Boneseeker

by Brynn Chapman

  Their tedious tendency to tell too much makes me want to rip my carefully arranged hair out. My hand strays to finger it. It feels heavy and foreign and I resist the urge to tug at the pins.

  After the hand was safely delivered, Henry and John insisted we do one night of entertainment before returning to the dig. I would’ve rather just departed.

  A gilded mirror catches the light, sending sparkles and artificial rainbows as it catches glimpses of the ladies gowns as they pass the alcove.

  I stare across at my reflection. My cheeks are high with color which shines brightly against the stark-white skin of my décolletage.

  Violet chose the dress and had it sent to me. It’s perfect, naturally. Its vibrant cornflower-blue accents my auburn hair. Or so she told me.

  “You can’t hide forever.”

  I start and bang my foot off the wall. “One can try.”

  Henry’s head pokes round the corner. He breaks into a smile and I lose my breath. He’s so lovely. Every feminine heart will break just looking at him tonight.

  “Couldn’t I just stay here? Most of the music will filter to me, the acoustics are—”

  Henry has rounded the corner, and swept me into his arms. My heart sings. So completely inappropriate. We will be a complete scandal if caught.

  “Kiss me.”

  “Here? Are you mad?” My heart throbs its wild-song, its rushing beat in my ears. Drowning out the crowd.

  He leans in, and I smell him. Musk and pine. I breathe deeper, memorizing his scent. My lips part.

  His lips brush mine, and then interlock in the space between. My fingers entwine in his coarse hair and I press myself flush against him; leg to leg, stomach to stomach.

  His eyes flutter shut and his nostrils flair and he moans quietly against my lips. My breath hitches hard and fast. I forget my fear of crowds. My itchy gown. Nothing remains except Henry.

  My mental equations and chemistry scatter around his image, letters and numbers fall like snowflakes, hovering and fading in and out. As if perturbed at no longer having my mind’s center stage.

  My leg slides up, wraps around his. He moans again. But I feel his warm hand spread across my knee and press it back to stand. He breaks the kiss, breathing hard, and leans his forehead against mine.

  He swallows. “Why is it I cannot convince you, but once you start…”

  “I cannot stop. It’s like.” I close my eyes, searching for the right words. “Like a sea-swell of emotions batter a barricade in my mind. And when you’re here. When you touch me. I drown.”

  Henry grinds his teeth. “You. Do not know what you do to me. This is madness. Just—be mine. Now. This waiting is intolerable. I cannot concentrate on the dig, on anything but you. Bella, can you not alleviate this infernal suffering?”

  My lips open to say yes. Does he mean marry him?

  The heart box inside slams shut like an iron guillotine.

  I stare at him. His eyes twitch with anticipation. And I realize we’re both holding our breath.

  “I cannot. I. I don’t know. My feelings for you are so very confusing.”

  A flicker of pain pinches the corner of his eyes, but then an expressive curtain falls, leaving his face smooth and unreadable.

  He puts his hands on my shoulders, putting distance between us, which I immediately want to close again. My body already aching to be next to his.

  “Come, the others will be waiting for us.”

  We step out of the alcove, into the overwhelming fray of satin, cigar smoke and buzz of loud voices.

  I lace my arm through his, and only then notice it’s shaking. Henry’s eyes stray to mine and they soften as he pats my arm in reassurance.

  “Arabella!” Violet’s warm voice rises over the crowd. She rushes toward me, shimmering and resplendent in a deep jade gown.

  She claps her hands together, smiling. “My dove, you look perfect. Henry, have you been keeping her from us?”

  Henry blushes. “Of course not. Have you located our seats?”

  I see John’s eyes narrow in response to Henry’s blush. They quickly flick to mine. And I quickly look away.

  Looking in John’s eyes is like a reflecting pool. I might as well give him the blow by blow of the past half hour.

  He clears his throat.

  “Our seats, Vi?” I wrap my arm in hers. Unhappy about relinquishing Henry, but more concerned about putting distance between John and my guilty face.

  When Violet leads me into our box I let loose a sigh. The isolated seats are a temporary reprieve from endless female prattling and weighing my every word.

  The four of us slide in just as the chandeliers flicker and dim. Violet squeezes my hand and turns her lovely face toward the stage.

  The orchestra begins; a low thrum which vibrates to my core. I’m unprepared. It’s been years since I’ve attended a live performance.

  Aside from father and his insomnia-induced, midnight violin sonatas, that is.

  The maestro raises his wand and the orchestra erupts to life.

  The music washes over me. Layers of soothing sounds, licking at my skin. Filling in damaged crevasses in my mind, my heart.

  The violins call, and my heart tugs and aches with every stroke of the strings. Emotion clenches my stomach, raising the hair on my arms. The music brings pain. Pain that I so carefully box and wrap in metal in my mind.

  The violins wrench it off, piece by steely piece till I see my heart beating in the center of the box, exposed and vulnerable.

  Henry is staring, I can feel him.

  But the music. All I see, hear and feel, is the music.

  My chest rises and falls in time with the emotion embedded in the notes.

  Tears. They fill my eyes and stream down my cheeks, instantly dripping off my chin. I feel them splash against my collarbone, and slide into my dress.

  “Bella?” Henry whispers.

  Fear floods my mouth. A hot mortification blazes the side of my face.

  Crying. I am crying. In public, no less.

  I hear father’s voice, caustic. “Scientists do not cry Arabella. Logic and tears are oil and water.”

  I cannot recall the last time. Henry’s face is horrorstruck, his fingers fidget with mine.

  The cello pleads, interrupting the violin, and the tones weave in and out. My head swims, vertigo pressing and fading, pressing and fading, with every weave of the bow between the strings. Every melodic adjustment of the musician’s fingers along the instrument’s neck feels like a stranglehold on my windpipe.

  A whimper leaks out.

  All three heads whip to my face. Henry’s hands become vice-like.

  “Arabella? What is it?”

  I shake my head. I’m mute. I hear their voices. Far off sounds, like murmurs through cotton.

  The tones tip my heart, up and down, in and out. Images fill my head. Like someone else’s memory.

  The pictures are misted and indistinct, like a dream remembered.

  A beautiful woman. Sitting on a stool, the cello propped between her shapely legs. She smiles at me, but doesn’t really see me. Momma?

  My analytical side curls up and dies. Trampled beneath feeling and conviction so strong, I feel my head expanding with the desire. With the abandonment.

  “Father, what’s wrong with her?” Henry’s voice, almost hysterical. I’ve never heard it so.

  But I can’t come back.

  I’m lost in this memory of the beautiful woman. My mother. Have no memory of her.

  The strings have jarred the images loose. I don’t, no—I can’t, let her go.

  “John?” Violet, her voice high with concern.

  “She looks almost catatonic. Violet, move aside.”

  I smell John’s woodsy cologne as he slides beside me. His hand grips the one not clutched by Henry. “Arabella, my dear. Look at me.”

  His cool fingers slide to my wrist, checking my pulse.

  Henr
y’s fingers touch my cheeks, desperately wiping the river of tears sluicing down my face.

  “Bella? Bella? Where are you?” True fear now in his voice. I’ve never heard that either. “Do something!” He shouts at John.

  And I hear the voice. The apparition from my mind opens her mouth, and it comes from her—a throaty, deep alto, resonating to my core.

  But it’s too real. I cannot imagine something that incredible. I shake my head.

  The sound is coming from the stage. From a breathtakingly beautiful creature on the stage.

  My hands grip the carved banister of the box. I fight back a blackness crouching at the edges of my sight.

  Fire-red spirals wrap lovingly around the singer’s curvy body. Her voice fills the auditorium to bursting, calling and bewitching every soul. Every eye stares at her face, enraptured by the personification of heaven falling from her lips.

  Henry and John’s hands are at my elbows. I’ve stood up at some point.

  The tears won’t stop. I choke out a sob.

  Several people look up into the balcony, concerned.

  I feel John’s grip tighten around my elbow. “Of all the careless—”

  Violet gasps. “John. I didn’t know. The tickets were a gift—I didn’t check—How could I have known she would remember? She was so tiny,” Her voice breaks.

  Henry, on the other side. “What? For the love of all, what?”

  I hear them muttering, conferring behind me. John’s voice rumbles, “The singer is an alto, like Arabella’s mother. So alike, she once starred in the same production as her understudy.”

  “What? I don’t understand?” Henry, frantic

  “The music must’ve dislodged suppressed memories.”

  I hear her voice fill my head, crumpling my heart.

  I lose sight of the stage, as pain spreads across the back of my head as it connects with the wooden floor.

  “Oh my—”

  “Arabella. Bella?”

  “Don’t touch her!”

  Henry’s hands, strangling my hands.

  The light shrinks to a pinprick. Her heavenly voice fades.

  ###

  The Grand Entryway of the Opera House

  Bella

  “Are you certain you’re alright?” John continues to hover, checking my pulse. More like a father than a doctor.

  The sounds of the auditorium are giving me vertigo, but I refuse to say so. Make another scene. I take deep breaths; only a few more minutes and I can drink in the night air.

  Henry is as rigid as the marble statues behind him. The voices echoing around the cathedral ceilings raise the hair on my arms. His mouth is set in a grim line. He’s barely said two words since I became lucid again.

  “Dr. Watson, if you please?” Dr. Earnest calls from a few feet away. Priscilla stands beside him. She sneaks a glance from behind his considerable bulk.

  “What now?” John’s face contracts in irritation, but he quickly fashions it into an approachable expression. “Coming.”

  Violet’s eyes dart between Henry and I, and dear that she is, turns to begin speaking with a nearby woman to permit us privacy.

  “You see. Do you remember? I told you your other self was strong.”

  “Henry, don’t.” I feel the metal gate quiver around my heart. “Don’t speak of it. Any of it. I cannot bear it.”

  He nods, but whispers in my ear. “I’ll bet you can play. I’ll bet it’s like breathing.”

  Touching you, is like breathing. I cannot say it.

  I feel fragile, like a brittle leaf, ready to crumble to a million, fragmented bits.

  “Henry?” John’s voice is sharp.

  Henry, Violet and I snap to attention.

  “Henry, if you please?” His father motions him over.

  Henry walks toward the group and stops, cocking his head to hear over the opera-noise.

  Voices roar to my right. I turn to look. The opera singer is fighting off the mob, signing programs and smiling.

  My mind replays hazy flashes of what I know to be my mother; her auburn hair, backlit as she pulled the brush through the length of it.

  The fear. I sensed, even as a child, she was leaving me.

  My stomach clenches. Please do not vomit. I flush with the potential mortification. Fear and a dark, black pain and a pressing anxiety hit me like a battering ram.

  Violet grasps my elbow.

  Henry’s voice, angry and raised, whips my attention back to the gathering.

  “What? You cannot be serious!”

  John’s expression is tentative, his mouth working to find words.

  Priscilla. My eyes fall to her hands. Hands which are cradled under a very small swell of a belly.

  “No.” Violet whispers.

  The world tilts. I bite down hard on my lower lip, bloodying it. I welcome the pain.

  The world rights. The metal heart-box slams shut, bolts are thrown, clicking and locking protectively around my soul.

  My barrier erupts as a fiery wall in my mind as anger scorches my tears and incinerates my vulnerability.

  My shoulders square and I set my jaw.

  “If it’s true, Henry, I’m afraid you’ll have to wed quickly. To avoid the scandal. And to avoid losing your position at the Mutter,” Dr. Earnest says, his mutton-chop sideburns working furiously.

  “Of course it’s true,” Priscilla smiles sweetly. “Henry is such the charmer. I’m afraid I just can’t tell him no. To anything.”

  A searing, white-hot anger burns away my reason. Hatred infects my heart. I feel it rotting in my chest, pounding its last goodbyes to Henry against my ribcage.

  “Vi. I have to go.”

  Vi’s face is pale and her hands are trembling. “Of course, my darling. I will be over shortly.”

  “Don’t trouble. I’d rather be alone.”

  “I shall bring the dog.”

  I swish past Henry and the group, not seeing anything except the open doors, providing my escape.

  I hear the familiar footsteps behind me on the steps, but speed up.

  “Arabella!” Henry roars. “Stop this instant.”

  I whirl. My fist cocks and I punch, punch, punch his chest, feeling the tears threaten again.

  Several people stop and stare. One woman gasps.

  “Move along,” Henry threatens. “Bella,” he croons.

  “Do not touch me!” I shriek. I hold up my hands in defense. Protecting my heart. My mind.

  “I trusted you. You are the villain. You make me sick. All the while, playing dress-up with that doll of a girl.”

  Henry’s face twists with rage. “All it takes is one accusation and you’ve convicted me? All that I’ve said, all that I’ve done? I asked you to marry me two hours ago.”

  “Bigamy is illegal in these United States.”

  Henry’s hands clench and unclench and he looks around for something to strike. “I never touched her. I never kissed her. Just believe me. I…will never touch another woman again.”

  “Such a sacrifice. Do you think your roving hands will be able to honor your pledge?”

  All at once the pleading’s gone from his face as a sharp, black rage rumbles across his brow.

  “Bella.” The ice in his voice halts me mid-step. I turn and give a little shudder.

  Henry’s lips retract, exposing his teeth. It’s a halting contradiction, the beauty of his face contracted with such utter hatred.

  “Your heart.” He swallows. “Your heart is algor mortis.”

  His voice rumbles like black thunderclouds.

  “My heart is like cold death?”

  “Yes. I thought I’d put it in terms you could understand.”

  I’ve wounded him deeply. Possibly beyond repair.

  I vacillate. A tiny, younger part of me cries to never hurt Henry. But the jealousy and betrayal silence it.

  Anger floods my nose.

  He deceived me, he
deserves the pain.

  “You are right Bella. You aren’t like other girls.”

  My stomach contracts like I’ve been punched as he throws my own words back at me.

  Henry retreats, backwards up the steps.

  “Other girls recognize love when they see it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Life Without Color

  Bellevue Stratford Hotel

  Henry

  The glass shatters into a million fragments, raining down and sliding across the polished floor. I seize another vase and hurl it at the wall. It disintegrates and Violet steps out of the way as a stray bit nearly slices her.

  “Henry!” father erupts.

  That sobers me. That fact it almost sliced her, not his screaming. He’s been screaming for a quarter hour.

  My chest still heaving, I manage, “I’m sorry Violet. Would you please give us a moment? I. I’d rather you not see me in such a state.”

  Violet nods, and is gone in a flash of green.

  A vein bulges in father’s forehead, pulsing and angry like his face. He sits, waiting, fingers steepled in front of his lips as if he’s praying. Perhaps he is? For the prodigal son, at it again.

  “Breaking every piece of furniture will not alter reality. Bring Bella to you. Remove your obligations.”

  I bury both hands in my hair, balling my fists, welcoming the pain. I pace in front of him. To sit would be like suffocation. I cannot catch my breath, or control my raging thoughts.

  “Henry. Is it yours?”

  My head whips to regard him, my lips pulled back from my teeth. My hand shoots out to destroy another vase—but I stay it. It shakes in mid-air. I jam my eyes and fists shut, and drop my head.

  “Do you think so little of me?”

  Father sighs, a sad sound. “I must ask. Henry, consider your history.”

  “You mean my near-expulsion. My carousing? My gambling?” My chest heaves faster and faster.

  My eyes fly open, boring down on him. “How long has it been since I caused you shame? Years. Have I not redeemed myself?”

  I grind my teeth together. Red rage consumes me, and I see nothing, only feel the urge to destroy something. Anything.