I had no idea how I was to keep something that could not be contained nor stored. Is that not the plight of we humans? To hold that which cannot be held? To count that which cannot be quantified? In which cage could such a gift be trapped? In what coffin could I rest such magic?

<<He wakes>>, Rosemary meant, standing to her feet. <<Let us go now>>.

And so we took our leave, the maps to freedom stuffed beneath my arm and my dearest love holding my hand.

Episode 79: A Savior Behind The Curtains And, At Last, A Bed

The rain should have cooled the land, but outside of Rennington manor, steam rose from the soggy soil, forcing my fair hair to cling to my neck and face. Once we were free of the rotting walls of that putrid place, Rosemary lifted her hands to the half moon and let a cry out of her that I had never heard before.

I wondered if the sound was something that could reach my ears or something that could only enter through my heart and I wished there was some other human to witness it beside me so I could watch their expression to see if they received it as well.

Rosemary then grabbed my hands in hers and twirled me around until I was so dizzy that the heat meant nothing and the stars slid out of their places in the night sky.

We lay back together in a pile of leaves and brush and skirts, our foreheads touching, the papers we’d procured resting near us on the forest floor. Rosemary exhaled slow and long, closing her eyes as the moon soaked her skin.

<<I miss him>>. She did not intend this to me, but simply as a sentiment in itself.

Oh, how I missed him as well. There was a gaping hole in the center of me, and I had not taken the time to fill it with anything of equal worth. My father’s absence made another wide-mawed hole, and I wondered how any goodness could be stored in me anymore without falling through the openings my father and my Vincent had left behind.

<<I will go into the forest>>, Rosemary meant, rising up. <<I will not be far. But I must be, now. I have not been for too long. My light dims>>.

She departed, and I watched her leave me with great concern in my heart, for if she were to be captured—by one of Cranley’s pyres or a slaver of any kind—I could lose her altogether. But alas, I could not hold on to her when she wished to go and do things only pyres did. She was not mine, after all.