#so...this

For now the world tilts in mystic marks of lunar white and midnight inks, she has to be here for him, has to sit with him, has to ignore that she does not know why. But they are here now, under the pale glow of the night, a pair of statues posed on the bench. If she looked up at him, she would have to strain her neck. He is a caricature of Bluebeard. A giant with embers for eyes and a wilderness of black for his hair and dress. She did not think men like him existed outside of books.

She doesn’t know yet that she is right. Men like him are not real.

They sit.

Her feet are nailed with fear and need, still for things she doesn’t know.

She must be asleep. Mina? Mina, she is dreaming. Please wake her up. Mina?

“This was not by chance,” the man says. His voice rolls the air flat and tolls like church bells in her head. “No matter what is thought of me, I am not a base animal in all things. I have my whims. Preferences.” His hand is on her shoulder, a weight like ice. “As ever, they seem to be wants the wider world profanes. It warms me,” the talon of a thumbnail draws against her skin, nearly cutting, “to know I have discovered one who wants the same.”

“What is it I want?” she asks. Does she ask? Does she know the answer?

“We want more than what the world claims is our share. Our right. The world lies, my love. You have felt so since before you ever bled as a woman.” His hand moves from her shoulder without leaving her skin. It travels. “Your poor heart is too big, too hungry. I feel it here, straining.”

She feels him feel it.

“I’m in love,” she tells him. “I’m getting married.” Her voice is a shadow of itself, the pitch only a trace of what it would be by day, before another man plucking up courage with flowers and fond glances. It stings enough to hurt someone smitten. It had felt like carving her heart out to turn away two of those she wanted badly, so badly, to accept their victorious brother in love. A heart already wounded when a different engagement was announced, the pain masked in smiles, smiles, so happy for you, my friend, my darling, my Mina.

She is spoiled. She knows it. But not in the things which matter.

“Love is a fine thing,” the man says, and his hand moves again. Knuckles on her neck. “But it is a wild thing when it is real. The world demands it be pruned. Love only certain paramours. Love only one. Have only one. No matter how much of yourself there is to share, how much they wish to share and be shared by you. Like razing a forest to leave only a single flower in the ashes. It is cruelty and no more.”

“Cruel,” she nods. “Stupid.” The word leaves her with the petulant edge of a child’s huff. Yet it is equal to the world and its orders. The world has given childish rules to those who would love wildly. Widely. And yet, “I am so stupid, so greedy to demand more. I feel so much like a glutton. What right have I to want them all? I shun Lotharios along with the world. But what makes me more than him?”

“I do not know this Lothario,” the man drones. Something like breath blows air like frost and carrion against the top of her head. “Yet I shall take him for a false lover. There are many such villains. Those who would pretend devotion to one, only to betray them with a dozen secret trysts. That is evil. That is not you. You are Helen.”

“Helen..?”

“All of my loves are Helen. That enchanted demigoddess, who drew a thousand ships after her, she was named for light. My loves are always the brightest lights among their villages, to which the moths of man,” a cold digit twists and untwists her hair, “and woman all fly. Such is your kind, my love, my Helen.”

“My name is Lucy.” Of this she is fairly certain.

“Ah!” he laughs, stroking her head. “Then it is destiny. Lucy is light as well. A flame among so many loves, a devoted throng. Yet only one—one!—poor Lucy may pick, though she has heart enough for all. Even those she fears can only love another. One who is friend alone and not what she wants most…”

Wet warmth rolls on her cheek. The cool pad of a thumb wipes it dry.

“Your friend, she is very lovely. Very dear to you. Yes?”

“Very,” she sighs. Why does her throat ache? Her heart? Her eyes? No, she need not ask. She knows the reason. Has known it every time the hot pain needles as she thinks, “I doubt she’ll ever learn how much, even when we are old ladies, our children playing by the sea as we once did.”

“Oh, my love, my poor Helen, no. Do not say such wretched things. My heart breaks to hear such ugly premonitions from your lips. You shall not grow old. You shall not waste your good heart on empty longing. I am here to deliver a gift that shall save you from such misery. You see, I refuse the world’s demands. I do not age. I do not deny myself any whom I love, and so they do not deny themselves to me. Can you guess the gift? It is most fitting.”

“What?” she asks. The single word lilts. Practiced song of a girl waiting on a surprise. What is it, Art? Show me, show me.

“A kiss. As the princess in the fairy tale wins her miracle, you shall receive yours. Your beauty, your light, it will blaze forever. You shall love all you wish, as you wish. They will never deny you. No more than you shall deny me.”

“Are you a prince?” she asks. It comes from a smile. Why does she hate this?

“I was. I am.” His hand is on her and so is its brother, yet the position is wrong. Blinking slow, she sees he is not sitting, but now stands and bends like a great ebony tree behind her. The moonlight has been sucked out of the air as a cloud pulls its cloak over the sky. His hands move in the new gloom, stroking, tucking the curtain of her hair away from her neck. “For you, fair Helen.”

The words break against her pulse.

His kiss lasts, lasts, lasts.

So shall she.