Sorrows of Adoration (58 page)

For that was what I
believed in those moments as I brushed and braided my hair: that
whether caused by love or jealousy or worry or loss, my presence
had brought pain to the people I loved. As I write now, I think
back to that night and wonder how I possibly could have been so
foolish as to take on such responsibility when I had scolded both
Kurit and Jarik for the very same mistake in terms of my abduction.
But the fact remains that I believed that I was the cause of
everyone’s sorrow. I imagined myself quite rational at the time,
unaware of just how close to madness I was.

My hair braided, I rose
from the dresser and looked about the darkened room. I felt guilty
for leaving a mess for poor Leiset to clean up, so I quickly made
up the bed and straightened out my things in an orderly fashion. It
seemed the proper thing to do.

I wrote a quick note,
unable to see my script well in the darkness. It was brief, saying
only that I felt I had to go in order to set things right and that
I loved them all. I asked them not to weep for me, though I knew
even then that such a request had little hope of being granted.

Very quietly, I
unlocked and opened the door to the hall. I peered outside,
suspecting that Jarik might be there. He was not. The lantern left
lit in the hallway banished the shadows sufficiently that I could
see his chamber door was closed.

I walked slowly and
quietly to the room where my dear child slept, his nurse on a cot
beside him. As silently as possible, I went to say goodbye to my
son. He slept soundly, a thankful state which I attributed to
Jarik’s kind attentions. I kissed softly his sweet little head and
almost wept at the thought of not seeing him grow. But I had
convinced myself that my presence was a detriment to him as well,
bearing in my mind the image of his distraught face that morning.
It broke my heart to think that he would be upset and not
understand why I had to go, but truly, in that moment I felt I was
giving him the best life possible by sparing him further witness to
my own agony.

I left the room, sad
but determined to do what I felt in that moment was right.

I crept through the
hall and down the stairs. I went very slowly, putting each footfall
down lightly at first to prevent creaking that would alert Jarik. I
was not in a rush.

Slowly, carefully, I
pulled back the bolts of the front door and lifted the latch. The
soft, inevitable click sounded loud, and I held my breath to hear
if a sound of movement would come from Jarik’s room above. I heard
nothing, and so I continued on.

When finally I was
outside and closing the door behind me, I felt a sense of peaceful
freedom. I hurried down the steps and away from the cottage,
towards the bluffs some distance away.

The night air was
somewhat chilly, and the darkness of the cloudy night frightened me
a little. Then I realized how ridiculous it was to be afraid of
creatures in the night when I was on my way to die. Still, every
time I heard a sound, I shuddered and moved my feet faster.

After about twenty
minutes, I caught sight of the mountain on the other side of the
gorge. The light was very thin, but I could see its outline against
the sky.

When I was perhaps
fifty paces from the edge of the bluffs, a voice behind me made me
leap in fright.

“Aenna, what are you
doing?” came Jarik’s words.

My heart raced. It
seemed that he had heard me after all and had followed me. The
noises I had heard and assumed to be the stirrings of night
creatures must have been him. I stopped walking for a moment when
he startled me, but with a sudden determination, I kept going.

“Aenna!” he called, but
I kept moving. “Aenna, no!” he cried, and I heard him coming up
fast behind me.

I ran with every bit of
energy I had in me. I ran towards the precipice, already weeping
that he would have to witness this. I had so wanted to go and not
be found! With only five or six running paces left to go before the
edge, I felt his enormous hands grip my right arm and wrench me
backwards. The force of it flung me back to the ground so hard the
wind was knocked out of me.

I gasped in a desperate
breath and tried again to reach my final goal. But Jarik was
already upon me, his arms gripping me tightly and preventing me
from moving forward. I tried desperately to wriggle out of his hold
but to no avail. I clawed madly at the ground, digging out great
handfuls of grass and dirt in a vain attempt to get to the edge of
the bluff.

I heard his voice,
shouting at me, no doubt begging me to stop what I was doing, but
it was all a mad cacophony punctuated by my own screams, which
sounded as though they came from very far away.

I beat my dirt-caked
fists against his arms and chest and even his face. I began to claw
at him, so he pinned me to the ground by putting his knee on my
thigh and grabbing my wrists painfully.

“Stop, Aenna!” he
shouted. Then he bellowed at me, his words echoing throughout the
gorge: “Aenna, don’t do this to me!”

I fell limp at the
accusation of hurting him. He let go of my wrists and wrapped his
arms around me, lifting me to him and cradling me there. I think
that I began sobbing, and I think also that Jarik spoke to me, but
I can’t honestly recall, for my soul had left me and I felt as
though I was dead in his arms. I do remember his warm tears falling
on my forehead and imagining that they must have felt so warm
because my skin was already cold from death.

And then came my
blessed numbness. Everything else was gone. I felt neither pain nor
joy, neither sorrow nor relief. I was empty of all life and no
longer could hear Jarik’s litany of heartache and love. I was not
sure if my eyes were open or closed, for it was so dark around me.
Everything was as nothing.

The next thing of which
I was aware was the sound of a knock at a door. I opened my eyes to
see the canopy of the bed at the cottage. I let my head fall to the
side and could see Jarik at the door to the other bedchamber, where
Leiset had been sleeping. I heard Jarik ask Leiset to get up and
help him. I expected myself to feel guilty to realize that Leiset
would be mortified when she learned what I had tried to do, but I
could not make myself feel anything. I could not make myself lift
my hands.

I knew myself to be
alive, for I could hear my own breath. It sounded strange, as if it
were not a part of me.

Leiset opened the door
and entered. Jarik said something about me being very ill, and she
rushed to my side. I saw her but could not truly behold her. It was
as if I was imagining her there and knew better than to interact
with a false vision. Yet I knew her to be real. The conundrum of it
went in circles in my mind.

“Why is she wearing
this dress?” Leiset asked. She took my hand and asked, “Why are her
hands full of dirt? Aenna, what is this?” I could not rationalize
her existence enough to answer.

“Don’t worry about that
right now, Leiset. Help me clean her up and get her changed into a
nightdress.”

“Aenna, I can see that
you’re awake. Do tell me what’s happened, please.”

“She hasn’t spoken a
word since I brought her home.”

“Where was she?”

“Never mind that now.”
He rolled my dress up to my hips and lifted me to a sitting
position. “Take the dress from her, Leiset.”

“Aenna, why do you
stare so? Aenna, please, say something!”

“Leiset, just get her
undressed!”

“Not until you tell me
what’s wrong with her!” She touched my face. Her hands were warm. I
think that I wanted to answer her, but it was as though someone had
taken all of the words I knew and cut them into ribbons and then
scattered them about my head in a great cloud of confusion. And
still I felt nothing.

“Leiset, she tried to
kill herself. There’s no time to weep and fret about it now. Help
me get her changed and into bed. Then we shall have to care for her
and watch her every minute. She is not to be left alone. Do you
hear me, Leiset?”

Leiset was weeping. I
could not feel for her.

“Leiset, she needs you
to be strong now. Come, help me!”

As they changed my
clothes and washed the dirt from my hands, I blinked and fell back
into the numb void, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and not caring
if I ever did again.

MY MIND WAS locked in
nothingness for several days. I was unable to speak even during the
rare moments of clarity I experienced between long periods of
disassociation. Words slipped through my mind as water does through
one’s fingers; I could not hold them long enough to put them
together. I found it difficult at times even to move, as though my
very flesh had become as wood.

Much of the time passed
without my notice. I am to this day unaware of what happened during
those times. I do not know if I wept or spoke or moved. I had only
brief encounters with reality. From time to time I would come back
into my own mind and find myself dressed and seated on the balcony,
wrapped in a blanket on the couch or perhaps tucked into my bed. I
didn’t know how I got to wherever I was, and would be momentarily
disoriented and frightened.

Then I would always
catch sight of Jarik. No matter where I found myself nor what time
of day or night I awoke from my stupor, I would be aware of his
presence. During the days he would most often be close beside me,
holding my hand or perhaps with his hand gently on my arm or
shoulder. At night I would be aware that he was in a chair right
beside my bed, sometimes sleeping softly, other times watching me
intently. His consistent presence came to symbolize to me a rope to
reality, a tenuous but unbroken link to sanity.

I wanted so very much
to reach out to him, but every time my mind became coherent enough
to form that thought, the curtain of numbness would sweep back over
me protectively. For to reach for him meant to experience again my
sorrows, and my mind simply would not allow it.

Then one afternoon I
came out of my numb stupor to find myself seated in a chair with an
odd-looking woman staring at me. I did not recognize the pale, thin
creature before me until I noticed she had an ugly blue-green patch
on her cheek and under her eye. Only then did I realize I was
seated before the mirror of the dressing table and in fact looking
at myself. I was hideous. Wretchedly, disgustingly hideous. I
looked much older than I ought to have, and my face was bony and
hard. Though the features were not a match, I reminded myself of
Kasha. I looked like a tired old woman, not a young mother and
wife.

Yet I could feel
nothing at the sight. I knew I ought to have been revolted, upset,
or at least mildly concerned, for I looked quite starved with my
hollow cheeks. But there was still nothing. No sorrow was allowed
to be brought to the surface.

I became aware of a
tugging at my hair. I looked up in the mirror and saw that Jarik
stood behind me, my hair in one hand and a brush in the other. He
was slowly pulling the brush through my hair over and over as
though he was in a stupor of his own. He would gather the hair in
his hand gently, sometimes running his hand against the back of my
neck, and then let the hair tumble from his fingers as the brush
passed through it.

I closed my eyes and
breathed deeply as he brushed. I realized after a few minutes that
I was actually experiencing something other than numbness. There
was a sensation there, and it was a relaxed bliss. I had always
loved the feeling of having my hair brushed and pinned by Leiset
when she would insist on helping me with the more complicated
styles. I would tell her that I felt silly and pampered to let her
work with my hair, but in truth I had always delighted in it. It
was one of the most soothing experiences I had ever known.

As Jarik continued to
stroke the brush through my hair gently, I was able to release
myself into the splendour of it. I did not worry about anything,
even trying to speak. I just sat in the chair and let his kind
touch warm me. When his hand would brush my neck, my heart would
beat a little faster, and I allowed myself to relish that as
well.

When he stopped, I
opened my eyes. I watched in the mirror as he set the brush aside.
He pulled aside a handful of my hair and began to braid it. I
watched his hands work and became transfixed by them. A warrior’s
hands, buried in a woman’s soft hair, moving not with the speed and
deadly accuracy with which they were trained, but with calm,
relaxed rhythm. I think that that was one of the most sensual acts
I have ever witnessed.

The braid complete, he
began an attempt to wrap it into a semi-formal style. He picked up
hairpins from the dresser one by one and placed them, but no matter
how many he put in place, the wrap would not stay as he wished.
Something would always sag or fall out of place, and he would glare
at it as a child glares in frustration at a shoelace that simply
will not form a bow.

His face was absolutely
adorable. Over and over again, he would look hopeful that he had
found the secret pin placement that would hold everything properly.
Then he would let go of the wrap, and when something would fall out
again, he would become annoyed. Several times he unbundled the
entire braid and started over again, trying various methods of
control. Every one failed.

It was such a strange
sight—this large, muscular man struggling in vain with a woman’s
hair—that I could not help but burst into laughter.

The sudden sound made
him look at my eyes through the mirror. He was stunned by my
apparent return to life and let his hand fall away from the bundle
of hair. Of course, it began again to fall apart, and he quickly
tried to catch what he had let fall, but it was hopeless. The sight
made me laugh all the more.