19. The voice of the fireplace
"My dear…"
Silly English girl with a silly accent. A voice of fire.
In life, unable to scream without burning others. In death, incapable of speaking, lest she burn herself.
Bubbles scalded in iron rings down her throat.
"It's late…"
It was late. Peter Lake would fall from the Brooklyn Bridge and collapse with the icy river under its belly. Waves, shattered glass, broken fractures of the sky of paint he currently found himself refuged within.
"The sun will rise soon… Your light will fade…"
Beverly could do nothing but whisper gentle affections. Wishes that could not be fulfilled. Trite, melodious caresses.
"I love you… I love you, Peter…"
"You brought jewels… That's smart… You were always so smart, Beverly…"
The fire spoke at her back. She breathed thickly. Salt, water.
The sky was an ocean. She'd dived through it and floated, feather-like, to the world below, the kingdom she'd abandoned, glittering with dripping frost.
"Jewels always reflect the light so well… They are caves that harness the truth… The best harnesses there are… Let me illuminate your tunnel… You need to go home…"
Home.
Peter Lake was water. He was the spirit and taste of it.
Cool, salt water. An ocean. The sky.
Her home.
Home. Home.
She would meet him there… A sea of starlight… Tomorrow, or some other day… And if he had no ticket to the ocean, she would claw into him and drag him up to the surface herself.
He would laugh, or weep, or perhaps both things at once, and speak, speak like mad. He would drown out the shimmering twinkle. The bells. He could whisper and they would cower away…
"My friend is going to die today…"
She was speaking now. Despite herself.
"I cannot go…"
A rusty spoon. A lick of metal.
"I need to make sure he doesn't sink…"
Heat blazed at her back.
"You can understand that…"
In the attic, moonlight, green through the yellow glass.
In the Coheeries, before her father, asleep in his chair… a fireplace behind her.
"You're here, after all…"
She's probably exactly where you think she'd be.
Isaac Penn indeed loved that fire.
He'd loved the color of her mother's hair. More so, much more so, than he'd ever love hers. It made sense.
"Yes, Beverly…"
The fire didn't speak like a mother.
You…
Had the fever made her so cruel? Why couldn't she find in her beatless heart any resemblance of her childhood melancholy? The love for her mother? Her curiosity for death?
You blackened Peter's hands…
She'd always wondered how her mother died. Whether she'd felt any pain. She'd cared so deeply. She'd confided in Peter Lake about it, only some days before…
You're the reason why my father has lost his mind…
But what was there for her to wonder about now? Death was this. Lonely, and silent, and frustrating.
And her mother was the firelight that danced along Isaac Penn's face.
The furnace… The fireplace…
Why he won't look in his children's direction…
Beverly was too sad to be infuriated. Too bitter to be glad. She was memory and silence and she harbored nothing at all in her sunken soul.
She worried for her father. For her sister. For her friend, her companion…
Am I still able to feel pain?
For Cecil, too. She worried most terribly.
"And I'll be here for as long as he is…"
Beverly turned around, faced the flames. Dawn creeped in through the half-opened door. She brought her hands to the earrings and sheltered them from the blaze.
"I need to go…"
"You're angry…"
Flames waved and the coal creaked. Pebbles clattered gently to the carpet.
"I'd be angry as well… You're too young… And I was, too… I know your grief…"
"I want to see you," Beverly whispered. "I need to look at your eyes… I won't be angry, then…"
"I couldn't leave him… I wanted to hold him… I wanted him to hear me, feel me…"
The fire crackled, popped. Spoke.
"I sold my harness to make myself visible to him…"
He can see you…
Peter Lake's black eyes reflected nothing at all, in this hazy half-light. Not the saturated green of this offensive gown. Or the tears in her lifeless eyes.
I can feel pain. I feel pain now.
It was cold in this horrid attic and she couldn't warm him…
Keep kissing me like this… I'll warm you…
She'd promised to warm him…
"I got what I wanted… My vessel was abandoned… I took down my light, erased my star…"
To erase a star…
The mere thought sounded monstrous. An insult.
You sold a miracle…
Because, what right had Beverly, to a miracle? To be worthy of a place in the sky she had fled as soon as she got there? What had she done in her ill-struck life, but play piano, and scowl, and desire? Desire…
She'd had no time to do anything extraordinary. To be a miracle felt like a gift. An act of kindness, provided by the sky itself.
You sold your own miracle…
To erase a star, to sell a miracle, sounded like casting a gifted gem into the ocean. A combined injustice.
Peter Lake would be sinking in a few hours, and Beverly could not tell him, and her mother had blown out her light to make herself perceivable.
Beverly began to retreat, away from the fire. She was angry again and she did not wish to be.
"I will go when he goes…"
"You cannot… Not without a harness… A new miracle…"
Peter Lake, the thief, had given Cecil back his coins.
What could someone give to a fire? What would constitute as a miracle?
"All this time I thought you were an optimist… Another will come… I have faith…"
"Faith…"
Isaac Penn's eyes had become as clear and transparent as gems…
"My father's already blind…"
She heard herself, muffled. Drowned.
"He sees only you… He almost orphaned us both, the other day… He wouldn't let you go…"
The stars shouted as the sky cleared. The sky rumbled and Beverly slid down the creases of Peter's shirt as he incorporated himself off the bed.
"You burned Peter's hands…"
She couldn't wrap herself around him and kiss the back of his neck.
"You could have killed him."
"Beverly."
Squeak.
One creak. His voice, her name.
Peter Lake was on his knees, in a weak fog of burnt sunlight.
The floor squeaks.
He was praying.
Author's Note: To anyone who is here today, thank you for reading!
I am very very happy with this chapter, as am I with the fact that I am starting to think of ways to properly apply the worldbuilding I personally crafted into the logic of how death works and what consistitutes as "a miracle," "erasing a star," etc. The movie hints at small details of its own world that I am trying to delve into. It's a stressful practice, I am often very nervous when writing my own additions to a world (especially a fantasy world, and one as open-to-interpretation as the universe presented in the movie "Winter's Tale"), but when I integrate this into actual dialogue between characters, and start toying with the ways the worldbuilding is handled by some characters vs others (I am so proud of the "erase a star" segment and I'm definitely making it one of my motifs for Beverly, because I plan on making her question this statement a lot :3), I become less stressed, and become kinder to my own ideas, I think.
I don't mean to say that my ideas are all great - that would simply be untrue. I always try my hardest, writing this re-interpretation, and creating my own version of this world, and this afterlife. But most of the time (I try to avoid it but I can't help it) I feel like my ideas for the worldbuilding are extremely weird. Like, the concept of miracles as tickets, which is how I intepreted the way miracles are discussed and treated in the movie - I am super proud of my theory, but when I put it in practice, like I did here, I become afraid that I'll mess it up or make it too weird. Applying this to characters is what makes it easier for me. And it's how it should be done: I am ready to explore Beverly's relationship with this new concept, of "erasing stars" in exchange of being seen by Peter.
Oh, and who does someone sell miracles to? Who else? :3
Again, super proud of the final result of this chapter cause I feel better about the way I'm integrating the worldbuilding, I see things clearer now, I am happy with the additions I made to the universe and how it can lead to conflict within Beverly, and... in general, I'm happy with what I'm creating. With my re-interpretation, in general. I hope I have made all of this worth your while.
It's 3:03 am for me right now so... off to bed, I'm sleepy XD Here's your hug. *hug* Thank you for being here.