by Sarah Chorn
What followed was no graceful breaking, no slow shredding. If a person’s sorrow can explode, that is what mine did. It burst out of me with a force that I was certain would end me. It turned me inside out, until I was nothing but a red, beating heart and all those tears, each one sharp as a blade. I cradled her hand against my chest, right over my heart, and I folded until my forehead was nearly pressed against her bed and I became undone.
“Be with me,” she implored.
“Always,” I said through my tears. “You are my home.”
The door to her bedroom opened and Imogen appeared, looking nervous but determined, Edward on her heels.
“I will go,” Ianthe said to both of them. “As long as Cassandra can come with me.”
“The room is only made for one person, and she is not ill. I don’t have room for her,” Edward replied.
“She comes with me, or I do not go.” Her voice was still hollow, still hoarse, the words punctuated by harsh breaths, but they were lined with determination. It was this, or it was nothing. I opened my mouth to speak, but Ianthe glared at me. “I will choose the manner in which I die, and who is beside me when I do it. I have nothing left but this.”
The healer sighed. “Fine, we will work something out.” Then he turned to me. “You will be responsible for your own food.”
It was fine. I’d work something out. If it got to it, I’d walk to the cabin each day to grab a quick meal. It didn’t matter to me. Ianthe was leaving, and I was going with her. Nothing could peel me away from her.
Imogen watched the exchange, looking haggard. Wounded, but relieved when a situation was agreed upon between us.
“Thank you,” she said to me. Then she sat on the edge of Ianthe’s bed and combed her fingers through her daughter’s hair before turning her gaze to me again.
I wonder what she saw then. Her former student? Her daughter’s best friend? Ianthe’s lover? The child of her husband’s murderer? Just… me?
“What will you do for her that I cannot do here, Edward?” Imogen asked. It was a conversation I am sure they’d had before I arrived, but I understood her need for reassurance. It could not be an easy thing, giving her daughter over to a healer like this.
“I have breathing treatments at the sanatorium, and a tool that will allow her to inhale shine steam. I know it is hard, but under the right palliative care, patients with advanced consumption can live for years,” Edward said. “This is for the best.”
Years. Years with Ianthe. I wanted those years, but oh, it hurt to think of them. Years were such fleeting things. They came and went so quickly. In a blink, they would be over and then what? These previous six months had been hard enough, but I’d known she was there, always at the other end of the meadow. What would it be like when she wasn’t? I couldn’t picture a world without Ianthe in it.
The journey into town took longer than expected. The previous night’s attack had drained Ianthe of her energy, and we had to carry her. Imogen was too weak to be of help, so the healer and I carried her down the stairs, where we set her in a seat in the parlor, covered her with blankets while we waited for Imogen to see her daughter off.
Imogen had lost herself upstairs, and for a moment I wondered if this was, perhaps, too hard for her. She was not sending Ianthe off to school, or to a job in Freetown, or with a new husband. She was sending Ianthe to a sanatorium in Grove so she could die.
When she came back downstairs, her footsteps were slow. She studied Ianthe as though memorizing the image of her daughter in this chair, in her home, upright and alive.
“I will come back when I am well enough,” Ianthe said.
“There is nothing in this house but ghosts,” Imogen replied, pressing her lips against Ianthe’s forehead. “I want you to take this.” She shoved a picture in a large wooden frame into Ianthe’s hands.
I watched Ianthe’s trembling hands as she studied the picture.
It was an old photo of Ben, when he had been younger, probably right around the time he married Imogen. His eyes were bright and his smile was undiminished. He was wearing a fine suit, with his hair swept back just so. He looked like a man ready to take on the world. “But this is yours,” Ianthe said.
“Not anymore. I’ve got Ben right here.” She tapped the space over her heart. “I want you to keep him with you. Will you do that?”
Tears clung to Ianthe’s eyelashes, hanging like pearls. Even her sorrow was beautiful.
I left them alone, taking myself outside so mother and daughter could say their goodbyes in private.
“It’s not easy,” Edward said, appearing from inside the wagon. I made my way to his side and watched as he made up the pallet where Ianthe would rest.
“What isn’t easy?” I asked him.
He faced me. “The heart likes to keep what it claims as its own. Loving her will leave you nothing but pain.”
“It will be worth it,” I said.
“She deserves a bit of happiness. Ianthe has lived a hard life, fought for every day of it. You’ll bring her peace?”
“I will try.”
“It will hurt. Loving always does.”
The door opened, and Imogen carried Ianthe in her arms. I do not know how she managed it, as frail and wizened as she was. She carefully laid her daughter in the back of the cart, tucking the blankets in around her.
Her eyes were dry, as were her cheeks. She whispered something to Ianthe and then stepped back. “I’ll bring you some things, Cassandra,” she said. She pulled me into a hug and pressed her lips against my cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered in my ear.
It happened quickly after that. I got in the back with Ianthe, holding her hand as the cart bumped and jolted on the dirt road that led to the city. Ianthe slept the whole way, and I am not ashamed to admit that I counted each of her breaths and kept my fingers on her wrist, finding solace in the steady tapping of her veins.
Life is such a fickle thing. Now, my greatest fear is the silence between heartbeats, the pause between breaths. I know what eternity feels like, and I do not like it.
We arrived at the sanatorium sometime later. The winter wind was cold and it was snowing when the cart pulled up behind the building. The town was quiet, only a few determined townspeople out and about.
The door to the house flung open. A brilliant ruby woman bustled down the stairs, kissing Edward before looking in the back of the cart at the two of us. “Oh, you poor wee thing,” she said when Ianthe began to stir. “Come on inside. Let’s get you settled and warm. I’ve got some mint tea, and doubtless, Edward would like you to do some breathing treatments once you’re rested. Come along, come along.”
She kept a constant stream of conversation going. Edward picked up Ianthe and before we knew it, we were inside where it was warm, shine fires burning in every fireplace. He brought us upstairs, talking as we thudded up those wooden steps, “I’ll give you two the biggest room. It overlooks the back yard. You’ll have more privacy. There’s another patient across the hall, also with consumption. He shouldn’t bother you too much, but if you see a man about, don’t be afraid.”
Another person with consumption. My heart hurt.
The room we were given was larger than I expected, a double bed taking up most of the space. A wardrobe along one wall. There was a small table beside the bed, and the doors opened onto a balcony with a chair where Ianthe could sit and take in the summer sun. The walls were painted a cheerful yellow. It would be a comfortable place.
“The picture,” Ianthe whispered as Edward lay her on the bed. I watched as he fussed about her, getting her comfortable.
I held the picture of Ben in my hands and set it on the table beside her so she might see him first when she woke. She lay back with a sigh.
“We’ll do some breathing treatments later, Ianthe. I want you to rest now. I’ll come by with some shine. Cassandra will watch over you. If anything goes amiss, I am just downstairs.” Edward eyed me and I nodded. Ianthe looked to already be sleeping. He crept o
ut of the room, shutting the door behind him.
I moved to sit in the chair by the wardrobe, but Ianthe spoke before I could. “Hold me?” She whispered. “Keep me from floating away.”
I crept onto the bed and wrapped my arms around her.
No, I will not answer more of your questions. I owe you nothing.
Don’t you see that it is over?
It is all over.
And we have all lost.
If it was not for Ianthe, I would have never returned to Grove. I would have been happy to spend my life out there on the homestead, just me and the land. After some years of living in the sanatorium, I was used to how people saw me. The glances, the whispers, the slow edging away from me as though I carried some illness. As though the blood of Christopher Hobson was catching. No one wanted me here. No one but Ianthe, and so I stayed.
For her, anything.
But I was never comfortable. Not really. It was easy to be a child with mixed blood out there on the frontier, where no one was around but those who loved me. It was harder here, where my onyx hair and pale skin marked me out as something else. Something different, something that should not be.
My life fell into a quaint routine. Annie had organized weekly family dinners. Imogen would usually attend as well, often spending the entire day at the cabin, helping Annie cook. Tonight was one such dinner. Grove had received a shipment of locally grown apples, blessedly not shine-touched, and I was going to buy a bushel of them and bake pies for tonight’s dinner. Usually, I would enjoy this task. This day, however, my mind was occupied.
Ianthe’s condition was deteriorating, and I knew she was near the end. Whether it would happen in days or weeks, I did not know, but each moment with her felt like my last. Our dinners, usually jovial, would take a turn today, as I intended to broach the subject of Ianthe’s impending death with my family and plan for her funeral and burial. It would be nothing short of agony on all fronts, but it must be done. It would be unkind for her to pass without her family beside her. Without her mother holding her hand while it happened.
And so I was in the market, buying apples when I saw horses, at least twelve of them, sweaty and lathered, run through the center of town at a full gallop. Ridden by company men, in their bright clothes and their pale skin and brown hair. A few of them, injured men tied to their saddles, rode toward the sanatorium, doubtless for Edward’s attention.
I handed a woman my money and took my basket. “What’s going on?” I asked someone who had stopped to watch the horses ride past. She had a child on one hip, and a basket in her other hand, full of supplies. She studied me, eyes narrowing, and then put some space between us, before walking away.
I shrugged her coldness off, it wasn’t unusual, and made my way back to the sanatorium, my focus on the road ahead of me. It was a dry, hot summer. The roads were dusty, and the riverbeds were starting to dry up. It would be a while before we saw the next rain.
I was nearly there when Miss Mary stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Cassandra,” her face was pinched, eyes full of worry. I watched her study me, watched her reach some conclusion. “Can you tarry a spell? Does Ianthe need you right now, or can you come with me to the school?”
I am convinced that Miss Mary is an angel sent by Fate to soften hard truths. She could have told me in the middle of town, where there would be an audience. She could have torn me apart right then and there and left the pieces of me laying in that dusty street for the vultures to pick over.
But she did not. Miss Mary is the embodiment of mercy.
It was then that I saw the last horse ride around the bend. Why hadn’t I realized what direction they were coming from? But I did then. I saw the two men on that animal’s back, and I knew.
I knew.
A tall, muscled man rode by on his proud bay, head held high. I recognized him as the man who had been shine-shot days ago. Edward had put in a room in the basement while he went through shine withdrawal. His screams had kept me up for nights.
He wasn’t what got my attention, though.
No. It was the man behind him. The man with hands chained, a bruise marking his cheek, an eye swollen shut, and blood dripping down one arm.
“Da?” I whispered.
Some part of me will always know him. He is my home. He is my solace. He is my haven.
“Da!” I shouted.
“Da!” I screamed.
I watched as the horse slowed to a trot. Watched as the man who guided it met my eyes, and then looked away. Watched as my da stirred, pointedly not looking my direction.
I wish I could say that I took my confusion and my sorrow and buried them deep until I was alone and could scream away my grief in peace, but some pain is too sharp to hold back. Some agonies cut right through a body and go spilling everywhere without warning. Sometimes a person just needs to bleed all their anguish into the world.
“Da!” I screamed again, screamed until my voice went hoarse.
I watched as the horse turned a corner, went down the small street where Grove’s jail was. Then hands grasped me. I heard Miss Mary yelling at people to give me some space. Felt her arms encircle me. I let her lead me away. I wasn’t even aware I was moving. The world was a blur, and all I saw was my father’s swollen face.
“Time to buy some rope,” a woman muttered.
“Back off!” Mary shouted. I’d never heard her raise her voice before. “Give us some space. What has Cassandra ever done to deserve your wrath? You’re all a bunch of crows gorging yourselves on pain. As long as it’s not yours, it’s fair, right? You make me sick.”
Things were quiet after that. I let her guide me to the schoolhouse. It was empty, thankfully. I eyed the hooks where cloaks would hang, and the cubbies where boots would be put. The desks, which had seemed so big and important to me as a child, now looked small. Almost like toys, all lined up in three long rows.
“Sit down,” Mary said, pushing me into a seat. “And drink some of this.” She handed me a mug of tea. It was mint, warm from the teakettle sitting on top of a gently burning stove in the corner. I sipped it and felt some of my shock thaw.
Mary let me have my time. She waited while I drank my tea and sorted through my thoughts. When a few minutes had passed, and my eyes were dry, my soul fortified against the pain I knew was coming, I said, “Tell me.”
And so she did.
“An illegal shine well was found on Jasper and Annie’s property.” That was all I needed to hear. I could fill in the gaps.
I knew what had happened. We had been preparing for it for years. All those weapons hidden around the homestead. All that talk of never leaving their land. Talk of making a stand against the big man when the time came.
There would have been a battle.
It would have been horrible. They would not have left. Not alive.
Harriet and Jack, though…
“Who survived?” I asked.
Miss Mary just looked at me, tears staining her cheeks, and I knew. Some truths don’t need words to cut right through a person.
“How do you love,” Ianthe once asked me.
I will tell you this: Like the blade. Like the bite.
Not long ago, I threw an empty glass against a wall. I watched it shatter into a thousand tiny pieces, each one sharp-edged and hungry. I remember the sound it made, a small thunderstorm cupped like a butterfly in that one precious moment. The world seemed to stop, and emotion was given voice, pure and crystalline. Beautiful and savage.
That is how I love.
Like glass hitting the wall, I shatter.
And that is how I felt then. All my love was cutting into the deepest parts of me, making me bleed.
Grief is an odd beast. It comes upon everyone differently. Sometimes a person can be grieving without even knowing that’s what they’re doing. Sometimes it feels like a landscape shifting inside of you, and all that pain is a fire just waiting to burn its way to the surface. Waiting to transform the topography of your soul.
Sometimes grief is sweet as honey and hot as flame.
My grief felt like poison. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to breathe. My heartbeat sounded like an insult. I couldn’t imagine a world where Annie and Jasper weren’t just an hour’s walk away. Where weekly dinners with Imogen and my family wouldn’t ever happen again.
Dead. They were all dead. And my father was in jail. He would die too. He would not leave this city any way other than as a corpse.
“Cassandra,” Mary said, rubbing my back. “Imogen was there.”
Imogen. I hadn’t thought of her. She had started attending our weekly dinners a year ago. Her relationship with Annie had quickly repaired and the two of them had taken to cooking elaborate meals together. Sometimes they would spend the entire day in Annie’s small cabin, laughing and cooking outrageous meals together. Of course, she would have been there, caught in the crossfire. One more tragedy in a world of them.
I cried then. I will say no more of it than that. You do not deserve to know the shape of my grief or the weight of my sorrow. You do not get to know my pain. I will not show you these wounds. I will keep them for myself. I will savor them because they are all I have left of the people I love.
I fell to pieces on that schoolhouse floor. I mourned my dead. Mary locked the doors and held me while I tore myself open again and again. Five lives lost. Six, if you count my father, who would be dead soon.
All that death because of some Fate’s damned well.
The truth is, we all long for soft endings.
I daresay, we get what we deserve, and it is rarely soft, or pretty.
The moon was high by the time I realized I had spent the day weeping, cursing, shouting, screaming.
“I need to get back,” I said. My voice was hoarse, and my head throbbed. “Ianthe…” She was so frail, so very weak that any agony could cost her days of her life. Every time she exhaled, I held my breath until she inhaled again. Love such as ours hung on every heartbeat.