by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose
“It’s adjusting to me…the sun is so nice outside, I’d swear I was in California if there wasn’t so much snow on the ground.”
“You bring the sunshine with you,” Eliot said, the words escaping his lips before he could stop them. He knew he shouldn’t be saying sweet things, shouldn’t be leading her toward anything unprofessional, but he could not help the swelling in his heart when he looked at her bright face.
“Can we go exploring?” Brynn looked up from petting the kitten, and her eyes sparkled.
“Yes, of course,” Eliot said. “Just let me put on some boots. I was working on the projection proof.”
“Oh, well, I don’t want to keep you from your work. I can go by myself.”
“No, let’s go together!” Eliot felt a rise of enthusiasm in him, and he did not know from where it came. “I could use some time to clear my head. And I don’t want you out there alone.”
“Right, right. Can Lucky come?”
Eliot looked at the small kitten and tilted his head in consideration.
“I wouldn’t chance it. There are owls out there.”
“Ah, you wouldn’t like the snow anyway, Lucky.” She placed the small kitten on the couch, but he promptly jumped off and skittered away into the corridor.
“He’s been doing a lot of exploring inside,” Eliot said.
“He hasn’t been bothering you, has he?” Brynn said.
Eliot shook his head, thinking of the kitten clawing his ankles while he tried to work on his math, then meowing for more food as soon as he had finished eating the leftover bits of turkey Eliot had given him.
“Not at all,” he said.
They walked out through the gardens in the back of the estate. Eliot had been through the paths so many times before that he could have walked through them blindly, but Brynn stopped every few feet to examine the different plants that had frosted over in the winter. She found a spider’s web sagging with the weight of frozen dewdrops, the spider nowhere to be found. With every turn of the path came a new treasure for Brynn to muse over, and Eliot soon found himself engrossed in the minutiae of the walk, seeing the trail in a way he hadn’t seen it in a long, long time. With someone else to see Budapest for him, he was beginning again to fall in love with his homeland.
“Come,” he told Brynn, once they reached a fork in the path where the snowdrifts rose before them. “I want to show you something.” He clambered up the side of one snowdrift, feeling utterly awkward and ill-equipped for such exertions. But when he got over the snowbank and squeezed through the rock passage, he found the spot just as he had left it. A bed of rocks overlooked the pool of a small stream, now frozen over. The pine branches overhead drooped with a thousand tiny icicles off of its needles. Moss partially covered the rocks, creeping green and alive even under the frost, and he brushed the snow aside to sit down.
“This is beautiful,” Brynn said. She stood beside him, looking down into the frozen pool. Under the glassy surface, dark waters still roiled, fed by an underground river. Eliot felt his heart swell with the love of a place that can only come about through a long and intimate familiarity. He knew this bank better than he knew his bedroom.
“I used to come here all the time when I was a child.”
“You grew up here? In a castle?”
Eliot paused. He didn’t know how much to tell.
“It’s my family’s.”
“Did you ever have to defend the castle from marauding hordes?” Brynn grinned, and Eliot breathed a sigh of relief that she had not not pushed further back.
“Of course,” he said. “We just poured boiling hot oil on their heads, though.”
“No archers from the roof? Or a moat?”
“This is the only moat on the property,” Eliot said, nodding to the small stream.
“Aw,” Brynn said. “What about a torture chamber in the basement?”
“No torture devices in our basement, at least none that I knew about. We do have the baths, though.”
“Baths?”
Eliot pressed his lips together. He should not have mentioned them.
“They’re just bathing rooms, fed by hot springs that run underground.”
“No way! Like a hot tub?”
“Yes, like that.”
“How neat! I’d love to see them!” Brynn caught his eye and blushed, her skin turning a sweet pink color even in the cold. He thanked heaven inwardly that she had been the one to commit the fatal blunder and not him, but it was his fault for bringing the idea of the baths up in the first place. He turned away mercifully to stare at a branch heavy with the weight of snow.
“And there is an oubliette,” Eliot said, trying hastily to change the subject. “I suppose that can be called torture.”
“An oubliette?”
“It’s a hatch in the floor that opens up into a room underneath,” Eliot said. “Where you would keep prisoners, if you had any.”
“Like a dungeon?”
“Yep.”
“Then why don’t they just call it a dungeon?”
Brynn’s nose shone with a speckling of snowflake and Eliot had to restrain himself from wiping it off with his thumb.
“It’s from the French oublier—to forget. It’s a place you put people to forget about them. An oubliette doesn’t have any other doors or windows except for the one hatch.”
“So you could only get out if someone lowered a rope or ladder or something?”
“Only if you’re lucky; if someone remembered you.”
Brynn shivered and stood up. A jackrabbit, startled by the motion, jumped out of the low bank on the other side of the stream and darted over the snowdrift. They watched the snowflakes that had been kicked up from the jackrabbit fall slowly to the ground.
“Ready to go?” Eliot asked.
“No—what’s that?” Brynn clambered over to where the jackrabbit had kicked up loose snow.
“What’s what?” Eliot followed just behind Brynn, aware that his body had gone alert and ready, his hands clenched into loose open fists. He bent his legs slightly at the knee, anticipating an impact that didn’t come.
“It’s a deer, it’s—oh!” Brynn started backward, her arms outspread in flight, into the steady embrace of Eliot, who caught her around the waist.
“It’s alright,” Eliot said, helping her find her balance. His eyes had taken in the dead fawn, the eye sockets writhing with maggots. The top half of the fawn was not yet frozen; the flesh torn ragged, tattered remnants of sinew and muscle iced over like the darkest of rubies. A rind of fat had been gnawed to gristled shreds and left to the side of the carcass.
The fawn’s gnawed flesh reminded him of one of the poems he had had to read for school, a poem by Dante. In one of the last stanzas, a man gnaws on the nape of another man’s skull. Traitors, maybe. They were in one of the lowest reaches of hell, of course. Traitors against benefactors were the worst of the worst, the ones so bad that Satan himself ripped their flesh from their bones in an eternal meal. For a wicked deed is the one which most opposes love, and to do wrong a person who has done you right is the wickedest of deeds, for theirs is the love most like God’s in its purity.
This—this was a wicked act. He reached out to examine the ragged flesh. Brynn grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and jerked his arm back violently.
“Brynn—” he said. He did not have anything to say after that; the familiarity of the gesture had startled him.
“Don’t touch it,” she said. “I don’t want to see it anymore.” She shut her eyes and turned away from the fawn, her distaste for death so overwhelmingly apparent on her face that Eliot thought she might burst into tears.
“It’s okay. It’s alright.” Eliot hugged her as she nestled in the crook of his arm, her body pressed against his hip for one moment before she realized her position and awkwardly shifted back.
“I saw his, his fur…” She swallowed back a cough, and he could see her skin turn paler against the backdrop of the snow.
“Let’s just go home, shall we?” He wanted to fix this, to take it back, to undo it all so that there was no death. But here, always, everywhere, there were signs of death, more death. He couldn’t breathe, it stifled so.
“It was poachers.”
“Yes.” The bullet in the skull, splinters of bone, another dark eye just above the eye that was no longer there, just an eye socket.
“Why would they kill it and not take it?”
“It was too close to the house. They didn’t want to risk being caught for such a small deer.” He could not take his eyes off of the body. Was this what Clare looked like now? Worms and decay, the hair still untouched. He shook the thought to get it out of his head, but it lingered, hovering over his conscious thoughts like a dark messenger he couldn’t ignore.
“Then why would they kill it?”
“For fun.”
Brynn looked back once at the dead fawn, and for the first time Eliot saw hatred on her face, knotting her features sharply in a grimacing frown. She pulled away from Eliot and stood alone. A small shudder ran through her limbs, and she pressed her lips tightly together.
“I don’t…I don’t understand people sometimes,” she said.
Eliot wanted to reach out and take her into his arms, but he could not. Impotent to assuage her, he waited until she turned and then helped her down the snowbank. They walked silently back to the house, and Eliot closed the door behind them, locking out the snow.
* * * *
The next morning I woke earlier than Eliot and dressed in my new warm clothes. Venturing outside, I stayed well within the immediate grounds, hoping to avoid repeating the shock of yesterday’s discovery. My dreams had tossed me through the night in fitful starts, filled with images of death—deer skulls and rotting corpses, and a man hooded in black.
To my surprise, Eliot emerged only a few minutes after me. His breath left white puffs in the air as he trampled through the snow-beaten trails to where I stood among the low garden hedges.
“I brought bread,” he said. He held out a fist of crumpled crust, and I must have looked at him like he was crazy, because he burst out laughing.
“Not for you,” he said. “For the birds.”
“What birds?” I looked around. Earlier I’d heard chirping from the hedges, but now the grounds were silent. In the middle of the gardens, scattered in places, were large stone bird baths, but there were no birds in sight.
“Hold on,” he said. “They’ll come.”
Pursing his lips, he let out a high whistle, and threw a few crumbs into the air. I looked around.
“I think the birds are all asleep,” I said.
“Ye of little faith,” he said. He whistled again, and again threw a piece of bread into the air. My hand shaded my eyes and I watched as a small bird darted up from inside of one of the hedges and caught the bread in midair.
“Ha! Did you see that?” Eliot’s face shone delightedly.
I threw bread in the air, coaxing a few more of the small birds to come out.
“What are they?”
“Wrens, I think,” Eliot said. He scattered bread on the ground, and soon the air was filled with the whirring wings of the birds stealing crusts from each other.
“Can I have some more?” I said, turning to Eliot.
“Here.” He took my hand, and I tried not to blush as his fingers touched my wrist. He held my hand out in front of me, toward the wrens, and placed a few crusts in my palm.
“Be very steady,” he whispered, and I blushed. His body was so close to mine; even through my coat I thought I could feel his heat.
The birds, at first wary, soon realized that we were nothing to fear. A small wren with eyes like tiny black beads flew up and landed on my outstretched finger.
“It doesn’t weigh anything!” I said. Its tiny claws scrabbled at my fingers for hold, tickling me into giggles. The wren pecked a crumb from my hand and flew away, but was soon back. So were a half-dozen other wrens, all vying for attention and crust on my palm. I could have squealed in excitement but I didn’t want to scare away the little birds. Soon all of the bread was gone.
“Do you have any more bread?” I turned to Eliot; he had an odd expression on his face that fled the moment he met my eyes.
“Sorry, no more.”
I held out my empty hand anyway, and a larger bird flew up to my hand. It had red alongside its head and tail feathers, but when it realized my palm had no food, it beat its wings and in one swift motion rose in the air and away.
“It’s good luck to see a jay.” Eliot said, and we both watched the bird flap its way toward the woods. “It means spring is coming early.”
“I can’t wait,” I said.
“Not a fan of the cold?”
“I just want to see what it looks like here in springtime.” I motioned towards the woods. “It must be beautiful.”
“Very,” Eliot said. I turned my head up toward his and touched his shoulder lightly.
“I’d like to go visit the cemetery on...Fiumei, I think?” I wasn’t sure how to pronounce the road.
“Oh?” Eliot’s face had gone still, empty. “Why’s that?”
I withdrew my hand quickly, flushing. Despite his touch earlier, he must not want me to get closer. “I have family buried there.”
“Of course, yes. I’ll have Marta take you.” He stepped away from me and glanced toward the house. “I’m not sure if she’ll have time today, but perhaps later.”
Surprised by the cold and distant tone his words had taken, I withdrew as well. No more touches, no more meaningful looks. I let myself look over at him as we walked toward the house, but his gaze was fixed firmly to the snowy path beneath his feet.
Very well. I was here to do math, not to flirt. Eliot had made that perfectly clear.
* * * *
“She’s your guest!”
“She’s a student, Otto. The only reason I’m letting her stay—”
“Is because your landlady hasn’t repaired the heaters? I’m sure that’s why you let the young girl sleep with you.” The voice boomed through the phone, and Eliot glanced around guiltily, as though Brynn might hear.
“We aren’t sleeping together,” Eliot said.
“Pity! Marta tells me she’s a beauty with a good head on her shoulders, if a bit rubenesque.”
Eliot seethed unexpectedly at Otto’s description.
“You haven’t any idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know you could do worse. Marta adores her, have I told you that?”
“It’s out of the question.” But now that his brother had brought up the idea, Eliot shifted uncomfortably where he stood. Hadn’t he fallen for Brynn from the start? But she had come to work as a student, and he couldn’t in good conscience put her in such an awkwardly difficult spot. Suppose she didn’t care for him? Suppose she did, and then they argued and broke apart. Apart from being irresponsible, he felt frightened at the thought of losing her.
“Eliot, you’re incorrigible.”
“Actually, I was wondering if Marta would take her around tomorrow morning. She wants to see a few things, the Fiumei cemetery, and I’m rather busy with work.” Eliot pressed his lips together. His work had stalled again; he simply didn’t want to go back to that graveyard. Not so soon. Soon? It had been ten years, but it felt too early to go back. He closed his eyes and saw the white rose petals falling.
“The Fiumei cemetery? What on earth for? Did you tell her about Clare?”
“No, nothing like that. She has family there. Ancestors, I’d suppose. Her grandmother is from Hungary.”
“I’ll ask, but I think tomorrow Marta has plans.”
“Whenever would be good for her, then. I doubt she’s in a hurry.”
“The girl? You have her there now, don’t you?”
“She’s here. Upstairs, studying.” Eliot had left her with a textbook and a problem set in his study.
“Got to get her downstairs, to the baths with you!” Otto chuckled
heartily. “But Eliot, I do need to ask you a favor.”
“What?”
“Take my tickets to the restaurant opening.”
“I told you, it would be inappropriate to take her as a date.”
“Then take her as a student, nobody will care. It’s just a tiny little soiree.”
Eliot rolled his eyes. Otto’s soirees never turned out to be tiny.
“Please, brother. I can’t make it, and it would be a social snub if I missed it completely.”
“You will still be missing it completely!”
“Not at all, I’m sending another Herceg in my place. It’s been a while since you’ve shown yourself in public in Budapest; I’m sure the restaurant owners will be more than thrilled to have you in my place.”
“You’re not making me want to go with that talk. And with the way I left Hungary…”
“Eliot, don’t be stubborn! It’s just dinner. You don’t have to socialize with anyone. Please.”
Eliot thought of the fridge, empty but for a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk. He would have to go out to get dinner anyway. And perhaps Brynn would like to go to a fancy restaurant opening…
“Yes. You’ve decided to say yes. I can tell. Thank you, brother.”
Eliot sighed. “Fine. But I’m not sticking around for cocktails or any nonsense afterwards.”
“You can escape back to your hermitage after the dinner. Yes, fine.”
“Otto?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for all this. For your support. And Marta’s.”
“Anything we can do, brother, anything at all. You deserve it. Have a wonderful dinner tonight with your lovely lady.”
Otto hung up before Eliot could protest.
* * * *
I thought for most of my life that mathematics could describe anything. The population growth of deer, the deep spirals of the calla lilies blooming in the spring, the reverberations of an echo down an empty tunnel. The path of an arrow as it fell headlong toward its target. Even love, the chemical reactions and electrical signals in our brains that made us fall into each other’s arms headlong in bliss.
All of the world obeyed the rules laid down years ago by mathematics, at the beginning of time, perhaps even before time existed. Everything happened for a logical reason, an event set into motion another event and so on and so forth. From initial conditions, as Quentin would say. There was no such thing as magic. Or so I thought.