The Thing She Remembers.
878 Words
Evelyn POV
There is a crackle of the fire, and the sound changes in the second.
It becomes laughter.
Not here. Not now.
Then I’m remembering.
I don’t mean to. It simply occurs--how hunger and exhaustion and silence relax the knots which tie the past about. I have my eyes open, looking into the blaze, but I no longer see the camp.
I’m seeing the hall.
It had been too bright. That is what pops up first in my mind. Lamp oil-lamps along the sides, the fires unwavering and arrogant, and their beams bouncing against polished stone like the location desired to be admired. Branches of pine weaved into banners hung over the heads of the people who were green and smelled sharp and were expected to signify new birth.
I also recollect that I thought it was too much.
My parents stood behind me. They are still there, I can touch them--my mother near, quiet and stabbing, my father firm and resolute. I didn’t turn to look at them. I didn’t need to. I knew they were proud. I was aware that they thought that this was happening.
I was standing single in front of Tristan.
He was precisely what an alpha was on that particular day, controlled, composed, beautiful, but in a manner that was rather official than intimate. His black hair was pushed back, and ritual striations knew down his neck. And his wolf is all awake and ready behind his eyes.
All about him promised the future.
I waited for him to speak.
The silence in the hall was so great that I could hear my heartbeat. I recall how my fingers clenched into the fringe of my ceremonial cloak as it hung, heavy, on my shoulders, white. Every stitch of that had been superintended by my mother. She’d made sure it was perfect.
Tristan didn’t reach for me.
It is then that something went wrong.
“Elena,” he said.
Just my name. No warmth. No bond. No pull.
“I can’t.”
The words sounded rehearsed and careful.
I can not, he repeated the second time, colder, as though he hoped that they might come safely down. You did not belong to be my Luna.
The air shifts. There was a buzzing about the hall, and confusion went round like a wave.
My mouth opened but Nothing came out.
Your parents paid me, Tristan went on, monotonous, ruthless. You made me make a show that you were good. To stand beside you. So as to make the pack think you were in this place.
My feet were not real on the floor, as they could fall and send me into nothing.
“But I have chosen another.”
The silence broke.
Not all, not noisiously, but sufficiently, laughter. Enough to be unmistakable. Enough to cut.
I remember how cold it felt. Ice pushed down the line of my chest.
Then Lena stepped forward.
She was acting as though she were already in possession of the space, as though the hall had been constructed to her purpose only. Her eyes shone, flashing, with victory and something less pleasant. She paused before me, so near that, his wolf rubbed his nose against mine--powerful, bold, living.
Wolfless, meaningless, naive, she said.
Each word was deliberate.
She took my cloak and managed to catch me.
The cloth tore with a painfully awful sound. White split. Silver thread snapped. The cloak my mother was pleased to have, my father had stood beside me to watch, ripped in her fingers.
You mean nothing, Lena continued, in a low, intimate, cruel voice. “Not status. Not love.” She bent over me, and her breath was warm on my ear. The fact that you are even here is because of the power of your parents.
I couldn’t move.
My hands wouldn’t work. Something was wrong with my body, heavy and hollow both. I then felt all the eyes upon me, and no one was a feigner any longer.
I looked at Tristan.
He didn’t look back.
His eyes were already on Lena, mellowed in a manner that it never had been with me. He took her hand, and the fingers glided together in the most natural manner.
That was more painful than any other thing.
My mother made a sound back of me, sharp and contained. My father stayed still.
I recollect having in thought. This is not real. It can not be the time everything comes to a close.
But it was.
The hall, which had reeked of pine and oil, was stifling all at once. The banners above also appeared stupid. The floor beneath me seemed to I’m waiting to have me fall upon it.
I didn’t.
I turned.
I walked.
The rags of the loak that followed me dragged ,and the silver thread unwrapped itself with each step. No one stopped me. No one spoke. The laughter had passed, and in its place was something less and more unpleasant.
Pity.
The grip of the memory is loosened at once.
There comes another clap of fire, sharp and loud, and I am once more in the rogue camp, with smoke stinging my eyes, hunger aching in my gut.
But the hall stays with me.
It always does.
- Writer
