Ravenwood(50)
After Elinore felt as though she’d gotten every detail of the incident pristinely captured in her mind, she got up from her bed and took a quill, inkwell and notebook from her trunk. She had to balance the inkwell precariously on the small nightstand and write on her bed. She wondered if she could ask to have a small desk in her room as well. Should she wish to write in here, she couldn’t manage for long spells of time with such a set-up. Her quill flowed easily across the page and only when she had completely captured the moment could she stop. She stared down at her script across the page. It was now preserved for all eternity, never to be forgotten.
Satisfied, she picked up her mythology book and read, immediately immersed in a tragic myth - a couple deeply in love, but forbidden to see one another, only able to speak through a small crack in the wall. Elinore’s heart swooned as they whispered words of passion and devotion to one another. The tale ended in tragedy, with both lovers dying at the end. Elinore dropped the book to her side and lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, digesting the words. It was always after reading tales such as these that she wondered how on earth it was that some young ladies did not read at all, or declared they had no interest in it. Didn’t they know how you could feel so much from a book? Didn’t they know how your heart could race and break from words on a page? Had they never read something so wonderful and horrible that they felt as though the very world should stop and pause to acknowledge the depth of feeling it produced?
How horrible for those two young lovers, so devoted to each other, to never have a moment for their happiness. How terrible they were kept apart by their families and the world. How awful to think each other dead, to feel as though they lived on in a world where the person they loved was gone. Elinore ran her fingertips lightly over the bone of her knuckles were Caleb’s lips had pressed earlier. What if she should lose her chance before she’d even had one? What if there was another horrible carriage accident like the one she’d had, only Caleb died and she never found out where these feelings might go? Would she forever have only the memory of the soft skin of his lips against the almost impersonal flesh of her hand and nothing more? It left a hollow, haunted feeling deep in her belly.
Elinore read the story four more times that day, pausing when Mrs. Davenport came up to tell her lunch would be served, should she wish it, in the dining room. Elinore went downstairs and took a plate of food to the library where she again curled up with her book, voraciously reading as she ate.
Alice didn’t come by that afternoon and Elinore could only assume she was staying with her father, or perhaps had some duties of her own to attend to. She luxuriated in the solitary time - reading, going upstairs to get her knitting and working on it for a while and then finally taking a walk outside in the falling afternoon sun. She stood for a moment in the sunshine and closed her eyes. She could hear the birds, the wind and if she concentrated, she swore she could hear the slight gurgling of a small stream or brook in the woods.
The deep bark of a raven caught her attention, but she didn’t open her eyes and somehow she knew, even before it happened, that the raven would nosedive low and come to rest on her shoulder. The flap of its wings as it settled itself blew a light breeze across her face. It touched its beak to the soft skin of her neck and she tilted her head to the side to give it better access. With her eyes closed, she had the strange sensation that she wasn’t as tall as she should be - that she was lower to the ground, closer to the grass and the dirt. Elinore felt if she moved, that her limbs would be in closer proportion to one another, instead of her legs being so much longer than her arms. It caused a feeling of vertigo to rise up in her brain and she felt herself swaying slightly in the sun. The raven shirred its wings and cawed again, loudly and sharply in her ear and Elinore wanted to bat at it playfully and scold it for making such a loud noise. Or perhaps she should turn her head toward it and snap her teeth.
She could almost feel the snap her teeth would make, the loud crack of sound. She could curl her lips back and open and close her jaw lightening fast, just to tease, just to bait the raven. She opened her eyes and saw four more birds, all ravens, around her - two circling in the air, two on the ground by her feet. The bite marks on her arm pulsed, but not with pain. More like pressure or a heart-beat. Suddenly, she knew she was being watched. Unerringly, she looked to her left and into the woods. A wolf stood at the edge of the forest - cautious and attentive. It was not the feral one that had bitten her on her first night, nor the white or black one she’d seen in her dreams. Elinore stared at it and it stared back, not moving. Only watching until, for a reason unknown to Elinore, it darted away, pulling back into the forest and disappearing, leaving nothing behind and making her wonder if she’d imagined it all.
Caleb and Hayter weren’t back that evening, and although Elinore supposed it was to be expected with the distance to Haleton, she was still disappointed. Their business probably took most of the day and they must have elected to stay the night. Or perhaps longer. She hadn’t asked if they would be in town long; she hadn’t thought to. Alice and Mrs. Thistlewaite invited her to have dinner with them in the kitchen and Elinore readily accepted. The small table was cozy and friendly and sitting with the two of them warmed Elinore’s heart. Mrs. Davenport came in and was heartily invited to join them as well. Then, halfway through their meal, one of the stable hands stopped by for a slice of bread and, unthinkingly, Elinore asked if he’d like to join them too. For a moment, the table was silent and then the young man smiled and pulled up an old crate, sitting low at the table.