Chapter 20: Chapter 19

‘Rigel!’

I followed him across the landing, determined to make him hear me. He threw me a nervous look, but I was forced to keep tailing him as he didn’t stop. He was striding with an excessive urgency, as if he was desperate to get away from me.

‘Please, wait. I want to speak to you…’

‘About what?’ He suddenly turned to face me, grinding his teeth menacingly. He seemed tense, almost…scared.

About you, I wanted to burst out, but I stopped myself, because that would be madness. I now understood that Rigel was like a wild beast who, when cornered, lashed out with aggression.

‘You never answer my questions,’ I said instead. ‘Why?’

I hoped that this would draw him into a discussion, but I knew it hadn’t worked when his gaze slipped away from me. Rigel’s eyes were the windows to his soul, a clear surface, the only place in which he couldn’t hide away. They were as black as ink but, deep down, they shone with a light that few people would have been able to discern. As he started walking away again, I felt the need to leap forward and grasp that light with my hands.

‘Because you ask questions that are none of your business,’ he murmured in a near-indecipherable tone.

‘They would be my business if you…if you let me understand you.’

Maybe I had gone too far, but I got what I hoped for: Rigel stopped. I hesitated, but then cautiously stepped towards him. He seemed to be listening to every one of my footsteps. He turned around and finally looked me in the eyes. The way he was looking at me made me think of a hunter and defenceless prey. But I was the hunter, and he was my prey, staring down the barrel of my gun.

‘I just want to understand you, but you don’t give me the chance.’ I fixed my eyes on his, trying not to let my sadness show. ‘I know you hate it when people pry,’ I added quickly. ‘And I know you don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, but maybe if you tried talking about your emotions, the world might feel a bit lighter. You don’t have to always be alone. You might find it’s worth your while to trust someone.’

He held my gaze.

‘Sometimes…’ I whispered, drawing even closer to him, ‘you might find that people are happy to listen to you.’

Rigel’s gaze was so steady that it was as if he was trying to hide how much he was trembling inside. One by one, vivid, unfamiliar emotions flashed through his eyes. My heart beat irregularly, deliriously. I had been wrong. Rigel’s gaze wasn’t cold and empty, but so full of multiple different hues at once that it was impossible to separate them. His eyes were like the northern lights, reflecting his inner state, and at that moment he seemed taken aback, confused and frightened by my behaviour.

Then, all of a sudden, Rigel closed his eyes. In a quiver of nerves, I studied his face. His jaw was clenched, a vein on his temple was bulging and his beautiful face had turned frighteningly stony.

I didn’t know what was happening, but suddenly he took a step backwards to put more distance between us. We lost eye contact, and all my hard-won little triumphs slipped away.

Had I done something I shouldn’t have?

‘Rigel…’

‘Stay away,’ he spat out, as if the words were burning his tongue.

I felt the harshness of his tone like a stab in the chest. Suddenly, he gave me a frenzied look.

He was gripping his bedroom door handle. I stepped back as I noticed his white knuckles. I stared at him, hurt and confused, unable to understand the reaction I had provoked in him, and the next minute, Rigel disappeared from view. The door slammed behind him.

It felt like a boulder had fallen on my heart.

Why had he reacted like that?

Was it…my fault?

Had I done something wrong?

I wanted to understand, but I couldn’t make sense of it.

Why could we not communicate?

I plunged into an ocean of questions. My insecurities paved a dead-end road.

I had to resign myself to the fact that Rigel didn’t want to share anything with me. He was a puzzle without a solution, an impenetrable fortress. A black rose that protected its vulnerabilities by scratching and stabbing with its thorns.

Disheartened, I trudged downstairs and lingered outside the dining room. A wonderful fragrance billowed around me like a cloud, lifting my spirits for a moment.

Anna was checking the flower delivery. The floor was carpeted in ribbons and waxy paper. The whole room was filled with huge vases of tulips that Anna would spend the entire afternoon making sure looked perfect. Carl, her assistant, was minding the shop while she was away.

I watched her from the doorway. Her hair glowed golden in the sunlight and her lips formed a slight smile. She was so beautiful and bright when she smiled like that. She was my real-life fairy godmother.

‘Oh, Nica!’ she burst out, happy to see me there. ‘You’ve finished already?’

I looked down, feeling a pang in my chest. I didn’t want her to see the disappointment sullying my heart. I wanted to tell her all my worries and let her tend to my fears and insecurities, but part of me just couldn’t, part of me was too scared. I had been taught that weaknesses were for hiding, disguising, being ashamed of. Anna would find out that I was a broken, tattered doll, when I wanted her to always see me as a perfect young woman who was full of light and deserved to stay with her forever.

I wanted her to embrace me and wipe away my sadness, in that kind, tender, maternal way of hers.

‘Has something happened with Rigel?’

I realised that she had come closer. I didn’t reply, and she gave me a heartfelt smile.

‘You’re like an open book,’ she said, as if that was a good thing.

‘Your face is as clear as the surface of a still lake. You know what they say about people like you? That you’ve got an honest heart.’

She tucked my hair behind my ear, and every piece of my soul clung to that gesture. I loved it when she touched me that tenderly, as if I was one of her flowers.

‘I’m maybe starting to get to know you both a little better…Rigel’s a complicated character, isn’t he?’ She gave me a bittersweet smile. ‘But I popped my head in earlier. You were working well together. I’m sure he understands a lot better now, thanks to you.’

I had never had much faith in myself, but I couldn’t pluck up the courage to show her how happy her words made me. I was utterly despondent, and I couldn’t hide it.

Anna didn’t try to break the silence. She seemed to accept and respect it. She softened, and to my surprise, asked, ‘Do you fancy giving me a hand?’

She took my hand in hers. My heart skipped a beat. Suddenly, the little girl in me stirred, confused by the intensity of my emotions. I let her lead me to a beautiful bunch of tulips that needed to be tied with ribbon.

I was lost for words. I watched her graceful movements. She held the stems together in a tight bundle then wound a ribbon around them. She showed me how to curl the ends of the ribbon. I was enraptured by the care she took over every stage of the process.

We arranged the bouquet together. The tulips created a beautiful mosaic of shades of pink and white. We stood back to admire our work.

‘It looks good…’ I said, entranced. I had recovered my voice.

Anna smiled, and brandished a tulip under my nose. I held it gently and stroked the petals with a finger free from Band-Aids. It was wonderfully soft.

‘Do you like them?’

‘A lot…’

She took an intensely pink tulip and enthusiastically plunged her nose into it.

‘What do they smell like?’ she asked.

I stared at her, confused. ‘What?’

‘What do you think they smell like?’

I looked at her, bowled over, eyebrows raised.

‘Like…tulips?’

‘Oh, no, no, come on…Flowers never smell just like flowers!’ she reproached me playfully. Her eyes were shining. ‘What do they smell like?’

I smelt it deeply, holding her passionate gaze.

It seemed…It seemed…

‘Candy…raspberry candy,’ I said. Anna’s eyes lit up.

‘Mine smells like tea bags and…lace…Yes, newly made lace!’

I hid a smile behind the flower. Lace?

I took another sniff, watching her with bright, lively eyes.

‘Soap bubbles.’

We watched each other, both our noses buried in petals.

‘Baby powder,’ she suggested.

‘Forest fruits jam…’

‘Powder puffs!’

‘Cotton candy.’

‘Cotton candy?’

‘Yeah, cotton candy!’

Anna beamed at me, then burst out laughing.

Her laughter caught me by surprise. My heart leapt in wonder and I stared at her, my chest constricting. When her bright eyes looked at me and I realised the reason for my sudden joy, a burning love replaced my incredulity. I wanted to make her laugh again, I wanted to feel her gaze on me every day, I wanted to let my heart feast on it.

It was like a fairy tale, Anna’s laugh. It was like a not-too-distant happy ending. It was one of those laughs that made you feel the lack of something you never even had.

‘You’re right,’ she admitted. ‘It smells just like cotton candy.’

I felt my soul melt when she placed a hand on the top of my head. Her kindness was contagious, I laughed alongside her among tulips that now smelt like a thousand different things, but no longer simply of tulips.

We passed the time arranging the other vases, and then I went back upstairs.

I felt light, cleansed and carefree. Anna had a tremendous power over me: she could make my heart soar.

I bumped into Klaus on the landing. I decided to play with him for a bit, but a short while later, unfortunately found myself running round the house trying to get away from him.

He chased after me with warlike meows, biting at my heels like he was possessed. I dashed back downstairs.

I rushed into the living room and jumped onto the armchair. Klaus dug his claws into the arm. I stared at him with raised eyebrows as he poked his nose around and swiped his evil little paws at me.

Eventually, he seemed to decide that he had tormented me enough, turned his back and strutted disdainfully away.

I strained my neck to make sure that he wasn’t lurking around the corner, waiting to ambush me.

Well…at least I had managed to get his attention…

My phone started vibrating. I pulled it out of my jeans pocket. It was a message from Billie. With a surge of pleasure, I read: ‘Grandma says you haven’t been over in ages. Why don’t you come and study over here tomorrow?’

As usual, she had also sent a goat video.

It was about time I got used to the idea that Billie thought of me as a friend, but the feeling of being appreciated was so new for me. I started to prepare a reply, hoping I wouldn’t come across too overjoyed, but a rustling sound disturbed my thoughts.

I looked up.

The couch against the wall was occupied by a perfectly still figure.

His head was on the armrest and his dark t-shirt blended into the upholstery. As I became aware of Rigel’s presence my heart stopped.

One arm was resting on his chest, the other was folded behind his head. His soft, white fingers were curled into a gentle half-fist that dangled in mid-air. He was asleep.

How had I not noticed him?

It was unusual for him to be sleeping in the afternoon. Something inside of me was drawn to the sight of him, but my conscience brought my feelings to the fore and told me I should leave. I didn’t want to stay there, not after what had happened. His mere presence troubled me.

I got to my feet and threw one last glance at his peaceful face.

I looked at his serene features, his dark eyelashes shadowy brushstrokes on his graceful cheekbones. His black hair framed his face and spilled onto his forearm like ink. He was so peaceful he looked almost vulnerable.

He was painfully beautiful. My heart hurt. It was…it was unbearable.

‘It’s not fair,’ I whispered.

It was his fault. Someone should take responsibility for that painful, heart-wrenching, angelic beauty.

‘You act like a monster to keep the world at bay and then…then you lie there like this,’ I accused him, disarmed by how innocent he looked. ‘Why? Why do you always have to mess everything up?’

I wanted to forget it, but I couldn’t. I knew that there was something bright and fragile inside of Rigel, and now I’d seen it, I couldn’t give in. I wanted to extract it from the mystery that enshrouded it, bring it to the surface and watch it glowing in my hands. I really was like a moth. I’d get burnt flying close to that flame.

I suddenly froze. I could count his eyelashes. I could see the tiny mole by his lips…

Stunned, I straightened and quickly moved back, my heart thudding against my ribs. I stared at him, shocked at myself. When had I got so close to him?

I was still holding my phone, and instinctively gripped it tighter. My fingers slipped accidentally and the video Billie had sent me started playing. The goat started screaming at the top of its lungs and I almost dropped my phone.

Heart in my throat, I scarpered out of the room, just before Rigel woke with a start, his eyes wide open in alarm at the goat’s screaming.

I bolted to my room but tripped over something at the top of the stairs. Before I could understand what was happening, there was a ball of fur on top of me, biting at my shins.

I had been right…Klaus had been waiting in ambush for me.

—

I was so embarrassed.

The shame hung over me into the evening.

I’d have rather buried myself in the ground than find Rigel there in front of me. Luckily, he claimed he had a headache and didn’t come down for dinner.

I suspected that it was my fault. It would shatter anyone’s nerves to be woken up like that.

Being alone with Anna and Norman was something I had always wanted, but my eyes kept being drawn to the empty chair next to mine. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was as if my desires had been transformed and I no longer fit in that family portrait.

After I had helped Anna clear the table, I withdrew to the room with the bookshelves to read for a bit. I let my gaze wander over the titles, trying to find one that would distract me from my thoughts. My attention was caught by one book in particular: Myths and Legends from Across the World.

I was instantly drawn to it. I stroked a finger down the spine, then slid it off the shelf and turned it over admiringly in my hands. It was leatherbound and the cover was embossed with interwoven flowers. It was beautiful.

I settled into the armchair and started flicking through it. I was curious to read different fairy tales to the ones that I had been raised with. What legends did other children grow up with? Did they really not know the story of the Tearsmith?

I looked for a contents page, but couldn’t find one. But several of the titles had intrigued me, so I started to read.

‘I’m starting to think you’re getting a taste for it.’

I jumped.

I got a strong sense of déjà vu. I gripped the book, a fair chunk of which I had already read, and looked up to find someone staring at me intently.

‘For what?’ I asked, shocked by his presence.

‘For waking me up at the worst moments.’

He’d got me. My cheeks immediately started burning. I stared at Rigel guiltily.

Had he come all this way just to say this?

‘It was a mistake,’ I replied. I lowered my gaze, not brave enough to look at him. ‘I didn’t know you were there.’

‘That’s strange,’ he retorted. ‘You seemed quite…close.’

‘I just came into the room. It’s you who were sleeping at weird times.’

Rigel kept staring at me with those eyes that plundered my soul, and I regretted my choice of words. I was scared of annoying him, that he’d lose his temper or his mood would sour again.

More than anything, I was scared he’d run away.

When did I become so contradictory?

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, because, after all, I was. I was still upset about how things had gone that afternoon, but it wasn’t like me to be vindictive. I hadn’t woken him up deliberately, and I didn’t want him to think that I had.

His presence hurt me, but I wanted us to be able to pick up the conversation exactly where we had left it. But there was no chance of that, and I knew it…And so, I adopted an alternative tactic.

‘You said once that fairy tales are all the same. That they follow a standard format…the wood, the wolf, the prince…But that’s not always the case.’

I opened the book to the first page of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

‘In this one, there’s the sea and a girl who’s in love with a prince. But there are no wolves. It doesn’t follow the rules. It’s different.’

‘And is there a happy ending?’

I hesitated, because it seemed like Rigel already knew the answer.

‘No. In the end he falls in love with someone else. And she…dies.’

I suddenly wondered why I had embarked on that conversation. I had just proved his point.

We had been in this room the last time that Rigel had spoken about the compromise of happy endings – if the rules are disturbed, then so is the ‘happily ever after’.

‘That’s the point of them,’ he said cynically. ‘There’s always something to fight. It’s just the monster that changes.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I whispered, determined to make my words count for something. ‘Fairy tales don’t teach us resignation. They urge us to not lose hope. They don’t just tell us that monsters exist…but also, that they can be overcome.’

I suddenly remembered what he had told me, in front of these very bookshelves…

‘And you, you’re so desperate for your happy ending, but are you brave enough to imagine a fairy tale without a wolf?’

It hadn’t been a meaningless question. It was impossible to have a direct conversation with Rigel, there were always allusions, hidden meanings in his words. You just had to have the courage to grasp them.

‘I’ll take it. I’ll take a fairy tale without a wolf.’

He was determined to be the villain of the tale, as if some things could never change. But I wanted to make him understand that he was wrong. Maybe that way, he’d stop thinking it was him against the world.

And against himself.

Rigel stood still, staring at me. Without knowing why, I got the feeling he didn’t believe me.

‘And then?’

I was taken aback.

‘Then?’ I repeated uncertainly.

He scrutinised me.

‘And then what? What’s the ending of this tale?’

I was silent. Because I hadn’t been expecting that question, but mostly, because…I wasn’t sure of the answer. I wanted to say something to surprise him, but my silence was enough to make his eyes cloud over, as if it was confirmation enough.

‘Nothing quite meets your rosy expectations, does it?’ he murmured. ‘Everyone’s got their place in your perfect world. Just as you want them. But you can’t see beyond that.’

His face fell as if I had contradicted him again. No…hurt him?

‘Maybe reality isn’t like that. Have you ever thought about that? Maybe it’s not how you think, maybe it doesn’t all work out like you want it to. Just maybe,’ he said with merciless emphasis, ‘there are people who don’t want to live in your perfect dream. And you don’t know how to accept that. You want answers, Nica, but the truth is you’re not ready to hear them.’

His words struck me like a slap in the face.

‘It’s not true,’ I said, my heart racing at top speed.

‘Oh, no?’ he hissed. I stood up.

‘You can take your armour off. You don’t need it.’

‘What do you think you’d see underneath it?’

‘Enough, Rigel!’

Irritability stung my eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him, I couldn’t think straight I was so frustrated.

We couldn’t understand each other because we didn’t speak the same language. Rigel was trying to tell me something. I heard him, but he was speaking in a language he had never taught me. A scathing language, full of meanings that I couldn’t interpret. I had always been as transparent as spring water, but he was like a dark ocean of uncharted depths.

I wrapped my arms around myself as if to protect myself from the strange glare in his eyes.

‘You’re not making any sense,’ I told him. He was making me lose my mind. ‘You talk about fairy tales as if they were just nonsense for children, but the truth is that you grew up at The Grave too, you believe in them too.’

Every child at the institute believed in the stories we were told, and every child left the institute carrying those stories within them. Ours was a different world, a world that made us incomprehensible. But it was our truth.

Rigel didn’t reply. He stared at me in a way that assailed my heart, then glanced down to the book I had left on the armchair.

I wanted to make him see the light, but he seemed a prisoner of his own shadows.

I wanted to reach my hand out towards him, but I was tired of always getting scratched.

But nothing broke my heart as much as seeing the spark that I had been looking for die in his eyes.

I finally understood that I wasn’t battling against him, but against something that couldn’t be seen.

Rigel wasn’t just cynical and recalcitrant. He was disillusioned with life. There was something raw and visceral in him that I had never seen in anyone else. It made him refuse to delude himself, to push everyone away, to see the world with such disappointment that it almost burned his stomach. What was it?

‘Myths, legends, fairy tales…they’re all based on the truth.’

I shuddered at how low and sincere his voice sounded.

‘Myths are about the past. Legends teach us about the present. And fairy tales…they’re the future, but only for a few of us. A rare few. Fairy tales are for those who deserve them, while the rest of us are doomed to dream about an ending we’ll never get to see.’