( EIGHT ) FOR SILVER.

+ _ fingertips ghost over the ivory keys of the piano in the sitting room, her favoured place to dwell in thought- second only to the bay window on the second floor that overlooks the garden. she hasn't played in months, but she hasn't felt the desire to either. a concerto plays in her head instead, drowning out the whispers that have grown less and less prominent in the past few weeks. a small smile remains touched upon her lips as she feels far more herself here than she ever did in the home they lost in what feels like another life. isabelle's home is here now, she's come to realise that recently. though she still startles some at his announcement, as she turns to gaze back at him, it occurs to her that she had felt as though he were there. john watches isabelle often enough, she knows what it feels like when his eyes are on her. "is that so?" she quipped back with her smile growing as she smoothed her hands down the corset of her stomach while she stood from the piano stool. her eyes follow his gesture, and her head tilts in tandem, before she settles them back on john. "if you've gone to such an effort, how could i possibly refuse?" as she speaks, she drifts towards him at a steady pace, until she stands in the doorway with him, almost touching. she asks him, playfully suspicious. "what are you up to?"

+ . . . he takes her in as she crosses the room towards him, eyes creasing at the corners with an innocent sort of mischief. "hmmm, well, i do suppose it would be difficult to follow through if you refused." he teased lightheartedly. while john would never force isabelle to do anything he also hadn't considered the possibility of her saying no to his impromptu request. then again, the longer time passed, the more in-tune they started to become with one another. instinctively, as she drew closer, his hand fell to her side while his other hand lifted to gesture towards the door as his head had previously done. "forgive me, i don't consider myself a master of surprises-" john started through a chuckle, hand pushing gently where it splayed, fingers curling ever so slightly into the fabric of her corset to urge her with him so they could venture to the spot he'd set up, "-but i believe if i told you what awaited, that it would no longer be a surprise." his eyes softened as he opened the side door, allowing her to go first. "i think you will enjoy it though." at least he hoped. that was the desired end result anyway. "and then you can return to playing piano for as long as you'd like." which he, too, wanted to hear more of.

Kelly Reilly as Isabelle Laurent Boyd Holbrook as John McBride THE CURSED (2021) dir. Sean Ellis

perhaps there is a reason. perhaps he is right. without realising, her hand drops down to her abdomen, to the part of her body newly released from it's corset of bandages, and the scarring that's mirrored at her back- she holds herself there while in thought, the whispers growing louder though not more clear, and isabelle frowned. "perhaps," she repeats quietly, soft-spoken in her reverie before she raises her eyes back up to meet his and she shakes her head gently, as if coming back from a brief time away. sheepish smile follows, but the concern is palpable. "i-" isabelle starts, intent in brushing his enquiry aside for fear of asking too much of him when he has already done more than he need. but her own curiosity and the desire to know what is wrong with her, if anything is wrong with her at all, wins out. "i would. i think- i think i need to." know, that is. what if there are consequences to nearing death? what if there are consequences to dying? surely it would be best to know now, to prepare for the worst- she cannot say for certain if whatever she is experiencing now will last, or if it will inevitably lead her down a road of which she cannot return. maybe this is forever- "and if i am crazy, at least we'll know for sure."

his eyes flit, taking in her every move with an adornment of care. the way her hand falls to rest on the space where he knows the bullet from his rifle penetrated. her eyes, how they glaze just slightly as though they've been sought after from somewhere else. her frown. john presses his own tongue against the back of his teeth, allowing the silence to lap over and in upon itself while he awaits her answer. he is no rush to push her to a place that she doesn't wish to traverse. carefully and quietly, he watches her expression for any signs that she may give that the conversation is not one she feels entirely comfortable with. though he takes her actions to mean that she, too, whether aware of it or not- is considering the possibility of what that bullet could have done for her instead of only what it has appeared to have accomplished for her son. yet another absurdity john's comprehension works to understand. but a good one considering all else that has occurred. “then we will figure it out.” john says matter-of-factly. his cup finds a home atop of the table once again as his elbows lean against the edges where he sits. “and we will do so together.” the corners of his light eyes soften, and he offers her the most reassuring twine of his lips that he can bring forth. there's something about her, her family, that he can't quite put a name to, but he feels fiercely protective over them. john's not in the age of questioning it yet either. he doesn't believe it matters. only that he will follow through on those feelings for as long as she will allow him to. “you are not alone in this.”

— Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, February 27, 1950 [#217]

+ ——— "fate it is," she repeats quietly, eyes averting downward briefly as she collects the thoughts running rampant through her head. fate- was it fate that brought them together? the same travelling camp that wrought havoc on gévaudan bringing that same destruction to her doorstep, the curse upon her son leading to john's call to aid, the same silver that released him forged by john's hand and passed through her own flesh and bone- if it were not fate, it surely must be coincidence. of which isabelle certainly does not believe. her eyes drift upward and a gentle laugh follows. "i suppose you must be." thought perhaps not quite so observant, keenly unaware of the blush to her cheeks and what it means that it flushes down her neck more and more of late in his company. though, her own observations are hardly to be a pillar of example, when she cannot see the adoration in his eyes and the potential for a future they both so clearly want, and yet are unable to recognise in each other. love blind, the both of them. "john-" she says his name softly, yet with a firm inflection that urges him to look at her, really look at her, the tone imploring he listen to her too. "i mean it." she tells him, insistent as she feels the guilt that shrouds him encroach upon her own heart, weighing heavily on her shoulders in a way she can only assume weighs heavily on his own. "you saved my life." gaze unintentionally wells with the emotion that she near chokes on, tight in her throat and deep in the pit of her stomach, and the watered smile that touches on her lips trembles her lower as she blinks the shine away from her eyes- her hand twitches, her own itch crying out for her to reach for his hand and hold it in her own. a comfort for them both, and a craving for her. she doesn't, but her smile shifts into a mirth-riddled grin, her head canting to the side. "is that a promise?" please.

+ . . . he's not sure he has ever had a reason to believe in fate before. at least not in a way that would allow it to flow so easily from his lips and to be felt so deeply in a place so down deep inside of him he bears a form of cognizant forgetfulness of its existence. a place, perhaps, untouched by anything or anyone- covered in cobwebs and waiting for somebody to clear them on a bright, sunny day. it's nighttime now. the sun has bid the world another goodbye until the next dawn. but it appears isabelle is in no need of the fiery space ridden ball to nestle her way into the parts of him he's allowed himself to grow unfamiliar with. though she may disagree, and john assumes she would for all of her humbleness, she's a version of the sun all of her own in his eyes. a whole lot of light and a particular caress of warmth. his eyes flicker up to meet hers once again. she'd said she commanded nothing but he effortlessly follows her every wish like it's the only choice he can see to follow through on. a slow nod, lips in a soft, straight line. “i could not simply sit idly by and do nothing.” he tells her truthfully. john understands he played an integral part in bringing edward back. he also understands, better than anyone, that he hadn't the slightest idea the silver bullets could bestow the powers they did. the boy was lucky to be alive, but so was she and it haunts him greatly that her life had ever been in question, and that the sole reason it was had next to nothing to do with the monster and everything to do with his own decisions. but he swallows it down for the luck he now has. the kind in which she sees it in the manner she does. he is both lucky and grateful. he returns the smile, with his mouth and with his eyes. “a promise indeed- to you, and to your children. for however long you wish to remain, this house is as much all of yours as it is my own. and should you-” choose to leave on your own accord, he goes to say, but cannot bring himself to finish for that's not anything john wants, “it is a promise, isabelle.” please do not go.

+ ——— that, she thinks, she's heard before. referenced maybe, or alluded to- there's another word for it in the stories she would tell her children at night before handing them over to the sandman . . . "i think that's called fate." destined or self-made, it's fate all the same. maybe, what happens in life is always meant to happen, it's the path that leads you there that one strays. choices are made every day- and maybe one is more favourable than the other, but maybe they all lead to the same outcome. and love is no different. his smile prompts her own, his laughter an uncommon sound that flushes her cheeks and neck with happy warmth. she likes it when he laughs. "you're just learning this now?" she teases back lightly, smile growing wider for she knows it is just the opposite- he has made no secret of his admiration for her of late. his praise only making her blush . . . but it would be her a liar if she claimed to not enjoy it. she very much does. "there's no need to thank me, john. your child is still your child even when you lose them." perhaps more so then than ever before. she thinks of his amelia, of what she must have looked like- like her mother? or like her father? did she have john's unruly curls he hides by tying back? was she as tall as he, or growing still? how old had she been when she died? too young, she thinks. but she will not ask him now- not when he is finally smiling, and his eyes shine. he looks as though he's not said her name since she passed, and isabelle will not taint that with the grief he's still learning to live with. she only smiles back, as her throat grows tight with too much unsaid- everything. those days without her son had been nightmarish. the terror and torment of not knowing had nearly caused her undoing. but she has her son, both her children. "-because of you." she says quietly, a whisper all her own in these four walls that room just the two of them. it still feels as charged as earlier, but there's a settled calm to it now. "i am grateful. i hope you know that." another tentative smile and the shine in her eyes matches his, candle light flicking in the green shade of her ardent stare. "what would i do without you?"

+ . . . “then fate it is.” it, he says. this, his mind corrects- even against his own judgment. john will have a lot to consider when the door to his bedroom shuts and he's left on his lonesome tonight. so many of things, he wouldn't be able to fit them all into a single night. but as she has done and she'll certainly continue to do, isabelle will encompass every one of those ruminations. regardless of whether consciously or subconsciously. he's not in the art of questioning a good thing. not a beggar by any means, but he won't be choosy with thoughts of a beautiful woman either. and he's oft called her that, in the depths of his inner workings. he shakes his head at her behind a throaty chuckle. “hardly. i'm a quick learner.” though perhaps he should jot those words down for the future when he realizes some things he didn't learn as quickly as he should have. the paths are always there for him to make connections to. no matter how long it takes him to draw the comparison that he once could not see. when she tells him there's no need to thank her he wants to tell her there absolutely is. that she took a misplaced part of him and put it back into place. not just now, but all along the way- and he understands why she would say that because he needs no thanks either- but by god- he needed her to know. there's that itch again. it'll have to fill him full for now. “i'm glad you feel that way.” john won't put his fear that she may very well feel the opposite onto her. he trusts that she doesn't, that even if she tried a mother like her could not hide such strong feelings felt in regards to her child, but before she'd awoken and healed enough for him to have any kind of meaningful conversation with her- he'd worried. in the night, his addled slumber still worries. “oh well now, that, i'm not sure,” john teases lightheartedly, words crooned in his mouth, “but you needn't find out.”

+ ——— for a hearts beat, she's disappointed. that he would dissuade her of the notion that finding love is a possibility, that he would say she deserves it only to then disagree that it can be found. "oh," she says quietly, unheard or unacknowledged by him as he continues, and that disappointment sways as understanding dawns. "ah." she supposes that makes sense to her. "i think it can be both." is what she's feeling not love? it's what she imagines it to feel like, had always assumed it to feel like, what she wants it to feel like. and he had found her- in a round about way, by association, he had come to her door at the behest of her late husband and he had saved her son at her behest . . . they found each other there, and it happened over time here. with every passing day, the longer she is in his company and in his home, the harder it becomes to ignore the emotions she's unfamiliar with and unprepared for. she doesn't know why her heart beats so strongly when he's near, or the warmth that stirs within when their eyes catch. just that it does- she wants to hold his hand again, wants to reach out as he reached out to her, feel the touch of his skin under hers. isabelle has learned great restraint in the past few days. instead, she pushes her thumb into the palm of her hand and rubs in circles. she quirks a brow in question at the name- amelia, only to comprehend the significance just as he's telling her, and a sombre shadow touches her smile briefly before it clears, and she shakes her head and leans forward, hands still twined. "is, john. her name is amelia. not was. she may be gone but she still has her name." her smile is brighter now, this is easier for isabelle- to talk about their children rather than the loves they lost, or never had. "it's a beautiful name."

+ . . . “do you?” it's a simple question, but the way he asks- the inquisitiveness behind it- has his shoulders dipping just slightly forward. like her answer has the power to change the things in which he believes. the truth is, she makes him believe in a lot more than he did before he met her. the ache of grief still so heavy in his chest when he crossed the threshold of her once home those some weeks back. “perhaps, then, what happens can only happen if you find it first.” john didn't believe he'd smile in the same way again, or laugh, or feel anything even remotely like peace. yet, all three of those things have found a new state of permanence in his life since her arrival. maybe that is where their initial disagreement on the matter rested. their version of events is different. he doesn't think he found her at all. he thinks she arrived to him. when he needed her most. after all, if smiling and laughter and peace are not love- “you're a smart woman, isabelle.” perhaps she knew more about love than even himself. whether she had felt as though she'd been loved by seamus or not. he gazes upon her affectionately, and with admiration and appreciation, and that does not change when he hears his daughters name leave her lips. it spirals by a tenfold. his hand twitches again, a low wrap of his knuckles on the table. john doesn't realize how many times in the weeks they've spent together that he's reached for her but he can distinctly recall the itch he gets when he cannot. never is the way in which he touches her meant to be a spectacle. doesn't want to make it one either. and right now, hers are simply too far for him to grasp without it becoming one. “see-” he says in a ghost of a breath. smart woman. the blue of his eyes reflect a little like glass on the ocean, welling. “thank you.” he blinks it away quickly. “the curse took many things, but it did not take her name,” peace, is what he gets from the newly imparted understanding. peace, is what isabelle just gave him. “and i'm thankful it did not take edward. i would not wish it upon anyone either. least of all you.” he repeats her words back to her in his own way. the curse had not touched isabelle, not in any of the ways it is known for- and he can't say he is thankful it didn't take her too for it would have more aptly been himself- but his words are no less true.

+ ——— "i do not think you have it in your heart to lie, john." she agrees, eyes shining with the warmth of absolute adoration, coloured with the gentle tease of mirth in her smile as she tilted her head, blond hair left unpinned to cascade down her back, the edges of the cut framing her face falling into her eyes as she insists. "you're too good a man for that." and it is truthful in every sense of the word, genuine and believed- she has known he is a good man since the moment their eyes met, and even earlier than that. when he agreed to come to their aid upon a call without hesitation. he proved himself a good man throughout, even as he held that rifle and she stood between him, it, and her cursed son. she knows, sometimes, that that night haunts him just as it haunts her. isabelle can see it sometimes in his eyes come morning, when they linger on her for longer than she's used to, and his hand strays to her back- higher than lower, just above and to the side of mid. she has never held her, albeit temporary, death against him. she's not sure she could have done the same were their places reversed. "i wouldn't even know where to start, john. i was young when seamus and i were married. i don't-how do you find love?" the question is rhetorical, she doesn't expect an answer. least of all because she thinks, she knows, she has already found it. it just doesn't belong to her. and she laughs it off gently with a shake of her head, reluctantly slipping her hand out from under his as he tells her how his lost love would like her. would she still, knowing the way isabelle's heart yearns for the man she left behind? the man still devoted to her? she sits back in her chair, bringing her hands together in her lap and she casts her eyes downward. she twists the ring she's still wearing- john wears his out of loyalty to his wife. she only wears hers out of respect for her husband. but it's just a ring. "i would like her," she says quietly, looking up at him with something like sadness in her eyes. she hopes he mistakes it for sorrow over his loss, as she had felt when he first spoke of his wife and daughter to her late at night some many weeks ago- rather than the heartache she feels knowing that were his wife alive and well, they are unlikely to have ever met. isabelle and john, that is. not isabelle and edith. is it not selfish of her to find relief in another woman's loss just to take solace in the man she left behind? still, she manages. "i am sorry you lost her, john. and your daughter. i would not wish that grief on anyone. least of all a good man."

+ . . . he can't say she's wrong, because she isn't- even when it would have been easier to lie to her in that church about whether or not edward was indeed lost inside of the monster forever he couldn't bring himself to do so even to pacify her- but he doesn't know if it's because he's a good man. john knows he isn't a bad man. not by any estimation of the word. but he doesn't suffer from any delusions of self-inflated grandeur either. still, his lips curl northbound. the fact that isabelle thinks he is a good man is simply worthy enough a reason to smile. and while that's all he manages to give for a response, he does have more than a simple contortion of his expression for her question. regardless of whether isabelle was looking for an answer or not. “i don't believe you find love-” he considers, and his eyes stray while he resigns to a deeper level of thought. perhaps it's possible. he isn't for certain that it isn't, but john doesn't intend to speak in end-all-be-all terms. all he's ever known how to do is speak from the heart. “i'm of the mind it happens all on its own.” a much bigger thing at work to bring it about. his beating organ is not typically prone to skipping beats but when his line of sight returns to rest upon her at the tail-end of his sentence- it sure does something wild in the cage it calls home. john follows her in succession, also settling back in the chair he sits in. though his hand feels colder with the loss of hers. would have squeezed her hand for the look, whatever it is, that shines in her eyes. thinks he's seen it before. thinks it looks a little different too. “mmm.” a slow nod. it's the first time someone has apologized for his loss and he's been in a place where he doesn't feel wholly devoured by it. maybe in the still of the night to come he'll mull over why that is a little more. and- and he'll see isabelle's face. “amelia,” john says. talk of his dead wife and speaking her name, even when his heart slowly begins the pass over to another, had been much easier than any talk of his daughter had been. will ever fully be, he thinks. but she has let him in on so much. he feels ready to let her in too. “her name. my daughter. it was amelia.” his chest bloats with a rippling breath.

Text ID: I am yours forever—“winter as in spring, in sorrow as in joy, usque ad mortem et plus ultra [until death and beyond].”

+ ——— a lifetime of quiet observance has taught her to notice known habits and quirks- his touch is familiar to her now, after days and weeks of growing used to the casual intimacy they both exhibit in the presence of the other. it's not just john, she knows. she is guilty of it too. but she sees when his smile falters, eyes flitting to the movement of his neck and the tension that riddles throughout his body- his hand moves from gently caressing her own to covering it in it's entirety, a firmer grip lifting her hand in embrace of his, and her breath hitches- sucked sharply in through the small gap of her lips as she instinctively turns her hand over to curl her fingers around his in return. she looks to him again when he speaks her name, reverent and holy, insistent in settling her and the thoughts she knows he knows she is prone to losing herself in of late. the whispers she's become accustom to have been quiet this night, lingering at a distance, only to fall silent as the air around them seemingly, to isabelle, becomes charged with something like a promise. it helps her yearning heart none. her brows pull together, pinching in a gentle frowned expression as john disputes her. she had intended for the joke to be slight, subtle and light-hearted for she truly has no interest in looking elsewhere for something she may never find truer than what she thinks she feels here. her son's curse may be thwarted, but perhaps hers is to pine in solitude unrequited forever . . . but then he continues, and she stares at him as he makes as if she need look no further than across this table between them, in this house they now share. isabelle had tried to hard to keep her heart from falling, and yet it falls further and further when he says things like this- for he says them as often as he touches her. "john-" she starts, heart thundering in her chest as it urges her to risk all she has for just a taste. she swallows the longing and sates her craving with a nip of her teeth into her lower lip. "i don't know what the future may hold," oh, the irony. "but if what you say is true, and i do deserve love . . ." she links her fingers in between his, and she smiles wistfully. "i do hope it's a love like yours." her smile falters, twitching in the corners of her mouth, and she clarifies. "i can only imagine how edith felt- with you to love her. she was lucky, john. not seamus."

+ . . . when he had first decided to take her and her children in, john would have never considered a tender moment such as the one they’re sharing here to come to light. of course, he recognized his need to protect them in light of what happened. there’d been no telling then how things would play out. when he raised his rifle- the only hope he had was that he could stop more bloodshed. it wakes him up in a cold sweat still, the image of the monster that edward inhabited, the way she looked at him, and the way her body fell… it’s so different to the way she looks at him now. he claimed seamus to be a lucky man. but he also recognizes how lucky he is that she does not look upon him with malice, contempt or hatred. instead, with- love, he thinks, in spite of his fears. with her fingers curled into his. her lip between her teeth. uttering words that cocoon his heart into the warmest embrace john believes he’s ever felt in the entirety of his life. he’s experienced what it’s like to give love and be loved in return, but it dawns upon him that whatever is in the air of this room with them may just yet be more powerful than a singular letter word that begins with l and ends in e. he cannot explain it. he won’t even try to. doesn’t think he could either. not beneath the adoration of her gaze or the weighty confession she speaks, and he questions- a pining all of his own appearing in the place where his beating organ rests- if she had meant for her words to be an admission or if he is simply hearing what he wants to hear because the idea of her needing, or better yet, even wanting anybody aside from him leaves him clamouring for a hold he doesn’t think he has any right to bear. he reflects on it with a breath, a quiet chuckle escaping. “i have been told i would make a poorly equipped liar, but even if that were not the case- my idea of what you deserve would remain unchanged.” she deserves love, and far, far more than she gives herself credit for. the opposite hand of the one intertwined with hers lifts to wipe a thumb at the corner of his mouth a little sheepishly. quite unlike himself. but he supposes that makes sense as he is very much feeling quite unlike himself- always careful with the articulation of his words but even with how direct he is, he’s usually never hiding behind their veil as he is. “she would like you.” he informs isabelle with reverence, as if to say: that’s how she would feel. and she does not have to try and imagine that. it’s an observation, half for her and half for himself. edith would have liked her if they had had the opportunity to meet then. and she would like isabelle for what isabelle could be to him now. “i know even less of the future, but i am well acquainted with the past, and i know that to be true also.”