'Sunlight dances off the leaves
Birds of red color the trees
Flowers fill with buzzin' bees
In places we won't walk.'
"In Places We Won't Walk" ~ Bruno Major
~OL~
One of the daggers has two snakes wound around its hilt.
The piece is quite beautiful, really, with rubies for serpent eyes and emeralds for scales. It's smaller than most knives ringing the empty chair.
Marta hasn't sat in it since that day, the attempt on her life. She can't.
Right now she's at a particularly good angle to see the dagger, high over her head as it is. Short, fat, double edged, and glittering by afternoon sunlight. The twined snakes seem almost like they're embracing each other around the bronze of the grip.
Her sweaty fingers fidget where they rest on her stomach, folded together.
The carpet smells like dirt and static but the house is quiet, and this is mercy enough. Muted sunshine filters through gauzy curtains. It lights up all the blades in a spectacular corona. Rays of gold and red fly around the room, onto the chaises and piano and book spines.
"Knock, knock," someone says, right as they also knock on the sitting room doorframe.
Some logical part of Marta's brain registers that she's been caught in a strange position, on her back on the floor, staring up at a halo of Harlan's old swords. But her bones feel heavy. And her mouth is set in a grim line that refuses to bend these days.
Before she can overthink it, a pair of patent brown loafers appear by her shoulder.
Marta's jaw stiffens.
Instead of a reprimand—"get up off the floor, you daft girl" or "maybe you really are crazy"—the loafers disappear and are replaced by a coat-clad arm.
"Mind if I join you?" Benoit asks, even though he's already halfway on his back. Not waiting for a response seems to be his habit. As if there is nothing at all unorthodox about a woman wanting to lay down on the floor in her multimillion-dollar home.
He settles barely a hand's breath away with an undignified shimmy, much like a child getting into bed. "Your mom let me in on her way out. It's nice that she and your sister still get to live with you, all provided for."
"Mmm."
Benoit tucks an elbow under his head. "She told me she's never had such a big kitchen in her life. She loves cookin' in it."
Indeed she does. Marta's rarely her seen her mother so happy. She seems more in her element than Marta will ever be.
"It's awfully big of you to let grandma Thrombey stay here too."
"She's the only one I can stand," Marta confesses.
Benoit chuckles, one of those sandpaper sounds that reminds Marta of pipes and antique dresser drawers. He murmurs a noise of agreement with the sentiment. Grandma Thrombey is the nicest of the bunch and an excellent listener to boot. Not to mention Marta's mom loves her; the two get along like a house on fire, swapping stories over games of bridge that last long into the night.
They say nothing for a long time, and Marta's teeth unclench to the tune of the old grandfather clock.
Marta glances over at Benoit. He seems perfectly content to lay there and look up at the ceiling. His other arm also rests on his stomach, playing with a tag underneath his tie.
The corners of her lips twitch. "Came to see if I broke any more trellises?"
"Ha! Not exactly. Just wanted check up on you before I head back."
"It's only been twelve days," she points out.
A crease folds between Benoit's brows. "Twelve days is a long time with all the paperwork you've got going on. And even if you did, the trellises are yours now. You can break whatever you like."
Marta's face falls.
Benoit shifts his gaze onto the chair. "Now where on earth did Harlan ever find all those?"
Marta grimaces against a sudden crackle in her chest. "Auctions, mostly. Every few months I'd come in to see him wire on another dagger."
"It really is something." Benoit's voice doesn't sound absent or distracted, as Marta expected. He's not off on a drawling tangent in the way she's come to associate with the earthy detective. "Think you'll keep it?"
"I…"
Marta's hands unclasp to scrub at her chin.
"I don't know, to be honest. For now I'll keep the house but…I'm thinking of donating most of Harlan's trust fund. He always regretted not doing more charity work."
Benoit's eyes finally track over to her face. "I meant, will you keep the knife chair specifically?"
Marta blinks.
"I just thought it might hold bad memories," Benoit explains, "being near the thing—the blade—that almost did you in. No matter how much of a prop it is, that's got to be harrowing."
It was one of the worst days of my life, she almost says. But Benoit probably knows that too.
"No." Marta's nostrils flare. "Ransom almost killed me."
With a sage nod, Benoit hums. "That is a very wise and important distinction."
It's a bit of bluster on Marta's part, but if Benoit notices, he doesn't say anything. In truth, Marta has only been able to enter this room as of four days ago. At least without shaking or working herself into a panic. She finds laying here, when no is one home, oddly soothing.
Cathartic, a more philosophical person might say.
"I do declare." The hand on Benoit's stomach lifts to gesture at their sitting arrangement. "This is a mighty helpful way to gain perspective on things, isn't it?
A tentative flitter sweeps around Marta's stomach. She allows the ghost of a smile back on her features. It appears she's destined to live surrounded by eccentric people.
"I see things much clearer this way." Benoit is less censored with his wide grin, all the way up into crow's feet around his eyes. "It's a most enlightening place, the floor. Highly underrated for having a nice think. Thank you, Marta."
Marta has absolutely no idea what he's thanking her for, but she nods along. It's rather…touching. He's a busy man with his services so highly in demand. Yet he thinks lying on a floor with an unwitting young heiress the best use of his time on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
The humming returns and Benoit taps each finger on his left hand in place of piano keys. It's an old melody, like the ones Harlan used to listen to on his gramophone.
A thick wad of cotton chokes up Marta's windpipe. She has to swallow twice and it still doesn't do a lick of good.
"It should be him here."
Benoit's fingers stop. He asks, "Who, Harlan?" even though Marta can tell he already knows what she means.
Her heartbeat pounds against the rug through her spine. The sun hides behind a cloud, darkening the bouquet of knives abruptly.
"He deserved better." Marta breathes out, harsh, through her nose. "I shouldn't have any of it."
Benoit's good humour darkens abruptly too. "I thought we went over this. You were the only person to treat him kindly in his final years and he wanted you to have his fortune."
Marta shakes her head, splaying her hair in a similar halo. She doesn't care about the money, the will, anymore. This is not what keeps her lying awake in the dead of night and sobbing in the shower.
Her lips mush. Release. Scrunch again. "No, I mean if he…if I hadn't said anything, then he'd still be here. Only by assuming I made a mistake with the bottles did he think to…to…"
An odd shadow flits through Benoit's stark blue eyes. They're a hue Marta doesn't see often, like forget me nots; they even have faint flecks of gold near his pupils.
"Speakin' of Ransom…" Benoit removes a monogrammed handkerchief from his breast pocket and only then does Marta register tear tracks on her temples. Salty droplets water the carpet. "He said something very interesting at the court hearing yesterday, though whispered to his lawyer in a way I probably wasn't supposed to overhear."
"No matter what he did, I'm still to blame." Marta's fingers bunch in her sweater. "I should have just called the ambulance."
It's been a mantra in her head every waking moment since that night in Harlan's study. This is the ugly truth she'll live with for the rest of her life, no matter how much good she does. Guilt is the least price she can pay for what she has now, for the loss of Harlan's beautiful, curmudgeonly heart. Why hadn't she just called?
Benoit's hum is somber this time. "Do you know what he said, Marta?"
She wipes her nose with the handkerchief, noisy and unladylike about it.
Benoit smiles. "Ransom said even if the medication switch didn't work—he would have found another way to kill Harlan. He wouldn't have stopped."
Like the leaky faucet upstairs, Marta's tears shut off by shaky increments. Silent. Messy.
"Marta, please listen to me: what happened to Harlan is not your fault."
She turns her head to look at him, only to find that he's been staring at her during this revelation. His face softens.
"Ransom really said that?"
"He did," says Benoit. "I'm sorry, Marta, but you were just a pawn in Ransom's hand. If he didn't get his chance to kill Harlan and frame you the night of the party, then a week later. Or the month after that. Harlan's death was signed the minute he told his grandson about the will."
Marta's eyes well up again, and this time her chest stutters with it. Still silent, but breathless against the ache in her throat.
So much death, for such senseless reasons.
There are too many thing they'll never get to do, books Harlan will never write, long walks in the trees they won't have, advice about men and life she'll never get to ask him, terrible games they'll never play…
"I wish he was here," she whispers. Only now has she allowed herself to grieve for his loss, and it's a pain of an agonizing degree she's never experienced before and hopes she never does again.
"As do I, Marta. As do I."
"I'd trade it all, every last dime, just to have him back."
Benoit's smile doesn't grow exactly, but the icy blue of his eyes thaws. "And that, my dear, is why you deserve it. Don't sell yourself short."
The clouds peel back again to expose a narrow swath of sun. It falls across their hands, glimmering off Benoit's ring. They go back to looking at the 'blade throne,' as Fran used to call it.
Somewhere in the pause, a bizarre peace settles over Marta, the first she's known in weeks. As if another person's presence in these suspended moments has banished her blacker thoughts. She doesn't have to do this by herself. She can reach out to those who care about her.
"I like that one best." Benoit points up at the very same dagger Marta fixated on. "Those snakes are comforting somehow."
Marta eyes him askance. "Comforting?"
That's not how she would describe the twin serpents. Not by a long shot. She's half considered burning the whole ensemble. Fran used to hate dusting it, all the sharp nooks and fissures, not to mention how dangerous it could be when kids came to visit.
"Oh yes." Benoit circles a hand, warming to his oration. "A snake or two twined on a staff are a symbol of healing. Like Greek mythology or that story with Moses—if someone looked at the staff, they got better."
Despite her Catholic background, Marta has to confess she didn't know that.
Benoit shifts to his elbows and stands. "It's good to see you, Marta. Doing better, I mean. Not so peaky looking anymore."
She's shocked to feel a grin creep up her face. Her first in twelve days. "You're welcome to lay on my floor anytime."
"Much obliged." Benoit tips an imaginary hat. "If you ever need assistance, even just to chase those bloodthirsty lawyers and tabloids away, give me a call."
"I will."
Then Benoit offers her his hand.
Marta's fist closes around the handkerchief and she swallows again. They just stare at each other for a moment, him at the bruised circles under her eyes, her at the way one side of his smile stretches higher than the other. The easy respect and compassion oozing out of his posture.
"Everyone needs help getting on their feet sometimes." Benoit's hushed voice relaxes Marta's knuckles, white as they are. The words ring around the room longer than they should, off blades and dusty portraits.
Marta reaches up her right hand. Benoit clasps it at once and the grip is calloused, sure, and warm. With it, a shot of hope bolts straight through Marta's chest.
He levers her slight weight up and doesn't let go until she's fully standing.
"I won't allow the money to change me," Marta says suddenly, so positive of this truth she feels ten feet tall. "I won't become like them."
Benoit winks. "Welcome home, Miss Cabrera."
He leaves still humming that old tune and tapping his elbows to an invisible beat. Marta watches him until he's out of sight, hopping back in his car and spraying up gravel, then back to the dagger. Beautiful, sharp, and ready to heal. Just like her.
It's wired directly over the chair, like a crown. Marta walks over to it and takes her first full breath in two weeks.
She sits.