Page 44 of A Theory of Dreaming
“Do you still want to go in?” she asked.
Rhia nodded. “I need to get something from the stacks. I’mthisclose to finishing my piece for the showcase.”
“Will you let me hear it, at some point?”
“Of course. I’ve tormented you enough with my practicing, after all. I promise it will sound much better when it’s done. And when you’re not listening through a layer of drywall and plaster.”
While Rhia scoured the stacks, Effy found a nook in one of the rooms on the upper floors. She hated that she felt like she had been chased out of the main reading room, but she couldn’t bear to confront any of her fellow literature students. She couldn’t bear the feeling of those prying stares. So, as she had done so many times before leaving for Hiraeth, she tucked herself into a dusty corner, underneath a dusty, ice-rimed window, and took out her copy ofLetters & Annals.
It was not exactly that she knew what she was looking for in Antonia Ardor’s book, but rather that she felt she would findsomething. Surely she would have written about serving as her father’s amanuensis. Surely she would have had her own feelings about it, her own ruminations.
Surely, Effy thought, she was owed some amount of recognition. If Effy had not picked up Rockflower’s biography, she would never have even known Antonia Ardor’s name. She was not even a footnote in her father’s famous poem, the one that she herself had transcribed.
With long, low breath, Effy opened to her marked page.
The 13th day of Winter, 80 AD
Dear Diary,
She is dead. My mother. Technically, she has been dead for four days and sixteen hours now, if the physician is to be believed, if I am calculating exactly from the moment that she drew her final breath.
Though four days have passed—both too quickly and also as slow as a drip of honey from a spoon—she has not been buried yet. Father refuses. He says we must wait until the sculptor fashions her death mask, but I suspect he simply cannot bear to part with her body, when he knows he will never see her again. She will be interred in the Ardor mausoleum with Grandfather, in the field where the asphodel and infant’s breath bloom. The crypt is of white marble, such that it is almost camouflaged amidst all those ivory blooms. And due to the shelter of a flowering pear tree, their petals are arranged neat and uncommonly still. Even in such bitter winds, the daisies never blow.
In this garden of stone, someday I will be laid to rest, too. Miss Maud tells me not to think of it, but how can I not? The only inevitability of our existence is death. I wish I did not carry this knowledge at only age fourteen. I can only imagine that it will get heavier and heavier as I grow old.
Until next time, Diary
—A.A.
Effy felt something rise and thicken in her throat. She turned over the book to look at Antonia Ardor’s portrait on the cover. She had a long oval face, her wheat-colored hair pulled back in a loose, shiny chignon. Her shoulders were draped with a thick gray shawl and her hands were steepled contemplatively under her chin. The portrait had been done from the waist up and nothing below could be seen. What struck Effy was that she could not at all discern how old Antonia would’ve been when it was painted. Her wide eyes made her appear youthful, but her pursed, worrying mouth seemed to belong to another woman entirely, a woman many years her elder.
Effy flipped back to her page and read on.
The 23rd day of Winter, 80 AD
Dear Diary,
Mother has been interred at last. It was all arranged to Father’s specifications. Her body in its coffin, posed to look as though she is sleeping. The purple hyacinth bouquet in her cold hands. The engraving which reads CLARIBEL TRYPHENA ARDOR, DAUGHTER, WIFE, MOTHER, and below it, a quote of Father’s choosing. “All precious things are fleeting as twilit rays of sun.” I do not know where it is from. It is not what I might have chosen, but none of this has been my choice.
Until next time, Diary
—A.A.
The 29th day of Winter, 80 AD
Dear Diary,
In the time since Mother was interred, I have not been able to find sleep. It eludes me, like a passing shadow. Miss Maud has sat at my bedside for many nights, trying to lull me to sleep with songs and stories and warm milk, but even though my limbs are heavy with exhaustion and my eyelids ache to shut, my mind cannot cease its restless turning.
My mind carries me through the asphodel and infant’s breath, through that garden of stone. It carries me into the mausoleum, at the feet of my mother’s tomb. And, like words on the wind, it carries Clementina’s voice—your family is marked for further doom.
Father cannot sleep, either. I hear him pacing the halls; I smell his candles burning to their ends. He has called on the physician, but so far, none of his remedies have been strong enough to induce sleep. Perhaps Miss Maud knows some clever peasant healing tincture. I will ask her.
Until next time, Diary
—A.A.
Through the door, Effy could hear the shuffling of footsteps. She froze momentarily, to see if anyone would emerge in the threshold. But the footsteps passed, and she relaxed again, sidling closer to the cold glass of the window. She turned the page.
