26
Éponine took out her anger on the pavement beneath her feet, and stormed along the streets with her hands clenched into tight fists. There were still tears in her eyes, tears she hated the feel of, burning into her eyelids, but any distress she felt in the way of sadness was quickly being replaced by a slow, simmering fury.
She remembered feeling this angry once before when she was alive, and she also remembered seeking comfort in the form of brandy shared with Montparnasse, the closest thing she had to a friend. There was no alcohol here, nothing to numb the fury and inhibit her control long enough for her to unleash her anger on whatever poor soul crossed her path.
But there was Bliss, which she knew would make her deliriously happy. Right now, she would take fake, manufactured joy over the licks of rage in her stomach. This in mind, she stepped into the first tavern she came across. It was a quiet one, with sooty walls and straw strewn across the wooden floorboards. The man behind the counter silently handed her a tankard and she made her way over to the barrels in the corner.
She filled the tankard to the brim, taking a big gulp from it straight away to make sure none spilled over the edges. Then she turned around, and literally bumped into someone.
"Watch where you're going," Inès snapped, elbowing Éponine out of the way to get closer to the barrels.
"As charming as ever," Éponine muttered, rolling her eyes.
Inès glanced at her, and her face flushed when she realised who she had bumped into. "Oh. It's you."
"Yes, it's me," Éponine said, licking traces of Bliss from her lips. "We need to stop bumping into each other. And I mean that, I wasn't being sarcastic. I genuinely don't want to see you again."
"I don't want to see you either," Inès retorted, easily filling her glass in a way that told Éponine she spent too much time in these taverns.
"At least you're not crying, this time," Éponine said, shrugging one shoulder. "It's an improvement. As I said, you're a really ugly crier."
"I know you spoke to Éléonore about me," Inès snapped, tipping Bliss into her mouth. She poured too much in, and some trickled down her cheek. She swiped it away. "I got a lecture today and she sent me home from work."
Éponine pulled a face. "I was just trying to be a good person."
"Don't bother, it doesn't suit you."
Inès started to walk away and because Éponine was having a bad day and felt argumentative, she decided to follow.
"So, do you drink Bliss to make sure you don't have a breakdown and start conjuring Portals?" Éponine wondered out loud, taking another gulp of Bliss.
"Something like that. I'm assuming you're doing the same?" Inès dropped down into a chair at a table in the farthest corner, and Éponine sat opposite her without any hesitation.
"I don't have a problem with Portals," Éponine said. "I try to avoid them."
"I can imagine you don't have anyone you love enough to want to keep an eye on," Inès said in a nasty voice. "I can't imagine anyone loving you, either."
The few mouthfuls of Bliss she'd ingested did enough to cushion Inès' barbs.
"Well done, Inès," Éponine said. "You've found me out. I hate all of my family that remains alive, and it physically pains me to watch the only person I care for, so unlike you, I avoid the Portals."
And apparently the Bliss had also loosened her tongue.
Inès looked a little surprised.
"I don't try to conjure the Portals," Inès argued. "They open for me."
"So why don't you close them?" Éponine dipped her finger into the Bliss and then stuck her finger into her mouth. "They make you cry like a baby and as I said, you're a really ugly crier…"
"I like watching him, them, whoever," Inès said, knocking back her drink and draining her glass. "It makes me feel better to know they're happy."
"Who is 'they'?"
"Family," Inès said. There was no expression on her face, no trace of sadness, and Éponine could tell that the Bliss was working its magic on Inès' tongue as well. "Although there's not a lot of them left now, the rest died a long time ago, but I can't find them here. And I think another's just died because I haven't been able to find her in a while, so that just leaves one more, my uncle. Though I think he's going to die any day now, he's getting on a bit."
"Do you want to be reunited with your family?" Éponine asked curiously. She sometimes struggled with the concept of loving an entire family of people, considering the fact she only truly loved Gavroche.
"It's all I've ever wanted," Inès said in a surprised tone. "I was separated from them all a long time ago."
"Funny, there are times in my life I'd have given my left arm to be separated from my parents," Éponine said. "It's one thing that makes me happy to be dead, not having to see them."
"The one thing I enjoy is not being the scum of the streets," Inès confided.
"There's that, too." Éponine took another sip, and she could feel the happiness beginning to sing in her veins. "You were scum, too?"
"Of course I was," Inès said, with a snort.
"Thieving?" Éponine guessed.
"And the rest," Inès said. "But I was never any good at stealing things, I got caught a lot."
"I definitely think there's a skill to it," Éponine shrugged.
"You stole, then?"
"Constantly. It was that or sell my body and I only sunk to that low a couple of times." Éponine finished her glass, and then realised that Inès was staring down at the table. "Inès, I actually really don't care if you were a whore. You do what you do to get by. There are worse things you could do. You could kill people for money."
She picked up her glass and reached out for Inès'. "Want some more?" she said, slowly standing up.
Inès stared at the glass in Éponine's hand – and then Éponine realised that Inès was not looking at the glass, but at the hole that still gaped in Éponine's hand. It was easy to forget about its existence, that wound, because she had just grown used to its presence. But occasionally – like now – she saw other people staring at it with an obvious question in their eyes.
"I took a bullet for someone," Éponine told her. "The bullet went through my hand before it hit my body."
"So that's how you died," Inès said. "You came with the students, didn't you? The ones from that barricade?"
"Yes," Éponine said. "I'll get you another drink, and I'll tell you what happened."
After a few moments, Inès gave a slow nod, and Éponine ambled off to get them some more Bliss.
Hours went by. Between them, they probably managed to inhale two barrels of Bliss if not more, and eventually staggered out of the tavern feeling as if they were on top of the world. No subject had gone untouched: Éponine filled Inès in on all of the troubles she'd faced since arriving here, including her argument with Enjolras, and Inès confessed she was in love with a gentleman who did not return her affections because she physically resembled a teenager. Éponine told her about Marius in return, and then Inès spent a full half-hour marvelling over how handsome Enjolras was.
In between the words, there had been dancing and singing and bellowing and flirting, and Éponine was certain she'd never had this much fun before.
For them, the fun only continued once they left the tavern. They'd loudly declared upon leaving they would go to another one, but now found themselves dancing along the streets. Éponine felt like she was flying; she felt like nothing could hold her back, nothing could stop her, like there would be no repercussions for anything that might happen.
She propped herself up against a wall and watched as Inès laughed hysterically, trying and failing to do cartwheels in the street. The other girl kept on getting tangled in the skirts of her dress and falling in a heap on the cobblestones.
"What are we doing, Éponine?" Inès said in a breathless voice, remaining lying on the ground after falling for the seventh time.
"You're having a little lie-down, at the minute," Éponine said, her voice trailing off into a nonsensical giggle that sounded stupid to her own ears, even through the euphoric haze over her brain.
"What are we doing with life, though?" Inès pushed.
"Not much," Éponine replied. "Seeing as we're dead."
Both of them laughed then as if they had never laughed before. Éponine could feel tears streaking down her face and only let her laughter die when she heard footsteps echoing down the street towards them.
It was very dark, but she could tell it was a woman, a woman wearing dark blue with a shawl pulled over her head. "Inès?" the woman said, in a strong voice that was as loud and clear as a bell.
"That's me," Inès sang from where she lay on the ground.
The woman turned her gaze to Éponine. Éponine pulled in closer to the wall behind her, feeling like a small child.
"I've been looking all over for you," the woman chided gently. She smiled at Éponine. "I live with Inès," she explained.
Inès sat up, a broad grin stretching across her face. "She thinks she's my mother," she said.
"I think nothing of the sort," the woman replied, crossing over to Inès and helping her to her feet. She wrapped an arm around Inès' waist. "I just worry about you, out here alone. Although you're not alone."
Inès gestured wildly with one arm. "This is…Actually, I don't know her name. I've been talking to her all day and I don't know her name. What's your name?"
The woman began to lead Inès down the street.
"Éponine," Éponine answered, and the woman halted very briefly, turning her head to look in her direction.
"I would offer to walk you home, Éponine, but I think it's in the other direction," the woman said. Éponine wondered how on earth this woman could possibly know that, but then decided she must be a Guardian or something.
"It's all right, I know my way about well enough," Éponine smiled in response, her head spinning in four different directions all at once.
"Au revoir, Éponine!" Inès bellowed, waving in a frantic manner. "We must do this again!"
"Au revoir, Inès," Éponine replied in a quieter voice, realising they had come a long way from I don't want to see you again in just the space of a few hours.
The forms of the woman and Inès grew smaller until they turned the corner, and Éponine was left alone with her own hectic thoughts.
She began to walk, because walking alone was something she was good at. She realised it hadn't rained once since she'd died. Could it rain here? She wished it would rain. She liked the rain.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been walking for but before she knew it, she was at the side of the river. It gleamed in the darkness, as clear as a looking glass; she spent a few moments pondering her own reflection before seeing the edge of the river as something she should balance on.
Her balancing was slow and methodical and helped to still the manic swirling in her brain. But before she could enjoy it too much, there was a hand on her elbow and someone was yanking her away from the edge.