Well, I really enjoyed writing the last chapter, especially creating 'her', and I hope you enjoyed reading it. It sounds like an acceptance speech, doesn't it? Well, anyway, I just wanted to write this as a way of thanking everyone who has read and (especially those who) reviewed. Reviews make me levitate with happiness. Yeah. They do. No, really. They do.
Disclaimer: Wow ... I haven't disclaimed in while ... maybe I'll get sued. DISCLAIM.
The silence stretches. Sags. She smiles beatifically the entire time, unaware of our discomfort. Unaware of how unnerving we find it, that privacy is now corruptible. Completely unaware. Or juts good at pretending? Christ knows, she's had long enough.
"Ann. I know how it feels. How painful and desperate and desolate. I know what it is, Ann. When you sleep, I listen to your breathing."
"Felicity, I feel the rage of the ice in your eyes. The injustice, the frustration. The lust that should not be there. When you fall asleep, awake, I am there, listening to the softness of tears hitting pillow. Yes. I am there."
"Gemma. I am with you every step. Every place, everywhere you turn and everything you kiss. I listen to the grate, that electric hum, of needles in your blood. I know what it is."
She turns to each of us, delivering a line, perhaps two, that cripples. She tells the most beautiful stories. She weaves the most wonderful lies. She poisons us with each dripping word, and we are desperate for more. Opium. Laudanum. River-girl.
"You asked my name, Ann. So long ago now. So very long ago. For me, time melts. Stretches out interminably and then snaps, sudden, and swings back around. Sometimes I find myself in the past, and have the frustration of living through life again. I am young, for one of us. I will be here until you die, and longer. But you asked my name, and why not? I know yours."
It comes, creeping in the shadows. Stealthy. Healthy. A healthy doubt, suspicion. We have been here before. We have had this conversation, learned these revelations, once before. We go round in circles. We do not know her name, but we know so much more besides. Yet we do not know her name.
"What is your name?" I shout the question louder than is necessary, but she does not jump. She smiles, languid, lazy, fluid. "Well done, Gemma. I underestimated you. My apologies. It took Mary much longer, much longer than you. She could not understand. Could not break it. But you ... I underestimated you. I think we all did. Your mother, father, sister, brother. Underestimated, overestimated ... they're the same, really, aren't they? Can you tell me the difference?"
it would be so easy to fall into the enchantment again, but I will not. I must know her name, because then I will have her vulnerable.
"I want to know your name." No shouting, just repetition. Do not listen to her deliciously smooth words, Gemma. Do not be taken in by the sound of water lapping at your ears, the corners of your minds. "I want to know your name."
She regards me coolly. Dewy eyes wide as usual but a perceptiveness behind them that I missed earlier. "Gemma, I think I will like you a great deal. I cannot abide ignorance. Stupidity. Repetition." She laughs, the irony not lost on her. Not lost on me, but lost on Felicity and Ann. They exchange glances. Felicity speaks.
"Gemma, have you met her before? You have, haven't you? You've been coming here without us."
"Don't be ridiculous, Felicity."
"That was the wrong word, Gemma. Think about them. Words. They are so very beautiful. Powerful. The right word was 'arrogant'. Don't be arrogant, Felicity. Yes. That was it. You have a world full of them at your disposal, Gemma. Words. Nothing more than ink and paper, but they do so very much. Damage. Good. Damage?"
I. Need. To. Know. Her. Name.
"Your name. Your name. Your name."
"Yes, arrogant. A very good word to use. Just because I know things about Gemma does not mean I know Gemma. It could simply mean that I find Gemma far more interesting than yourself, Miss Worthington." Her face contorting with rage, Felicity is unable – unwilling? – to reply. But the creature, the girl, the thing in the river, continues. "But that is not true, Felicity. I am so very intrigued by you. All of you. Ann. Pippa. Yes, even the dead girl. I want to know everything. Stories, stories. Tell me stories."
"Your name!" It explodes out of me, and I terrify myself with the force of my will.
"Silly Gemma. Almost lost me there, didn't you?"
"Name. Name. Name." I cannot do anything but repeat myself, feeling nothing more than a crazed old fool – if only Tom could see me now! – and flick my gaze across my two best friends, desperately hoping for them to understand, pick it up. Continue. Carry.
"What is your name?"
"I'd like to know your name."
"Tell us your name!"
"What is your name?"
And she smiles, broad, true, with no malice or mockery. "Wonderful! You're all there! I was getting so tired with waiting. It's simply awful, watching when one knows and the other does not. It was the same with Sarah and Mary. Sarah understood so long before Mary. Strange. She never told her friend what to do. Cruel. Kind?"
"I want to know your name and I want to know now because otherwise-"
"Of course, of course, so rude of me to keep forgetting. It's just that there is so much to tell you, so much more interesting than my name. But here it is."
Silence.
"Name. Now."
"Verdigris."
How perfect. Verdigris. A by-product of water and copper. Her and I. Green.