Estate Matters
The cool dark room whispered of forgotten promises and yesterday's dreams. Voices of authors long ago passed to another realm called out to her from every bookshelf. She let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit room and stared, again, in wide-eyed wonder at the inlaid bookcases lining the multiple floors of the estate library. It was still as impressive as the first time she made her way through the maze of endless tomes. Then, as now, the sea of books reminded her of soldiers standing at attention during a commanding officer's review. She moved slowly through the aisles, her heels clicking with each step upon the wooden floors, and let her hands brush solemnly against the hardwood shelving. This time her eyes did not dart down the rows to greedily devour the view of meticulously arranged texts. This time she kept her head low and headed straight for the back room.
Everything was still in perfect order. She found the light switch on the wall and as the room illuminated she could not help but be transformed to her only other visit.
(one year ago)
Myka stood staring at the enormity of the library in front of her. This was heaven. She had never seen a personal collection of this magnitude and the fastidiousness of its upkeep impressed her. She stood taking in the wonder of the library until a light went on in the adjacent room and she inclined her head to look.
"There. That's better." Helena smiled at her as she flung her coat across the arm of a large leather chair in the center of the private room. "Thank you Abigail, that will do. Please bring some tea in about an hour." The female butler gave a slight nod and silently excused herself throwing a quick glance, and a small smile, in Myka's direction. Only Helena would have a female butler, thought the curly-haired agent. Myka smiled and slowly walked toward the newly lit space. It was just as impressive, but smaller and homier with its own set of bookshelves lining the walls and second floor. While Myka had browsed the collections in the outer area Abigail set a fire in the hearth. The added ambience only made the room that much more appealing. This was Helena's personal study, and Myka found she preferred the quiet coziness of the room.
"Yes. Much better," Myka agreed. "Helena, your home is… it's amazing! I can't believe you actually live here." The marked appreciation for the estate's grandeur filled her voice. Everything about Helena's chateau completely took her breath away. From the very moment they made their way through the ornate entrance gate, to the intricate and painstakingly maintained gardens, to the grandiose ballroom and all the accoutrements of the elaborate forty-five room mansion, Myka was mesmerized.
"Well, I didn't actually live here until recently," she responded as she made her way to a large mahogany desk. "I didn't even own the property until after I was bronzed." Her voice faded as she lowered herself into her chair. Helena's focus drifted and she lost herself in something that unexpectedly captured her attention. Myka watched the raven-haired beauty as she furrowed her brow in deep contemplation. Helena was remarkable, she thought, and smiled softly to herself. She took in the delicate features of the woman before her and considered how contradictory they were to the fierceness of Helena's personality. She had weathered the misogyny of nineteenth-century England and despite all the societal rules conspiring against her greatness; she still managed to become one of the most celebrated personas in modern history. Her forward thinking was centuries ahead of its time, and helped shape Myka's own strong and independent nature, but the true H.G. Wells was even more magnificent than the mind revealed in the texts credited to her in name only.
Helena bit her lip and ran her fingers absent-mindedly through her long dark hair. She was troubled by something, Myka mused. She often ran her fingers through her hair when something tugged at her mind, and every time she did it Myka wondered what it would be like to run her own fingers through the dark silky tresses. Myka wondered a lot of things about H.G. recently, and this moment was no exception. Helena flipped something over in her hands trying to make heads or tails of it. As she concentrated she swept her tongue across her bottom lip before tucking it back under her teeth. The image sent a shiver down Myka's spine.
"You've got me." Helena looked up as her voice rang out stirring Myka from her thoughts.
"Uh. Sorry?" She responded and slid her hand to guiltily rub the back of her neck. Helena started to speak and then stopped. A wry smile danced at the corners of her mouth and her eyes twinkled with the sort of mischievous look that could always weaken even Myka's strongest resolve.
"What is it, darling?" Helena asked.
"Hmm?" Myka responded folding her arms and hoping to avoid the question. Helena gestured toward her and raised her eyebrows.
"What were you thinking just now?" She rose from her desk and leaned against it with the smile broadening across her face. Myka silently swore to herself. She was caught. "It's just that you always seem to rub your neck just before you…" She paused briefly. "Let's just say it's a habit of yours I noted some time ago." Helena moved away from the desk stopping a few feet from where Myka stood. "But this is the first time we've had enough privacy afforded for me to ask about it." Something about the way the sultry British accent annunciated the word "privacy" stole Myka's train of thought. She felt the warmth radiate from her face as the blush rose from deep within.
"Ah. No. I just… I mean. Uhm. Nevermind." She faltered. Helena looked at her expectantly but said nothing. Myka shifted her weight and tried futilely to wish the blood rushing to her face to go in any other direction. She cleared her throat. "What I mean is," she began again before spying the device on the desk where it had held the inventor's rapt attention. "Here. Let me." She walked toward her avoiding Helena's bemused expression as she took the tablet from her desk. "It's an iPad," she explained.
"A what pad?" asked Helena with genuine confusion. "I hardly see how that device could even begin to work with the ocular socket." Myka smiled and shook her head with amusement.
"An iPad. This device," she held it aloft for her "is much like a laptop only smaller. Here. See?" Myka powered the device and showed her how to access the home screen.
"Brilliant!" Helena beamed as she huddled in next to Myka completely determined to absorb every detail about the tablet. Myka's hands flitted across the screen as she demonstrated how to open and close various applications. Helena's face filled with wonder like a child spotting Santa Claus on Christmas morning. Myka smiled as she considered how taken Helena always was by the ingenuity of the twenty-first century. Helena placed a hand on her arm and leaned in closer with focused intent on the device. Myka's voice froze a fraction of a second too long in mid-instruction and Helena looked up to see what was wrong. She scrutinized Myka's expression, paused, and then stood straight up mere inches from the taller agent. Helena took the device from her hand and placed it on the desk, then turned to study Myka's face. She looked into each of the taller agent's emerald eyes before dipping her gaze momentarily to her mouth and back up again. Myka inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. The jig was up, and she knew it. She held her breath hoping Helena would step away. Being this close to her was overwhelming and her head was starting to spin.
"How long?" Helena's voice was softer and filled with a soothing kindness that only gripped Myka harder. It was a simple enough question. Only two words. But, Helena's meaning was clear. Myka began to tremble and willed herself with all her might to regain her self-assurance, but to no avail. How many covert battles had she fought within herself over her impossible attraction to Helena? Was she really going to be undone by a fatefully timed observation? One false step, now, and Myka knew she would lose the entire war. "Myka…" Helena's hand moved to cup her face. "Myka, look at me."
Myka's eyes fluttered open and settled on Helena's. She stared into the deep warm eyes and felt herself easing despite the turmoil welling up inside of her. It was impossible not to be completely taken by Helena's striking features as it was, but there were times when Helena would look at her with so much emotion that it literally made her lungs burn. Sometimes it felt as if she were in a vacuum where all the oxygen suddenly disappeared all at once. She peered back into the loving gaze giving only a slight acknowledgement with the faintest of smiles. Why did being vulnerable hurt so much? She asked herself the question until it echoed in her mind and all she could do was look back and forth between Helena's eyes hoping the other woman would see the doubt and fear and let the conversation turn to something less intimate. But, for once, Helena did not acquiesce. She stood her ground as only she could do in her larger than life way.
Myka felt small standing there. For all her strength and bravado, in the presence of H.G. Wells she was not a Secret Service agent; not a Warehouse agent; and not even a well-trained officer of the law. She was just a woman in love standing too near the only person in the universe who, by the very nature of her being, could make her feel vulnerable and safe all at the same time. The sting of tears forming in her eyes prompted her to turn her head. She tried adamantly not to reveal more of what she'd already shown. It was bad enough knowing she might lose her composure at any instant; the last thing she wanted was for Helena to know it, too. Despite how long she'd struggled with her feelings – in the moment everything was moving much too fast. She desperately looked for some measure of control, any control, within herself. Finding no purchase for her grasping mind she guardedly raised her eyes determined to meet her destiny head-on.
Helena wasn't just looking at her. Helena was reading her. Myka couldn't lie to her, and she already knew Helena wasn't going to let her deflect anything this time. So she stood silent and stoic unable to think of anything but the pounding in her chest until it faded into oblivion with the feel of Helena's hands sliding into her own.
"Myka," Helena said with a gentle purity in her voice cutting through the last barrier in Myka's heart. "In all the time we've spent together, why did you never tell me?" And that's when the dam broke. Solitary tears formed glistening trails on her face as they fell from her eyes. Myka wept with the beautiful poise of a woman whose last bastion of self-protection lay around her in jumbles like fallen rubble. Helena brushed away her tears pulling Myka close as she wrapped her arms around her. They stood like that, embracing each other as much with their hearts as anything else. There were no words, no movements, no intrusive thoughts of any kind. Not even the crackling of the fire could break the spell of feeling dethroning intellect. Sensibility gave way to sentiment and for the first time neither woman could do anything other than cling to one another as they stood awash in the white horses of their emotional tidal wave. In the sacredness of the moment Myka was sure even the Sun stood still in silent homage.
Helena felt like home to Myka in a way not even being at home, itself, could feel. And in some part of her mind she knew the other woman felt the same. When they, at last, broke their embrace they needed no discussion to know they had forever changed the shape of their relationship. Where once Myka's heart quickened at just the sight of the lovely woman before her, it now lifted with the elation of wind carrying the very melody of songbirds drifting on lazy springtime currents.
Looking at her now it was as if Myka had never before known what it meant to love or to feel completed by another soul so kindred to her own. They smiled and stood enraptured by one another, all the wanting and asking and answering done silently with their eyes. It seemed an eternity before Helena leaned in and delicately grazed her lips against Myka's. It sent a shudder through both of them. They entwined their fingers and looked at one another knowing how much alike they were in all their fears and all their hopes. Neither of them stopped to ask if they should make this step forward together. Neither of them had to. For each of them the most "right" thing they had ever felt was this moment. Myka let go of one of Helena's hands and reached up to bring Helena's face nearer. She leaned in just close enough to inhale the sweetness of Helena's breath.
They paused millimeters from each other's faces and stared as if the infinitesimally small space between them was surrounded by an electric fence. Their hands slowly found their way to each other's bodies and Myka felt her coat slip from her shoulders. Helena was undressing her. Myka surged forward and let the coat hit the floor. She pulled hard and Helena's body closed the gap between them. Myka held her there, tightly, overwhelmed by the turn of events. All the wanting, desire, fear, and doubt mixed together in her head and she buried her face in Helena's shoulder as her body began to tremble.
"I'm sorry. It's just…" Myka mumbled into Helena's shirt collar. She could feel Helena's hands tracing slow graceful lines up and down her back. Each pass of her fingertips drew against Myka's physical desire like the start of a slow mountain avalanche. Myka moaned softly and said, "I don't know what to do." She felt humiliated. How different could it be, after all? But, Myka knew nothing about the larger nature of the connection between them. It was unlike anything she had ever known. She couldn't bear to think she might do something to elicit the wrong response. Helena chuckled softly and reached back to grab each of Myka's hands. Myka looked up to protest, but before she could speak Helena shook her head.
"Shhh," she instructed her with a coy smile and laid a finger gingerly across Myka's lips. "This time, my dear Agent Bering, it is I who will instruct you in the way of something new." Myka gave her a confused look. Helena shook her head again, this time as if to say she could not believe how innocent Myka really was. She reached out and hooked a finger from her right hand through Myka's belt drawing her in to close the gap between them again. With her other she reached up and slid her fingers to the back of Myka's neck where she let her fingernails graze lazily. Myka shivered and her eyes fluttered closed. She let her head drop to Helena's shoulder and her breathing grew ragged as Helena continued to play with the fine hairs on the back of her neck.
Helena chuckled again and let her left hand fall forward to lift Myka's face towards hers. She placed her lips against Myka's and purposefully inhaled the fragrant aroma of Myka's passionate exhalations before deepening the kiss. Myka moaned, again, and let herself lean into Helena's embrace. Helena's lips were the softest thing Myka had ever felt. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the delicate sensation of the other woman's mouth upon her own. There was no such thing as time – with one kiss they loved an eternity.
When Abigail eventually returned with their tea they had already retired to Helena's master bedroom. Its unmatched splendor went far too unappreciated that night as the women spent their one and only time indulging their passions.
(present)
Myka clenched her eyes shut trying to force out the memories and to keep the painful emotions at bay. She missed Helena. It had been a year since she'd lost her in the explosion that took the Warehouse, but the sense of loss was as strong now as it had been then.
She took one last look around the study before turning to leave when she spotted Helena's coat where she'd left it that night splayed carelessly across the chair. Myka walked over and ran her fingertips across the fabric. She could still picture Helena wearing it. She gathered it up and held it to her face and breathed in Helena's scent. After all this time it still smelled just like her. And all at once she saw Helena's face smiling at her from the wrong side of the barrier. Myka had been helpless in those last few seconds. It was like a nightmare from which she could never awake. Just like that the love of her life was gone in a flash, consumed by flame so intense there was nothing left to bury except the locket she'd left behind. Myka placed it in the otherwise empty coffin that was later shipped to the estate and buried on the grounds. Myka visited the grave earlier in the day and left flowers at the headstone.
In the end that was what hurt the most. How do you let someone go when you were unable to give a proper goodbye? That was why she had come here to Helena's estate today - she hoped to find peace but instead found only painful reminders. Myka sighed as the first tear fell and she brusquely wiped it away. She would not fall apart. Not again. Not here.
"She loved you, you know." Myka started and whirled to meet the female voice.
"Oh. Uhm. Abigail, right?" The butler stood before her in the same impeccable uniform, but wore a look of sadness.
"Yes." The woman gave her a long look. "She loved you," she said again in a matter-of-fact voice. Myka didn't know what to say so she said nothing. "I spent many evenings listening to her stories about you. That day you came here, I knew you had to be the one. You were all she ever talked about." The woman stared at her and added, "I miss her, too," before falling silent. They looked at each other, then, feeling their own sadness at losing someone who mattered so much.
Myka moved to return the coat to the chair when Abigail spoke again. "Keep it. She'd want you to have it." Myka gave her a thankful look and tucked the coat beneath her arm. Abigail walked with her to the exit, but they eventually found their way to the sprawling estate grounds. They walked through the manicured gardens and spent the afternoon reminiscing about Helena. The butler and Helena had a strictly professional relationship, Myka was relieved to hear, but they had spent many hours talking politics, history, and philosophy. The two women shared a sincere friendship and Abigail continued to serve the estate despite Helena's passing. Myka had no one else who could truly share her pain, and Abigail was the only other person on the planet who she knew truly missed Helena as much as she. It helped in some small way to know she was not the only person who grieved her passing.
When it was finally time for her to go Myka bade Abigail farewell, and promised to return again next year to spend another afternoon in shared memories of the woman who had meant so much to both of them. Myka walked to her car lost in thought. She knew she would never again feel Helena's touch, see her smile, or hear her laugh, but at least she could share her memories with someone she knew genuinely appreciated and cared for the woman she loved.
(sixty years later)
Myka would fly back to South Dakota and keep Helena's coat near her bedside to comfort her through her endless lonely nights until the scent had long since faded. Only then would the coat be moved to hang in her closet, an empty reminder of the fullness of life and love.
The annual visits with Abigail continued for many years until Myka eventually passed away in her nineties. She never married and never had children, but she left behind her life savings to a trust-fund established in Helena's memory to help fund research into the lost and unaccredited accomplishments of Victorian-era women.
Abigail's children handled Myka's funeral arrangements and saw to it she was buried next to Helena on the grounds of the estate. The epitaph of their shared headstone read simply:
"Forever Home"