Kire10
Now that I sat with a physical reminder of the night, I couldn't deny the emotions suddenly flooding my thoughts. My heart stuttered as I thought of how she had giggled when I admitted I couldn't dance—and how this information had not stopped her from dragging me onto their dance floor in the middle of their town.
Amelie had left me terrified and trembling, yet still very much alive and thirsting for more. We had left the celebration to visit Moon, the donkey I decided to leave in her care. Together we had stolen away from the rest and quite innocently shared in nothing more than a conversation. Young and naïve, I had only wanted her company and nothing more. I needed friendship, and for one night I had all I had ever dreamed.
"The whole evening was perfect," I mused. "I played the violin, I ate more food than I should have and…and I danced with her."
Julia wiped away a tear.
"You're upset," I observed. "Why?"
She quickly shook her head. "No, no, not upset," she said almost apologetically. "I'm happy for you." She reached for my wrist, uncurled my tightly balled fist, and returned the comb to me.
One small action released a sob I had contained for over three decades, mourning for a task that had remained unfinished. I clutched the comb in my fist, felt the long, thin teeth bite into my flesh. I could still recall how Amelie had handed the comb to me, a gift from her own father, a memory of a man who had shaped her compassion and generosity.
"I promised her a gift from Paris," I murmured. "I lied to her."
"What happened?" Julia asked.
"Why does this interest you?" I growled.
If our places had been exchanged, if she had presented a gift from a long-ago acquaintance, I would have felt a spike of bitter jealousy. I couldn't understand how she wanted to know more but seemingly had no desire to mock or judge me.
"Because this is you," she whispered. "At a time when you were happy. All you've ever shared has been difficult to hear, but this…this makes you smile. And I love you and I want to share in your good memories." She offered a devious smile. "For better or worse," she reminded me.
She had already seen the worst of me. I wanted to give her a lifetime of the best I could offer and this conversation did not seem fitting. At last I had found a woman who accepted me for all of my faults, both inside and out, and who saw in me a worthy husband. I could at last move forward with her rather than dreading in the past. For once in my life, I wanted to find my worth—for Julia.
"There's nothing to tell. I encountered…an inconvenience," I said vaguely. "Nothing more."
"An inconvenience wouldn't stop you," she said with great certainty.
"A rather large and assertive inconvenience," I replied, tired of her persistence.
"Someone stopped you, then?" she asked. Her expression changed. "Prevented you from returning?"
I sighed. "There were several items stolen from the Batiste family, items of considerable value, which I found within the possession of gypsies," I said reluctantly.
"How did you know they belonged to her family?"
"All of the jewelry matched, and the necklace pendant was inscribed with Amelie and her sister Marie's name. A gift, I assumed, from their father to their mother."
"How sweet," Julia cooed.
My mood darkened. "Monsieur Batiste was killed. I never knew how, though I am almost certain the gypsies had something to do with it. I happened upon these items several months after I met Amelie," I said, which was mostly true. Perhaps 'happened upon' was a small embellishment since I had been rummaging through their stored goods in search of my own entertainment.
Julia's eyes grew wide with concern, her lips parting as I spoke.
"The gypsies were masters of deception but foolish drunkards that left their chests unlocked and out of their sight. They were too loud and raucous to suspect a damned thing," I said with quite the pompous tone.
Being found by wandering vagrants on the day my uncle passed had been a grave misfortune. I had gone with them because I simply had no other choice, no desire to resist. There was no fight left within me once my uncle died, no reason to attempt escape. I was too far from the last village and had no idea what the road ahead would reveal.
"Gypsies?" Julia questioned under her breath.
"Yes, a traveling fair," I replied, suppressing a shudder. "They offered performances unlike anything else found in Europe and they also sold various items and goods not always given up willingly by the former owners."
Julia met my gaze with a hint of trepidation. "And you stole these valuables back from them?"
"From beneath their noses," I smugly admitted. At the time I thought of myself as somewhat of a Robin Hood hero, stealing from the gutless wretches and returning items back to their original owners. "I sent a small box by post to Madame Batiste."
I grunted, remembering my foolish actions. How brave I had felt, heroic in a sense that I would be able to return the jewelry I suspected led to Monsieur Batiste's death. Amelie's brother, who had thought me a monster, would know he was mistaken.
While the gypsies sat around their fire and celebrated their fortunes, I had wriggled out of my bindings and slinked through the dark. Unnoticed, I had collected the jewelry—stolen back what I knew they had unjustly taken—and stowed it within one of my shirts. I had taken a small amount of money to pay for the postage as well as a bottle f wine, which was payment enough for the beggar on the street who mailed the items on my behalf.
I concealed the valuables away in a small box and saw them safely sent through the post to the address I had found with my uncle's personal affects after his death. I had hastily planned an escape and consequently my return for—of all things—a donkey left behind. I dreamt of a warm welcome, a sort of hero's return after they opened the package and found their belongings returned.
"But you were caught?" Julia asked, though her question seemed rhetorical.
"They suspected I was behind the disappearance," I said quietly, as though I feared the ghost of their leader would hear me. He had most likely woke from his drunken stupor and stumbled across the camp to find me gone.
"But they didn't know for certain?"
"They didn't need to know for certain," I said coldly. The jewelry, a bottle of wine, and a small amount of money was missing. I always wondered if that despicable pig had seen me with his own eyes as I stood in an alley and waited for the drunken beggar to return a receipt or if he'd merely guessed I had stolen from him.
After that incident, he needed no reason to beat me until I passed out.
I had been humiliated that evening, pelted by words as well as a long, thin stick that cracked across my back and ribs and even my face. The memory angered me, made me recall a night I had never wanted to think of again. The smallest child to the oldest person in their camp had been encouraged to join in and all but one had gladly struck me.
"What happened?" Julia asked.
"Have you ever been struck so hard you've lost consciousness?" I asked with a vicious edge to my voice. I wanted anger to replace heartache, an argument to erase the despair.
When she didn't answer, I glanced up at Julia and saw the hurt her in her gaze. "Yes, I have," she answered, her eyes swimming with tears. "More than once. You already know this, I think."
I instantly regretted my taunt, my unwarranted belligerence. The hurt in Julia's gaze made me turn away from her, ashamed of what I had said, of how I verbally harmed her. I felt like I was no better than the first man she had married.
She had suffered enough and my words—on the day after we were married—were spoken in the same horrid tone I often heard Louis address her.
At last I turned toward Julia, abandoning my cowardice in favor of admitting my horrible mistake. "Julia, I am so very sorry. I wish you could say you had not," I said remorsefully.
Julia swallowed hard but didn't move. Her hand remained on my knee, gentle comfort in a moment of turbulent thoughts.
Silence, however, was not forgiveness.
"I didn't mean to say such horrible words," I said to her, afraid she would fall forever silent, too afraid and wounded to speak another word to me. "My most sincere apologies for such…ugliness."
She ran the back of her hand across her face. "I know this is difficult for you to say, but I will always listen to you whenever you speak. And I swear I will never think less of you."
With a nod, I continued, still needing to release this ghost I had buried deep within my memory. For far too many years I had needed simply someone to speak with and had found nothing but silence.
"He caught me from behind and swore I would pay with my life," I said, taking a shuddering breath. "He swore he would beat the life from me for my insolence." He had either simply not succeeded or had been stopped. I never knew which, though I suspected his daughter had stopped his hand eventually.
Julia squeezed my knee tighter and sniffled.
"When I woke again, my belongings were scattered. The address Amelie's mother had given my uncle was destroyed. Burned, he said, along with sketches and music. I'd lost track of her…I'd lost…hope of finding her again."
When I woke face down in the dirt, I realized I had been more than beaten; I had been broken. Unable to see anything past my own bruises and blood loss, I had given up. There would be no escape, no one to whisk me away as my uncle had done. I had left the hell my parent's had created and entered a new one filled with greater malice and unimaginable cruelty.
Numbness crept over me, a bitter and endless tide of days where I had no recollection of dawn or dusk. I sat alone, burdened by my exile, dreading the next moment I would be of use to the people who kept me like an animal. I waited until the cage was once again covered and I could sit by myself, curled into a corner, voices fading into the background, darkness settling over my confines like my own personal, lightless hell.
Consumed by my past, I sat motionless until Julia whispered my name. I sucked in a breath and blinked rapidly until the room and her face came into focus once more.
My heart stuttered, and in the back of my mind I thought of how I had left that horrible place, how I had seen a young girl in the shadows and for a heartbeat thought it had been Amelie.
She had opened the cage door. She had freed the beast and found an emaciated, frightened boy.
"Why do you think she sent this back to you?" Julia asked.
"Because I never returned as I promised," I told her.
The sick, aching sensation washed over me, the memory of utter despair as I wondered what she would think of me and what would happen to the donkey I had left behind. Looking back, my fears for an animal seemed ridiculous, but despite what I had endured at my father's hands, I had somehow maintained a sense of childish innocence and the desire to protect a creature I loved.
"There's more," Julia said quietly.
There was a great deal more, only I couldn't find the voice to say it aloud or the will to do so.
"She knew," I said. Perhaps she didn't know much, but she knew how overwhelmed I had felt by her gift—and how much I needed her gentle words and easy smile. "She knew I would need this again."
Even thirty years later, I felt as though I still needed her kindness, a small reminder that before I had become an oddity in a fair, before a cruel and soulless woman had deemed me a wretched toy, and long before I called myself a ghost, I had been only a boy. If only for a single night, three strangers had welcomed me and my uncle into their lives, and had shared more than a meal and a conversation.
That one evening hadn't crossed my mind in a good twenty-five years. Denying I had ever experienced that evening was easier than knowing I would never experience such acceptance again in my life. There were days, weeks even, I had managed to forget entirely. Some instances were filled with such horror that I forced myself to believe these were nightmares, not reality. I could not live with myself knowing I had witnessed or lived through parts of my wicked past.
"Here," Julia said as she handed me the square envelope with my first name and my uncle's name carefully scrolled on the front. Her voice jarred me from a dangerous, abysmal thought creeping into my mind. "See what she said."
I removed my mask and wiped my hand down my face. Taking the envelope from her outstretched hand, I braced myself for what emotions would rip through me.
"Whatever she wrote is thirty years old," I commented, feeling a deep sense of sadness ripple through me. "Her words no longer matter."
Julia stood and tilted her head to the side. "Of course her words matter," she said firmly. "Because she still matters to you."
