Give the Dark My Love(69)

I sprawled on the hallway floor, pulling book after book from Papa’s shelves. His organization system was chaotic, and some books had handwritten notes on scraps of paper inside. Reserved for Rocwyn, or A gift from Aunt Gaitha; don’t sell.

The ones closest to the kitchen—and the back door—were those he intended to load onto his cart for his next trip out. The books nearer his bedroom were more valuable tomes, some of them wrapped in leather or protected by specially sized wooden boxes with bronze latches. Some he intended to sell for the right price; some were priceless.

There was a slender book of poetry in cheap cloth binding nearest to the bedroom. I slid it off the shelf, turning it over in my hands. It didn’t look particularly special, a cheap volume of mass-produced saccharine drivel made popular by the Emperor or some other important mainlander. Not at all the kind of thing Papa would usually cherish.

I flipped it open.

To my darling love, it said in my mother’s handwriting.



* * *



? ? ?

The days ticked by.

I wondered if Yūgen was open again, if they would let me know when I could come back.

I’d take Ernesta with me. They wouldn’t let her in the dormitory, but we could sell Papa’s cart and find a small apartment in Whitesides.

I hoped someone was feeding Jojo.

Once I returned to the city, I could get a job as a medical alchemist even without officially taking the robes, and eventually we could afford a better place to live. And if not, we could travel the outer regions together, working to help stop the plague.

Or we could leave. Sail the world.

Go anywhere but here.



* * *



? ? ?

I clawed at the edges of the house, trapped like a rat in a crucible. It was strange how death turned a home into a prison. I couldn’t stand the walls, the heavy black cloths that blocked out the light. Keep me here, fine, but let me see the sun.

Ernesta stayed in bed, wrapped in our mother’s quilt and her own sorrow.

The food on the table dwindled.

We didn’t touch the bread.

I read.



* * *



? ? ?

I stuffed tablecloths into the cracks around the door of the front room.

It was starting to smell.



* * *



? ? ?

After poring over the books on the hallway shelves, I ventured into my parents’ room. The bed was unmade; unusual for them. A sharp pang sliced through my stomach. My mother cared so much about things being neat. I shook out the crumpled quilt and straightened the sheets. I fluffed the pillows and arranged them just right.

I tried not to think about the long dark hair on my mother’s pillow, or the way my father’s side smelled of his shaving soap. I tried not to think of the lies that whispered up to me from the bed, promising that my parents weren’t gone, that I’d see them again. After all, here was their bed, their room, their life—right here, waiting for them.

Papa had books lined up on a shelf in his room, too. These were his treasures, his personal library. Some I recognized from my grandparents’ house before they passed away, some he simply kept for sentimental reasons. They were Papa’s “finds” in his travels, the books he’d picked up on the road that were so valuable he kept them out of reach, even from us.

I sat on the floor, my back resting against Papa’s side of the bed, his worn slippers by my knees, and I pulled the books from his shelf.

I opened an old leather-bound Oryon-illuminated manuscript, each page decorated with gold and silver paint, the words handwritten in fading brownish-red ink. There was no title, just three faded stars on the cover representing Oryous, the three-in-one god, past, present, and future. He has seen me grow up, he is with me now, he knows what I will do in the future. He knew, he knows, he will know forever.

I leaned over the book, squinting through the embellished letters. The old tongue wasn’t an easy language to learn, but I sounded out the opening passages, partly from memory. They were about faith and love and forgiveness and acceptance, but my parents were still dead and gone, and none of these words would ever make that okay. I knew it, I know it, I will know it forever.

I closed the giant book and leaned down, resting my forehead against the cover. Hundreds of years ago, someone pressed heavy stamps into the leather to decorate the book, and someone else bound the pages that had been toiled over by someone else, and every single someone from so long ago had done that for this moment, to reach out to another they’d never know and hope the words meant something.

They didn’t.

But when I leaned back up, I saw not the words, but the love and work and hope that led to their creation, and maybe that meant something. Maybe.

I pulled down the next volume. An old atlas, with lines marking the Empire’s reach, the maps now incorrect. The mainland and capital city hadn’t moved, but the Emperor’s rule now stretched deep into Siber to the east, Enja to the south, and into the sea, into islands like this one. Pockets of colonies scattered across countries, each one with a new regent ruler like Governor Adelaide, each one serving under the Emperor. I wondered if the governors in Siber or Enja had ever experienced a civil war like we had so many years ago. I wondered if they still felt the repercussions, a century later. I wondered if some people scratched arrows on old buildings and whispered about another rebellion; I wondered if the Emperor knew or cared.