Truth be told I don't mind
'Cause her hell's my paradise
She can crush every hope
Got her heels stompin' down my throat
W
hat does it mean, to be truly lonely?
Sometimes I think I know it: I will stand in the courtyard, surrounded by ginkgo fans and deep green monstera and paintbrushes and blocks of pigment and think I am lonely. I will look back at the tall windows, ridged in wrought iron and the bleak autumn sun and sigh to myself. How terrible my life is, how lonely: that I am one girl in a family of girls with gunmetal hearts and boys made of more venom than wine.
I will ache up at the windows, the cut of the roof, the pergola at the head of the path that leads to the groundskeeper's hut, and think, oh no, oh no, oh no.
But I am not lonely. Each corner of the estate is packed with servants at work, servants that turn their faces respectfully away from Pilate (but not their eyes) and Adonai. However distant they are, my siblings are packed together like spiteful sardines in a tin. Everywhere I go, even now, as sand turns to dry grass turns to the jagged rock of the mountains and then the cliffs, there are eyes on me, servants in tow.
I have never known what it's like, to be lonely. I think, existentially, I do not even feel it as much as I think. But still it is the only word that comes to mind when I send off the escort party with a smile and think to myself, I am something, and that something is lonely, I'm sure. It is so much worse, to know anyone would do anything, if only I asked.
It makes a girl not want to ask.
I come to Terrastella with the sun at its apex, glinting down on the cobblestone street. A late autumn rain has just blown through the region and the eaves and lanterns glitter with fat, heavy drops of dew. It is beautiful, in the way that the rare desert rain never quite is. Even our petrichor smells like sand and searing heat. Here it is cold, uncomfortably so, cold enough that I shiver as I step into an archway and out of the wind.
I am squinting when I see her, staring blankly in what I hope is a graceful sort of way, befitting an Ieshan. It is so cold I do not know if it quite hits the mark.
"Excuse me," I ask, touching her shoulder, jingling with gold while I do, "I am looking for a jeweler." 'I am looking,' I say, walking the line between overtly polite and covertly blunt. An implication that is not quite a question. A demand that is not quite a demand.
It would be so simple, to ask.
But I don't. I can't.
ll my life I have been a sheltered thing, although I rest on the precipice of it now. I am no longer just a girl, but there is some piece that doesn't feel fully grown either. I still have my studies, am not yet considered graduated, my parents still have such a tight hold on my life, and I can almost see a pattern that this may be how it is forever. I see Grandad with his daughters, how much he still makes decisions, how much he even makes decisions for my father, my father who was not born a Foster, but earned the right of taking the last name when he married my mother. For all my grandad was concerned, my father was all Foster. He was a professor here, in Terrastella, of military history. He is a bit gaunt, he likes tea a bit too milky for my taste, he did love games, chess in particular, he would always let me win, even to this day. He is fond of boats, archery (he got my my first bow, made me an arrow), books, and art museums. We’ve spent hours in a museum put on be the De Clare’s agonizing over their work, wondering what each painting was trying to convey. He was protective, strict, he had high expectations of his children, perhaps more than other Fosters, as if trying to prove just because he wasn't one, he could still raise his children to be impeccable.
He infinitely loved his children, even if the furrow in his brow when he looked at a less than stellar book report, or I missed the target with my arrow, says otherwise.
I’ve spent the entire morning in class, literature. We read, we discuss, everyone shows off how smart they are. I doodle arrow designs to give to the merchant Hugo, to create. Since my very first bow and my very first quiver of arrows, I have designed them all. Granted, when I was a child, they were much more shaky, and included plenty of hearts. My latest design has been inspired by the Halcyon unit. Intricate feathers carved into the wood, a strong string, arrows with strong feathers on the ends, worthy of carrying a cadet. Hugo has made nearly all my bows and arrows, since he was old enough to do so. I would trust no one else.
“Want to get lunch together, Isabella?” One of my classmates say. She isn't a Foster, you can tell just by the way she holds herself in our library, but she so desperately wants to be one. I think this is why she is asking me to lunch, wants to get into my good graces. I’ve seen her helping Ansley, I’ve seen her flirting with Bennett. I look at her with steel grey eyes. “I’m already meeting someone,” I say, it’s a lie, but no one ever talks about how honest Fosters are. We’re scholars, not priests.
I dont expect the chill of the day, I had almost forgotten that winter was coming. The sun manages to stay warm, but I pray it grows warmer to keep the snow at bay. I have my drawings in my hand, thinking I might have time to meet with Hugo if he is available, show him the designs, develop a plan. I take a shortcut, jutting under an archway, it is not empty, but it is quieter than the main streets. It is why I am surprised that someone reaches out and touches my shoulder. My lip quirks slightly in greeting. There is something empty in my smile, I can tell by the way a breeze flows through the fissure lines. “A jeweler?” I ask looking up at her. She is, what my mother would call, ‘eccentric,’ with her piercings, those vibrant amber eyes, the red hair. She doesn't recognize me the way so much of Terrastella does, and something unclenches in my chest I never knew was being held. “Sure, there is one just down the way,” I say with a blink of storm grey eyes. She’s stunning. I wonder if she knows this. “I’ll go with you.” And I take a page from her book, this stranger, I don't ask, I tell.
Truth be told I don't mind
'Cause her hell's my paradise
She can crush every hope
Got her heels stompin' down my throat
T
here is this thing about me that makes me neither proud or excited, and it is the look in the girl's eyes when she turns her head and sees that it is I, standing there: pupils that swell with a split second of admiration before it's pushed back down. Nevermind her absent smile, I think. Nevermind the far-off stillness of her voice. All that matters is the brief flicker of oh in her eyes and the absolutely wicked joy that blooms to life in my throat. I am not proud of it. I wish it weren't there.
But it is there, and it faces me as I face it, burning and burning and burning as it crawls its way down to my chest.
My family thinks that Pilate is the vain one. That he is the petty one. I am lucky we do not know each other well enough, though we have lived together our whole lives, to know the truth. I think all Pilate's doings might come from a better place, than mine, in any case.
"Oh, thank you!" I chirp, "I was going to ask if you would, anyway."
I wave off the entourage, who hesitate only a moment before dispersing, disappearing around corners to do their own shopping, for the estate or themselves. It is so far from my mind, the second the last one is out of sight, that I barely remember they came at all.
My eyes float from her face--a pale sort of cream color, like buttermilk, fine features and a posture that suggests some well-to-do family or another. I am familiar with each Solterran house, but I was not required, as Adonai (and Pilate after him) and Miriam were, to learn everyone's faces, from Dusk to Dawn.
--anyway, my eyes float from her face to the smooth black sheet of her hair to the drawings she's carrying. "What are those?" I ask, setting off in order to restrain myself from plucking them out of her grasp without asking. We dip out from under the archway and into an alley where it is still windy and gray, but not overly so. The Dusk Court is a canyon of white walls and cobblestone, I think.
The wind howls as it blows through. It must howl as it blows through me, too. "Oh, I'm Hagar." I say, and, smiling: "Tell me your name."
y family has no idea where I am right now, they know of my archery, but they think less of it as just a hobby of mine instead of passion. The same with my mapping, it is just another class, another thing to keep me busy. They know so little about me without the last name hanging off the end of it. I want to ask them why we are all strangers that share the same last name.
Maybe, if we were immediately open with our families we would laugh about what we have in common. The complications of growing up not just rich, but an ingrained part of our respected Court’s history. I would tell her about my brothers and she would tell me about hers. We could talk about it all.
But I am so tired of talking about my family.
A sharp inhale when she looks at me, and I compose myself again. A gift from my family staying cool, staying polite under pressure. Painstakingly polite. “I have to be back for my afternoon classes, but I can spare a moment.” I say with something like a flip of my shoulder. Busy, but not too busy. I look to the sun. I did have to be back, my father did take our lessons so seriously. The Fosters in the class set the example for the other a students. A late Foster cannot happen, a late Foster cannot exist. But, I know that I am not quite done with this woman yet. I find solace in being with her, she doesn't know who I am. How refreshing.
I watch as she waves someone off, I hadn't noticed them before. “Your friends?” I ask her, steel grey eyes flittering to them before back to her face. Those eyes, it reminds me of something. Then they are gone, disappeared practically into thin air.
“Well then, since it is just the two of us,” I say, fighting the excitement that grows. There was a time back when I was a fidgety child, sitting in the church, we were supposed to be praying. ‘Isabella,’ my mother had scolded me. ‘A Foster does not wiggle, we are astute, attentive. Wiggling suggests you are bored, are you bored of our Goddess, who By Her Hand, has blessed us?’ She said, looking at me with vivid green eyes. They looked like a forest that could swallow me whole.
I stand taller instead, pinch my shoulders together, and relax my head at a proper height and sink into my last name with a practiced grace. It feels natural once more.
She is looking at me. I sometimes have imagined what it would be like to be born with the gift of mind reading. What would this woman, Hagar, be thinking about me. Would she think me pretty? Would she think me as mysterious as I find her?
“Oh,” I say in mock surprise, strangely grateful for some attention on me. I am so used to being overshadowed, not the I actively sought our glory. But with her golden eyes on me, her voice pointed to my ear, I wont deny the feeling is—pleasant. “They are just drawings,” I say, shrugging as if it doesn't matter. They are good drawings, I know they are, even if they are just doodles. I oblige her and open them up for a moment. “A new bow and new arrows. I was going to see the merchant who makes them for me.” My eyes wander only a moment in the direction where Hugo’s tent would be if I set off. “But, he can wait.” I say and walk beside her.
It feels almost as though she is leading me, rather than I leading her. “I’m Isabella,” I say without a smile. Even in her presence I hardly smile. It had resulted in many scoldings as a child, until my parents finally threw their hands in defeat. I turn grey eyes to the side. “Here we are, anything you are looking for in particular?” I ask her, looking from her eyes to the curve of her neck before I fall back over to the jewelry. I pretend to look, to window shop, but I steal glances back at her, wondering if she might be stealing glances herself—at me.
i am angry.
i have nothing to say about it.
i am not sorry for the cost.
I
am not dumb, as much as I'm sure many others would like to think so. I am not dumb and I see the air fill her lungs in one sharp breath when her eyes meet. I am not dumb and I feel that rotten, selfish thing wiggle its way up my throat and through my teeth until I am smiling. If my mother would be proud of anything I've done it is the carefully curated, almost impossibly unassuming smile that I settle into as she speaks. As if I had never seen it, or heard it, at all.
Your friends? She asks, and I am still smiling, thinking still thoughts, thinking of holding my back straight and my chin level, and meeting the blank slate of her face with my own.
"They would dislike me for saying so, I think." I say, "They are very proud of their work." Does she think me mysterious, I wonder? Powerful? Dangerous? Should she?
Well, she says, since it is just the two of us-- I am hanging on every word, still as poised as before but now my neck hurts, and my back is tight with the strain of it. Since it is just the two of us... what? Isabella doesn't finish. The sentence drops like rock in the ocean, disappearing into the sea-black void as the seconds tick by. I touch the backs of my teeth with my tongue, feeling each curve and groove in the absence of anything else.
I like to think I am looking expectant. I like to think that I conjure just the right amount of disappointment to be inoffensive. I wonder why I care, so much, what she was going to say.
I wonder why I want to know. Gods, I want to know so badly I almost do not hear her finally pull her drawings from their places and unroll them behind me. My legs say to keep walking, to walk and walk until you feel less crazed, less desperate, but the extra step or two that I take after she stops does not cue her to follow, so I turn.
I wish I hadn't, because she fixes me with a look of such stern patience that I almost laugh at her. I don't know how a brick wall can be so endearing. I look at her for too long before my eyes flick down to the pages.
I appraise them quietly, as she speaks. I am an artist myself, though more as a hobby, and I don't think I've ever dreamed up a weapon. Miriam thinks I am one of those girls that paints beautiful people to pine over, drowning in blushing roses glistening velvet. I am not bad at it-- I think all noble children are taught to paint in the distinctly classic way, especially our family-- but I envy her straight lines and her practicality.
Me teeth press together behind my lips. "Are you an archer?" I ask, "Or do you just design these and give them away?"
Here we are, Isabella says, as we step into the shop--and I am struck with a thought like oh yes, the shop; of course, the shop. Inside it is warmer, the wind blocked by the plates of glass on the window and the delicate wood door. Before us there is laid gold and silver on pillows, some hung with beads of turquoise and others braided alongside glittering gems.
The shopkeeper greets us as we enter, seemingly gliding out from behind her desk, pen still in hand. I turn from her, to Isabella, and answer, "Great question, Biz." and then, quieter: "Why don't you pick?"
hen I was little my eldest brother snuck me a book of fairytales. Lawrence was always incredibly soft on Ansley and I. We don't typically read such things. My father said that it would get it in our heads that the things in those stories actually happen, that we would confuse fact and fiction. I think part of it was to inspire us to then further our learning and research, but I started to wonder if Fosters were so good at teaching facts, then why would there ever be any fear that we would confuse it.
We kept the book in Ansley’s room (there had been much discussion about this, but ultimately she was the oldest and would be willing to make the sacrifice for her ‘baby’ sister.) So I would then sneak into her room at night and we would read. Our eyes arching over each of those beautifully written words, gazing over the illustrations, how long had it been since we had a book with such colorful artwork? (Excluding Terrastellan Art History.) Eventually I knew why my father told us we couldn't read these stories, not because we would not understand, but because as I walked down Terrastella’s streets, moved between rows in the library, and went to my archery lessons, I started looking for fairytales. A lingering glance, my bow being returned to me, the cook’s son insisting on bringing me my meals.
I would never confuse fiction for fact.
But that doesn't stop me from looking for any traces of fiction coming to life.
I do not have guards like she does, maybe that is one of the blessings of living in Terrastella. Most of our dangers reside in the oceans, but on the streets, I have rarely felt unsafe. Besides, no one would harm a Foster—there is a very good chance that one of my grandparents employs them. “Well, you made it here in one piece, so I suppose their work is adept.” I try to hold a polite smile even if I cant stand the way it stretches over my teeth.
She is staring at me, like she wants something and I so desperately want to give it to her, whatever it is. I bite the inside of my lips with my teeth. I pull out my drawings trying to close the space that the silence has left, so gaping, wide. But then she looks at me, before looking to my drawings, eyes cast down, glancing over the pages.
I never knew it were possible to be jealous of parchment.
Look at me.
Please.
Look at me again.
“I am,” I say and I try to sound humble. “Have you ever tried?” I ask her, suddenly imagining me standing beside her, showing her how the string is drawn back, where to aim, right by her shoulder, close, too close to ever be considered polite in any other situation aside from teaching. Too close. I blink grey eyes to clear the thoughts. I cast my gaze away, up towards the sun and I am momentarily blinded by it. Inside I chide myself (and to my displeasure sound so much like my mother) for acting foolish in front of the girl.
The warmth flushes around my cheeks and I am grateful that I can pretend it is from the shop’s heat and not anything else (not a crimson solterran girl.)
Biz.
It is so rare that I receive a nickname, so often just introduced by my formal name that the I am taken aback for a moment, that Foster mask drops as genuine surprise takes over like sunshine finally pushing through the clouds and onto the field. “Me?” I ask her, as if such responsibility seems far fetched. Immediately my steel gaze roams over the jewelry. I am pleased with the task, it gives me an opportunity to keep looking back at her, pretending that I am assessing the information just so, as if I am not painstaking tracing the curve of her chin, or admiring the amber of her eyes.
And then I spot it. It hang on a delicate chain of fine gold. I take it and hold it before placing it across her brow and allow the gemstone to sit across her brow. A large sapphire adorned with smaller diamonds. I hover just a moment, I can feel my warm breath press into her skin before it pushes back towards me, I can almost taste the sand on her skin.
“Sapphire to remember the blue of Terrastella’s oceans.” I say. Have you made your pick, Ms. Foster? The shopkeeper asks. My family frequented here quite often. “Yes,” I respond. “Pass the bill along to my grandfather, will you? Atticus Foster will greatly appreciate you taking care of us today,” I say to him with that strained politeness. I can see the shopkeeper smile back wearily.
“If you wish to pick out something else, please do so, but this, this will be a gift from me to you.” I say. “Take it home with you,” and it sounds something like a command. I feel too bold in that moment, everything in my body recoils and I say even though I shouldn't have to, shouldn't need to. “Please?”
Truth be told I don't mind
'Cause her hell's my paradise
She can crush every hope
Got her heels stompin' down my throat
B
iz.
She looks surprised, even shocked. If the sick, crawling joy I had felt earlier was a splinter working its way through my skin then the sensation that hits me now is a spear that runs me straight through. I see the real her, for a moment, naked as the day she was born, all exposed nerves and frayed wires. I tip my chin down politely, smiling.
"Of course," I say, "I would trust no one else with the choice." It is only half of a lie.
I, alongside the shopkeep wrapped in thick winter wools, watch Isabella pick her way through the displays, carefully weighing each piece she examines as if it will answer some unspoken question I have not yet dared to ask-- her or myself. My tongue touches the back of my teeth again, in impatience. I almost ask her to hurry, in a way that would make her hurry, magic or no, but my teeth are clenched tight enough to be trapped there.
Moving would dispel the weight of the moment, I think. There is a certain joy in the impatience. It is absolutely not because I want-- no, need to know what she sees when she glances back at me.
I imagine she's me, scouring the shop with sweat on my neck, panning my way toward an answer. I already know that if I chose for her it would be the pillowed box to my right, a thick silver chain that glitters in the low light, its pendant a fire opal set in a bed of crushed pearls. Understated. Beautiful without really drawing the eye. I imagine it sitting high up on her throat, just at her pulse point, dark against the cream of her skin but almost white against the sharp black of her hair.
My mouth feels dry when she turns back to me, draping a thin golden chain across my forehead before securing it. I hear myself ask for a mirror but do not feel myself say it. I watch in a haze as the mirror is brought, and angled, and I am staring back at myself with an expression of mixed panic and something like hunger. I take a moment to school my features back into place before I really look.
It is beautiful, truly-- I would love to give myself the credit, that the blue is so blue because it is against the red of my face and the burning gold of my eyes, but the more I look the more I see it's not true. It isn't ostentatious, actually rather tasteful, nestled between the looping chains that frame my face and the spike on the bridge of my nose. A gift, the girl says. Sapphire, to remind you of Terrastella's oceans. Another spear of joy lodges itself in my gut.
My eyes shift to her, looking through the reflection. I see my smile crack into a grin. "Biz Foster," I say, "I was right to trust you, clearly." My reflection watches her speak with the shopkeep some more, before her eyes meet mind again through the mirror.
Take it with you, she says-- a demand. I turn to look at her, more than a little amused. When she tries to take it back I choke down another chuckle. "Thank you, truly. I will stare at it every day, as long as I live."
"You should come." I say, a little conspiratorially, as I remove the jewelry and place it in the delicate box I am offered for transport. "To the party. So you can see it in action."
f it is anything to you, well I would not also trust no one else aside from you to help me accessorize,” I say looking at her, using the opportunity to pretend as if I am merely staring at her jewelry and silk, as if I were not admiring the way her body was slender yet strong, and regal. She was beautiful, in a way Fosters were not. It was—delightful.
I place that chain across her forehead and I hold my breath for how close we are. Too close, and still, not quite close enough. I want to wonder what she is thinking, but I know that if I begin I may never stop wondering. I watch her look at herself and I hope she admires herself the way I feel like doing now. Does she look as carefully as I do at her cheekbones? Does she gaze down at the line of her lips? And does she wallow in the color of her eyes and try to remember where else she has seen such a colors. I would not tell her, but i think I am a far batter admirer of Hagar, than Hagar could ever be of herself.
I feel her words sink inside me like an anchor. “Maybe I can try to trust you later,” I say with a smile I try to give, but it is probably nothing more than a simper on my face that wears apathy better than it ever did happiness. Our eyes catching in the mirror together is an entirely new experience altogether, and I am not quite sure how to describe it. So I don’t.
“If I see you again, I can stare at it too,” I say in a way that hangs on flirtation, but doesn't quite make it. I look at the pendant one more time. “I will be there,” I say before a startling realization. “I am so sorry, but I have to get back to class.” I turn and leave with a final goodbye.
As I sit in class, I am silently kicking myself, running through better scenarios the ending to our meeting could have been.
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