Notes:

This is one of my favorite chapters to write so far, so please enjoy my suffering.

Also, just in case it's not painfully obvious, this chapter was inspired by The Secret Garden. You'll see why very soon.

Jezabel

It's over, I suppose.

The birds trail across the cloudy sky, straggling homeward. I wonder if they are cold, up there in the desert of fog, if they ever miss their home. And unbearable jealousy comes over me.

My life is over, and it never began. I, too, can read the writing on the wall, that I will never be enough, that I cannot keep anything from fading. Nothing lasts, and so I should not be surprised that I cannot either. What a strange finality that creeps into my world, slowing it. The end. The place that everyone fears.

(But does any being truly want to die? Even at the moment of death, the moment past the decision, is there not the inescapable drive of biology? That insufferable, unconquerable desire to live? The urge for a sign, a hint that everything is bearable and solvable?)

Time keeps moving, and I cannot make any sense of it. I just keep repeating what I cannot undo.

Light returns under the door—Cassian has left. I cannot decide if I am heartbroken or vindicated in my belief in the foolishness of love. He left, and he'll leave, like he always does. I'm the one who is left behind. And I'm here, waiting, unchanging even as the time carries on. (But what am I waiting for?)

I can't solve this. I can't undo any of this. I will always be in exile, no matter where I go. Home is the forest with Snark, and the past cannot be, again. But here, I am superfluous. I cannot be acknowledged, or the entire entailment would be disrupted—and we can't have that, can we? Even though Cain has no more claim to legitimacy than I do, he had the fortune to be convenient enough to pass as Father's heir, and therefore be acknowledged as such. it stings that the family preferred the child born from incestuous rape to me; I suppose I just didn't have enough of Father in me to be wanted.

And now, it's more of the same. They can't figure out what to do with me, or even what I could possibly stand to gain from this tenuous arrangement. That would be funny, wouldn't it? To leave them with all the questions and none of the answers? No, that's not true. Cain has all the answers. He has everything.

Before my mind sets to the how of the act itself, having decided on the why of it all, there's movement at the door latch. A little muttering, and a distinct clicking of a hairpin through the keyhole. And before I can put together a suitably cutting remark, the door opens.

Mary stands, hairpin in hand, her little sailor dress against the grey of the walls. Self-satisfaction at her handiwork gives way to horror,as she sees the wreckage of the room: the blood, the slow drip of something spilt, the shattered glass like ice. On the floor, against the walls, on me. Her little doll knees knock together in fear, and in that moment, I know that I have ruined whatever peace she has come to. She must be relieving the night she met my true nature—all blood and glass. She shakes her head a little, as if she cannot make sense of it all, and why forms on her mouth.

Of course, that's what everyone wants to know. Why, why, why. Why did you kill that woman? Why did you let Cassandra lord over you? Why didn't you escape from your father the first chance you got?

Mary's eyes follow the trail of blood and glass I have left, then they spot something on the windowsill. She takes in a deep breath, as if to steady herself. Her little hands twist at her pinafore. Her mouth in a determined line. "You're scared, aren't you? That why you broke everything." She frowns. "You just make everyone scared of you when you do that." She stares back at me, defiant. "But I'm here now. I'm here, so you don't have to be scared. So don't send me away!"

Her strapped flats tread carefully through the wreckage, as if she is walking on ice. "You're not alone, you know," she says in a smaller voice. "You hurt people when you act like that. You hurt Cassian every time you push him away."

I do not justify her words with a response, instead staring sullenly at the cloudy wall. Oh, I'm well aware that my existence keeps hurting people.

Her voice wavers. "All he wanted to do was be with you again. And you keep pushing him away."

"I never asked him." There it is. My sullen voice.

"But he cares about y—"

"Why are you here?" I interrupt. "Shouldn't you be complaining to your guardian about me?" Like everyone else.

"You're my brother. And he's your uncle."

"You're not a good liar," I warn, half-tempted to tell her the truth about her parentage. That would really put her in her place, would rid her of that infuriating happiness. But something stops me; it's not the way she looks at Cain that speaks of hope and innocence, nor the way she carries herself, Burnett's little princess through and through. But what is it?

"I'm not lying," she counters, in that tone of hurt childishness. She watches me carefully, as if expecting a show of violence, and satisfied that there will be none, she takes something from the windowsill. Cradling it in her chubby hands. "It's not about the house, is it?" she asks, tilting her little head in thought.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Why not? Father didn't recognize me either." Her voice quivers a little, and I can guess what hides under it—this state of unwantedness that governs us both.

"Women don't inherit."

She matches my sullenness with a determined stare. "And why not? I'm as capable as any man." Then she softens again, as her gaze returns to whatever she has in her hands. "You can't fight all of society, you know. Eventually you do have to figure out how to live in it."

I have half a mind to tell her that I am apparently incapable of such a feat, but the words don't form. Nothing comes.

In our silence, the adrenaline slowly fades, and an ache informs me I am bleeding from somewhere. I should probably check to see if I have not managed to cut a major artery open this time. And the wreckage no longer becomes a manifestation of my loss, but rather a symptom of my inability to moderate my feelings. Shame comes over me at my state, over behaving as I did. The tests will all have to be redone.

At the window, Mary watches the birds hop about. "It's the robin. Well, it can't be, but it looks just like him." At my puzzlement, she continues in a slightly hushed tone. "When Mama—I mean, Mother—when Mother died, I thought I would be better off dead too. When she died, it was like I fell through the looking glass. There wasn't anyone left to take care of me. And I-I crawled under the bed and I didn't move until the landlord told me I couldn't stay there anymore. He told me to go to my family, but I didn't have any. I had Father's ring and Mama's stories, but how could I go to such a grand place? To the posh side of London? I'd be laughed at, and told to get back to my slum. Like Cinderella in reverse. And when I left the house, there were a man, who looked at me up and down with wolf eyes and asked me where my mama was. And I ran from him, and ran, and ran, until I was lost. And I curled up in the dark, in a dark corner, alone and frightened."

She pauses, her eyes moving in recollection. "It was cold. I could feel the cold through my stockings. And I couldn't stop shaking, and I was so, so hungry and thirsty. I prayed that God could just give me back my Mama, so that everything would be okay again. But nothing changed. When I saw it, I thought I had died. It was a bird, a little robin. I'd never seen a bird like it before in London. Birds don't stay colorful for long in the smog. And it looked at me, and it was like I had seen the corners of the universe in its black eyes. It must have been a fever dream—must have!—but it felt so real. I knew then I had to get up, or I would die there in the cold. I wanted to see Mama again so bad, but I knew that if I died, then everything would be for naught. All my pain and Mama's pain would be for nothing."

She twists a corner of her pinafore. "I thought for the longest time that the robin meant that I would be rewarded for suffering, that there was some cosmic redress." A grim smile. "But I was wrong. I had to live so that I could know what it feels like to be alone, really terribly alone. Then I didn't want anyone else to feel the same. Maybe that's what it meant. We keep trying and living, in the hopes that our pain isn't wasted, that someone else can be helped because of it." She gives me a strange, appraising look. "Maybe Mama and I had to suffer, so I could help you. And because I helped you, you'll go on to help someone else. Maybe that's all we have, in the end."

A silence comes over us.

I want to tell her that she is wrong in her foolish idealism, that love is not a cure-all for the slings and arrows of life, that we have nothing in the end—but I cannot. And so, we remain in a state of inaction, as she collects herself, having relived one of the worst memories, no doubt, of her short life, and I do not dare to break the silence, because then there will be an accounting—and something will be done, but what I cannot tell.

"I don't believe that people can be broken," Mary continues in her small voice, a distant expression on her face. "People can be hurt, and be hurt bad. But I think there's something that never truly goes out, no matter how horrible life is. Maybe it gets buried, or locked away, but it's still there. And that's what counts." She pauses. "That's what counts in the end."

"You're wrong," I reply, bitterly. "You're wrong about everything."

"And what? You're right, I suppose?" she counters, haughtily. Reminding me that we are evenly matched in will. "You're wrong about me, and you're wrong about Big Brother." She sighs a little. "But if I wanted to have a discussion of who's right and who's wrong, I'd have that with Oscar. He's always wrong."

As she turns towards me, I finally see what she has been holding—the sea urchin fossil. "Do stop frightening everyone. It's not helpful."

And it's my turn to ask why. Why she came back. No one comes back, not in the least because I don't let them. I want to ask why, but something else takes its place. "He took who I was. He made me like this. I won't ever be the way I was before, again."

"You don't have to be," she says quietly. "Because you'll change, whether you wish it, or not. Because you have changed. We all change. Even the dead. The past is gone, and so you can be someone different." She holds out her hand, trembling. "Now, stop being so silly, and come back home." The fearful way she stares up at me, undecided if she has just signed her own death warrant, tells me she is much less confident that she appears. But I suppose she won't give in—she wants to prove to herself, and to me, I suppose, that I didn't take away that fierce little will of hers with my cruelty.

But I don't want to go back there. I don't want any of this. I want to be alone and sulk in my misery. I don't want this offer; I don't want what hides behind it: this facsimile of love and comradery—and yet, what is left, then? It's not a matter of a life for a life—that balance is easily found, for I could easily kill everyone in the household within the hour if I wished it. No, this about what I had fled from, and what now demands an accounting. About what I denied for so long, even as Cain tried to give it back. My humanity.

(But it was never his to return. It was never anyone's but mine.)

"I don't want to!" I realize that I am screaming at her, but her hand does not move from its grim determination. "I didn't ask for any of this!"

"Did anyone? I sure can't remember."

"So you can leave me too? Is that it?" I have it now, the reason she's here. "After you convince yourself that you're nobler and better than me? With all your saccharine forgiveness?"

She frowns, caught off-guard by my accusations. "What?" Then she puts her hands on her hips. "God in heaven, I wonder how you got anything done with all that self-pity. If I didn't care, I could easily find much more pleasant ways of spending my afternoon than trying to reason with you."

Stunned into silence, I only register my uneven breath. The heaving of my chest, as my fear builds.

She softens again, wringing her hands together. "Come home already. Stop being so willful."

I cannot, for if I do, I will have to make amends to her. And I do not know how, or if that possibility even exists. If I do return, then I cannot run away from it all anymore, and I will make myself vulnerable. And I despise vulnerability—when all the careful boundaries between myself and others fade, and my heart is open, painfully open, for anyone to hurt. There's a certain wide-eyed pain in vulnerability.

"No! I won't!"

I'd break something to show her, but there's nothing left to destroy. How fitting. I don't care how childish I'm being. I can't. I can't try again, only to have someone else remind me of just how unwanted I am. I set aside the boundaries of my heart with Cain, to relish the warmth he lent me. And he left. He doesn't want to deal with me anymore.

Now, all that remains is this pain from not ever being enough for anyone. If I am not still enough for my brother, who shares my soul, then who? When I was still naive enough to dream it, I used to lose myself in daydreams about being rescued by Father; he'd come to his senses and abandon his foolish endeavors—and he'd love me the way he used to.

Clasping the sea urchin to her pinafore, she gives me a look of utter hopelessness. Good. She can take all her idealistic love and bestow it upon those foolish enough to believe in it. If she wants to try my patience, I'll leave her little corpse for Cain to find. I avert my gaze from her, stubbornly focused on a particularly bloody piece of glass. For some reason, I cannot bear to look at her and her sorrow, and guilt replaces the self-satisfaction in my chest, a dull pain marking its presence.

And there's a tugging at my hand. I flinch at the unexpected sensation, but that does not dissuade Mary, as she bridges the space between us with her foolishness. And yet, a certain determination fills her eyes, those large blue eyes I would have put in a jar and admired for the pain their loss would have incurred in Cain.

"Aren't you afraid?"

She shakes her head, and then quickly nods. "Yes. I'm so frightened. But I won't let you go."

I want to crouch down, to meet her face to face, and shake her so badly that she never touches me again. To break every little bone in her body as a reminder of my true nature. But something stills my hand—a tear rolls down her expectant face. She knows I will hurt her, and she has still made her decision. She has nothing to offer me, and yet here she is, disarming me with her naivety.

Can one little girl be so desperate for a semblance of a family? It's painful and pitiful—and somehow moving. I look again, and I know what she fears—loss. Another loss. How strange, her fear causes her to pull others closer, while my inclination is the opposite. It occurs to me that I could easily break her hold on me, but I do not let go.

And I do not know just what I have done.

Her shoulders droop from exhaustion. "You're so difficult, you know," she says, to mask her surprise.

"I've been told."

"Not often enough, it seems." She sighs, surveying the room. "I doubt there's anything you can do that I haven't seen at this point," she remarks dryly. And in that instant, I can almost hear Cain again, irked with me. She has no idea how much she is like her brother. Perhaps there is something deeper than blood after all.

She rifles through the closet, before handing the broom to me. "Here. You made this mess, and so you need to fix it."

I am stunned.

"Before the day is done, preferably," she says firmly, pressing it into my hands.

I give her a cold stare, unwilling to submit to such drudgery, regardless of what has transpired between us. She returns my stubbornness with an equally determined raise of her thin eyebrows, bent on holding me accountable. A few moments fraught with a hair-thin danger she cannot imagine pass between us, before I realize what I risk by being found in such a state. There will be questions and accusations, for this is not Delilah, where I can ruin everything to match my insides.

Well, then, let her think this a simple acquiescence to her will. I suppose she'll enjoy that.

The last of the glass has finally been disposed of, amid Mary's idle gossip. From her perch on my desk, she chatters on, swinging her legs, as she tells me about Cain and Oscar. About how she's good friends with one of the maids—Anna? Daisy? How her governess tried to teach her how to be a proper lady, and so she ran off here to hide.

"You ran away from your governess," I interrupt, awkwardly piling the glass into the wastepaper basket. Being trained as a doctor, I have never handled a broom in my life, much to Mary's amusement, and so the process is a bit laborious.

"Yes," she replies, slightly wary. "I don't want to be a great lady."

"You'll have to."

"No, I won't. I'll be a great detective, like Big Brother."

"He makes Neil worry when he goes out sleuthing," I remind her.

"Oh." Her eyes widen in alarm a little. And as she sinks into thought, I resume my struggle with the broom, sweeping along the edges of the room. She frowns, and hopping down, moves to correct my grip on the broom. Again. Moving one hand further up the handle. "Here." The frown returns, as her gaze lowers, following something. "You're bleeding," she says in an odd voice, pointing to my arm. As if she cannot quite comprehend that I am only a being of flesh and blood. The same as her.

I shrug it off, but Mary has never been one to know when to quit.

"You'll get a scar." A strange look comes into her bird eyes. Her old eyes that have seen a bit too much for innocence.

"I'll handle it," I retort, more harshly than I intended. Irritated by her simple-minded suggestion that this scar will be what I regret. Oh, if she only knew. And in that moment, I hate her for her ignorance, hate her for the silent accusations in her eyes.

Mary has just opened her mouth for a retort, when the door opens again. Oscar stands, harried and slightly red from exertion.

"Mary! There you are! You just disappeared! Miss Pritchett was so worried about you!"

"I'm sure you comforted her," Mary replies, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

I have no idea why my office has become such a popular spot; I have half a mind to push everyone out just for some quiet.

"Now, now, Mary," he says, embarrassed. "That's a bit harsh to say to your love."

Exasperated, Mary turns to me. "See what I have to put up with?" she remarks, dryly.

Oscar, in the meantime, surveys the room, and his gaze lingers on my bloody sleeve. I'm struck with the urge to hide it, to hide myself. I hate being the object of scrutiny. "Mary," he begins, "why don't you go feed the animals? You know where Jezabel keeps their food, right?"

She eyes both of us suspiciously, clearly aware that she is being sent away under a thin pretense. "You best not be comforting him while I'm gone."

Oscar turns a brilliant shade of red, trying to conceal it with his hands, as she leaves with a huff.

"Don't worry," I reply, as the door closes. "It's common knowledge you're in love with Cain."

He buries his head in his hands. "Lord..." Shaking his head, he chuckles a little from embarrassment. And then his gaze returns to me, and his sheepish grin fades. "Should we take a look at that," he says, pointing to my arm.

Unconsciously, I clasp my other hand over it, protectively. Pulling it closer to me. Steeling myself, I peel back the soaked cotton. Several long gashes littered with more glass. The adrenaline must have masked the extent of this wound; because the blood is not issuing out in time with my heat beat, it appears that I have not opened a significant artery—for better or worse. Vaguely curious, I poke around the damaged skin, lifting a pale, detached strip, until I notice that Oscar has gone very white.

"Do you want me to fetch a nurse?" He swallows back his revulsion, gesturing past the door. "I could get one right quick—"

"No. There's everything in here."

Worry darkens his face. "Oh, surely not. You must be having one on me."

"It's not the first time I've done this," I remind him, stiffly.

"I can believe that." He exhales, resigning himself to something. "Come over here. Give me the tweezers, and I'll fix it."

I stare at him in disbelief. "You'll faint before it's done."

He scoffs. "I'm made of sterner stuff than that."

I can't figure out what he stands to gain from this. "Cain won't love you any more for this."

"Of course," he replies, quietly. Something moves across his face, before quiet resignation returns. And I'm ashamed again, reminding him of a love he can never have. I seem to have grown weak, to give the feelings of people any consideration. Perhaps Mary was right, after all.

And perhaps to make amends for my heartlessness, I acquiesce to his request, placing the metal into his hand. Reluctantly, my heart sinking, I offer up my bloody arm. This vulnerability twisting in my gut. In this, there is no warmth, no gentle reassurance. Just a certain dread.

"Do you want me to sit on your lap too?" I ask lightly, to mask my fear. He doesn't know that it is less of a jest than he could ever imagine.

He says nothing in response, instead gently pressing against his first target. And the trembling begins again, because I still cannot stand to be touched. And then, the pain sharpens, as air fills the hollow left by the shard. Like the negative of a photograph. Burning and bleeding. Oscar drops the shard onto the surface of the desk, and the metal digs into my flesh again, and I do my best to keep my hand unclenched, because tightening it will only bring forth more blood.

"You don't have to watch," Oscar jokes, clearly uncomfortable by the way I stare at my wound.

I don't reply, lost as I am in the blood-tipped glass shard. Half-recoiling at the presence it had in me, half-marveling at its beauty.

The magpie returns to dig again, rooting along the opening. Again and again—

"Oscar, I'm quite done with the animals." Mary peeks past the door, and sharply draws in a breath in surprise. Her gaze sweeps along my opened arm, even as Oscar tries to conceal it with a bumbling humor. A pause comes over her, cold and deep. As if she is weighing me again. Something moves across her face: pity? Fear? Concern? And before I can sort out her intentions, she grasps my hand; her doll hands pitiably, laughably small and trembling, yet determined.

An insignificant act against a world of blood and terror.

And yet, there is something unsettling in her foolishness. Defiantly, she stares up at me, daring me to complain, and I almost laugh at her misplaced self-assurance.

"I am your sister," she replies haughtily to my unasked question, drawing herself up to her full height of no more than a table. "And you will allow me this. I've quite had it with your stubbornness. You don't live alone, you know." The brightness in her eyes, the near-tears, tells me that she has lost something dear. Or more likely, knowing her as I do now, relinquished it. "I am your sister," she says, more quietly, more sadly. As if the fight has left her. As if to convince herself.

Her sadness, while not quite evoking empathy in me, still moves me in a strange, unexplainable way, and the retort I had planned loses its sting.

"Of course, you are," I concede, suddenly weary of everything. I have never before realized just how much effort it required to keep the world away.

Surprise registers in her face; then, she gives me a cautious look, as if anticipating a biting comment on its heels. She takes my speechlessness for an answer, though what I am uncertain, and tightens her grip on my hand. "Close your eyes," she says quietly. "It will hurt less."

"You shouldn't be looking either," I retort.

"Fine. Then neither of us shall look." As if to prove her point, she claps her free hand over her eyes. "You better not be looking. Oscar will tell me if you are."

I stare at her, fumbling for words. Oscar nudges me slightly, and reluctantly I close my eyes. Bizarrely enough, she is correct: I had thought it might heighten the pain, but I was wrong. It still hurts, though not as much. Instead I am conscious of her hand on mine. Like an anchor.

"Finished," Oscar announces, and I take that as my cue to look again. He wipes off his brow, in mock exhaustion.

Dark punctures mark the length of my forearm; blood creeps out, sliding down, despite Oscar's best efforts. They're too deep to close on their own.

Mary pales at the sight, hesitation uncurling her hand from mine. "Oh. We should send for a doctor."

"I'm a doctor."

"No," she replies firmly. "Another doctor. Don't be so prideful."

Her insinuation that I am unable to handle this irks me, and I search through the drawer for the catgut. And I know that only I can do this. And the catgut unwinds in my hands, falling, falling, falling as I measure it out. Weighing out the price it asks of me. My blood for my humanity—and all the pain that it entails. For to be human again is to be vulnerable, to be subject to the chaos of life within a group, to change. To never be the same again.

The knot catches in my skin. My flesh blanches with pain, as the string trails through, joining wound to wound. Catgut doubles back, splitting the white of my arm, crossing the veins. Back and forward. Back and forward. Sawing through my skin, as it maps out its path. Changing the jagged dents into a constellation. I will lose consciousness from this, I will vomit—of this I am certain. This is too much to bear. This is pain beyond measure, and hurts all the more because it cannot be avoided.

Mary responds to the spasms of pain in my hand by tightening her grip. Anxiety lining her face. It's only when I have finished my task, that I notice just how tightly she has been grasping my hand. White imprints remain behind as she adjusts her grip.

"Does it hurt?" Her voice small.

I settle for shaking my head, nausea tightening my throat.

"You're not a good liar," she replies, reaching for the gauze.

Once invoked, it is very difficult to escape from Mary's tending. She draws the curtains of my bedroom closed, before changing her mind about how much light is permissible. For all her dislike of governesses, she can match the most insistent.

"It's only four in the afternoon." The sharp pain in my arm has subsided into a dull ache, against the comfort of gauze. I had to show her three times how to correctly apply the bandage, before struggling with Oscar, who took Mary's inability as his cue to try.

Mary puts her hands on her hips. "You need rest."

"I'm a doctor. I think I should know what's best."

"Obviously not." Worry comes over her, as she glances at my bandaged forearm. "Let me take care of you."

"I'd give in," Oscar mock-whispers to me. "She's not something to be reckoned with."

Slightly bewildered, I shrink back into the blankets, and she smiles at this.

"There," she says, drawing the blankets around me, and for an instant, I wonder if my sisters would have grow up to be like her, if they had never been nestled into my body. "Hold still," she orders, climbing onto the bed with a hairbrush. "You look a right mess."

I nearly laugh at this.

One chubby hand takes a section of my hair, and runs the brush through, incrementally, struggling against the tangles. The process is a little rough, perhaps indicative of her life on the streets, but when she finishes, drawing the brush through the separated strands for the final time, there is a strange sense of being loved. And it is a frightening sensation that numbs my throat and steals my words.

"I liked it when it was long," she admits shyly, setting the brush down. "You'll keep it long again, won't you?" Humming to herself, she begins to weave the strands together. Back and forth. Crossing.

I'm still unable to make any sense of this strange girl, who wouldn't even be alive if Riff hadn't had a quick reflexes, who somehow can find this boundless, frightening love within herself—and share it. I fled from the vulnerability she embraces. I tried to kill her, in all earnestness, and here she is, braiding my hair with trembling hands. It's not forgiveness, however. She might never forgive me for what I did, and yet, to care for something is to claim it, though not in the way that Cassandra thought. By tending to me, I suppose she's trying to diminish the threat she still sees in me.

"Oh!" Mary fumbles in her pinafore pocket. "Oh, where is it?" Out falls a thimble, a tin of comfits, and a velvet ribbon. With her only free hand, she takes up the ribbon.

"Mary!" Oscar begins, only half jokingly. "Should we pick something more suitable?"

"Don't be silly," she replies, securing the braid. "It is suitable." She smiles to herself at her handiwork. And I wonder if, in this strange girl, I have been gifted a second chance to know my sisters.

A knock on the door, and a tight-lipped maid brings in tea. I can already sense that this is going to be a topic of gossip in the servants' quarters—just what is Lord Cain's lunatic brother up to this time? With her, Cassian creeps in, to settle by my side. And I realize that Mary's appearance was no quirk of fate. I am left without words. As he settles beside me, for a moment, I pretend that what we have is not subject to the bounds of time and flesh. That this moment will never end.

"It's rose-hip tea," Mary says, interrupting my thoughts. As she pours the tea, the stream reddens—blood. Blood of the Lamb, a lamb. The blood of the covenant, which is thicker than the water of the womb. A plague and a promise. She offers the first cup to me, ever the little hostess. "Anna just dried the hips last week." A sadness comes into her eyes. "Mother used to love it." Lost in her sudden melancholy, she divides up the sandwiches, and watching me carefully, sets my portion near me, with an unspoken plea.

I contemplate ignoring her offer. I contemplate leaving them both, in their little dollhouse. But I cannot. I cannot quite abandon the warmth, a different warmth, of being loved. And so, I steel myself against the unpleasantness of it all, wondering if love is not something given, but rather shared. If, by indulging her, I can begin to make amends. How strange, this wish to make up for what cannot be undone. (But can we? Can we have some semblance of a familial relationship? Or is the past too great to be laid aside?)

As usual, I have none of the answers, only questions and shadows.

I survey the task before me, only to realize that it is no longer a task, as it was with Father. An unpleasant chore. No, this is penance, because I was wrong. And even though the seconds are ceaselessly fleeing from me, somewhere, against the cruelty and self-erosion of meaninglessness, stands the fragility of love. Maybe I was wrong, after all, to think of love as an unconditional surrender, as I did with Father. A fire or nothing. Perhaps I was wrong to imagine love as life without skin, without walls.

Perhaps love is a door, a little door with a key that has been long lost. Yes, Cain's would be laced with black iron, frightful and intimidating at first, but easily surmounted, despite the rusted spikes and curling oleander. And Mary's would be a child's door, white and inviting, all encompassing but easily extinguished. But mine? Mine would be a rickety gate, so overgrown with weeds and ivy that it seems as though it has been reclaimed by the god of winter. So unsteady it seems broken. But it remains, after all. Somehow, it remains.

Perhaps I can stand to leave the door ajar.

Just a little.

Just in case the light comes in.

Notes:

Ok, so this is where you see my love of patterns. The Greek mythology motif is finally complete: it's something that repeats throughout Beyond the Garden, and gets resolved here. That felt important to me. Instead of ending on Atropos, the thread-cutter, or Clotho, the thread-spinner, it ends with Lachesis, the thread-measurer. For me, it was important to end with not a rehashing of Jezabel's canonical role within Delilah, as life-giver/death-bringer ( a contradiction I could spend quite a few words on), but as something entirely different. And so, I decided that it would look something like this, as Lachesis allots the length of a person's life, but neither takes nor bestows it. A slightly more neutral position.

And Mary is one of my favs, so she got some more development this chapter. I love her down-to-earth monologues, and so the one in this chapter was patterned after the one she gave Mikaila, because I love that speech. You can probably see a pattern here...

Also, the "Burnett's little princess" line was an allusion to Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, about a sugar-sweet girl who is forced to work as a servant after her father dies abroad.

As always, my eternal thanks and gratitude to my readers. I'd love to hear from you!