17. A pile of bedsheets

One night went by and Cecil didn't appear.

Nothing is ever enough… when love is lost.

Beverly's father was a journalist, not a poet.

He was tasked with spreading nothing but the truth…

When love is lost, one discovers greed.

And Beverly stared and stared ahead, while Peter Lake looked through her, to the wall, the tainted shadows cast by a ripe night's lavender dew.

The sight of him haunted her. The city behind his gaze rot under a blanket of fog. His eyes always reflected everything and now they mirrored nothing at all.

She lay back against his shoulders, outlined the curve of his ears, kissed a corner of his jawline. She let him inhale her.

Stay here, love…

A dash of dark pink. The dawn's first kiss, at the back of his neck. Beverly was a gust of wind. A wingless cricket.

I'll be back soon…

Dawn blazed from the water and Beverly drank eagerly into the sunrise.

She bounced from glass to glass. Bells. The frost on the concrete. An intricate dance of light and wind. She moved elegantly for a sightless crowd.

Jewels. Teeth. Smiling women. The wheels of carriages.

Her carriage, long halted.

Little Willa, asleep with her little cheek pressed to the window. Beverly kissed her face gently, the side that lay flat against the glass. The poor girl was pale as death.

Isaac Penn watching her, jaw clenched. The coffin open. The face white, expressionless. Beverly brushed her invisible hand by the line of his coat, the flap of his hat.

Coins.

Coins.

Coins.

Cecil's dark, elegant hands. Their deft fingers. Those that would not blur at her touch, or disintegrate, or hide. Hands that could feel. Arms that could hold.

Beverly ran, flew, galloped, and Peter Lake would be underwater, his eyes shut, his mouth agape. And his voice, a ghostly echo, booming softly into the traffic.

"Go fuck yourself!"

He'd screamed, on December 26th, not too long ago, voice cracking in desperation like a twig under snowfall.

She'd loved it then. She'd laughed.

Now she wept, wailing, a blare of horse neighs and klaxons. She bled into them and found the freedom to shout.

"Cecil!"

Beverly Penn, a scream. An echoed rumble akin to a bent iron vessel rang through her ears.

"CECIL!"

Burn in Hell, drown in Heaven.

These tears were soothing. She liked the feel of the water on her face. The taste of salt…

She crawled down buildings and slithered through parks. She shone through glass and silver and china until every citizen in New York had been startled awake. She wasn't sorry.

She let herself collapse and hang from a lamplight. She flickered until the wind, and the dawn, and the mist, drowned her dry. And she faltered with a whimper.

"Cecil…"

A whisper. Painless.

A scream was a sunken ship. A glaring choir of starshine. Were they angry at her ignorance? Did they mock this pain?

She stood in the middle of the road and let the carriages brush past her. She broke at the edges and deftly weaved herself back into unity. A rag doll, a silhouette of feathers. Flexible and indestructible and utterly unnecessary.

Beverly spent that day in the city. She showered fairly upon every creak and corner. She dusted off balconies and staircases and railways. She kept her head down.

She hugged Peter Lake from behind, as he lay, immobile, on his side, watching the little piece of chocolate, wrapped in its golden paper. She winked off the edges of the sweet. She did everything in her power to compel him.

You need to eat… Peter… Eat, at least…

But he was paying no attention to anything at all. A few times his depthless eyes regained their focus, and one or two windows would glimmer within the black, foggy metropolis encased within his gaze. And Beverly would know that he was listening.

To the muffle below. Footsteps. Conversations, feeble tappings.

But the lightbulbs would swiftly evaporate, letting themselves be swallowed by the clouds, and Peter Lake's face would soften into numbness once again…

And Beverly would leave him with another kiss of sunlight plastered between his shoulders, and she'd caress New York with her invisible fingertips.

Cecil… I'm done calling for you, Cecil…

She went to the Coheeries in the evening. She went upstairs, and slithered through the cracks of the door behind which her little sister slept. And then she'd glide to the room of water. Peter's room. One she'd always envied. With its cool-colored walls, its thick mattress. Its delicate curtains…

She climbed to the roof and entered the tent. The governess was there, kneeled beside the bed. The sheets had been removed. The pillows, rid of their cases. The old woman now folded them neatly into piles.

Beverly decided to stay for a bit. Doing nothing, merely watching. She was heartless, as well as breathless, but she felt very tired.

Am I still able to feel pain?

The sun was descending gently behind the white crown of the city. And the governess suddenly spoke, to no one at all, and her breath cloudied the golden lamplight.

"I had a shawl…"

Her work-worn fingers danced along the bedsheets she'd folded upon her lap, as if she were petting a cat.

"He could have frozen to death out there… I could have… I could have at least… given him my shawl…"

The governess leaned her head forward. Her hand closed, forming a fist. Beverly looped in silver rings around her wrists and irises.

"Poor, sweet girl… You would have hated me for it…"

I don't hate you… I'm too tired to hate you…

"If you'd heard what I said to him… If…"

A single drop of water bled into the fabric.

Hating you will only sink me even further…

"I wonder if you were happy… With him… On New Year's Day…"

I was… I was very happy…

"When he told me, I got scared… I got very scared… I just don't understand… how… Well…"

I held him as close as I could…

"I guess I'm not one to judge," the governess murmured. Her icy voice cracked, fizzling, dripping. "I've been unlucky… I was never as pretty as you…"

Beverly trembled behind her curtain of death. The green earrings twinkled in the lamplight.

"I hope you were happy…"

She shone kindly upon that stone-set face, the sharp features, the darkness of the dress. Features, quietly twisted. A pile of bedsheets. A tear, then another. And another.

"I know that, at the very least, you were happier than I ever was…"


Author's Note: To anyone who is here today, thank you for reading.

It's very late for me right now (12:53 AM, to be exact), so I'm not gonna give you one of my ultra-elaborate Author's Notes XD I'm just starting to dip my toes into other things that Beverly will be doing, asides from looking after Peter. And I promise you that she will be seen and heard again soon - just, again, not by Peter. In the same way that Cecil (at least from what I interpreted in his little presence in the movie) can be seen by Peter, but maybe he isn't seen by others :3

I didn't want to make the governess scene at the end of the chapter too overwhelmingly explanatory. I simply felt like giving her a small dose of sympathy, for a change. To add little hints of her grief, how her coldness has some explanation. I created her in ASITL to be just a good old-fashioned meanie to make Peter's existence a little more challenging (cause his life wasn't challenging enough already XD), but I did have plans to redeem her, or make something more meaningful out of her role as a character in this tale. I hope I did this right. And that I conveyed the information and backstory I wanted to convey, without the need of over-explaining everything.

Again: It's very late for me, so goodnight. Thank you for reading, here is your digital hug. *hug* See you again soon!