Last night, I dreamt of my mother.

Under the vast starless night, I carried her coffin. The blizzard winds stung my face, and the snow blurred my sight, as I followed behind the small wavering lanterns of the pallbearers. Their monotone song, barely audible over the howling wind, waxed and waned as we traversed through the thick snow underfoot. The weight of her coffin tried to overtake me, my hands frozen, while I shook from the chill despite being numb under the skin.

We marched up a high hill, lanterns swinging, unsure of how long we had left to cover. It seemed to me a land of no end. No beginning. There was only the journey into the night, until we came to a jagged gash torn into the snow laden ground that stretched into the horizons.

“This is no proper grave,” I said.

“No,” said a pallbearer, “but it is God’s will.”

Without a pause, the coffin lifted away from me and fell into the ravine. I stood at the precipice, breathless, as it went down, spinning, into the dark depths. Enraged, I turned to scream, but the pallbearers were nowhere to be found. I turned back to the ravine, and there she was, on the other side, far from me, covered in blood from her hair to her shoulders. At the sight of her fair form, I lost all words, all air in my lungs, as she stared at me. I looked down into the ravine, the wind howling loud against me, and stepped off the edge. The air whistled past my ears as the mouth of the ravine shrunk away, the wind-swept snow drifting off its edges like powder, before I succumbed into the depths.

****

I awoke to a quiet house.

No footsteps paced above me, no warbling of birds, no movements from the staff on their rounds. A cool, hazy winter light cast itself onto the floor from a space between the curtains. The room was freezing, as the staff had forgotten to light the fire. My bones ached from the restless night, and a peace came over me before I remembered.

He’s dead.

That didn’t sit right with me. The world was too quiet. Too clam. Nothing had happened, but it did, and I knew it to be true. I ruminated over my father’s last moments as I splashed cold water on my face and changed my shirt. For the first time in as long as I could remember, and the only night since, I had dreamt of nothing. One might expect me to dream of my father, guilty conscience and all, but there was nothing—not even darkness. All the events I recalled from the night before and all the emotions I had were then far removed from me. The images flashed before my eyes, but what were they to me? Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing more than a mirage.

I stood by the door after I dressed myself. Did I have to leave right then? What was compelling me? I didn’t want to face anyone. I didn’t know what to expect when I left. If I stayed in my room, in the quiet, then nothing had to change. The staff would not bother me, due to the circumstances, if they thought I was still asleep. I could’ve gone back to bed and rested. Instead, I left the room, seeing no point in hiding, to face the brand new world I had found myself in—one of my own creation.

****

My father laid stiff in his bed.

Even in death he looked dignified - almost noble. His hands were placed on his chest, eyes closed, under the bedding, but still dressed in the purple chamber robe he died in. If someone did not know the truth, one might’ve thought he died in that bed, a proper death for a man of his status, unlike the disturbing and very much undignified way we had found him.

I was unsure if I even cared to see him. I didn’t know what I wanted to gain from it - if anything. When I looked onto his body there was nothing inside of me. My father was not someone I thought would die. He was always there, an unstoppable omnipresent force, bending the world to his whims; and seeing him there cold, still, and silent seemed an odd trick. I sat at the end of the bed, fearing to move closer lest he waited for a chance to suffocate me. I could not force myself to feel what I wanted to feel. There was nothing. I left the room and never looked upon his form again.

****

My mother and I took breakfast in her apartments. The maids brought out small platters of pastries to the table near the window. I did not have the appetite to eat anything, and neither did my mother, whose eyes were heavy from the long night.

“We need to discuss your inheritance,” she said as she dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “It’s quite complicated.”

I hadn’t thought of it. What happened to my father’s heritage after his death did not concern me. All my life I had stood to inherit nothing, and when my brother returned, as I had planned, he would inherit our estate. I only needed to wait. There was no reason that I, merely a second son, should’ve inherited anything. As long as I could stay in Varlemont, with the income my father once allowed me, and see my family together once again, I would be content. That was what I wanted. What I needed.

“I assume you’ve heard from your brother?” she said as she fussed with the handkerchief in her hands.

“No,” I said as I stirred my tea.

“No?”

“No,” I said, “not yet.”

“Oh,” she said as she cast her eyes down. She paused before she laughed, “Of course.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, “but you need to write to him about his father. He should know.”

“I don’t know how to reach him.”

“I believe you do,” she said as he looked me in the eyes, “I heard you two conspiring that night. I’ve assumed you’ve kept in contact,” she sighed and shrugged, “seems not.”

“I can try to write to him,” I said quietly, “and he should return soon enough.”

“He isn’t coming back,” she said, “or is he inheriting anything.”

“But it is his right.”

“A right he forfeited when he decided to abandon us,” she said pointedly, “he has proven he does not want nor deserve it. The whole Court knows it. Your father did not wish it, as you well know. You are the Comte d’Artois now.”

“No, I am not,” I said. “The Court will not approve of it. I am the youngest.”

“The Court must approve it,” she said. “You of all people don’t even truly know where he is! He could be in Spain, and we wouldn’t even know of it! No, no, the Court will approve it. His Majesty understands, he does not look favorably on prodigal sons. That is against the State, against our Lord even, and given our…situation, His Majesty will approve it, he must, if not your father’s estates will be claimed by the Crown and leave us destitute.”

She furrowed her brows and cut into a pastry with a fork, but her face softened when she saw mine. Her arms reached over the table to take hold of my hands, and she assumed a kinder tone, “But do not worry yourself about it. Catherine’s family will not allow that to happen.”

“But this is his home.”

“No, I don’t believe so,” she said, shaking her head, “He seems quite content to make his home elsewhere.”

She tried to eat again but tired of it. She called her maid to clear the dishes away from the table. She rested her head in her palm, pondering something, before she tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears and spoke again: “Since you are still in your minority, I need to be appointed as your guardian.”

“Will he not be angry?” I said, “I know he will come back home—he will. You have to write to him and explain all of this. If you write to him and tell him that you forgive-”

“Forgive?” She said, “I will not do that. Not unless he gets rid of that woman of his.”

“Why not?”

“A marriage without your father’s consent is in no way proper,” she said. “He was betrothed to Catherine before he even met that woman, from a family we know nothing of, and with only a modest fortune. I refused him, he threw a fit, and refused to speak to me. If he even thought about it for a moment, he would know that Catherine was the best option for him. He almost ruined our family by disgracing her if the Rohans refused you, which they almost did, but it has not blotted out the stain of it, and now…this.”

“He didn’t tell me that.”

“I’m sure.”

I thought my mother must have misunderstood him. If only that were true.

“He told me he loves her.”

She leaned in close as if telling me a secret in a whispered voice, “But it’s quite convenient for him, do you not think? That this love of his just so happens to be a sole heiress? Out of the realm? with no relatives to object?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She laughed, “I don’t know either.”

Her eyes began to well up. “This is all my fault.”

Pained, I took hold of her hands and said, “No, Maman, no, it’s my fault. I should’ve stopped him. I should’ve told you. I know I should’ve, but he told me he couldn’t live here anymore, and he loves her, and—I should’ve told you—but it will be alright. We don’t need to worry about any of this. He will return, I promise. He will, because now…” I stopped myself.

“When?”

I didn’t say anything.

“When?” she said again, “when did he say he would return?”

“He didn’t say anything specific—”

“And, in all these months, have you received anything from him? A single word?”

“No but-”

“And did he ever tell you anything about these plans of his? Anything of this great love match he has created for himself?”

I suppose my face answered for me.

“And why wouldn’t he?” She said as she looked hard at me, “Unless he knows he’s in the wrong.”

*****

Events progressed to be more upsetting than I could’ve imagined. My mother wouldn’t stop crying, causing the whole household to lose their routine, and for some reason they decided to turn to me for instruction, which annoyed me. My mother tried to discuss the funeral arrangements with me, which I cared not for, as if it were up to me, I would’ve just buried him shallow somewhere in the basse-cour, but I suppose that isn’t the Christian thing to do.

The physician still thought my father died of surfeit of drink, but since that is not a noble way to die, we agreed to imply nothing more than a vague illness to the public. There was no autopsy, despite the insistence of the physician, because my mother, in her own words, wouldn’t live to see her husband’s body butchered. I didn’t know why she cared, but of course I had to agree myself.

My mother bade me to return to Varlemont to tell Catherine, and she would see to the arrangements herself. I refused at first, given that my mother did not seem to be in a proper state to arrange anything despite my own ignorance on such matters, but I obliged. Someone had to tell Catherine, and better it was me than a random courier.

Catherine was of course, surprised, sympathetic, and gave me her condolences, along with all the usual pleasantries, but I did not expect much from her. She did not know my father well enough to have a strong reaction or understand the lack of mine. The days at Varlemont went by in a daze, having to constantly remind myself of what had happened with my mind not catching up to my heart. Everything was too sudden, too anticlimactic, and too surreal. At the end of the week, I almost expected another letter from him, and an uneasy sensation came over me when I realized that was no longer something I had to worry about.

Only mere days before I thought that if my father were gone, I would be a happier, somehow altogether different person, as if he were an oppressive boulder that only needed to be cast off for me to be the person I wanted to be. But nothing changed, as it always did, and while I held no grief in my heart, it held no happiness either. I had woken from a long nightmare and into reality, where my father was dead and always had been, and I was where I always had been, and everything was as it should be.

I still had to write to my brother. I clung onto the firm belief that he would return home once I written him, but when faced with the parchment, no words came to me. I stared blank, rummaging in my mind, but it was not a simple thing. I imagined the questions he would have. How could a man of rude health be dead only six months after he left? I would stand up every few minutes and pace my apartments, before I got the nerve to try again. I knew I had to find the right words, be as convincing as possible, because I needed him back. He’s my older brother. I did not want to inherit what duty obliged him to take. It was not my birthright. It was not my life. He had to return home. Over and over I told myself, he had to return home because I needed him—it was all part of the plan.

*****

We rode slow in a black clad carriage at the head of a large procession towards Saint-Vaaste. The streets of Arras passed by my window, the swarms of people from all estates came out to watch among the red-roofed Flemish houses and governmental buildings. I myself had not been to Arras in years, despite my preference for it, as my father’s trips there did not often include me. One might expect that being the capital, my father would spend most of his time there, but as I looked at the faces of the city, I knew why he didn’t. My father despised masses of people, the hoards of nameless faces, the commoners, the petty governmental officials, servants, clergy, and anyone he deemed beneath him or begrudgingly above. He must’ve despised the expectation of forthcoming petitions, invitations to social events by the local nobility, and all the governmental and social burdens that came with the privileges of his position. As if he were still an absentee seigneur, my father delegated most of the administration of his lands to officials, and only visited Arras once a year. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the public even remembered our existence.

“Mother,” I began, wishing to distract my mind from the silence, “you should come live with us at Varlemont. Once everything’s in order.”

“Oh, no,” she fused with the handkerchief in her hands, dressed in black wool like Catherine’s, with a white lace fichu, her face and hair plain and un-powdered. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

That wasn’t the answer I expected or what I wanted to hear.

“You shouldn’t live alone.”

She turned her head to the window. Her gaze fixed on something in the distance, “I’ve considered entering a convent.”

“A convent? Why?”

“Well, when I was a girl, I wanted to become a nun,” she said before she gave a low laugh, “but Papa would not allow me.”

“Which convent?” asked Catherine, who was at her side.

“I don’t yet know, " she said, “but I’ve pledged a donation of a large portion of my dower to the Feuillants. I hope to live in Paris again, in any case. "

Strangely, when I was very young, I had thought myself of entering a monastery, though I did not consider myself any more pious than anyone else. Instead, what attracted me was the solitude, the security, and the safety of it contrasted with the King’s service. An easy life. Repetitive. Simple. While the vows posed little problem for me, the thought of being removed from my family did, and it did not take long for me to grow out of that idea.

The thought of my mother alone with strangers made me uneasy. I didn’t want that. If she joined a convent, what did that mean for me? What was to happen to us then? What if my brother did not return? Was I to be alone in Varlemont? In life? The image I held in my mind’s eye, of my family living an idyllic provincial life, began to twist into something corrupted and overcast. I could not see what was before me. What was the point of anything? I only calmed myself with the knowledge that my mother’s decision was not set in stone, and I had time to convince her otherwise. If only.

******

The immense gray stone walls of Saint-Vaaste towered over us all as incense light and fragrant filled the cold air. I watched the ceremony without any emotion. Placed with my family at the first pews, Father Renaud spoke in his low, authoritative voice underneath a draped canopy of velvet embroidered with crosses of silver thread and lined with ermine.

The ceremony took much time and expense to prepare. The interior of the cathedral was illuminated by tall white candles that reflected off the stained glass windows of the patron saint and my family’s arms. A sea of local nobility and bourgeoisie was behind us. The majority, if not all of them, were people I had never seen before in my life. After the ceremony, they came up to my family and I to express their sorrows and prayers. They did not even know me. I doubt they were all oblivious to my father’s hatred of the so-called petty gentry. I believed they must have thought the same about me. Their feigned solemnity, only out of seigneural obligation, or, perhaps, in the hope I would show them some sort of favor, unnerved me. What did they have to be sorry for? What did they know? Nothing. Nothing at all.

“Can we refuse ourselves a just pain when death surrounds us on all sides? When bitter grief strikes us through our clothes and into our hearts, casting us into a most profound night?”

I was blank faced during the insufferable speech. I had drank some gin before we departed, which left me in a warm, numb state that I preferred. My eyes weighed heavy and burned. While Father Renaud’s dry tone dragged on, I had to remind myself that the time would pass anyway, though my nerves became restless.

“Alas! Merciless death respects neither birth nor fortune! Artois has thus become its Victim! This man, distinguished by his birth and talents, alas! We won’t behold him anymore! Our Most Powerful Lord…Peer of France, Lord of Arras, the Provinces of Artois, Eu, and Saint-Valery!”

Thank the Lord.

“…His illustrious birth prevented him from falling prey to base and coarse passions. He knew that birth, however bright it may be, is only a flimsy ornament if it cannot create merit. He flowered in noble pursuits, a love of fine literature, the art of keeping silent, discernment, and sagacity. Artois did not allow himself to fall victim to false pleasures. He dreamed to conserve the splendor of his blood with a distinguished alliance with the famous house of Valois, where he received a Spouse so respectable by her personal qualities as those of her ancestors….”

My mother’s family did not show, but the Rohans did. They were placed at pews equal to ours at the front. I did not expect to see them, considering how entwined they were in the routines of Court and Society to make the journey north, but Catherine’s father and brother did, though I must’ve been more for Catherine’s sake than mine. After the ceremony, the Comte de Rohan came up to me privately to tell me he was there for me, and how he himself had lost his father at a young age. The conversation made me uncomfortable. Many people wanted to be there for me, it seemed. As if any of them were before.

“…His Majesty, who took pleasure in rewarding his favors to Artois, always a faithful and selfless subject, forgot nothing to elevate him, to make him respected in his kingdom, rex exaltavit eum… But with what zeal did he abandon the sweetness of Court, from our great King, to serve his most dear province! Not as a master, not as a Lord, but as a father, a brother, a friend…”

Jesus Christ, who wrote this?

My mother showed no expression as she clutched her rosary.

“How Christian his heart! He made religion the first duty of his life. Who could dispose of a fortune with more authority? A protector of widows, beggars, and orphans. He gave himself, like Job, to those sorry families that unforeseen circumstances reduced into humiliating darkness?”

My father did not care for piety or his faith outside of social expectations. He did not care for the plight of the poor or anyone else under his care. My mother, on the other hand, was the one who occupied herself with charity. She cared for the suffering of those women and children; it was she who convinced my father to donate large sums for her causes, attracted only to have his own image in Society improved as a result. A hot irritation rose inside of me. The year before, it was my mother who washed the feet of all our staff while my father sulked in his apartments. My mother donated the pin money she received from selling her parfilage to a society for widows who could not survive after their husband’s demise. My father did not care for any of it. I imagine if he were alive to see it, he would have grimaced at such a sentiment, or, would have been pleased to know he had fooled them so.

“…untouched by the horrors of death, he expressed himself again with his natural noble firmness, so that the sobs of his family could not soften. He spoke of those sentiments that distinguished him from other men. The knowledge of our Lord, the zeal of religion, his service to the King, the good of the state, the love of his Fatherland, union, domestic peace-”

I would’ve laughed out loud if I had not swiped my hand across my face. Catherine must have thought I had a surge of emotion come over me, as she had placed her hand over mine. I thought it improper to refuse her.

“- let us be reassured, as God is favorable to our wishes. It is those sentiments he placed in the hearts and minds of his illustrious children. The worthy son of Artois, heir to his spirit and virtues, succeeds his father to perpetuate our felicity. In him, we find a tender husband, a generous brother, and a defender of our rights. Grace to divine mercy, the illustrious name of Artois will live ever in our minds, and their descendants will forever receive the tributes their virtues deserve.”

Of which son was he referring? Couldn’t have been me.

“How are you faring?” Catherine whispered to me after the ceremony concluded.

“I’m fine,” I said flat.

“And you, Maman?”

My mother reached over to squeeze her hand and said, “I’m very well. Thank you, Catherine.”

****

Saint-Vaaste and the surrounding crowd moved further out of sight as we rode to my family’s hôtel in town. Its two-story bright yellow façade came into my window as we pulled into the courtyard. It’s smaller than our hôtel in Paris, as it served merely as temporary lodging for my father and brother when they visited town, but sizable enough to house us and the Rohans for the night.

Despite the solemnity of the times, Catherine hugged her father and brother once their carriage arrived. It was the first time she could do so, as the formality of the ceremony made it improper. Despite the unease that came with the awkwardness of my position, as I stayed near the carriage door that I had helped her down from, there was some satisfaction from the slight smile she tried to hide under the guise of mourning. I did want her to be happy, truly, but wanting and achieving were separate battles. I hoped that seeing her family again would give her some reprieve until we went back to Varlemont.

As Catherine pulled away from her brother, and turned to her father, he stared at me hard for only enough time for me to notice but no one else. If I had considered him a person of consequence, I might’ve been more unnerved, but I only returned his expression.

*****

When the night wore down, I visited my mother in her salon. A bright fire warmed the room from the biting chill it had caught from standing empty most of the day. She stood near the fire, one hand resting on the mantle, her handkerchief in the other. The firelight reflected off the mirror before it, casting the room in an amber glow that showed the ceiling painted to look like the morning sky.

“I have something for you,” she said as she held out a round object in her hand. It was a golden pocket watch with a white enameled dial, and its case made of intricate repoussé of various animals among vines. I ran my thumb across the design, worn down and discolored through the decades. I had seen it more times than I could remember, but I had never held it before.

“Your father would’ve wanted you to have it,” she said, though I knew she was only saying it for my sake. I can’t imagine my father wanting me to have anything.

“I don’t want it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want anything of his,” I said, sharper than I intended.

“It was also your grandfather’s,” she said, “my father’s.”

I didn’t want to argue about it. I hesitated before I thanked her and put it inside my coat pocket, deciding it was just another on the list of things I inherited that I had neither want nor need for.

“You should prepare to go back to Varlemont tomorrow,” she said as she moved to rest in a yellow damask chair near the fire.

“I don’t want you to be alone,” I said, moving to a chair in front of hers.

“There are too many affairs to sort out.”

“And I can help you with them.”

“No, no,” she said as she leaned back, “you’re just a child. You need to be with your wife. You shouldn’t stress about such things.”

Unable to disobey her, we left for Varlemont the next day. The journey back was exhausting and largely silent. I focused on the landscape that passed by my window. I enjoyed seeing the farmlands and the clouds pass in the sky as my mind envisioned the future I would have. At times I looked over to Catherine, who preoccupied herself by reading some book, and I thought of what to say to her. But there was nothing to say.

********

I hadn’t prepared for the interim. The deafening silence of Varlemont at the end of it all. The few days I spent there went by in the slow usual routine, the nights slower, as my increasing restlessness forced me to pace my moonlit apartments until I tired myself.

I didn’t know how long I would’ve had to wait until things got better for me. I didn’t know how long it would take for my brother to receive a letter, once I got the courage to write to him or how long it would take for him to return, but despite my mother’s insistence to the contrary, I was still very much convinced of considering my brother a man of honor. Often I would stand at one of the high windows with a glass in hand, staring out onto the parterres, then dusted with snow, my nerves heightened and strained at the edge of my skin, and my heart aching to go home.

I considered the possibility of events not going my way, but the thought made me so sick I had to shake it out of my mind, and instead I reminded myself that patience is a virtue. How many years did I patiently bear it all? A few weeks or a few months was nothing. I had the time—time to convince my mother to stay in Varlemont, time to convince my brother to come back home, and time to become a happier and more satisfied version of myself. My father was gone. I was okay. Everything was okay. Time heals all wounds—or so they say. I only had to find the strength to bear it all in the meantime.

*******

A week went by before I went to see my mother again.

Icy rain pelted against the window glass, drab black hangings replaced the pastel blue silks, and the fire crackled and warmed us from the cold drafts. My mother sat before me as we drank tea, reading off a letter that had arrived from a local seigneur who could not make the funeral for some reason or another.

The steam from the cup eased the heaviness of my eyes. I had found no reprieve from the nights that cast over me a dark shadow—the night-mares everlasting. Catherine was exhausted as well, due to the turmoil and heavy traveling she endured, which gave me reason to leave her at Varlemont. I was relieved, as that meant I could get some time more or less alone. Exhaustion overtook me when I stepped foot in the courtyard on my arrival, which caused me to spend most of the day hours recovering.

For as long as I could remember, my mother had been a stationary figure, confined to the walls of her apartments, resting in bed, or taking slow walks in the garden. After the death of my father, my mother seemed to me more awake and active than I had seen her in a long time. I didn’t think she was content, as her eyes and face shared the same drawn countenance as mine, but her active participation in the management of the estate in my absence gave me hope for a future, though I imagined it would be a slow road.

When I was young, I enjoyed my mother’s reading to me, but the letter went on for far too long for my liking, filled with rambling common pleasantries, saying how good of a man he was, how great a loss we must feel, and how they would keep us in their prayers. I frowned down towards the cup. It made me sick.

“Well, that’s very nice,” she said and smiled before folding the letter and placing it on the small table nearby. “We must write back soon.”

I hated that game we played. How we danced around all the things my father said, all the things he did to us, to spew pleasantries or feign ignorance. I might have also adopted the same passive and submissive façade to make my life bearable and, at times, believed in the lies I had to tell myself, but once I saw him dead, I did not think him a gentleman. For once, I wanted my mother to admit it.

“But he wasn’t a good man,” I said, glancing up from the cup. “Right, Maman?”

She stared at me.

“Don’t say such things.”

“But it’s true,” I said in a soft voice.

“Stop it!” She said hushed but harsh.

“There’s no reason to lie about it,” I said, “not anymore.”

“Stop it!” she said again, “your father has just died!”

“Thank God,” I said in a barely audible mutter.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She put her cup down hard on the table before she came towards me. Her face level with mine.

“Don’t you ever say anything like that again!” She said sharply, her brows furrowed, “You never know who will hear you.”

My heart sank. I avoided her eyes. I missteped, and I knew it: “You’re right, Maman, I’m sorry."

She turned away from me and called for the staff. A few maids filled in at her command.

“Clear the dishes, Monseigneur le Comte is finished.”

She smoothed her petticoats with her trembling, pale hands before she left me in the room alone.

******

While I buttoned up my waistcoat in the morning, a servant came to the door to inform me that my mother had requested to see me immediately. It was odd, as I already planned to call on her, as per the usual routine of things, but I thought little of it. I assumed I merely had to do some penitence for the comments the day before, and then we would forget it ever happened. I agreed and told him I would be there soon.

My mother stood like a wraith silhouetted against the window in her deep mourning dress and fair features. A light rain pattered on the glass still, a grim remnant from the night before, as she stared out to some point in the distance with a hand near her mouth. She was alone, no breakfast on the table, and her ladies gone. She didn’t turn to me when I walked in.

“Maman?” I said, believing that she didn’t hear me walk in, “Is something wrong?”

She didn’t move but kept her sight out the window until she turned her head. She let an arm drop to her side, handkerchief in hand, and her eyes red again.

“Where’s the laudanum?”

“What?”

“I will need it back.”

She turned fully to me. A cold wind passed through me, the words not coming to my mind, but once I processed the question, I feigned a disarming smile: “I don’t know what-”

“It is sinful to lie,” she said, twisting the handkerchief in her hands, “I noticed a bottle missing from the chest. At the time, I assumed I misplaced one—that is, until your father asked if I had given one to you. I was angry with you, but I assumed you wouldn’t steal from me unless you were having some sort of problem you didn’t wish to discuss.”I swallowed. She only knew I had taken it; I reminded myself, that was all.

“I shouldn’t have taken it without permission,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“So,” she said in a firm but unaffected voice, “where is it now?”

“It’s gone.”

Not a lie, I thought.

I searched her face. I thought there was no possibility that she knew anything. She was just angry, which was justified, and I would brave chastising about it, though I didn’t know why she would only bring it up months later. Her expression twisted, gaining a red tinge, which made me think she would start crying again, but she didn’t.

“How?”

I shrugged. “I used it all.”

She walked quickly away from the window to the other side of the room and covered her face with her hands.

“Maman,” I said following her, “I’m sorry, truly, but I don’t believe it warrants this reaction.”

“Do you think me a fool?” She said uncovering her face.

“What are you—”

“You lie and you lie and you lie!” She screamed and rambled in a frantic voice, “I should’ve known. The physician thought that maybe—and I should’ve known. You and your blatant high disregard for your father’s spirit—you and your nature and I didn’t—I couldn’t— I can’t —”

“What are you talking about?” I yelled back, my hands shaking, unable to make out her words in her wet voice.

“You know what I’m speaking of!” she seethed.

“Then say it!”

“I won’t say anything so vile.”

A grave air grew between us. We understood each other. I became cold and empty inside. She was never supposed to know. No one was supposed to know anything. That wasn’t the plan. Her eyes held the terror and disgust I imagined she would have. I held in my mind that my father’s death would mend the invisible rift between us all, but I saw the rift grow wider right in front of me, one that could never be mended. It would’ve been better to be dead. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t convince her otherwise. I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t hide. It was over.

I stepped towards her, but she moved back.

“And if I did?” I found myself saying, “How terrible would that be?”

“How can you say such a thing?” she seethed. “You have committed the gravest of sins.”

“Because I hate him!” I yelled, “I hate him! With my whole heart, I hate him! The disgusting, brutish creature he is! I hate him!”

“He is still your father!”

“I know!” I said, “I know! He is my father. I am reminded every. single. day of who he is! I know I should care for him, and I know I should love him, but when did he ever care for us? How many times has he hurt you? Or should you just ignore that again? Can you truly feign so?”

“You will burn for this!” she said before she collapsed onto the daybed. She sobbed loud down towards the floor. I calmed in the relative silence and kneeled in front of her. I tried to hold her hands, but she took them away from me.

“Maman, I’m sorry,” I said, keeping my tone low and calm. “I am. I’ve never wanted to cause you pain, but I had to do this. For you. For our family. How long could we have suffered him?”

She shook her head with tears down her face. “Do not involve me in your sins.”

“Please, Maman, see reason.”

“Get out.”

“Get out!” She yelled again when she stood up and I hadn’t moved: “I do not want to see you in here again!”

“I am still your son!” I said standing.

“You are no son of mine!”

I huffed. Her face made it clear to me that she meant it.

“I said leave! Or I’ll call them to drag you out! And you know what will happen then? They will send you to a hospital! They will send you to the gallows! Is that what you want? Get out!”

“Fine.” I said, chocking back the emotions in my voice, “I’ll leave if that’s what you want so dearly.”

I went to leave and shook my head. When I opened the door, as the tears I held back burned my eyes, and my rage simmered under my skin, I said something I shouldn’t have.

“I suppose I should’ve just let him kill you then.”

*******

I didn’t leave, despite my mother’s insistence. I couldn’t leave my rooms, afraid I would run into her, so I paced around for hours as my nerves ate away at me. Sharp stabbing pains went through my head, as I shook violently, and my chest was in so much pain that I had to lie down in order to breathe clearly. The world fazed in and out of my vision as a large void seemed ready to open up in the ground beneath me and swallow me whole.

I knew I should’ve obeyed her, but I was in too much pain to move. As exhausted as I was, I could not sleep. I imagined that she would send word to have me arrested, that any moment they would come into the room and take me, subject me to the dirty, damp walls of a prison cell, before being hauled up the gallows and my head rolling on stained wood.

All was lost. I had been defeated. My mother despised me, my father was dead, and my brother might as well have been a world away. He could not come back, ignorant of all of these events, not while my mother hated me so. I had to return to Varlemont, if my mother decided not to betray me, and then what? If she didn’t forgive me, and refused to see me, then that would be impossible to explain. And after that? There was nothing for me. There was nothing between us anymore, even if she did forgive me, she would never look at me the same again. I remembered the times she cared for me, when she nursed me from the fall down the stairs, or all the other times I was injured, and I wanted nothing more than to go back—just for a moment more—before the pain, before everything had changed, when the only thing I wanted in the entire world was to make my mother happy, before I became who I am. I might’ve saved my mother from my father, but what saved her from me?

My nerves only calmed when I thought I only needed to let her anger subside, and then we could have a civil conversation and she would forgive me. It was a different path than I planned, but it could work. I had to return to Varlemont, for a time, and then I would write to her about speaking again. That was the only way forward. We could move on with our lives as we always had done. No one knew anything about it. We had time.

Morning came. I waited to see if she would send a servant to summon me again, but when none arrived, I arranged for my departure. It crossed my mind to go and see her myself, despite my plan, with the thought she might’ve calmed enough, but I saw her twisted and pained face, her sobs, and her screams in my mind and thought it would only make her angrier. Once I packed and dressed for traveling, I left out into the courtyard. The sun had just barely risen, the icy rain replaced with a light snow that dusted over the grey stones, and the liveried servants packed and readied the carriage. I crossed the courtyard and hoped the long journey would exhaust me enough to allow me sleep.

*******

I was almost at the carriage when I heard the gunshot. I ran. The staircase and halls rushed by me while I screamed out to her before I could even think of what could’ve happened. All through my life, I was forced to hear my mother bear the brunt of my father’s assaults, and I hid, due to an innate weakness, or ran away, as a cold terror washed through me, as if distance did anything to ease the pain of it. That same terror followed me to Varlemont, caused my night-mares, and kept me up far into the night as I suffered with the knowledge that she was not safe, and as long as she wasn’t safe, then neither was I. That same terror washed over me then, the second I heard the shot, knowing that something was horrifically wrong and that I had to run to her, to help her, as I screamed out to her, in hopeless desperation, as if she was anything but dead.

At every turn I took, I thought I might see her, rushing to find me as well, to meet somewhere in the middle, but my cries became more desperate the closer I became without her presence. I must have known then, deep in my heart of hearts, because I imagined what I wished to see when I opened that door, to see her in her morning dress, at the table in front of a sunlit window, smiling and wondering what I was so panicked for. We were safe. Everything was okay. I was okay — but I’d never be okay again.

“Maman!” I called out as I opened the door.

I can never forget the blood.

It pooled thick under her head where she laid, spreading out into the wooden floor around her, splayed onto the white paneled walls, matted in her hair, down her shoulders, her chemise, my hands, my arms, as I held onto her flimsy body to chest, the warmth of it soaking through my waistcoat into my shirt underneath. My eyes burned from the sobs as I clutched onto her, begging, pleading, and screaming; one hand on the back of her head as blood ran hot through my fingers, as I muttered over and over again under my breath something that no longer sounded like words but a muddle of incoherent babble.

How terrible it is to bear; how horrible it is to even try to find the words to describe it all. I have held and screamed out to my mother for eternity, her cold hands in mine, her death seared into my mind, haunting me, chasing me for so long, the slightest remembrance casting me back into its recesses where there is nothing but her cold body, my mind spiraling, my chest aching, no longer in control of my senses, until the warmth left her body.

I once believed that death was nothing at all, but it wasn’t nothing at all—it was everything. It was the end of my life.

No.

Worse.

It was the end of the world.

Chapter IX: The End

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