by E. E. Holmes
I heard Hannah ask Celeste a question about the structure of the Airechtas sessions, leaving me free to recover from the encounter.
I was starting to feel like I had cornered the market on complicated relationships, and my relationship with Finn was no different. Finn had been assigned to Hannah and me as our Caomhnóir during our first month at Fairhaven, and by all appearances at the time, he absolutely loathed me. He barely spoke to me or looked at me, if he could help it. I had chalked it up to his strict Caomhnóir upbringing; all Caomhnóir were taught that Durupinen were basically evil temptresses who would stop at nothing to distract them from their all-important duty of protecting our Gateways. This attitude sprang from the ancient and strictly kept rule that relationships between Durupinen and Caomhnóir were forbidden. So, imagine my surprise when I learned that it was only his deep feelings for me that kept Finn at such a distance. And imagine my further surprise when, once I dug through all my resentment about the archaic system of burly men protecting helpless women, I realized I had feelings for him, too.
When we had all survived the Isherwood Prophecy unscathed, it seemed for a short time like Finn and I would be together. But Seamus and the other Caomhnóir caught wind of our budding romance, and he threatened to reassign Finn if he didn’t keep our relationship strictly professional. And so, it was another three long years until, barely two months ago, we finally gave in to our feelings for each other while on assignment for the Trackers. We had been secretly together ever since. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Hannah, though I was quite sure she and Milo had a shrewd idea of what was going on. And now that we were back at Fairhaven, under the stern gaze of the Council and the Caomhnóir Brotherhood, we had to pretend that we loathed each other on principle, just like when we first met. If our relationship was discovered, the consequences were almost too terrible to consider. Finn would surely be reassigned to another Gateway, as far from me as they could conceivably send him. I would have to live my life under the watchful eye of a new and likely hostile Caomhnóir, who would make it his life’s mission to ensure that Finn and I never crossed each other’s paths again.
All of this was rocketing around inside me every time I saw Finn—the love, the fear, the paranoia, the resentment—all roaring in me at once like a many headed monster. And the worst part was that I could see no solution. There was no happy ending here.
The one upside to this absolute train wreck of a relationship was that I had developed a remarkable poker face. I swallowed my food and looked up once more, to find the conversation about the Airechtas in full swing around me.
“…will start with the opening ceremony and then the daily sessions will begin. Each day there will be a morning session, during which all proposals for the day will be brought forth on the agenda, and arguments heard. Then in the afternoon, after everyone has had time to consider what they have heard that morning, there will be a vote on each measure one by one. Then the decisions will be recorded in the official register and the Airechtas will be dismissed for the day.”
“That sounds straightforward,” Hannah said, with more interest than I would have thought she had in the subject. Then I saw her catch my eye, and I knew she had brought it up to distract from the Finn incident. God bless my sister and her timely bursts of intuition.
“Oh, it is. We’ve got it down to a science, several centuries later,” Celeste said with a smile. “You’ll be bored out of your mind with the efficiency of it all. Well, if you’re sure you’re both alright, I’m going to dash. Lots to do still, before the Airechtas officially kicks off.”
“We’re fine,” I assured her, and Hannah nodded in agreement. “Go organize boring meeting stuff.”
Celeste gave my shoulder an affectionate squeeze and then hurried away across the dining room, pausing here and there to shake a hand or share a greeting with someone. Finally, with a last look at us over her shoulder, she swept out into the entrance hall.
§
Hannah, Mackie, Savvy, and I sat up for a long time chatting in a common area off of the dining room. Milo finished his victory tour of the castle and grounds and decided to grace us with his presence. It was a welcome distraction to be around such good friends—it almost made me forget where I was and the fact that I didn’t want to be there. We talked and laughed until a maid came around to douse the fire and lock up the lower rooms for the night, effectively kicking us out. When we arrived back at our room, I was surprised to see Finn standing there outside our door like a bouncer at the world’s lamest dance club. Hannah and Milo said hello to him, but slipped quickly inside, closing the door behind them and leaving us alone in the deserted hallway.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself.”
“I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again today,” I said, and was instantly annoyed at how forlorn my voice sounded. I reached for his hand but drew back at once. “Whoa! You’re freezing!”
“Braxton held an official roll call, and it took a bloody lifetime to get through all the clans. The barracks couldn’t hold us all; we had to move out to the courtyard. We were freezing our arses off,” Finn said with a chuckle. “I just hope we don’t all wind up with pneumonia. Enough about that, though.” He reached out for both of my hands and held them tightly, ignoring my gasp at the chill. His eyes didn’t just look at me; they searched me, as though they would find any hurt or pain hidden there and smite it. “Of course, we couldn’t really speak freely in the dining room. How are you really, with Marion here?”
“I’m fine. Really!” I added, when he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “It was definitely a shock to see her walk in, but once we got over that, it was pretty anticlimactic. Honestly, I think she was as unhappy to see us as we were to see her.”
Finn still had a suspicious gleam in his eye, but he let it slide, which was refreshing for him.
“I was proud that you showed some restraint and didn’t karate chop her in the face,” I said to him.
He actually threw back his head and laughed. It was such a wonderful sound, when he let himself make it. “When have you ever seen me karate chop anyone? I don’t even know any karate!”
“You don’t know karate?” I cried, throwing his hands off of mine. “What kind of bullshit Caomhnóir are you? I demand a replacement!”
“Could a new Caomhnóir do this?” he asked, and planted a kiss on me that nearly knocked me flat. I reeled from it, for the brief moment it lasted, and then I felt a sinking sadness as the tingling pressure of the kiss receded from my lips. The kisses would be so few and far between while we were here. It only deepened my resentment of the place. Seriously, I wanted to kick the nearest bit of stone I could reach just to vent my frustrations.
Finn could see the aggravation in my face. “I know,” he said. “I hate this, too.”
“Did anyone… did you get the sense that anyone suspected anything?” I asked, dropping my voice to a faint whisper despite the fact that we’d already made sure of our absolute solitude.
“No. I can’t imagine that anyone here would tip-toe around the suspicion that a Durupinen and a Caomhnóir were involved with each other. They would leap on it at once, like Seamus did when he first discovered us.”
I shivered, maybe from the cold still radiating from Finn’s hand, but also from the awful chill of that memory. That interference on Seamus’s part had led to three heartbreaking years of distance between Finn and myself, distance that we’d only managed to bridge a few short weeks ago. “This was the biggest reason I didn’t want to come here. I hate having to stay away from you.”
“As do I, love. As do I,” Finn whispered. He brought one of those achingly cold hands up to my face and ran a finger along the line of my jaw before leaning in and kissing me again. “But I would have had to come here anyway, for the Caomhnóir’s role in the Airechtas, so this time apart would have been inevitable. At least we have stolen moments like these to see us through. Have patience. A few more days and we’ll be home again.”
“Yes, but even there we have to be so secretive,” I said, reaching for Finn’s hand and bringing it back to my cheek. “I hate that we can’t be open about this.”
“I do, too,” Finn said. “It’s a terrible way to have to live. But what choice do we have?”
A sudden sound at the end of the hallway caused us to leap apart. We stood, hearts thundering for a few moments, but no one appeared.
“Coast is clear,” Finn said. He was back at his careful distance, his professionally indifferent expression back on his face. “I think it was just a door shutting.”
I laughed sadly as I tugged at my own door. “A perfect metaphor,” I said.
Eleanora: 6 April 1864
6 April 1864
Well, Little Book, I sit here by the fire in the drawing room, writing feverishly, much to the delight and satisfaction of my mother, who has insisted that keeping a diary will be beneficial to me. She does not mean beneficial to my health, or my happiness, or any other tangible part of my person. Rather, she means beneficial to our social and economic status. Puzzling, you say? Allow me to explain to you.
I know many a fine young lady of substance who write in a diary almost nightly, but it is their custom to share their musings and compositions with their families. They sit in their drawing rooms on quiet evenings such as this one, reading aloud from their books so that their parents and siblings may remark upon their observations. It is meant, I suppose, to encourage intelligent conversation and to improve a young lady’s proclivity toward articulate self-expression. However, the reflections I record in you, Little Book, will most likely remain a cozy little confidence between the two of us.
As she handed you to me this morning, my mother remarked, “You are entirely too free with your speech, Eleanora. You simply let fly with whatever thought resides in your head at the moment. It is terribly improper, and I fear that you will disgrace yourself publicly before you are safely married off. A loose tongue in the presence of the aristocracy is a social peril we cannot afford, my darling. And so, I thought this diary would serve a useful purpose in helping you to express these thoughts… silently.” And with that, she dropped you into my waiting hands.
I had several thoughts in that moment that I had no desire to keep silent. But, as arguments with my mother are rarely, if ever, productive, I decided to swallow back my thoughts and thank her as politely as I could. I even managed a smile. Aren’t you proud of me, Little Book?
My mother is watching me most carefully now, and the expression on her face is the absolute epitome of smugness. She does so love to be right that I did not have the heart to tell her that I had no interest in you at all, Little Book. I certainly don’t mean to insult you. You really are a lovely book. Your silk cover is quite pretty, and your pages are creamy and smooth. As books go, I’m sure you are delightful. But I harbour no desire whatsoever to record my thoughts within you. I do so merely to satisfy my audience, who is now sniffing loudly and trying to catch my eye, so that she may celebrate her victory over my free spirit. I am carefully avoiding her gaze. We cannot let her have all of the gratification. It sets a dangerous precedent for our future mother-daughter battles.
The truth of the matter is, I have never felt compelled to write a thought when I was perfectly capable of speaking it aloud. This rendered me a less than satisfactory pupil in the eyes of my governess. But how else is one to become a part of the conversation, if one does not speak up? How is one to gain insight into one’s friends and acquaintances? How is one to find the answers to vexing questions if one does not ask them?
There is another reason I feel so compelled to speak freely in company, and I must confess to you that this reason is rather shocking. The truth is, Little Book, that I must keep a large and terrifying secret every hour of every day. I often feel that the weight of it will crush me into nothingness. There is a crucial part of my very self that I am forbidden to ever reveal to anyone, not even my dearest friend or the man I wed.
I am a Durupinen, my dear Little Book. I can converse with the dead, observe their clandestine rovings about the world, and someday I will aid them in their journey to the realm beyond our own.
I have never seen these words written down before. I have been staring at them now for several long minutes, and I am fighting a strong impulse to rip them to shreds and throw them into the fire. Do you suppose that they are truer, that they hold even more power over me now that I have recorded them in this form? Or have I instead expelled them from me, drawn like poison from a wound?
And now I must confess something else to you, and this confession comes as rather a surprise to me. Most unexpectedly, I find that I feel lighter after giving these words to you to hold, Little Book. You have lifted them from my shoulders, if even for a moment, and for that I must thank you. And, I suppose, thank my mother. It seems she was right, in a sense. You are most helpful, though not in the way that she intended you to be.
And so, as much as it grieves me to bolster my mother’s sense of superiority, I believe I shall be writing in you regularly after all. How vexing.
Eleanora
28
The Proposition
“MILO, FOR THE LAST TIME, I am not giving you credit for the hair.”
“This is utter betrayal. This is treason, I will have you know!” Milo cried.
I dropped my newly dyed head into my hands. “Milo, you are not a monarch, therefore no one can actually commit treason against you. You do know this, right?”
“Treason!” he hissed. “I’ve been saying for years—years—that you should lose the black and warm up your tones. In fact, every time I say, ‘Good morning,’ or ‘Hello,’ or ‘See you later,’ the subtext I’m screaming at you is ‘DYE YOUR DAMN HAIR!’”
I shook my head. Every Durupinen in the castle had probably sensed the earsplitting shriek of delight that met me when I opened the bathroom door a few moments before to reveal to Hannah and Milo that I had dyed my hair. After six years of jet black tresses, and more than a few life-altering experiences, I’d decided that I was ready for a change—only this time, it was a change that I actually had full control over, which was new and different for me, now that we were Durupinen. And, also a departure from recent tradition, I had made the decision without giving a good goddamn what anyone else might think about it. It had been liberating to see the rich brown color replace the signature black, and even more so to layer in the bright red highlights. It felt like I was stripping away some of the vestiges of the events that had so altered the course of my life. I watched them swirl down the drain in dark cloudy rivulets. Much like my recent tattoo, it was a symbolic way of reclaiming another part of my life.
And apparently, of ruining Milo’s.
“Milo, I’m not going to tell every person who compliments my hair that it was your idea. I’m just not going to do that,” I said wearily.
Milo huffed. “Well then, I am just going to have to do it myself. And I can’t believe you went with that shade of red, it’s got way too much violet in it. I can’t believe you didn’t go to a colorist to do this!”
“We’re in the middle of the countryside in a castle full of ghosts, Milo. My professional stylist options were limited. I needed a change. It was either this or a new tattoo, and I’ve heard it’s generally frowned upon to attempt those on yourself.”
“Hair color is not a DIY project either, sweetness!” Milo cried. “I mean, consult me on the shade, at least! You’ve gone way too cool for your skin tone, especially with all the black you insist on wearing!”
“Wait, so you’re saying I chose the wrong color and you still want credit?” I asked.
“I’m saying that when someone—as in, me—has an inspired idea to raise your fashion game, you have to let him execute it properly, and then give him credit! It’s like at awards shows! What’s the first thing every interviewer asks a woman on the red carpet?”
“Something sexist that makes her want to claw her own eyes out?” I suggested. Hannah snorted.
I stared at Milo. He was getting weirdly upset about this, more than just his usual display of sass. His energy was pulsing with something deeper, something that was seeping through our connection and pricking at the corners of my eyes, as though I were about to cry. Hannah had noticed it, too. Her smile had vanished from her face.
“Okay, I give!” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “Full credit to you, to anyone who notices.”
Milo took a deep breath and folded his arms, looking satisfied. “Well, good. Because absolutely everyone, living and dead, will notice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to tell the floaters to be on the lookout for your new locks. Creating a healthy buzz beforehand will boost the wow-factor when they finally see you. And for God’s sake, try to wear something blue today. It will make your highlights pop.” He vanished on the spot.
“What the hell was that all about?” I asked Hannah.
“I don’t know!” Hannah replied, looking mystified. “He gives fashion advice all the time. I never saw him get upset about it before, not really. I’ll ask him about it later.”
“Yeah, better you than me,” I said.
“I really like your hair though, Jess. It looks nice on you.”
I turned to face the mirror on the wall. “Yeah, I like it, too, I think. It was time for a change. Plus, we look more like sisters now, don’t you think.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Ugh, I didn’t think of that. It’s going to be a lot harder now, denying that we’re related when you embarrass me in public.”