Yes.
A quick death is always better.
“And you….was it quick?” she asked, kneeling above the Hessian’s grave, perched like a scarlet bird, her skirts fanning and folding and rustling in random rushes of red.
By now she had at least heard snippets of gossip—though she rarely paid heed to such ramblings—of a tale as old—and older still than she—of a Hessian mercenary with a love of carnage and black murder in his heart.
But her trips were no less frequent, and in her reclusive mourning she had withdrawn even further into her mind—and into the world she created there.
Or the one she thought she had.
**Did I imagine the rustling and the cracking and the whinnying—o it was so long ago I can’t remember but I don’t think I did--**
“What then? A premonition?”
She wasn’t sure if she believed in them.
And she sat upon the earth, amidst a sea of red silk, with a great book in her lap and began to speak. “In the tradition of young girls and windows, the young girl looks out of this one. It is difficult to see anything. The panes of the window are heavily leaded, and secured by a lattice of iron. The stained glass of lizard-green and storm-purple is several inches thick. There is no red glass in the window. The colour red is forbidden in the castle. Even the sun, behind the glass, is a storm sun, a green lizard sun.”
The book, of course, was as blank as it was heavy.
The story was of entirely her own creation.
Her imagination had grown wild--and her intellect was as sharp as her features—though she was very beautiful in a cool and unforgiving way.
Sharp and cold and angular—rather like steel.
She had kissed a boy once—during a party at the Van Tassel’s she’d been forced to attend—tired of the worry her parents spent—
(You really must spend time away from this wrenching solitude---with others your own age---)
---it was a curious kiss—cool and detached—and she’d spun away from Theodore, laughing before she ran off into the night—through the Western wood and back towards her home.
**Don’t go there**
The voice came without warning, and she started.
**Griffin—please---I don’t--**
Her brother’s voice was gone the instant that the shadow of the tree fell upon her. It had always been like that. Here—in this place—all was still—save her own voice.
And though she loved Griffin still with almost all her heart it was a comfort—this silence.
Her secret.
She frowned as she advanced upon the grave, at the memory of Theodore’s warm lips grazing her cheek—and then her throat—and finally—seeking her own lips—before she’d laughed.
“I’ll have none of it.” she said, standing quite still. “Do you think that those boys—that Theodore---“
**Killed my brother?**
Someone had.
“How silly---a kiss. I’ve no heart for it.”
She had always been more at home with the dead than the living.
And without thinking—leaning down and forward, she pressed her lips to the blade—the thorny vines grazing them and tearing the tender, painted flesh. The copper-taste caused her eyes to flutter open—and she realized that blood and dull metal tasted quite the same.
Talk of dowries and possible marriage-contracts had filled her with dread.
**I might as well marry Theodore…** she spat silently, closing her eyes again.
And then they flew open with a shock and a rush of breath as she pulled back from the cool steel.
“If I pledge myself to you, then I can’t marry…I can say that I am promised to another and I won’t truly be lying---for I can’t abide lies—lies are different than secrets, my dead friend—and I may bide myself some time---perhaps I could take up the family trade---for father has stopped making clocks since Griffin—“
A breath.
Stepping back just slightly, she twisted the ring from her small finger—Granny Tess’ ring—its old knotwork and branches entwining to form a sort of a heart—words amidst the leaves—with an inscription hidden and worn away upon the inside so much that had she not seen it years ago and memorized it—she would not know it now.
Dubist mein
Geliebter.
Place me as a signet upon thine heart,
As a signet upon thine arm,
For Love is as strong as Death.
**Yes, yes of course.**
A half-laugh in half-light as she dropped the ring upon the soil, whispering against the blade, her eyes dark and blue and open wide, “We are grown and gathered and bound, and the binding is well.”
**Crack crack**
“We are fixed at the hip and the hand, and the head and the heel. We are planted beneath the land, forever to wheel,”
**Crack**
“… as the earth and the sun are wound on a golden reel, and the ripening grasses stand and pale and fall,”
**Crack crack**
She turned, then, only slightly to find that an owl had come to land upon a branch of a fringing bare tree—its yellow eyes blinking and bright.
“Oh. Well, I’d needed a witness…and you’ll do…if you agree.”
**Can an owl agree?**
“Why else would you come? I suppose just out of an owl’s curiosity—though I’d never thought owls particularly curious…nevertheless…”
Her eyes back to the blade, and the sickness in her stomach passing as the thoughts of dowries and contracts flew from her mind as the words flew from her bloodied lips.
She had no mind of the weight of her words—or that they came from not only her mind—but were contained in a hide-bound gilt-faded volume under the small gold-glass clock in Granny Tess’ rooms—
“Drawn from my hand, these words run blood.”
The owl blinked silently.
“Or wine, not ink. Thy lip to woo;”
**Have I offended you? I hope not---I just want to set my heart at ease…**
“… so may they spend my heart’s sweet flood—bidding thee drink the love I brew.”
A hoot and a flutter and the owl had left her in suspended silence.
She leaned very close, almost kissing the blade again, but instead rising and returning home to a house filled with the song of dementia and heartbreak, ticking clocks, and mourning-grief.
The ring sank within the soil—a thin sheet of steam rising from it.
**********************************************
Three weeks later she would truly have no cause for the pressures of a marriage contract.
Catching fire in the small library on the east side of the house—a careless servant’s candle sent the whole manse ablaze within moments—leaving a wake of charred corpses in its searing embrace.
Susan’s parents and infant sister among them.
No—no dowries to be had here.
*************************************************
It was curious that the East wing had burned down—while the West—traditionally, if you will---the direction associated with death—stood fast and cold and grey—rising out of the burned shell skeleton of a house like a phoenix made entirely of stone and glass.
The clock in the east wing—the smooth cherrywood clock that Susan had liked so much stood untouched—still ticking---its glass-front only covered with a sheet of steam as the men came—Doctor Lancaster---Reverend Steenwyck---
**Do you think there’s confusion as to the cause of death, sir?**
She had almost laughed, then, but she held silent, and said no words throughout their consolation.
She had slept through the half of it—dreams of temple incense and the chantings of thousands brought to bright, blazing, searing life as she was wakened by the shouts of townsmen.
Granny Tess had started singing as the charred remains of her kith and kin were dredged from the muck of the fire—for later interment in the churchyard, next to Griffin’s grave—the empty one---giving Susana six more more graves to tend in all, counting the servants---
(and you always count the servants)
---a dirge that was hauntingly familiar, though Susan could not last remember where she’d heard it.
That was the night that Granny Tess had began to talk.
Through her—at her---the voice reverberating across the not-quite-walls and back again---gibberish half of its breath and charm and spell the next.
It had not surprised the girl in the least, that the woman was a witch---or of the sort one would associate with such notions.
For three months the old woman sang out her spells like a broken automata doll—lost and stuck in the same tracing, repeating pattern of wakeful dementia---whilst the clock ticked on and and on.
The books, in the West library were full of magic and dust—old Grimoires—some Latin—some entirely different altogether---were all that Susan could recall of those few months—when she had woken in the night to find her rooms full of crows---or a stray wild dog curled at her feet---
--or once, only once, the yellow, watchful eye of the owl.
An occasional basket of food and the trail of flaxen hair—a wisp of a grey cloak as the Van Tassel daughter had tried to slip away from her offering, unnoticed.
It was kind—and a few others did the same---even Van Garrett once had stopped to make an offer of shelter to she and her fragile, elder, mad rambling Grandmother.
But she had refused—preferring her hollow blackened fragment of a manor to the company of others—she refused politely—and graciously.
Only a few attempts were made to dissuade her from such lunacy before they reckoned her sadly—but obviously—mad.
The baskets of food still came though—and in winter they were welcome—
Susan gathering firewood in the dead-cold, her lips faint violet-kissed and her limbs shaking as she set the hearth ablaze.
Fire never quite settled her anymore—and she turned from its baleful bright stare—conscious only of the kiss of warmth upon her pale cheek.