A TALE: REPRISE

 

Somewhere, just outside a tiny village, is a lake. Eight heavenly maidens bathe there. They sit by the shore, oblivious to the world…

 

I woke up in a sweat and didn’t know why. I lay in bed in the dead of night, my eyes tracing a trail of broken plaster on the ceiling. I breathed, slowly, clutching the sheets to my body as the dream continued to wash over me.

 

Water shimmers in their cupped hands, trickles through their fingers, runs down their legs.

 

I knew the words. I’d known them since childhood. I rose out of bed, stepping on the floor with careful steps.

 

Moonlight coats their white feathers.

 

I could see the moonlight now, streaming into my sister’s bedroom. I sat at the table and looked at the moon, my elbows on the wood, my hands cupping my chin. I stared at the sky, just as Hyde had.

Just as Hyde had.

He’d checked the sky. He’d checked it twice, maybe more. He’d begged me to leave when days ago he’d have done anything for me to stay.

He’d held me by the candlelight in a room he’d booked just for us. He’d touched my cheek and heated my lips with kisses. And then he’d given his company away.

 

The young man sees them from behind the trees. Their beauty enchants him.

 

I thought of her – Beatrice. I thought of her anger as she was spurned by him – and then of her smug smile as she stood triumphant in the bathroom. Of Hyde’s anguish. The envelope she handed him.

Blackmail.

A feather was all it took for Anton to put me in chains. A secret. Just one cost me my freedom, cost me nearly everything.

 

Quietly, he comes back and sends his dog to steal the feather robe of the youngest. The seven sisters cry out and fly off into the sky. But the youngest cannot.

Now she is his.

 

The last four words simmer and dissipate – and suddenly I remembered the way Hyde had looked up at the sky so desperately, and shuddered a gasp so violent I felt it throb against my chest.

 

Once of the heavens, she is now bound to the earth. Bound to the young man.

 

It couldn’t be.

 

He builds a house and they marry. Their children sing every day.

 

It couldn’t be.

My mind was racing – the secret smiles, the seductive touches, the tender feelings. Memories of Hyde. I sifted through them until I was left with just one: the one of Hyde in Beatrice’s room. His hollow eyes.

And then I knew.