Chapter 4 – The Weight of Silk and Silence
1133 Words
Celestina’s POV – 1895
The lace at her throat felt like a noose.
Celestina Navarro stood in front of her mirror as the maid adjusted her corset, pulling the strings tight enough to cut off more than just breath—it silenced her spirit. The mirror showed a perfect señorita: soft curls, powdered skin, the pale lilac of her dress highlighting the paleness of her face.
But inside, she was a storm barely held together.
“Too tight,” she whispered, though she knew it didn’t matter.
“Your father said to make you presentable,” the maid replied without malice. “Don Emilio arrives before dusk.”
Don Emilio. A man twice her age, with hands like sandpaper and a voice like crushed rocks. His family owned half of Pampanga and, apparently, her future.
She clenched her jaw and let the maid finish.
When she was alone again, she went straight to the window—the only place in this room that ever felt like freedom. The grounds stretched below her: the mango trees swaying in the wind, the stables still and quiet, the narra tree at the edge of the hill casting long shadows.
That was where she had first kissed Leonardo. Beneath the narra, on a day when the world seemed to sleep and the air tasted like ripe fruit and secrets.
She could still feel it—the way his hands had trembled when they touched hers, how he had looked at her like she was something rare, not someone bought and sold.
He had never called her “Señorita.” Only Celestina.
And that alone had made her fall in love.
She remembered the moment her heart first fractured.
It was a week ago, just after sunset. She had crept down the west hallway to his room—the one hidden behind the servants’ wing. It was modest, dark, filled with books and music sheets and the faint scent of tobacco and wood.
She had pushed open the door, and he had looked up, startled.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he had said, rising quickly.
“Then send me away.”
He hadn’t.
He never could.
They had argued. She wanted to run away. He wanted her safe. She told him safety meant nothing if it didn’t include him. He told her she didn’t understand what the world did to men like him who reached too far.
“I’d rather fall with you than live caged,” she said, tears burning in her throat.
“And I’d rather you lived,” he replied, just as broken.
That was Leonardo. Always putting her life before his heart. Always believing love was not enough.
And maybe it wasn’t. Not here. Not in this country where girls were traded for influence and boys were sent to wars that weren’t their own.
But still—she couldn’t stop loving him.
Celestina moved quickly now. She pulled open her wardrobe and reached beneath the pile of stiff, formal gowns until she found it: the satchel hidden from every eye but hers.
Inside were the letters.
His letters.
She had told him to hide them where only she would think to look—and he had.
Tucked inside an old copy of Florante at Laura, buried in a drawer she used for abandoned embroidery kits. She had nearly cried the first time she found them. He had written her truths no one else dared to say.
You make me believe I’m more than my blood.
I would cross oceans if I knew you were waiting on the other side.
I have loved you in silence and rebellion. In the space between heartbeats.
Each letter was a thread binding her to him. And every time she reread them, her world grew louder, brighter, more bearable.
She sat down now, fingers brushing over the pages.
A knock on the door startled her.
“Celestina,” came her father’s voice. Measured. Cold. “He’s arrived.”
She swallowed hard.
“I’ll be down shortly.”
Her voice was even, like she had practiced.
But the moment the footsteps faded, she grabbed a piece of paper and her ink pen.
If Leonardo could write her soul, she could write him back.
My dearest Leonardo,
I fear the hour is near when I must pretend to be someone else. A girl in lilac silk, smiling at a man she will never love. The walls grow narrower, and yet my mind drifts only to the narra tree. To your eyes. To that single kiss that ruined me for any other.
They speak of duty like it is sacred, but what of love? Is that not sacred too?
You once told me we are not free. But in my dreams, we are. In my dreams, I wear no corset, no fear. Only your name, stitched into my skin like truth. If I run, would you catch me? If I fall, would you follow? Or is the world too cruel for us to exist in the same breath?
If you leave for San Ildefonso, write me once more. Just once more. I will keep it in my hands like a prayer.
Yours in defiance and devotion,
Celestina
She folded the letter and tied it with one of the violet ribbons she wore in her hair.
She didn’t know if he’d receive it. She didn’t know if time would even allow them another moment.
But she had to try.
Before everything beautiful between them was buried in obedience and silence.
The evening passed like a slow funeral.
She smiled when expected. Laughed at Don Emilio’s dry jokes. Drank bitter wine that stuck to her throat.
But inside, she was already gone.
Her eyes drifted to the windows again and again, hoping for a shadow, a signal, a miracle.
None came.
Don Emilio touched her wrist. She resisted the urge to recoil.
Her mother beamed.
Her father nodded.
The world around her clapped.
And she… simply watched herself disappear.
When it was over, and the guests had left, she slipped out of her room and ran.
Through the back halls, down the garden steps, past the mango trees. Her satin shoes were ruined, her lungs tight.
She reached the narra tree.
Empty.
The wind whistled gently.
She knelt there and pressed her letter beneath the roots—where they had once carved their initials like children too bold to be wise.
Then she whispered into the wind:
“If you’re still out there… remember me. Even if this world won’t let me remember you.”
Somewhere, far from the estate, Leonardo woke with her name on his lips and an ache in his chest he couldn’t explain.
And beneath the narra tree, the earth stirred—quietly, protectively.
As if it, too, remembered.
- Writer
