The mistress has distanced herself, though sometimes she lurks within Harlow’s dreams. Right before she tumbles down the edge, she will see her face, the worry in silver eyes haunting her. Often, she will crack her head open right down the middle. Her blood is never spilled. Instead a swirl of snapdragons, white poppies and york roses spill forth. She feels them growing, steadily, just before she hits the ground. Other times she does not hurt herself at all. It is when the fire gets to her first. The fire devours her whole every time and she wakes bathed in sweat, nauseous and fearful of the shadows in her room. She never cries when it happens, never allows herself the small reprieve. When the dreams wake her, she wanders the mansion or the forest on naked feet, trying to center herself once more. It calms her, but sometimes she wishes she had been born without her heart. It beats in her chest, fluttery like a bird in its cage. Harlow can feel her finger itch with the need to dig into her own chest and pull it out. It is the only thing that possibly belongs to her and she does not even want it.
She is tired most of these days now, her body wary, her thoughts heavy atop her chest. Like this, the mistress does not dare speak to her, like Harlow would need any more of it. She might not feel like herself, but the distance still tugs at the parts of her that have remained. The clear rejection stings, even though it has happened with good intentions. It is one of the things she will not accept.
She begins to seek out weakness within the mistress, counts the days the woman does not show herself for the joined dinner. She takes note how the hunger colors her eyes a dark grey whenever she does. It is entertaining to figure out how long she would have to wait to place her request once more. It is a dark, ugly thought that wraps around her mind, slithers into her soul and takes hold of it. It makes her ache and shiver as she waits and waits for the mistress’ eyes to turn so dark once more. Harlow feels Delphine watching her as she does, eyes prying her apart. She never turns around, never meets the blonde’s eyes. If she did, she might be met with the disgust her actions must call forth within others. She thinks it truly must be disgusting how she winds her very being around this, clings to it like it has more answers than the promise of misery.
Still, she exposes her neck more often than not if she happens to be close to the mistress. Harlow delights in the way those eyes seem to rake over the exposed skin. Sometimes she sees the other woman slip, a dry swallow here, a lingering gaze there. She is close, possibly, to snapping and just taking Harlow. Not that she would object. It makes her feel wanted, makes her feel needed for something, even though it is for all the wrong reasons. That knowledge lingers, holds on. It is poison in her blood, the possibility of whatever this might be. She is just as wanting and desperate as the mistress.
Delphine still watches her, something swims in her gaze, somewhat dark and pitying. Her eyes never stop following Harlow, they watch her in the mansion, when she returns from the forest. Harlow tries to avoid her now. She ducks around corners, spends more time within the forest each day. She fears the words the blonde might have for her. There cannot be any kindness within them, not like the forest. It is cruel, but it wants her to stay. With each day that she stays longer, the whispers grow. The chorus is loud enough to drown out herself now. She will wake within the forest sometimes, without memory of having stopped to rest. Roots are outstretched towards her, like hands grasping and reaching for her. They intend to drag her down, maybe, or simply keep her here forever. Where the humans cannot reach her, and the dead would not know how to seek her out. It is tempting, always so tempting. She almost accepts, almost stays until her very bones decay. Delphine finds her like that, eyes unfocused, limbs heavy as the roots curl around them. She drags Harlow away; desperate and almost fearful it seems.
She barely feels it, the hands gripping her. Not when her lungs feel like they are filled with moss. The forest whispers and whispers. Harlow is delirious with all the promises. She feels herself being pushed into a seat, feel something warm wrap around her shoulders. The daze will not leave her, still. She has almost been part of the forest, almost left behind the hurt. The prospect of it is sickeningly enticing. Her dazed eyes wander, focus on blonde hair and kind eyes. A cup with steaming liquid is pressed into her hands. Harlow breathes in the fragrance of herbs and dried fruit. It should be calming, but she will not stop shaking, separated from the forest like this. Its roots have dug deep, have clawed their way into her existence. To let her go now, it surely must have torn pieces of herself away.
“The forest has no answers for you.” The words pull her back, force her to focus.
Harlow nods numbly. The forest has more answers than this dead mansion. Even if it makes her senses die, she cannot find it in herself to see a fault in that. She does not know where else to find them anyways. There is no one left she could ask, and the Old Ones have never answered her clearly. This lack of knowledge claws at her, tears at her carefully stitched sanity. It is an itch she cannot scratch, if she did her hands would come back bloody, broken maybe. She files it away to the possibility of this body not being her own, of being made of wood and flower buds to replace a human stolen away by the fae. How does one feel human in the first place? Is it marked by the certainty of one’s own thoughts or does something entirely different play into it? Harlow is certain of the skin stretched over bones, of the blood faintly pulsing through the veins. It feels present, but overbearing all the same.
A hand gently squeezes her shoulder, anchors her back to the present. Delphine is still here, she realizes with mild surprise. The woman looks older somehow, worry painted across her face. It looks so undeniably human. Harlow feels something else stir at that, something small. Still, it has claws and teeth all the same. She is jealous of this woman, of the emotions she expresses so freely, without the thought of the vulnerability terrifying her to no end. Harlow’s hands twitch with the need to claw at the blonde’s face, to make the worry disappear forever. She frowns at the nature of it, clutches the cup tighter in her hands. She refuses to succumb to this at least. Will not allow her thoughts to turn her into less of a human than she already is. If Delphine notices it, she does not comment. They drink their tea in silence. Harlow lacks the words to answer to anything the other woman could say and the blonde must suspect that at least.
Her cup is empty, only the bitter residue left. She does not know how long they have been sitting here, has lost the feeling for time in the forest perhaps. She sets the cup aside, moves to stand and finally leave this behind her. The woolen blanket around her begins to slip, the cold creeping back into her. Delphine stops her. The movement is sudden, hurried, but the hand pressing down on her shoulder is nothing but soft. It still makes her throat close up and her body go rigid.
“You think too loud. You are working against yourself.”
Again, she only manages to nod numbly. The prospect of having to talk about this terrifies her. Putting her emotions, her failures and errors into words. It is enough that she reminds herself of it, she does not need to recount them to a stranger.
“I can help, if you wish. You will not have to speak of it, or any of it. It will just be you and something else besides the forest for once.” The offer is kind, lacking malice or the ridicule it should consist of. Again she only nods, her tongue heavy.
Delphine lets her go then, after they have agreed on meeting in the kitchens after the shared breakfast. She lies awake that night, her gaze unseeing. Harlow does not know what to expect of the coming days, how they will turn out for her. Being so closely watched by Delphine for a longer period of time, it terrifies her. There are cracks in her being that can be seen, that can be used to pull her apart piece by piece. It scares her. She finds herself not wanting to go, but that old feeling stirs again, burning and vile. She should learn from someone who wears the vulnerability of being human so well.
Sleep finds her eventually, grasping at her consciousness until it slips away. She might have left the forest, but it does not leave her. The roots still linger in her dreams, moving beneath skin and sinew. They pull tight around her body, choke the air out of her lungs. All that she heaves up is bloodied petals of yellow hyacinths. She still prefers it over the fire, over the feeling of burning and yet not dying soon enough for it to be over. Yet, she still wakes in cold sweat, breath heavy and ragged. The back of her throat itches and she almost darts for the washing basin at the opposite of the room. There are no flowers there, no petals choking her. It is a dream that coils so tightly around that she cannot escape it in the very first minutes that she wakes. She is haunted by her own ghost. How does one escape that?
Harlow takes a deep breath, holds it for a few moments until her lungs ache, then releases it. She thinks she might never get better, that trying is hopeless in the face of such a feat. She would rather her the villagers and their hounds once more, than stare at herself for too long only to find an abyss staring back at her. Still, a small sort of determination tugs at her limbs, makes her stand and get dressed. It does not wither, not yet. She does not expect it to exist for too long.
Her feet carry her towards the dining hall. She falters a few times, unsure if she should still accept Delphine’s offer. It almost seems like too much to ask of her now, to fix Harlow because she cannot do so herself. Another part of her, the one with its claws deep in her bones, utters that it is pathetic. That her kind has gone through worse and still made it. It is an ugly thought, yet she cannot shake it. Harlow is trembling by the time she reaches the dining hall. Her stomach turns at most of the scents assaulting her senses. It feels a little like standing on a cliff, knowing she will fall any moment. She eats what she can, the textures and taste wrong, alien against her tongue. Harlow manages, though her trembling does not cease. The prospect of having someone look at her like Delphine does. It is terrifying if she is being honest with herself, to be stripped from your outer layers to have your feelings laid bare. She does not know what she fears more, the answer to everything that seems so wrong, or the echo of it all. She drags out breakfast for as long as she can manage, though there is no denying that she is stalling when most of the maidens have already left to go about their daily duties.
Harlow forces herself to swallow the last bite, suppressing the urge to gag at how unnatural it feels. She has spent so much time with the forest now, she might be truly more nature than human. She feels her body move, like snapping vines. It is unwilling, as is her mind, to leave the safety of her own perception. If the forest proves to be no part of her, what is left of her that makes Harlow Lauder?
She still forces her limbs into motion, forces her feet to carry towards the kitchen where Delphine will be no doubt waiting for her. She thinks of the questions that might be asked, dreads the answers she will see herself forced to give. She lives on the hospitality of these people after all. her habits must have been wearing everyone else’s patience thin. Yet, when she arrives, the other woman only levels her with a look before that gaze turns softer, like she is seeing something Harlow herself cannot grasp. There are no questions, no forced conversations. Delphine speaks and Harlow will answer if it does not feel like a betrayal to herself to do so. All the while, the two of them prepare dinner for a later time that day. They repeat this process every so often and Delphine will mention that self-reflection will often bear more answers than the forest. Harlow still has trouble believing it, cannot think of a time where she herself had answers to anything aside her own failure and lack of ability. Though one thing stays true, the more time she spends at the mansion, the less the forest will dare speak to her. Delphine does not monitor her comings and goings, does not force her to speak about the things she dare not name like that blonde had promised in the very beginning, but she will remind Harlow to never stay amongst the trees too long, to always keep moving.
It does help. The vines and roots still seem to reach for her, branches catching at clothing, but the whispers are not as overwhelming as they used to be. They appear gentler, now that they are not the only thing on her mind. Unfortunately, the dreams remain and every so often she will wake with the taste of dirt on her tongue. She dreads sleeping, though even refusing to go to allow her body to rest can only help so long. She finds that the dreams brought by the sleep deprivation hold more horrors. They feel more tangible, they do not shock her into a waking state the moment she has died within them.
If others take note of the dark bruises beneath her eyes, they choose not to comment, but all of them seem to have grown more protective of her over time. It might stem from the fact that she is smaller than most of them, or possibly from something else, but Harlow does not dare ask. She fears it might break whatever her presence within the mansion is now. Their protectiveness is difficult to accept, how they hover around her when they think she will not notice. She never tells them, writes her letters instead and reflects on the days the dreams and the forest do not cloud her mind too much.
The mistress refuses to speak with her still. She has even gone so far as to never dine at the same times Harlow does now. It is stifling, shameful as she regards her own behavior. She wishes to discard it just like that, to have nothing stop her from being fully human, but she has only now started to realize that not feeling like herself might be a problem, that something partial is missing. Harlow waits for her within the dining hall the first few weeks, although the woman never shows. It is to be expected, though there is a small inkling of guilt tugging at her insides. She has forced the mistress to adjust her daily routines, has forced the woman to reconsider an arrangement that had never been spoken about. She thinks it unfair to stand before her very room now, but the desire to apologize overpowers the urge to hide in shame. Surprisingly, the mistress opens the door for her before she even thinks to knock, like she has been waiting for something to shift between them as well.
They both must be tired, she thinks. Harlow has lost the will to be torn between two extremes, at least when it comes to the mistress. She does not think herself able to let go of it just now, maybe after she has learned how she will, maybe Delphine and the mistress will be able to help her with it. Harlow deserves to be hopeful with this at least.
The woman steps away from the door, motions for her to step inside. It as much of an invitation she will get. Harlow steps insides, notes that the room does not look any different from the first time she has seen it. For as much time the mistress seems to spend here, she never appears to think of organizing the scripts and books carelessly littering everything.
“Delphine has told me about the recent developments. She worries.”, that voice is oh so soft, like it might break her if it were to rise.
Harlow wholeheartedly believes the mistress could break her like that, feels herself staring at her feet in shame at the fact that Delphine had to tell the woman in the first place. The mistress steps closer, threads their fingers together. The contrast between warm and cold makes both of them draw a deep breath. She would not care for dying right now if the mistress never stopped touching her in any way. It feels real, secure. She finds that it quiets some of her doubts, makes her believe that if she feels this, her body might just be her own. Their connection is short lived still and the other woman draws away before Harlow can think to speak.
“Finding balance must be difficult, especially so far away from all that you have known and yet expected to understand so suddenly. With all that has been happening, Delphine suspects you to be more half dead, like something has its claws in you.”
Harlow agrees with that, though the words still somewhat sting. She would not call herself half dead. The forest is rotting her from the inside out perhaps, it might count as dead or alive, whichever way somebody would prefer to see it, there is no in between, no halfway mark.
“She also believes my recent behavior to be cowardly. There is responsibility to having claimed someone, though it is shameful that I have done so without consent and I must apologize for that. I do however hope that we will find a more appropriate way of handling other developments that may arise within later points of your stay here.”, the mistress sounds less sure than she did that very first night.
Harlow has to hide a small grin at that. It is a somewhat welcome change to see the mistress like this, despite it being from something so worrying as her own state of mind.
“I think that is not too far beyond our own capabilities.”, her own voice gives a small tremor. She is still unsure but squashes the inkling of doubt that arises with it.
The mistress smiles at that. It is small but sets her eyes ablaze in a way that almost robs her of breath. Yes, there is indeed beauty in death, but Harlow might not have to waste away in order to witness it. Their fingers brush once again. The touch chases shivers up and down her spine. Had her beginnings always been so soft, then maybe life would not have spit her out all twisted and wrong, but her mistress might be able to right past wrongs or at least help to see them more as something that does not have to overshadow everything that Harlow will come to be.
She thinks she can live with that.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
