42. Flowers in the snow
Beverly's glowing gaze, invisible hands, prying ears. A secret melody, unfolding.
Come on… Listen to me now…
"Where do you think you're going, young lady?"
"Skating."
Little Willa's dark eyes were fixed on the golden doorknob. Honeyed drops of gilded wood melted into her gaze. She clenched her soft little jaw, gripped the laces of the skates. The governess's grey gown flooded a putrid green-yellow as she stepped into the light.
"You're not going to ask me to go with you?" The woman's voice sounded sore.
"I don't need to ask you," Willa replied quietly. "You'll come after me anyways."
"A little girl shouldn't wander the city alone."
"Mm. No. But then again, maybe something comes of it." Willa's gaze brusquely sharpened in bitterness. Beverly had never seen her baby sister look so sinister. "And Dad finally acknowledges that I'm still here."
Had she looked like this, too, during her rageful musical frenzies? Was this her face before…?
Squeak.
The governess's brow dropped slightly, her mouth twitched.
"You shouldn't say things like that, little one."
"I've heard worse from him. And from you."
"Willa-"
"Do you know what he said on the way to the funeral home? He said that Peter's pain was 'optional.' That he would never feel pity for someone who chooses death."
"Willa… Your father has suffered dearly for his family. He's down to half of it, now. Less than half of it, really. He's nearly gone, too. I mean, just look at him. How else would you expect him to feel about a chosen death?"
Willa frowned and her eyes watered. "And you… You belittled Peter from the moment you met him. You treated him like filth."
The governess hesitated before murmuring: "Peter Lake was a thief, miss."
"He was my sister's partner," the child snapped. "Her choice, and my friend. If only you'd heard him speak. I- If you'd taken a second to know him- Beverly cared about him. As did I."
"I'm sure he was a decent enough man. I believe you." Then the governess frowned slightly. Her hands fiddled with one another. "He was also a thief, though. And… that is something I will never learn to overlook. Neither do I think I should."
Willa was silent for a moment. Then she turned the doorknob and opened the door.
"Willa-"
The breeze snuck in, skirts waving, tendrils of dark curls, fluttering eyelashes, the fur on her cap. Beverly stared at her intently from behind her curtain of death.
If you think that Peter is a thief, then you've clearly never known him at all. He was only a thief when I first saw him.
"You used to love me," the governess murmured. "Beverly did, too. Despite our differences."
"Beverly loved everyone and everything."
"Yes. Why can't you?"
"I'm tired," Willa muttered. "Why can't I be tired? Why can't I be rude or bitter? Is it only something you can be? Something Dad can be? How's that fair?"
The governess closed her eyes and sighed shakily.
"Well, believe it or not, you've the most reasons among us to be happy. You've got a whole life ahead of you, miss Willa. Your father and I, we… we're more than halfway done, we're at our last streak… I- Look, just think of your sister, who you admired so much. Sick her whole life. And in pain, in isolation, she cultivated joy-"
"I cultivated, too," the child murmured. She sniffed and her chin trembled. "I arranged flowers for her… In the middle of a winter storm, I found specks of the seasons I've long forgotten. I made her a princess bed. I told Peter about it and he listened to me. He believed me… And all those flowers went down with Beverly. Underground. Wasted away."
Her inky, watery gaze snapped back to the governess.
"Who am I cultivating for, now?" she whimpered. "Do you know how hard it was, to find those flowers? To hold out any hope that Beverly could be saved?"
"No… No."
"You tell me you're at the end of your journey, closer to the end than the beginning. How does that make your bitterness any more excusable than mine? If Beverly taught any of us anything, it's that it was in the dying hours where we must maintain hope. Where we must cherish what we have most. She understood how hard it was to find flowers in the snow… But none of you do. Not you, not Dad. And you're much bigger than I am… You cast longer shadows… You're drowning me."
The governess stared, doing little more. In that instance, the fire crackled and Isaac Penn frowned in his sleep and Beverly waded in the pools of golden sweat that formed on his brow, the glint of his buttons, the water under his eyes…
A weaving thread of silver, a tug of the world, back to the entrance, the door, the glass, and Beverly listened, she read the notes and heard the crickets chirping, and the governess took in a sharp, conclusive breath.
"Alright," she proclaimed. "I'm quitting."
Little Willa shivered slightly.
"You're… What?"
"You heard me."
And the governess turned back toward the staircase.
Her hairpin. Her glossy hairpin.
The dark, weathered tresses.
Squeak.
Peter and Willa's eyes were black and depthless and they reflected the light so sharply.
There is no light without darkness.
A stroke of her hand. A note, pressed. And Beverly winked off the hairpin and Willa gasped softly.
Yes. Yes.
She stepped forward a bit.
I can speak. You can hear me.
Beverly breathed out and the door slammed shut behind Willa and the child shuddered.
"Stop," she called out. The governess grunted and Willa breathed heavily. She dropped the skates, a clanging thud of blade on wood, and sprinted to the staircase. "Wait!"
"Don't scream, you'll wake your father."
One day, one day…
A future haven sacrificed…
No.
Peter Lake once asked her if she played her own songs. She needed to do so now.
No.
"You can't leave us!" shouted Willa. In the half-light her white face flushed slightly and her lips quivered. Her tiny voice reverberated up the stairs, like a ball of rubber. "What- I need you, what would I do wi-?"
"You told me that there was no second place for death, didn't you?" the governess groaned softly, turning, glaring. "That there is only this? This sky we see, this city we live in? Well, I'll tell you something, Willa: whatever heaven hosts your sister is completely separate from the hell this house has become."
"Wait-"
A climb. A chase. Beverly flew behind the bouncy curls of dark hair, the wheezes for air, the gentle thuds of her shoes against the steps.
She remembered Peter Lake, running to her, opening his arms. She'd fallen in his presence multiple times. A white death. A staircase…
The governess had gone to her room, with its drawn curtains and cloudy windows. Beverly breathed with more difficulty here, but her fingertips persevered, stroking the keys, feeling the sound, the light… A wave of white cloth, flooded, as Willa reached her.
"Perhaps death resides in this city, I- I've known plenty of it, believe me," the woman proceeded. She'd taken out a bag, knitted, worn and impractical. And she was filling it up. "Your sister lived with it. Most of us become acquainted with a taste that sour much later in our lives. I know I have…"
"Stop right now. You don't want to do this."
Little Willa had broken down in tears and the governess hadn't slowed her pace in packing. And Beverly was dredging out the threads that connected this child and this woman, both so grief-stricken and alone and needful of one another. To seek out needles with which to weave one of her own, if need be.
But she could only do so much. Death made intervention a whole lot more complicated.
"Don't leave me," Willa pleaded. "Don't go, m- I can't help him alone, plea-"
"Your sister was sick, and you helped her. Your father is just as ill. Find flowers for him, too. You know where to look. I'm not needed here by you, or by him."
Beverly still heard Peter Lake singing, despite his lack of audience, his poor ability… She still found ways into his lungs, waves in his speech.
Willa's gleaming white face suddenly twisted in disappointment. She groaned, her little voice flooded: "You say that my sister and I once loved you. But I'm starting to doubt that you ever loved either of us."
The governess winced. The glossy black clasp, a sharp collision of its teeth, a closed bag, American water, pooling the skies and the city…
"Your beloved Peter also left you when he was no longer wanted. He didn't even attend your sister's funeral, despite-"
"He was there. It was the last time I ever saw him."
"Ah. Alright, then."
Willa shook her head. "If you loved me-"
"I don't love this. I don't love this- this misery you suddenly spread. Old Penn's was more than enough. With Beverly around, you and her were at least happy, and I cherished that. But ever since her death, she's taken you as well, and now I'm stuck in this horrid house that reeks of pain, with nothing to cling to!"
They were walking and Beverly was lost in a hallway of putrid shadows, searching, following them. The curtains were drawn and a storm was brewing…
Peter Lake spoke to her under his breath. Her mother danced before her father's eyes.
Breathe, love.
"What do you expect me to be like? My sister is gone and my father is holding on by a thread! And I'm a child- I- I need to be taken care of! I'm angry, what else do you expect me to be?"
"I don't expect you to be happy, I expect you to be fair."
"You-!"
"I expect you to be as kind to me as you are to- to thieves, and flowers!"
The door was open again and the shards of sunshine were cutting through the wrinkles on the governess's forehead, the bend of her cap. Little Willa's fist clutched tight and grasping the sleeve of the woman's coat. And New York, before them both, deadly blowing in whispered promises of snow.
The governess was hesitant. She was staring at the veiled-up sun and Beverly was there, suspended in midair, a mesmerizing nothingness.
Even hidden, she could be seen.
Squeak.
"I may be stiff," the governess whimpered, "or unhelpful as you say, and I'm aware of my faults… but perhaps I, too, need flowers. Because I have lived with myself long enough to know that I can't find them on my own."
The floor squeaks.
Music guided, too… Voices… Sounds…
"I'll be kind," Willa whimpered. "I- Forgive me, okay? Come back inside."
"Let go of me."
"I can't be alone, I- I need-"
"No. You don't, no… You have it all wrong, child. You find flowers in the snow. You'll be fine. All this time, it was I who needed you. Peter Lake needed Beverly and when she was gone, so was he. It's the way we are, little one. Some can find, others cannot. Some need, some give…"
Nothing is enough, when love is lost…
No… No…
"Perhaps that's why I resent him, still… He can't cultivate his own joy, I knew from the moment I saw him. Because I'm that way, too. One sees themselves in people's eyes, I suppose… Only difference is, I can't understand what I've done wrong, to never be worthy of the sheer amount he received, in such short notice… Not just from Beverly, but from you, too… My girls… You stopped loving me the moment he arrived at the Coheeries with that white horse and your sister behind him."
"That's nonsense. I still love you. And Beverly does, too. Wherever she is…"
"Let go of me. I want to go. Please, Willa."
So she did. So she went.
Nothing is enough…
A new melody, new lines of ink, new crickets… New sorrows…
Beverly wasn't used to writing her own compositions. Sheet music was more complex a language than she'd hoped. Her fingers ached. Her soul felt heavy.
She couldn't draw back in the sounds she'd already made. She could only continue the song.
Cecil had inspired her to be impulsive. And Beverly wanted to trust him. She wanted to trust her own capacity for light-finding…
Don't get lost to the light.
Beverly knew where to find the flowers. She wished to believe that Peter would some day learn, too.
He'd been the one to find her, after all. Nothing's ever as simple as it looks.
Squeak.
But perhaps there were people in the world who forever depended on the kindness and interest of others. People who never sook, but were always found.
To drown in doubt, to bite at it as she'd once done at a chocolate bar, a sweet he'd given her… She couldn't allow herself to do that. She needed to fly.
She needed to keep looking. In even the coldest tempests, flowers could be found. And love could bloom.
Author's Note: To anyone who is here today, thank you for reading.
Happy New Year! I'm recovering from a 5-day cold and kinda sleepy but, hey, I'm alive. Let's hope 2024 brings less erratic mood swings to my life XD I wish for stability. It's more often found now than before, yes... but not always there, and that's what I hope gets fixed.
I'm so happy with all of this chapter. If you'd told me in late 2021, in the midst of writing the first of the Coheeries chapters of ASITL, that I'd one day be elaborating the governess I so heavily leaned upon as an unneccesary antagonistic force against Peter and make her directly link her trauma to something I've gone through, in par with what I've done with Peter and Beverly... I would have probably never believed you.
I have had some arguments with my parents these last few days, regarding my behavior toward them. I have always considered and prided myself in being a person who values all that she has and treats everything in her life with appreciation, but it is definitely true that throughout these last years, with so much tension and misery in my family in regards to my brother, I've unknowningly made myself a constant comparison to him. And since I always compared my behavior to his, I've always maintained the theory that I'm relatively sweeter, or more helpful in my house, or better, even... but this comparison can only take me so far. Cause it blinds me of my potential faults by constantly shielding myself in this excuse: that I'm not better, but relatively better, most of the time. And I'm far from perfect. In fact, I can be very irritable a lot of the time. I have not walked out of the fire as unscathed as I once believed.
During this Christmas break I've been lethargic and honestly unhelpful. I've had a very challenging semester, but well... Now I'm mostly tired of being tired. I spend a lot of time in isolation, for instance, alone with my drawings and my stories and my ideas. I barely see my friends cause we're all very busy but deep down I know that we could all feasibly get together more often if we stop complaining about how hard our lives are... which, they aren't really as hard as we let ourselves believe.
I often doubt whether I'll ever be able to find someone to spend the rest of my life with, to persevere with, to love so wholly. I look at my parents and I wonder if it's all worth the sacrifice they've made. Me. All of it. I help around in my home but I'm very defensive with my parents, for no particular reason. I guess unspoken fears turn me sour many times. I hate to admit that something bothers me, that I may need help, cause deep down I'm afraid I'll end up requiring the help my brother has gotten. My brother is much better now, and perhaps that scares me too. Cause it lowers the shield I've created for myself. The relativity shield.
Both of my parents work now, and they're often so preocuppied with work or my brother that I almost never barge in with stories of my own. I just live and listen... and I write and I draw and that is how I choose to speak.
In the same way that my Beverly is now voiceless, invisible, carrying a heavy burden, I am just as scattered. I've been like this for a very long time, even when I'm happy or at leisure or at peace. I wander my world either completely quietly or unbearably loudly.
And I find it unfair for my parents to turn sour on me when I attempt to tell them that I'm sad or angry by how unstable our family still is, sometimes. Because I know that they also harbor grief of their own, and that I'm there, to take it in. Like they're there to take mine in... only difference is, until recently, I was fairly certain that I was amazing at concealing it.
To put it briefly: in this chapter I became the governess I once created to make a lame antagonistic force to challenge Peter even more in ASITL. I spoke through her. And, really, what sort of person am I? Do I find flowers, or do I receive them? Had my circumstances and my parents not carried me to where I am today, would I have moved at all?
I think my nature is to be moved. To be found. And for the longest time I've felt stranded, forgotten in exchange of more important things to find. And I've become so used to my own loneliness that now I'm convinced that I don't know how to speak. When that's far from the truth. I listen to everything and I feel like nobody listens to me... I still am not completely sure if this is me being delusional or the reality I'm trying to justify. Either way, it's a twisted restraint.
It's very late for me tonight, I'll be going to bed now. I'm sorry for this extra-sappy Note, I'm not sad tonight, I promise, please don't worry about me. I suppose I'm just contemplative of a greater and quieter sadness.
I hope 2024 grants me the courage to speak out loud. My parents don't even read my stories. Every time I mention to them something that I've made, I feel like I'm betraying a secret. And that has to change.
Here's your hug, *hug*. Thank you. Happy new year.