"...love is always selfish, the more ardent the more selfish..."
- Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
April 3rd, 1870
I have told Alaric about my suspicions, but he insists on brushing them off until he has more substantial proof. As if the last two victims aren't proof enough.
But so it is. It is not as if it was particularly easy for me to digest. There is so little known about them that - that one feels quite alone in this battle. Quite afraid.
But I shall rally. A Bennett has never backed down from a battle, and I am not one to break with tradition.
- From the journals of Sheila Bennett
When Bonnie opens the chest lid, her heart stops. Because inside is anything but receipts. Instead, there are clusters of envelopes tied together in fraying ribbon, and two journals bulging with yellow-edged paper. Before she can take one out and start perusing however, there is a knock at the door.
Bonnie quickly closes the lid and shoves the chest under her bed. She isn't ready to share this little bit of her grandmother. Not just yet.
"Come in."
It is Madame Pearce.
"My dear, I've just come to tell you that I will be off to Mrs Lunsden's for a quick visit. It seems her daughter has fallen ill again, and I thought I'd bring them a new bottle of the tonic we made. You will be alright, won't you?"
The lady's smile is so kind, her gaze so attentive that Bonnie almost feels guilty about hiding the chest, about the secret elation she feels at the prospect of having an entire evening to herself to discover its contents.
She nods. "But, of course. You mustn't worry about me," she says, and ushers the lady to go about her business. "I will be just fine."
Bonnie stands in front of the castle doors waving as the carriage trundles away on a ribbon of moonlit road that is swallowed up by the forest. The castle feels strangely empty when she shuts the door behind her. She has felt that it has been empty and gaping since the death of her grandmother, but it is only now that she realizes how much she has come to depend on Madame Pearce's presence. While the lady's incessant chatter had grated on her nerves at times, she cannot deny that it has been some comfort.
She is making her way down the hall, in the direction of the stairs when the soft chain of notes makes her check her step. No one else other than Bonnie touches the piano. Or at least, that has been the case since Sheila's death. When her grandmother had been alive, not a day had gone by when the lady had not sat at the keys and coaxed out a sonata or charmed the keys to play a waltz while she and Bonnie twirled around the room.
But this is no waltz. It is sorrowful. She knows it. "The Dying Swan." Soft, sweet, and haunting, and it immediately makes Bonnie's throat constrict. She makes her way to the back room where the piano sits, blindly, as if pulled by an invisible string.
She had not known what to expect but when she finds him there she is not surprised. His shoulders sit in a strict line, in contrast to his fluid fingers making the melody bleed from the keys in light, gliding, wistful notes. They tear at her heart. She stands, entrapped, tangled in the confusion of sounds that are both sorrowful and hopeful. She marvels at how his hands move across the keys, his callused digits taking on an unexpected grace as he plays. A heavy ring sits on the middle finger of his right hand, its insignia, a coiled, gleaming serpent. It catches the light as he plays. When the music eventually stops, she is still frozen.
"'Le Cygne.' Eventually 'The Dying Swan.'" He stands, turning to face her with a slow smile. "It was not intended to be a dying swan, but certain popular interpretations have made it so."
It only takes a step, and he is directly before her, another step and she'd be flush against his chest.
"Strange, is it not? Man's preoccupation with death." He angles his head, his eyes running over her face.
Normally, she would resent such scrutiny, but there is something within her that ignites under his gaze.
"It would be stranger if man were not preoccupied with it," she replies.
His smile is like a wolf's that has chosen its prey.
And yet she is not afraid. She feels this is exactly where she wants to be, where she belongs. As his target, as the centre of his attention. It is her rightful place.
He lifts a hand to trace a fingertip over her temple, his digits catching at a strand of her hair. He brushes it aside, gently, gently, caresses her cheek with the barest of touches, catches her chin and tilts her face.
He frowns then, as if he is not sure of what he is doing. But Bonnie is sure. She is sure that his touch is for her alone, that his hand was made to cup her face, that his lips should be a hair's breadth from hers, that his lips shouldn't be a hair's breadth from hers, that they should be on hers, hot and whispering and incendiary.
"You were the one I dreamt of all those years ago," she gasps against his lips, while she feels herself swallowed by him, drowning in the warmth and smell of him, his gaping jacket enveloping the two of them, his blazing presence blotting out her vision until there is nothing.
"Bonnie. My dear!"
The words are faint, as if the speaker is at the bottom of a well.
"Wake up."
Madame Pearce's face, blurred, hovers over her.
Bonnie frowns and blinks. Is she dreaming?
"Are you alright, my dear?"
"What..." Bonnie sits up. She's in her bed. "What happened?"
Madame Pearce peers at her, brow wrinkled. "I was hoping you might tell me. I came home and found you in bed. Leah said you never came to dinner last night."
"No, I..." Bonnie raises a hand to her head. No, she hadn't gone to dinner. But she cannot remember how she got to her bed. "I ... I remember farewelling you..." she says, blinking at Madame Pearce. "And then..."
And then, she had heard the piano. She remembers that. And he had been playing. She remembers that, too.
And then – and then it all comes flooding back to her. The fingertips over her skin, the insistent kisses, his lips hot on her neck.
Bonnie turns, unable to look Madame Pearce in the eye. "I'm – I'm not sure. Never mind me, how was Mrs Lundsden's daughter?"
"Oh, she's alright," the lady says with a dismissive wave. "There are more pressing matters at hand. Robert has gone missing."
No one:
Absolutely no one:
Me: How about if I take years to update this fic?
What can I say, folks? Life's a bitch.
