to be certain that Raoul brought her home safely. She'd hold him here if she could, grab him by the lapels of his dress coat and kiss him and never let him leave again. But he's already slipped through her fingers.
Look at her. It's only been a few hours and already she's dreaming of ghosts (it's almost funny), the candlelight playing across the ceiling the way it played across his waxy skin when she laid him out. Dressed and perfect, ready for a funeral. What funeral can she give him when she can't even play the weeping widow?
She didn't even bring him flowers. He should have had flowers, he deserved them. She should have brought red and white rose petals, to scatter over him. A nightingale to sit on the bed post and sing. He always wanted to be surrounded with beauty.
Erik. Dear Erik. Her Erik. Her husband. She feels his face beneath her fingertips, his hand wrapped around hers. His head is heavy against her chest and why isn't he breathing? He's supposed to be breathing.
(No. He's not. Not anymore.)
Her wrist is bruised and stiff. That was him. His seizure, his hand clamped tight as a manacle, eyes rolling in his head. And her hip too, wears his mark, his thumbprint on her belly, long fingers on her back, a hand curved around her even now. She saw it as she dressed and he didn't mean that either, not in the middle of their love. He simply needed to cling to her, to hold her. Why isn't he holding her now? Why isn't he here?
The answer is faint, an echo, whispered in her ear. He can't. That's passed for him. Erik is dead.
And his voice, his voice, so close it could be breathed on her skin, but he's not here to breathe it and she's dreaming it, she must be, and how her eyes burn to cling to that voice, those words.
I'm sorry, my dear.