THE FALL
"You know where to find me."
Yes, I know where he will be. And I know that the professor will be with him. A brief instant of blinding hatred paralyzes me, and I'm scared it will prevent me from reaching the outer balcony in time. I know I must hurry, know – despite our best efforts – that there is absolutely no more time. My pace quickens, such as it can. The ballroom is in chaos from the assassination attempt, and navigation is difficult. I push impolitely past several dignitaries. The outer door is within my sights at last, but still blocked by a few dozen servants and harassed-looking women. I hardly even notice them as I force my way through. As I reach for the doorknob, I hear a voice remarkably like his in my mind.
It is too late.
I pull the door open and step outside.
Instantly, reflexively, my eyes find his. The excitement in his gaze is familiar. So familiar that I could describe it in my sleep, because I have seen it more times than I can count. The flame, the intensity, the utter zest for life. But he looks at me, and I watch the light go out of his eyes. And I know, immediately and completely, what he is about to do. And I cannot stop him. I can only read the thousand apologies in his eyes – not for what he has done, or for what he is doing, but for the effect it will have upon me – before he throws himself, still wrapped in the professor's arms, over the railing and down into the churning, roaring, hungry maw of the falls.
No cry springs to my lips, because I know he will not hear me. I do not run to the edge to look down, because I know there is nothing to see. The door closes behind me with an almost-inaudible click and I stand there, my mind, for the first time, utterly devoid of thought. I drift out of time, my mind empty, my body like stone, the only sound the roar of the falls in my ears.
After a while – minutes, hours, days? – I begin to regain my senses. I remember that I can feel, and become aware of the coldness of the air around me, the way my breath swirls in a white mist before my eyes. I remember hearing, and realize my teeth are chattering, a continuous, erratic clicking beneath the roar. I remember sight, though the sun has long set and the winter night is dark and moonless. These sensations come together slowly, until I remember where I am and what I am doing there.
The pain sends me to my knees. I do not cry, but a small, choked sound escapes my lips, just once. The stone floor is painful and cold beneath me, and my body convulses with shivers, but I cannot bring myself to move from this spot. My eyes spot a familiar dark shape against the pale floor. It is his pipe. He must have dropped it, before… I pick it up. The bowl is as cold as the stone on which it lay, giving me some indication of how long I have been standing out here. I cradle his pipe, this last, precious artifact, in my hands, bowed over it as though in prayer. My hands are shaking violently, and I fixate on this, trying to see a pattern in the wild movements.
I cannot hear over the roar of the falls, so I don't hear the door open, nor the footsteps the floor, until Sim is kneeling before me. She takes my trembling hands in her own, and I realize my hands must have gone numb because I cannot feel hers at all. She helps me to stand. My knees protest vehemently, sore and stiff from kneeling on the cold stone floor. She does not rush me, but must know better than I the urgency of leaving, because she steadily backs me up towards the door. I allow myself to be turned around, and tear my gaze from the place where he fell.
It is done, I remind myself, and the voice which sounded like his in my mind is gone now. There is a silence there, deep and unforgiving. Every sound I hear - the roar, the chattering of my teeth, my footsteps across the floor - echoes in that empty space within my soul.
Even when we leave the mountain, the roar still resonates, however faintly, filling the space he once occupied. I become accustomed to the sound – welcome it, even, when the hustle and bustle of London become too much for me to bear alone. Because even though he is no longer with me, he has left me this sound, this never-ending roar, to fill the silence left in the void.