Chapter 13

The girl had her small rebellions. She waited, until the moon had climbed to the very tip of her latticework window, until it looked like it had been ensnared by the braided iron. Then, slowly, carefully, the girl eased out of bed. She paused then, listening closely for any sounds that could betray her, but no change fell upon her ears. A candle still burned by the window, enough to give a form to her reflection in the dark glass. She leant over it, bringing a slender index finger to meet its equal and opposite match, and watched as, just at the moment she would touch the glass, her reflection disappeared. It had the suddenness of darkness after an extinguished light, and the girl paused to admire the empty net.

The girl was a mouse. She stole across the yawning corridors of her castle, with the sighing doors and gaping maws of darkness that led to rooms long unused and left to dampness and decay. The girl paused in front of one such room, breathing in the musty, disused air. Hearing no sound, she entered the long-forgotten treasure at the end of her labyrinth. It had been a servant's room, long ago and the rotten wood of an ancient loom still sat, piled in the middle. This, the girl knew by memory alone, since there was no light to guide her. But this was not her treasure. Her treasure lay in the back corner of the room, hidden behind a leaning painting, the canvas slashed, the corners ragged with rage. It was a servant's door, no higher than the girl's knee, so that she had to army crawl and twist and wiggle to get through it. It was an unmarked door to the outside. A treasure.

The girl took the first breaths of her fresh air with relish, twirling invisible limbs in the cool spring breeze. It felt great to be alive. She was eleven years old. She still found these moments of stolen joy readily. Soon they would start slipping though her grip with greater and greater speed, until she had nothing but empty fists, her arms still held out in confused supplication. But not tonight. Tonight, there was still open air, and will enough to ride it.

The girl walked along her usual path. She stole these nights as often as she dared, when the weather was fine enough to protect her hair from rustling and her clothes from mud. She had a favourite path, that took her along the very edge of her prison, the crumbling, mossy stone of the fence stuck out haphazardly, like falling teeth. They leered and taunted her as she made her way along the grounds. She knew she could not simply walk out of this broken fence, just as nasty muggles could not simply walk in. The former was newer magic, incantations made only seven years before, at her arrival on the land. The latter was a much more ancient magic.

The girl was brought out of the rhythm of her routine with a strangled, gasping call for help. Panic turned her veins to ice, as the girl instinctively turned on her heels to run. She was several strides in before she came back to her senses and stopped. She had not recognized the voice. She knew so few voices that, even when warped with pain and panic she would be able to identify each one. There was a stranger here. She retraced her steps.

The boy was caught in a trap, one of the prince's projects, his twisted idea of a joke. The girl stared at the boy greedily, drinking in the features of a new, living face. She had not had the pleasure in many years. "Help!" the boy gasped, the devils snare starting to twist tighter around his ribcage. The girl knew that she should leave the prince's trap alone, that he would notice the damage, but she could not let the boy suffer. "Incendio" she murmured, and the winding, twisting ropes fell back. The boy took in shaky, hurried, breaths, scrambling his way out of the pit before the winding vines could recover. He looked about wildly for his saviour, his gaze passing over the girl's invisible form without pause.

"You should go" the girl said in hushed, urgent tones. If anyone were to see the fire from the castle…" "Where are you?" the boy said, twisting his body around in the darkness, searching for the sound of her voice, "who are you?" he asked. "and what just tried to bloody kill me?" Curiosity got the better of the girl, and she spoke again despite her best judgement "you speak like a muggle. But you're magic enough to get through the barriers." The boy turned his body towards the girl, finally pinpointing the voice. "I- what- uh... yeah I'm a muggle born. What the bloody hell is going on? One second I'm in the haunted graveyard, exploring with my mates, the next I'm alone in the dark, falling into a hole that's tried to kill me."

A light flickered on in the distant castle. "Go!" The girl cried "you don't have much time. Run back the way you came, and you'll find yourself back in the muggle world." The boy looked at the light, and set off as if he were to run, but stopped "what about you? I can't just leave you here for whoever made that bloody hole." Later, the girl would know that that was the moment she fell in love. At the time however, she felt only panic for the boy. "GO" she urged. "I won't leave you here" the boy said stubbornly.

The girl could hear the distant shouting as the main gate was lowered. She took a wild chance and appeared before the boy. He jumped back in surprise. "You can come back to talk to me by the light of the next full moon, if the weather is fair. For now, believe me when I say that I will live the night if I stay here, but you shall not. So run." The boy's eyes widened, but he nodded slowly, "I won't be home again until summer. Will you still be here by then?" Stinging disappointment pricked the girl's eyes, but she nodded. Another cry was heard, too close for comfort, and the boy set off, running into the thick woods that lined the back edge of the castle land. The girl disappeared back into the night, less than a shadow.

That was the first time that she met the boy. But it was not the last.

"What is your name?" the girl had asked at their first full moon. The boy had replied "Chester." "Chestnut?" the girl had asked, mishearing the unfamiliar name. The boy had laughed, and it had been a wonderful sound. "Er. Chest. Er." He corrected, enunciating clearly. The girl scrunched her nose "what a funny name" she said. "I shall call you Chestnut. I like it better." And because it matches the warmth of your eyes, the girl added in her thoughts.

…

"What is it like to live with muggles?" The girl asked, her slender ankles crossed as she sat gingerly on the snow-capped log.

"About the same as living with any parents, I reckon"

"Don't they do funny things? How do they manage without magic?"

"They don't have magic, but they have science. Haven't you ever left this castle?"

The girl ignored the question. "What is sci-ence?"

"Loads of things. Maths and physics and biology and chemistry are the big ones, but you can get even more specific than that. My mum is a geneticist, for example."

"What is a geneticist?

"Someone who studies genes."

"I see… and what is genes?"

The boy laughed, and the air puffed out like smoke in the moonlight. The girl did not feel the cold at all.

…

"I brought you a present" the boy had said, one late summer night.

"But how did you know!" the girl had said, delighted.

"how do I know what?"

"That it should be my birthday before the next moon."

"I didn't" Chestnut said simply. "I just wanted you to have this before I left for Hogwarts again. Something to read while I'm gone."

The girl had run her fingers over the small black book with reverence. She had never owned a thing that was all hers before.

…

"Won't you tell me anything about your life?" Chestnut had asked.

"I cannot. For if they were to find you, you can say you know nothing, and it will be a truth."

"But I know many things. I know the way your hair looks in the moonlight. I know the sound of your laugh, even if it's rare. I know your favourite constellation. And I know that you don't want to be here. And if you ever want to get out, you're going to need my help. But I can't help you if I don't know what we're facing."

The girl paused from where she had been walking along the fallen tree, balancing with one foot pressed to the other ankle. "It's dangerous."

"You saved my life that night we met. Ever since then, I've been living on borrowed time. A second life. But it's not worth living if you're not in it."

The girl bit her lip. "It's sad."

"I figured" Chestnut said.

The girl spun around too quickly and lost her footing. He was there to catch her.

…

The memories played out quicker now, as the recollection beget recollection. She was fifteen, in the light of the moon, and he had tucked a dark brown curl behind her ear, and she had kissed him. Because she wanted him to be her first kiss, and time was running out. She was sixteen, and the sky was dark, dark, dark, the moon snuffed out by clouds, and Chestnut was holding her in his arms, pointing to where he guessed the stars hid in the inky abyss. A thousand tender memories flitted by- snippets of words and sounds playing in her mind. She soaked in the feelings, until they caught, snagged on a protrusion of pain, and the girl was forced to remember the eyes. Chestnut's eyes of chestnut brown, and the way they had looked at her when he had said "GO!"

The girl was not a girl anymore, but she felt the pain just as acutely as she had when she was seventeen, and so she sunk to her knees. She knelt in front of the forest now, the aging teeth of long forgotten gravestones twisting jaggedly towards the sky as unseen roots pulled at them from beneath the earth. It was winter, the time that they had liked best, their only visit between long school terms. She brought the wand to one particular gravestone, almost engulfed by the base of the large hardwood tree before her. It did not mark anything anymore, it's face wiped clean by time, and the muggle who had slept under it long gone to the soil. She traced the air in front of her, and a slender wreath sprung from the wand she grasped. It had been his wand, once. "I made it out" she said in a whisper.

"I never knew how much hate was in my life until I started loving you" was the woman's final confession, as she turned to leave. The gravestones smiled their crooked teeth at her. The moon was full, but empty.