by Ophelia Silk
Adelaide’s brows drew together. She didn’t believe the words that were coming out of Jane’s mouth, that much was sure. Jane braced herself for her to snap, to get angry again, to lash out. Because this was what they did, now. They tried and failed to rise above their conditioned instincts.
She didn’t realize that she was physically drawing away until she felt the soft pressure of Adelaide’s grip on her arms—not enough to restrain, just enough to make her aware of the movement. “Jane.”
“I—” She started to apologize, then shook her head. “I should get started on dinner.” She stood, but Adelaide didn’t relinquish her grip on Jane’s wrist. It wasn’t so powerful that Jane couldn’t pull away from it, but neither was it so subtle that she could simply pretend that she hadn’t noticed it.
“Jane,” Adelaide said, serious. “Could you be happy here? Happy with me? Am I enough for you?”
And in that moment, Jane considered telling her everything, every doubt and fear and worry. She wanted to tell her, I want to be happy here. I want to be happy with you, more than I ever wanted anything. But I’m not sure if I want to give up living in a community, living among people. It’s not fair that I should have to.
What held her back was not manners, or even fear of retribution. That would have been almost easy to overcome—she’d done it before.
What held her back was the knowledge that, if she admitted that, no, she wasn’t sure if she could be happy here, it would break Adelaide’s heart. And she desperately, desperately did not want to do anything to hurt the woman before her.
Wasn’t that an answer in itself, in a way?
Jane leaned down, pressing her lips to Adelaide’s in a long, lingering kiss. Adelaide’s fingertips stroking along the ridges of her spine felt like an answer all their own too—a promise, that they could be happy like this.
That they could be enough for each other.
“I’m perfectly happy, Adelaide,” Jane said. And it was true. Her worries about the future were just that—worries. They didn’t have to come to pass. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Jane,” Adelaide said. And Jane didn’t think that she was lying… but she did think that conversation over dinner was a little sparse, and when they went to bed that night, Adelaide turned away from her in her sleep, brows furrowed together as if in deep thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
An Intention Misunderstood
JANE WOKE UP the next morning before Adelaide, being quite rested after sleeping most of the day away yesterday. She brushed Adelaide’s hair back from her forehead, earning a soft hum in response. She smiled fondly before going to start her day.
The house was well-kept compared to how it looked when Jane first came here, but she still took pride in cleaning up what clutter there was. It made her feel a bit more in control of the space. She didn’t dislike the cabin, she realized—if it were a little less isolated, she thought that she’d be very happy here. She enjoyed the fireplace, the cozy shape of it.
Perhaps what she wanted was impossible—a fairytale. There would always be flaws, no matter where she lived. Here, she could love the woman she loved and that was enough. That would have to be enough.
She began to hum as she worked, a song that warmed her from the inside out. It was one she had often heard one of their farmhands singing as she worked in the field. That had been when she was a little girl. She didn’t know where that farmhand was now, but she could still remember the rough sound of her voice, carrying over to the barn where she gathered wildflowers and giggled with the other girls who were sneaking away from chores.
It was to be expected that young women would be disobedient. And then, seemingly overnight, the expectations changed. If Jane were to ever have a child, she thought that she wouldn’t do something so cruel. She’d create a space for them where they could learn who they were comfortably.
The thought shocked her. But once it came to her, she couldn’t stop imagining it. Cleaning up toys from the floor as well as clutter. Reading to a gaggle of young girls by the fireplace. Teaching a girl who looked a little like Eloise about the garden. At the end of it all, sinking into Adelaide’s arms and watching a family play with a contented smile.
This, of course, was the most ridiculous notion yet. She could not have a community of her own and have Adelaide, not here in this forest. Not with the same kinds of people she was remembering. Her heart ached with the realization.
“Good morning.”
At the sound of Adelaide’s voice, Jane put a smile on her face, although it felt a bit wistful and strained to her own skin. She walked to her and put her arms around her waist, inhaling the scent of her hair. “Good morning.”
Adelaide seemed to pause for a moment, but then her arms went around Jane, curling almost protectively against her shoulders. “How are you?”
“I’m well. Especially now.” That much was true. Being in Adelaide’s arms was comforting, made the melancholic ache in her chest more than bearable. Silly, to be melancholic over something she could never have, anyway.
“Well,” Adelaide echoed, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Jane pressed a kiss to her exposed collarbone, and that was enough to make her relax into a sigh. “That’s good. Come, I’ll prepare your medicine.”
Jane sat at the counter and downed it, hardly wincing at the taste by now. The magic tingled against her ribs, which no longer ached. The marks had faded to the barest of scars, visible only because she knew they were there.
“That will be your last dose,” Adelaide said. “You’re a free woman, Jane.”
“Thank goodness,” Jane said absently, still half absorbed in her thoughts. Too late she noticed the tightness in Adelaide’s tone, as though she were waiting for such a slip. She flushed, and quickly tried to recover, “I mean, the medicine did truly taste ghastly—”
“I know what you meant, Jane.”
At the sound of Adelaide’s harsh tone, Jane felt not fear but anger. Were they going to do this again? If all they were going to do was to go back and forth like this, then maybe she could be forgiven, at least a little, for longing for something else. “Oh? Why don’t you tell me what I meant, then, since you’re apparently more certain than I?”
Adelaide’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t it obvious? You’ve been so pensive and moody—”
“You’re one to accuse me of being moody—”
“You must think I’m a fool!” Adelaide smacked a hand on the counter, and Jane couldn’t help the flinch. Adelaide didn’t even seem to notice, which just made her more frustrated. “You think that I can’t read between the lines? Asking about traveling, living somewhere else, being so melancholy and distant. But whenever I try to talk, you deny that anything is wrong!”
“Because I don’t want anything to be wrong!” Jane flung her arms out. “Adelaide, could you consider that I know I’m being irrational? And I don’t want to think like that?”
“So you are unhappy,” Adelaide said, crossing her arms.
“I’m not!”
“Then what is it that you don’t want to think like?”
“I…” Jane pressed her hands to her temples. “I love you. I love you and I love being near you, isn’t that enough?”
Adelaide huffed out an angry breath through her nose. “Jane. You can’t just ignore the emotions you don’t like while focusing on the ones you do. The negativity will fester and rot us from the inside out. It will rot what we have. It already is.”
“It wouldn’t if you would just leave it alone!” Jane could hear the desperation creeping into the edges of her voice, but she felt powerless to stop it. “If you would just let me some privacy to deal with my thoughts in peace—”
“So you can wall them up somewhere where they can grow?” Adelaide laughed derisively. “Jane, be honest.”
“I will if you’d be kind,” Jane argued, petulant.
Adelaide rolled her eyes. “I’m trying. I’ve been trying. But it doesn’t feel like you’r
e affording me the same effort.”
“I—I’m not trying? I’m here, aren’t I?” Jane threw her arms wide.
“Merely tolerating my presence isn’t kindness!” Adelaide snapped. “If I wanted people to stick around just because they wanted something from me, I’d just wait until another woman showed up on my doorstep in the dead of night and bed them.”
The words hit Jane like a slap. She stumbled backward, high spots of heat in her cheeks. “Take that back.”
“Why should I? You’re being dishonest with me. I might as well be dishonest with you.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you, though. Never that.”
Adelaide turned away. Jane got the sense that she was regretting her words, but the proud slope of her shoulders made it obvious that she wasn’t about to take them back. And, again, anger flared up in her chest. Should Adelaide be able to treat her like this every time she got upset?
Was it really, truly all that different from the way her parents treated her?
“You need to take responsibility for your actions,” Adelaide said. “Even if you don’t mean to hurt me, you’re still—”
“And you think you’re not hurting me?” Jane couldn’t help the petty interruption that burst from her lips. “Forcing someone to sleep in a barn isn’t the only way to punish them, you know. Perhaps my meter of kindness is broken, after that. Maybe I was wrong to think that you could ever be kind.”
The second the words left her mouth, she knew she had gone too far. She wanted to call them back into her, bury them deep in her lungs where she kept her resentment.
Adelaide went very still, her face to the window. There was a stretch of time that seemed to go on endlessly, where neither of them so much as breathed.
“Is that really what you think?” Adelaide finally said, soft.
Jane opened her mouth. “No. No, it’s—of course it isn’t.”
Silence stretched between them like a tightrope, too narrow and dangerous for Jane to dare to cross. Adelaide did not turn to even look at her. She merely stood with her back to Jane, facing the window, and Jane couldn’t find the words to call her. She was suddenly, horribly sure that whatever words she picked would be the wrong ones. There was no script here, nothing for her to follow.
“I… I need a walk. I need some air.”
Adelaide didn’t answer. Jane dressed quickly in her own clothes, blue dress worn but not quite unwearable yet. She stuffed the pockets of her gown with Edelweiss petals, tied her brown cloak about her throat. The cabin felt stifling, awful.
When she exited her room, Adelaide was gone. Her own bedroom door was closed. Jane hovered by it, hands curled into fists. She wanted to knock, to speak, to try to salvage this.
But she wasn’t sure how. It would be easy if she were back home. She’d know exactly how to grovel, would speak from the same script she had read from a thousand times. But Adelaide would see the insincerity in it.
She didn’t know how to fix this. So instead, she left the cabin and its stifling silence, hoping that some fresh air would clear her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A Woman Revealed
JANE WANDERED THE forest.
In the daylight, it was far less intimidating, with rays of sunlight filtering through the branches. The flower petals in her pocket also helped to reassure her that she wasn’t in any danger.
But that didn’t mean that she felt good. The trees were sparse and spindly, the air cold. It worked deep into the marrow of her bones. Each breath squeezed at her heart, ached in her lungs, and her eyes watered with the force of it.
She felt dreadfully, terribly alone.
All she wanted was to know what her place was. It wasn’t in the town, in the role her parents had decided for her. Wasn’t by William’s side. But was it truly alone with Adelaide, where her loneliness would poison whatever they had together? What she wanted was a mix of the two, the community of her town married with the freedom of the forest and her love.
What she wanted didn’t exist.
She sank down to the forest floor, drawing her knees to her chest. Those complicated wants seemed very petty in the face of her current desires. What she wanted for her future didn’t seem to matter. What she wanted now was Adelaide. To hold her, to be held by her. She pressed her knees to her chest and began to sob softly.
She would go back to Adelaide’s cabin, once she got her bearings. She would go back and apologize and be genuine. She would create a future that she could be happy in, happy and herself. Just as soon as her tears dried and the ache in her chest made her feel a bit less weak…
“Jane? Good God, Jane, is that you?”
Jane let out a small shriek, buried in her knees. The male voice was awfully, terribly familiar, and for a moment she hoped that it was merely a beast who had seen through her petals. That would have been preferable to the man who crashed through the trees, chestnut curls tumbling over his forehead, gray eyes wide and shocked.
William.
He fell to his knees before her, hands immediately grasping the parts of her he could reach, as though needing to confirm that she was real—or that she wouldn’t run away. “It is you—I thought I heard you cry at the edge of the woods but I thought it was my imagination. I thought I was going mad.” He stroked her hair, and she flinched away on instinct. He seemed not to notice, drawing her into his arms. The button of his shirt pressed awkwardly against her cheek. “Jane. Where have you been?”
“I…” Her head was spinning, almost with as much vertigo as when the beast had attacked her that fateful evening. How could she explain? If she told William the truth, who knew how he might react? He might hurt her. He might hurt Adelaide.
William drew back, his face a mask of sympathy. “Jane. Dear Jane. You don’t need to be frightened now. What do you remember?”
And there it was. An easy script forward, hiding behind expectations like a shield. She didn’t need to be honest here. She just needed to be the delicate flower she was expected to be. “I… Everything is such a blur, William. I was walking home, and I think I may have strayed too close to the forest’s edge… Something with terrible claws… I don’t remember anything after that. What happened, William?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. It was easy to be this woman, lost and confused. A woman who didn’t need to make any difficult decisions. And maybe William’s touch was still loathsome and maybe her heart still ached for Adelaide, but there was a comfort in slipping into this familiar role. An awful comfort, but a comfort all the same.
“Jane.” William held her as though she were as fragile as spun glass. It made her think of the way Adelaide’s fingertips dug into her shoulder blades in the bath. “Jane, you’ve been missing for weeks. We’ve all been so worried.”
“Weeks?” She let her voice rise in fear, trembling. “How—”
“Shhh,” William said, stroking her hair. “You don’t have to worry about any of that now, dear. It was a miracle that brought you back to us. That’s all you need to know.”
She sniffled, saying nothing. William stood, scooping her into his arms so suddenly that she almost shoved herself out of them. She gripped his shoulders instead, shock coloring her voice. “William, what—”
“It’s alright, Jane,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything. We need to get you out of this loathsome place.”
Her heart was hammering in her chest. But what could she say? She wasn’t expected to want to stay here, and nothing she could say would fit in the role she was being forced to play. She couldn’t break free from his grasp without making him terribly suspicious. She buried her face in his neck and said nothing.
Her resolve wavered when they exited the forest onto her family’s farm, however. She had rather expected them to be closer to the town, not the farms. The barn loomed, with its leaking ceiling and warped wood. She felt sick to her stomach looking at it, remembering all of the nights she had spent sleeping in the hay.
Back to that, then? Ba
ck to this? Everything within her rebelled at the thought.
But she wouldn’t be sleeping in the barn tonight. Surely, her parents would be too worried for her to force that.
Her father was working the fields. He dropped his rake when he saw them emerge from the forest, running across the crops and bellowing Jane’s name. In the distance, she saw her mother open the door to the home, a hand fluttering to her mouth like a startled white bird.
Then her father was upon them, and William was setting her gently on her feet. “Jane. You’re alive.”
“I…”
“Careful,” William spoke over her, which would have been frustrating if she wasn’t so grateful. “She’s shaken up, the poor thing.”
“What happened?” Her father turned his attention to William, as if what Jane had to say no longer mattered. That was fine by Jane, as she had no idea what she would say even if she could find the words. It was easier to let her wide-eyed mother enfold her in her arms.
“I was just outside the forest when I heard a cry and went to investigate,” William explained. “I found Jane there. She doesn’t remember much. She was walking by the edge of the woods and one of the beasts reached out and grabbed her, near as I can tell.”
Jane felt her mother gasp, and her grasp got a little tighter.
“It was that damned witch, I’m sure,” her father said darkly.
“This has gone on long enough.” William spoke in measured, even tones. “We need to get the men of the town together and find that damned cabin.”
“No!” Three sets of eyes turned to Jane in unison. Heat rushed to her face—this was not part of the script. She scrambled for something, anything that would be believable. “I remember… seeing the witch in the forest. That much I remember. She didn’t hurt me.”
Jane’s mother stroked her hair. “Of course, how could you know? Leave this to the men to worry about.”
“You’ve been through a lot, dear.” William’s voice was soothing, the sort of voice that one used to comfort a child. Jane got the distinct impression that he hadn’t even heard the words that came out of her mouth. “Rest. Let us deal with this.”