Tessa dreams of dying, caught up in midnight thoughts and rushing desires that span over a century, like some flood gate crumbling to pieces to release a tidal wave of hidden wishes, and she wakes in a tangle of sheets and sweat and lost breath, Jem sound asleep at her side.
She doesn't want to die now, but at the moment that she needs to, and stifles her tears at the fresh revelation, ripping her to pieces as pain anew tears through her, drawing vicious lines around each and every memory she wishes to hide from. She won't die, not naturally, and it kills her a thousand times over, for her to be faced with the prospect of watching yet another man she loves die. She could barely go on after Will's passing, and to stand witness as Jem ages and withers and fades is almost too much to think about, and so she curls her body up next to his, basking in his simple warmth, the shower fresh scent of him filling her senses as she shares his pillow, and he's none the wiser.
She lays her palm against his bare chest, smiling as the rhythm of his pulse thrums beneath her touch, as if come to life by her nearness, and with her other hand she cards through his inky hair, just as his mother might have done in his youth, lulling him deeper into his slumber as his eyelids flutter with dreams.
He's so young now, and yet so old, well into his twenties, and the memory of the seventeen year old boy she saw so many decades ago, holding his violin as if it was his greatest treasure of life, flares up behind her eyelids, and she lets the fears of the future slip away-the tragic way his skin will wrinkle, the fragility he'll gain, and the cough that will grow to be habitual as he nears his death, so very much like the sickness he was a victim to in his long gone youth, eerily reminiscent of Will's own demise-, helpless to the all-encompassing safety that comes over her as the worries of tomorrow slide from her like water, sighing in the gentle moonlight pouring through the window as half lost memories murmur soothingly to her.
Say something in Mandarin.
And the faintest echo of a forgotten voice sounds beside her, as if resting there with her.
Don't waste that on me, Tess.
And if her sleep is dreamless, a dark oblivion that knows nothing, then she remains oblivious, sure to wake in the morning with the certainty that she'd had nightmares so awful that they couldn't be remembered, and her grey eyes would be that much brighter.
They say you cannot love two people equally at once…
I just got my Clockwork Angel necklace a few days back, and felt inspired again-for a short while. ;)
Please R&R! Feedback of any kind is always appreciated! ;)
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