Page 157 of Caging Darling

Again, the clamminess had overtaken my flesh, soaking through the armpits of my linen shirt, causing my forehead to go cold, and not because the frame of the bed had been made of asmooth, ebony material that I’m used to finding in sword fights and within my cuts of meat.

“I’d prefer larger,” I’d said, smirking as the Sister’s shadowy arms had curled back in offense.

Unfortunately, she’d recovered soon enough. “You’re not going to be the type to strike a bargain then spend years complaining about it, now are you?”

“Not at all. But only because I don’t have years to do so.”

The Sister’s shadows had gone still, but the air had not, a draft with no origin chilling the room. “That being the case, we had better make the most of what time we have left together.”

Before I’d had time to react, she’d glided across the room, extending her hands, her wisps of fingers solidifying into a material as cold and hard as iron as she stroked the skin surrounding my clavicle. Then she’d walked her fingers down my chest until they played with the topmost button of my shirt.

My mind had split in two then, half of me transported to the crow’s nest, Wendy tenderly unbuttoning my shirt to get a better look at my illness, the other half back to a stuffy office room, my shirt smaller, the hands much larger and belonging to the orphanage warden.

I’d wanted nothing more than to bite out for the Sister to stop, to rip her hands off of me. But she’d made sure to specify what our arrangement would look like when I’d struck the bargain.

And so, I’d found myself as paralyzed as I’d been as a child. Just as helpless. My shouts just as piercing inside my head, just as inaudible to anyone else but me.

She’d been three buttons down when a voice had filled the room. It spoke in a language I could not decipher, though the cadence was familiar and reminded me of a lullaby my grandmother used to sing to me as a child.

The Sister had frozen, and she’d let out an irritated groan. “What does he want now?” she’d asked. Then, tracing an icy finger down my bare chest, she’d said, “Wait for me here, darling.”

And then she was gone.

I’ve been waiting in her bedroom ever since. I’d started off pacing back and forth across the bare stone floor, hoping to calm myself, but the movement had only served to accelerate my heart rate. So now I’m leaning with my palms pressed against the wall, my feverish forehead soaking in the cold of the stone.

I wish I could say it was helping.

But though the Sister is gone, though she’s done nothing more than unfasten a few buttons at my chest, my body doesn’t know the difference. I’m eight years old again, and I’ve been called into the warden’s office for the second time this week. My skin still reeks of burnt flesh, though I’ve bathed three times. It will take another several weeks for me to realize that the foul odor from my brands no longer exists in the physical world. Only in my mind, imprinted there forever.

I don’t know yet that when the warden tells me to unbutton my shirt, receiving another brand should be the least of my concerns.

Panic claws at my chest, cutting off my airway. It’s not the way my lungs can’t seem to keep a hold on the stale air, it’s not the way my body is trembling uncontrollably that unsettles me.

It’s that it’s happening again. Decades. It’s been two decades since the warden last touched me. Twelve years since my body relived it.

I’d been past this. Thought it was behind me.

And yet, all it had taken was a single touch from the Sister, the promise of three buttons undone, and I’ve unraveled.

The wall proves a poor support for my trembling legs. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold myself up, but I won’t lie in the Sister’s bed. Not a moment before I’m forced to.

And so I think of Darling. Of her soft, pretty cheeks. Of the far-off look that so often overcomes her eyes, making her unreachable. Inciting within me the urge to chase her down, follow her into whatever far-off world her mind has chosen to inhabit in the moment. I think of her quiet strength, how she endured her captivity for so long.

How after all the suffering I caused, she forgave me in the end.

I told her I would picture her new life. That I would think of her with a doting husband, an adoring child, and I would find comfort.

Perhaps I’ll find the strength within me to fulfill that promise tomorrow. But tonight, I am weak.

Tonight, I imagine the life together Darling and I never got to have. The cottage I would have built for her in a quiet seaside village. I picture a daughter who looks just like Darling and nothing like me, following me out to my boat one morning and begging me to teach her to fish. And I picture Darling scolding me for letting our little girl go out fishing in her newest dress, because why couldn’t I have spared three minutes to have her change into her play clothes first?

I’m not sure how long I spend in this daydream, but by the time I return to myself, my breathing has slowed, and though I’ve left sweat stains on the wall from my forehead and hands, I no longer feel clammy.

I push myself off the wall, hand at my chest. There’s a sharpness lingering there. I couldn’t feel it in the midst of my panic, but the exertion it required of my body has inflamed the poisonous magic working within me.

It used to bother me, knowing I was dying. Knowing the rot of my flesh was slowly making its way to my heart. That was back when I feared I’d never see Darling again. That I wouldn’t live long enough to see to it that she would one day taste happiness.

Now, the illness feels like a reprieve. One last gift from Darling. A promise that my suffering under the Sister’s touch will not last forever.

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