#henry melling | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

axieta · 1 year

Text

Hungry eyes

Henry Winter x reader

Chapter 7

|Eyes, that do not tell lies|

Waves came and went crashing to the shore with a slight, delightful splash. The water was brown, cold, unwelcoming, more like a puddle than any proper sea. And the shore was flat, pebbled, dun, and tawny, yesterday’s snow long gone from its surface. In the distance, a sharp, pencil-like monument shot up into the sky with an ambition to cut into the cluster of clouds above and gut them for all the rain they’ve got. So far, however all that it got from them was a suspended, wet mist. A few meters from the thin strip of land stretched grey, damp pavement leading straight to the heart of evenly as cold and damp conurbation. Unremarkable buildings with rooftops green and brown from the moss gathered over them grew there, like mushrooms after rain, small, crumpled and crooked. Soft, Scotch mist grazed over their forlorn, dim windows, as if inviting their invisible residents to come out and bathe in the gloomy atmosphere, and above all that reigned, undivided, a yellow-brown cathedral, strangely proud and tall. That’s Largs for you. Not really a town, not really a resort, not really anything. Rather a luminal space, full of empty rooms, abandoned cars, desolate streets, forlorn cafes. And nothing but us, and the seagulls in sight. The six of us were already there, struggling to enjoy the freezing sea breeze, our warm coats and scarfs tossed to the winds, cheeks red, noses frozen off.

White vapour escaping our mouths in long, phantom streaks.

I went there with them, on their invitation. What they had in mind was a relaxing Monday afternoon spent by the beach, watching the snow that had fallen in the morning. Unfortunately, nothing came of it, as witnessed by us around forty minutes into our car ride, as it seemed that only Hampden has been clogged by snows. In the seaside, you could still smell the faint fragrance of rotten leaves and pumpkins gazing at you mischievously from the window stalls in the air. Oh, and the salt. The pleasant, although quite harsh mell of salt and algae and fish. I don’t know if Largs ever was or is a fisherman cottage, but it certainly smelled so on that afternoon when I sauntered about its gravel beach. Camilla had opted not to descend into the nightmarishly dirty surface, least to say, after her previous experience with stones and water and a cut foot, she not as much as did not desire but almost rejected the thought of ever coming closer to the sea than the paved-in concrete lane allowed. Charles stayed with her, very patient and understanding, slowly stroking her hair as he mumbled something into her ear. She giggled from time to time, likely just to be court and not discourage her brother from talking, because, as I saw it, he posed a perfect cover for her cloudy stare. As long as he talked, the stubborn dug of her irises, a dug of a most persistent and durable nature, could be taken for a stare of thoughtful hesitation or meditation. So long you didn’t look at the direction she was gazing at, it all seemed natural, very effortless. But once you followed that unrelenting gaze and came to the dark, hunched over silhouette in a dark, slightly dishevelled coat that, even then bore a few iridescent pieces of glass woven into it, the stare lost on its neutrality and instead took in a quality rather obsessive and stubborn.

But who could ever blame poor Camilla for that intense, devoted stare? After all, clad in that coat stood Henry Winter. Pretentious, cold-hearted, dense, gorgeous. He was limping bare foot around the beach, with his trousers pulled up to his calves, constantly bending down to pick something up and hide it in the inner folds of his clothing. A seemingly ever-present scowl graced his face, and I couldn’t decipher if it was from all the walking on the cold, sharp stones of the beach or the thoughts that swarmed his mind. Because from the slight furrow of his brows, the angry purse of his lips, and a general absence of his mind on that day, especially during Julian’s class, anyone could tell that he has been thinking and thinking hard. I did not like that scowl. That confused grimace on his face, as if he was wondering what had he done wrong, what transgression had he made. As if he was still thinking of her. From time to time his hand soared to his hair, or his cheek or his neck, only to fall, limp, by his side as if overtaken by a sudden infirmity. As if the mere thought, or a glimpse at a memory of her sucked him dry of all his forces.

And I hated the worried but also quite angered grey gaze that followed his every bend and pull up. Somehow, I felt wrong watching Camilla, as she watched him, as he surely thought of that bright apparition from the night before. I wanted to step into the line of Camilla’s sight and cover that sorry excuse for a beau. I could not, however do that, for the nuisance that clung to me as soon as we got into Henry’s car. Bunny. I think that on that day, his blonde mope of hair was slightly lighter, almost gilded by the dimmed rays of sun, and that his smile was brighter, touch gentler, he himself, much nicer. He gripped my arm with both of his hands, clinging to me like a barnacle, chatting nonsense over my head as we perused along the quay.

‘And can you believe this fag, God, fuck that fucking prick, grabs me by the collar, can you believe this?! – me! By the collar?! And drags me out of the restaurant before I could even open my mouth. Sharon ran just behind him and heard all the things that fag had said… what a cock-up, I tell you.’

Sometimes I wondered what he was even doing in a classical course that focused on literature with that foul tongue of his and distasteful manners.

‘Like what?’

‘What?’ He commented dumbly, his thoughts absorbed by something else already.

‘What had the waiter said to you?’

A strange almost incredulous look twisted his sun-kissed face. It would be funny, the unbothered shrug of his shoulders and helpless rose of his palms, if I hadn’t known already why he had dragged the poor Sharon into that restaurant in the first place.

‘You know, the usual.’ His smile was as bright as a summer sun, although a bit sharper and more repulsive. ‘That I’m their best costumer, and they simply cannot wait to see me again.’

He elbowed me right in the ribs. As he said that, his ribald laugh carried across the silver tile of the sea. I cringed inwardly but feigned an unsure laugh as well.

‘I don’t think I will be ever able to come back there. Shame, Henry didn’t pick up, what a prick. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some. I must admit it to you, I was already growing weary of the food they serve in that kennel.’

‘Totally,’ I murmured as my eyes focused away from Bunny and onto the lithe and tall figure of Francis, blazing against the grey skies with his fiery hair, forlorn while on his look-out for her. His coat flayed on the wind, unbuttoned in that romantic, tragic way he had always treated all his clothes. White frill peaked from beneath it, not doing much to shelter him from the cold onslaught of the wind. Bunny must’ve followed my eyes because he snarled and nudged me once again.

‘How do you think she’s going to get here this time?’

His pale eyes shined strangely when he looked at me with that menacing grin of his. Strange, how similar he was to Henry. Well, not Henry per se, but the Henry from the night before, the starved, hungry little creature. A crocodile lurking from beneath the surface of water, waiting for the slightest jitter, to lunge forward and capture an unsuspecting prey. I felt that Bunny has been waiting for me to bring up the subject of her, and when I stayed mute about it, he somehow managed to weave her semi-naturally into the conversation.

‘Dunno,’ I shrugged.

‘Let’s pray that she does not intend on arriving here on foot. I’m not entirely keen on waiting ten hours for her to get here.’

I did not respond, suddenly not so keen on upholding a conversation with him. In response to my lack of response, Bunny breathed deeply, as if to swallow all the oxygen in the air around us and bent down to fish a rock that caught his eye. He broke for me and with a skilled, clearly practiced swing of a wrist he sent the rock bouncing off the strangely still sea. One, two, three, four times it bounced, sending a myriad of shaky circles across the brown water. I had to give it to him, he knew how to play ducks and drakes.

‘She looked most exquisite today, did she not?’

The muscles of his back strained and shrunk beneath the pale dustcoat he donned that afternoon, as he drew his arm back. A studious, thought-out gesture I believe it was. One he would practice with his brothers or cousins or friends from previous schools. Did he chat with those friends about girls and restaurant trips that backfired, like he did with me? Or was he more open with those people? Less stand-offish. Maybe Bunny wasn’t always a prick but got turned into one by some terribly tragic turn of events? I imagined Bunny, one or maybe two years younger than as he was on that beach, sitting on a rock, near some lake, surrounded by tall, green trees, smoking a roll-up, shag all over him. I tried to think and imagine him, how he would be in that scenario. Would he laugh, like he did now, or would his temper be a little bit numbed? If so, how would he smile? Would that fiendish spark in his eyes diminish gradually or start to pulse, brighter and brighter until there was nothing left of his pupils? I wondered, as I thought of much younger, a bit more muscular Bunny if Henry could excel at skipping stones as much as his blonde friend did.

‘Who…?’

‘Who? Who? What are you, an owl? Come on, Richard!’

He threw one of the rocks in his hand at me and although he did it rather lightly, even let the rock bounce on the uneven surface of the beach a few times, it still hurt terribly, when the small, brown pebble hit my tibia. I gathered my hurting leg up to my chest to embrace it and maybe massage the pain a little bit out of my system, while his bellowing laugh waltzed over the tranquil sea once again.

‘Oh, yeah, right. Stunning.’

Massaging did not help. Nor did his laughter which he did not mask, pretentious, and full of self-delight.

‘Although… I must admit she looked quite tired…’ now a deep frown of thoughtfulness cut straight through his bright forehead, smile long forgotten. With a slight tilt to his head, his finger slowly rose, still kind of wet and dusted with minuscule specs of sand that managed to not get washed up from the beach, and pressed them to him lower lip, caressing it, no, pushing it forcefully back and worth, as if bullying his own lips could help him formulate thoughts into words. ‘As if she had a huge fight the night before. You must’ve seen it. She was rather on the edge today. The way she refused to engage in the lecture… Completely out of character, if you ask me.’

He returned to picking and skipping stones for a while and so he did not catch the displeased grimace on my face when I hummed at him, seemingly in agreement.

‘And the…’ His hand graced slowly, almost seductively over his collar bones, indicating what already had known was the unfortunate sign of her and Henry’s ministrations. I had nothing to say to him on that matter. To spill something like that, gossip about her and Henry behind their back, and to him… I don’t think I could think of a blemish more non-launderable than that. After a while of standing in silence, after all it would be rude of me to just simply leave him there, he snapped his fingers at me, not even turning to look back, and spoke once again. And once again his mind and voice and overall, his whole being seemed coldly attached to the distant silhouette of her. His constant fascination with the topic of her started to tire my patience out.

‘And the note Henry tossed her. Did you see that? I thought she was going to read it. She always reads my notes.’ There was a sense of pride in those words. As if reading one’s chitty determined its remarkable quality or the quality of the sender. ‘Wonder, what Henry did to piss her off like that. To crumble the paper from him and not even read it! Brutal! He must’ve fucked up real bad!’

For that I did not have an answer as well, so I simply feigned a slightly amused laugh and pushed my hands into my pockets, just like she did this morning, the small difference being, mine were empty. Hers, on the other hand, fisted around the damned chit.

‘Say, Richard, I had heard that you’ve spent a whole week at her apartment.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Never mind. So, did you?’

Something bubbled in me at that dismissive tone of his. Sudden urge to stab at him, to be better choked me from within.

‘Ya, I did. What of it?’

‘Nothing,’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing, really, don’t look at me like that.’

He buried his chin deep into the flange of his coat, bit around his fiercely green scarf. And he skipped stones some more. I stood beside him, waiting. Because I knew he was going to ask. And I wanted him to. His blue eyes darted to me from time to time as I feigned thoughtfulness, gazing into the horizon. Dark clouds mingled right before me, just at the edge of the skyline.

‘So… what did you two do? While you were there.’

I had to fight the shit-eating grin that threatened to stretch my cheeks.

‘Nothing much.’

‘I’m serious, Richard. What did you do? You can tell me.’

‘I’ve already told you. Nothing much.’

There was a strange delight being pulled from his frustration with me. Bunny could have his schemes and his secrets, that he hid from me. He could have made a fool out of me and Sharon and many other, different people before I even appeared on his horizon. But then, on that pitiful, rocky beach, I was the one with power, the knowledge for which we thirsted. So as pushy as he was, when he came closer to me with that nauseating, sweet smile and asked me the same question a several more times, I did not grow tired or less satisfied with giving him the same answer.

‘You are not a very good friend, you know that, Richard Papen?’

I noticed that recently all of them started to call me by my full name, just like she always did. However strange it was, it also gave me a sense of belonging. Now there was a patch on me, left by her, that they identified me by. It wasn’t a nickname that would showcase their attachment or affection towards me, but still, somehow it was something that distinguished me from the crowd of other, bland first and last names of other pupils at Hampden.

‘Oh, come on! Don’t make me beg you!’

I backed away from him, letting the grin to bloom on my face. I shrugged, mimicking his signature, disinterested gesture. He snapped his fingers at me, a knowing look shining in his eyes.

‘Aha! So you did something! I see it in your face, tell me! Tell me now!’

Very clever of him, I thought as I spun on my heel, to see through me, only when I allowed him to. I pushed off the rocky shore and darted forward, giggling away, like a silly little schoolgirl. I don’t know, there was something utterly exhilarating about being in the centre of his attention, the object of his desire, no matter that I was being only used as a vessel for what he truly desired to know. Funny, how much one can grow, hidden in the brilliant shade of another.

‘Even if so, I’m never going to tell you!’

I did not expect Bunny to jump after me, but he did. With all his athletic built and clearly a natural talent and prowess for sports I stood no chance. And yet I gave it my all. Not like in PE in high school, when I would do anything not to participate in the exercises. I pushed my feet into the ground, rhythmically, with focus and strain, hell-bent on gaining an upper hand over that blond-haired bruiser. My breaths caught in my throat, my muscles burned as jumped into the shallow water and circled the boats at bay. Brown, dirty-looking water splashed around me as I forced my knees up to my chest to jump over the water more efficiently. Bunny lunged into the water right after me, cursing and slurring offensive terms on top of his lungs. The stunningly light mop of hair bounced up and down his forehead with every jump he took to get closer to me. He was slowly gaining on me, as my weak puny lungs started to betray me, and ragged breath clogged my airways with every froggy leap around the boats.

‘Richard, you maggot, it’s freezing-fucking-cold!’

I laughed dumbly, and swirled just past him, making a dash back to the shore. As I run, I looked back over my shoulder to see him tumbling behind me. My tongue darted out to mock him. A mistake. Because as I was focused on my childish antics, one of my feet slipped disastrously over some particularly moist rocks. And as in one second, I was faster than Mercury himself, swiftly manoeuvring almost above of the uneven plain of the beach, in the next I was lunging at it, hands first, pebbles digging into my skin, ripping it to shreds. Behind me, Bunny howled a triumphant roar. As if the pain of hitting a rocky, sharp shore wasn’t enough, seconds after I did so, another, much heavier body pushed me further down. White-hot pain soared up my spine and crawled into my lungs and two strong arms snaked around my shoulders and throat, forcing my head up.

‘Now, you’ll sing everything to me, nice and easy, won’t you, Richard?’

His hot breath fanning my ear, rocks digging into my chest and thighs, the weight of his body growing more and more precarious, the longer he pushed into me. I could feel on my back how the muscles of his torso strained, and between my legs, how his own brushed down on them, hiking my trousers up, as I writhed helplessly in his ironclad grip. And for a second, just for the tiniest morsel of time, a scene flashed before my eyes. Two different bodies, one astral, white, the other terribly nocturnal, crumpled together, gripping at each other’s bodies in a way that was eerily similar to the twist of Bunny’s fists. Something, like a slime or oil slid from the back of my throat and plopped into my stomach.

‘How’s it gonna be, huh? Will you sing?’

Blood rushed into my head, filling it with a low, systematic buzz. Somehow, I did not find the courage to writhe and struggle against his hold, the quick flash of memory burning on my corneas. I fear, as the oxygen started to alleviate from my lungs, and my neck started to strain with acidic pain, craning unnaturally between Bunny’s strong arms, that only seconds divided me from screaming everything to him. Betraying her and just singing to him all that was there to be sung. Just so I could breathe again, just so I could drag myself from beneath his blazing-hot, bronze-tangled body. And when that moment finally approached, when my lips parted and a feint, but eager rasp for air filled the space between us two, a quiet drag of rocks put an end to all of it. Suddenly, Bunny’s hold on me weakened, his arms slid down to my shoulders and his weight seemed a little bit less forced. He did not roll off me, but his body relaxed and did not seem to be pushing at me anymore.

Two bare feet came into field of my vision. Pale, slim, very graceful, although dirtied with forlorn grains of sand and marine sort of flora. A cold, stern voice followed, and the breath I seemed to regain before, once again escaped me.

‘What are you two doing.’

Henry gazed at us, or rather, graced us with a distant glare from the altitude of his station. His face serious and pulled tight, even more so than usual, hair wet from the constant drizzle sticking to his face like seaweed or tentacles of a dead octopus. He run his fingers through that damp main of his and gathered the mist from the glasses, sightly crooked on his nose, with a shaky, reddened hand. We could only watch, too dumbstruck by his sudden appearance to think of any kind of response. I don’t know why Bunny stayed silent, I for one, felt shame mixed with an astral kind of fright gripping at my throat and twisting my stomach, rendering me unable to speak. I saw him… I saw him then, in those positions… the daft, wet body before me was the same of that nocturnal, divine from the night before. The small shards of glass lodged in the wool of his coat, the same glass that from which I drank. The shallow cuts on his fingers and the deep one in the middle of his palm, covered by a long and very white Band-Aid, the same ones I saw bleed not so many hours before.

‘I asked you a question. What are you two imbeciles doing?’

Bunny was the first one to budge. With a sweet, almost infantile voice, in which I could plainly hear that dumb grin stretching his features wide into a smiling moon.

‘Nothing dearest, just having a friendly chat, isn’t that right, Richard?’ His elbow dug into my ribs, and I nodded without much conviction. “See? Now, why don’t you go count some rocks, so we could continue?’

If stares could kill, Bunny would be lying on me dead. And if they could incinerate, he would be not weighting on me at all, for his body would be pure dust.

‘Why won’t you go and do that for me?’

Bunny shifted on my back, somehow unsettled with Henry’s tone. Strangely, on any other day that kind of exchange would go unnoticed between those two, their frisky and stern attitudes playing off each other, today though, was much different. Henry’s aura screaming not disinterest, but quietly fuming with cold anger. The dark frown on his otherwise impeccable forehead, forcing me to draw a conclusion that he had overheard our little chat and after concluding whatever he had to conclude from it, he came to us to straighten things out. Quick contractions of his fists mirroring that of a beating heart. For a second, when he leaned forward, and a deep shadow crossed his face, I thought that their final grip might close on that green scarf of Bunny’s, but no. a sharp scream cut through the air from behind us. Something between a screech of a seagull and scared whine of a feline.

‘Ma belle!’

Another scream followed in a loud, but much more melodic response. And that feminine, honeydew voice seemed to have shaken the whole firmament.

‘Mon chat! Mon Nero fougueux!’

Like a thunder it cracked between me, Henry and Bunny and in the matter of seconds Bunny was scrambling off me and standing straight up, hauling my disoriented, limp body from the ground right with him. Forcing me onto my own two feet, he dragged me with purpose and decision towards the source of our disruption. My coat shrieked, stretched by his dragging hand, me seemingly following the material, silently praying for it not to tear.

There wasn’t a faster casual walker than Edmund in that moment, when he yanked me up every three seconds so that I wouldn’t fall face first to the ground once again. Maybe Henry, but I could not be the judge of that, because when I looked back at him, to check his expression, he was gone, his black coat nowhere to be see on the rocky plain of the beach.

What I could see thought, when I returned to facing forward, was a volatile little silhouette surrounded with a pale swirl of a dress tugged mercilessly by the air currents, conjoined with a large tippet, similarly mistreated as it danced the dangerous line of being tugged of her neck at any minute and a long coat that whirred on the wind constantly catching at the spokes of the silver collapsible, she was riding. One hand, safely covered by a glove, raised to the air, waving desperately, as if to catch our attention. No need. She could’ve rolled on the beach without a word and all our eyes would be pinned on her regardless.

With a grace of a ballerina, she jumped off the bike, tossing it promptly onto the pavement and run, giggling, straight into the outstretched arms of Francis, who just in two jumps found himself at her side. They fell into an encompassing embrace and screamed something at each other, although I could not understand a word of it, for all the cut-away snarls. It was as if they had not seen each other for ages, although, in fact, they had, just that morning. Only singular words could be entangled from that onslaught of nonsense, such as triathlon, gold-medal, Olympic sportswoman, and something that bordered on ducking fire or fucking tired. Even from where I stood, I could see her reddened cheeks like the ripest of apples and sweet nose that seemed to be running, because she constantly nudged it with the back of her hand.

‘So, bike, huh?’ I almost forgot about Bunny, but with that remark his importunate existence came once again into the plain of my consciousness. I gazed at him, sideways, tasked the hand that he had tossed around my shoulders and came to a surprising conclusion, that all of a sudden, he seemed to have shrunk. And his hair wasn’t as luminescent as I thought before. Rather, a dirty shade of gold. And his muscles did not seem as rippling as they did, when he had laid on me.

‘So it would seem,’ I said, picking his arm off myself, pinching the cuff of his coat in-between two fingers. With a swift motion I stepped away from him and forward, beaconed to do so, by those pearly sounds elicited before me.

‘Where are you going, hey?!’

‘To count some rocks.’

And I was off, almost soaring towards her. Despite being away from her only for about two hours, I already longed for her, for all that she had to offer. That laugh, those stares, the cynicism, sarcasm, the know-it-all tone. We walked together to Hampden that morning. Conquered every hill and valley the snow had forged and heroically crawled up to the school premises, whining in the process like wounded animals. She did not seem to be moved at all by the events of the previous evening. What’s more, she did not seem to acknowledge that what I saw happened at all, and after chatting with her for a while I started to question the legitimacy of my own recounting. But her face and body betrayed her in every way. She walked slowly, somehow crooked, as if she was walking off a big soar, her lips shined sweetly like fresh cherries, slightly swollen and her hands, twins to Henry’s bore the markings of shattered glass. She however did not cover them, as he did, rather wore them with silent, challenging pride. And when we reached Julian’s class, and she sat down, unwrapped herself from the coat and the shoal, from beneath the soft curve of her cleavage peaked a reddened halo of teeth, like an obscure broach it mocked at anyone who dared to stare. And oh, did they stare. Most of all Bunny, who during the lecture seemed to be absolutely hypnotised by that jagged mark. Francis smirked at the sight of it, even commented on it, as his ling, bony fingers grazed over her skin, pushing her to shiver at his cold touch.

‘Quelle belle broche tu as. Ou avez-vous faufile des framboises sur vous-même?’

She shot him that look, the cold, unimpressed, unamused look she, oh so often, reserved for Bunny and his antics. Francis only laughed, and run his finger over her chest, withstanding the blazing glare like a champ.

Camilla and Charles seemed indifferent to it, but their eyes darted from time to time to it, as if to check if that blatant expression of lewdest abandon and distaste was still there. They tried their utmost to look unbothered, but I could see that vicious, judgmental spark in both their eyes. And no matter how beautiful or alluring Camilla appeared to be with that slight frown and purse of her delicate, rosy lips, I could not help but to feel somehow offended at the way she glared at my accomplice. There was no way for me to stop the churning of my stomach even when her eyes darted upwards and hid slightly beneath the soft arches of her brows. I had always thought that beauty trumps everything; age, knowledge, experience, honour and all that is sacred. I thought that something so feeble yet breath-taking should always be regarded as the most valuable asset of a person, precisely for the volatile, fickle nature of the quality. And in that aspect Camilla reigned over her tenfold. There was no denying it, with her rose cheeks, short, golden locks, and those beautiful, soft lips not many people could point to themselves and say that their beauty surpassed her. I’m thinking, actually, that only Aphrodite herself could do it, and only for the inborn tendency for vanity of the Devine. And yet, with all that knowledge, and emotions roaring a tempest inside my chest, when I saw Camilla regarding my Diogenes with that slightly mocking, steel-grey stare, I had to press my lips into a painfully thin line to prevent myself from barking at her. It was a vile, unwelcomed and strangely foreign emotion, to be so defensive over a person like her. Overwhelmed with the intensity of my need to protect her, to stick to her side like a faithful companion, to protect her neck from the sharp canines of judgment, I trained my eyes on the other side of the class, to the real object of my ire.

Henry was the only one truly uninterested with the whole raspberry business. Or at least he seemed not to be, majorly, because the whole plane of reality did not bother him at all as well. Absentmindedly, he just scratched the surface of his pulpit with one finger, closely observing the smallest trace of the destruction he was bringing onto the seasoned oak. Like a catatonic or a shadow of himself he did just that, and nothing else. His darkened eyes bore into the poor desktop with such intensity and fervour I truly started to fear for the varnished wood. Only once did he manage to tear himself from the tedious task of vandalism, somewhere between the mention of Thucydides’ trap and Bunny’s remark on how America is the modern-day Athens. As if shaken out of trance, he jolted and scoffed, almost simultaneously with her. Their eyes crossed and in an instant the air in the class seemed to drain. His head fell to his chest in a shameful gesture of a kid that broke their mother’s favourite vase. If Julian hadn’t spoke to him then, he might’ve broken down, or at least that’s what it looked like to me. I knew I saw a small, wet drop hit the inside of his glasses when he hung his head down.

‘Why are you scoffing, Henry? Do you not think America to be the greatest military power, naval power, of our time?’

That seemed to rouse him a little bit, although not enough to ignite the fire that alighted him every time topics like that came to play in our classes. Maybe because she turned sideways to face Bunny, rather than him. When he spoke, his tone was flat, drained of anything. Not even his usual snarky attitude shined through the thick cover of numbness present in his very posture, his face, his miserable, reddened waterlines. His words, void of his signature attitude sounded utterly unconvincing, as if he was forced to spew them out loud.

‘Oh, no. I am sure, that America, more than any other country deserves to be called a Hegemon, or even, the hegemon of our civilisation. But is It rational to compare it to ancient Athens?’

‘What do you mean?’

Julian seemed intrigued, while Bunny only rolled his eyes at that, as if he had already heard that argument repeated on end before. His eyes darted to her, and mine did as well, surprised to find her almost beat-red and with lips pressed so tight they appeared as a white, ghostly blemish on her face. She fisted her dress at her knees with a passion of a person undergoing a herculean effort.

Intrigued I glanced back to the shadowy figure that remained in the corner of my eye. To my surprise, Henry was still digging at the desktop, now with newfound ferociousness, his eyes digging stubbornly into her hunched back, hurrying with an explanation, as if his words were the only thing that could get to her, a girl sitting only two sits away from him.

‘Don’t you think it a tad bit ridiculous to compare that dirty slum, that parody of a country, a colossus whose clumsy steps smother its citizens, whose greedy hands grasp and tear at anything in its proximity – more oil, more gold, more power, more influence – to the cradle of democracy and free-thinking? Is it not ludicrous to compare that semi-liberal, fundamentally flawed gendarme to the beautiful muse of culture and military art? How can we call a cheap copy of one thing its new form?’

Something in the monotony of his voice resounded with such eerie, gloomy feel and sacred conviction, there was no other way but to read them as pure spite. I could not figure though, at whom that venom was directed. Usually, when a snake spits its venom out, the target is clear, big, obvious. Not this time. Bunny was the instigator of the discussion – he mentioned the comparison. But he was not the one at whom Henry’s eye were digging at so feverishly. He was not the one Henry’s words were directed at. Up to the point when she gritted her teeth and exhaled through her nose, with an exasperated impatience, I could not understand what his motive was.

‘America is a republic,’ she’d said, patient, although clearly balancing on a thin line between angry whisper and a shout. ‘The design of the founding fathers, no matter what we think about them and their legacy, accounted for the flaws and inborn malice of the humankind. They prepared the ground for a great, strong, and yes, militarized nation to rise and be a power like no other. To control the seas, and be the source of new, liberal thoughts, just like Athens were. So no, I don’t think it ridiculous, actually.’ With a sharp inhale, she interrupted whatever though Henry might’ve had, as she continued, her words suddenly rapid and furious. It was strange, so strange to see her, shaking her head, gripping at her knees, as if restraining herself, cheeks red and clearly hot, eyes dug deep into the pale, disoriented orbs of Bunny, while Henry clawed more and more viciously at the desk, virtually begging her back with his eyes to turn. Like a chase in which she was the prey, he chased her, but contrary to the conventional understanding of a hunt, she was with the power there. He might’ve provoked her, how, don’t ask me, I suppose that the topic of America came before in one of their debates and left a particularly sour taste in her mouth, but she was the one who would decide if she ever wanted to have a real dialogue with him. She was the one to decide, if he was going to receive, what he so desperately tried to squeeze from her. ‘Whatever Enlightenment dictated them, stemmed from antiquity, so what you deem a cheap copy, is in all truth, its upgraded, modernized version.’

Henry scoffed again, only his face did not shift one bit, giving him a strange look of an animatronic.

‘Upgraded? How does one upgrade perfection? How does one change the unchangeable?’

As always, the two of them locked themselves inside their own world and did not let any of us in. not even Julian, who was now hoovering close to his cathedra, wringing his hands in a helpless gesture. Normally, he would be a moderator in that kind of discussion, not today though. Not on the day the emotions of the two disputants were at their zenith. Julian opened his mouth a few times, but neither Henry, nor she let him squeeze even the slightest whine in. so he just stood before us, tightening and loosening up his jaw, like a fish fresh out of water.

‘And what is so unchangeable in Ancient Greece, so remarkable and unquestionably unique it simply cannot be replicated?’

‘Simple – the way of living. The culture. War. You seldom see genius strategists making their names on the battle fields, brilliant formations forming for the first time in the history, new plans appearing and ensuring a sure end to the grey mass of opponents. No, you no longer see things like that, there is no finesse left in this world. All they know is mindless destruction.’ His voice stayed levelled, calm, void. If someone were simply to listen to that exchange, they would surely take Henry for the rational, normal side of the exchange, and her, for the crazed, manic and irrational. Watching them though, added another interesting depth to the conversation. The way they looked gave it all away. Mainly Henry.

‘Ugh!’ We all jumped up when she slammed her fists right into her thighs, a loud slap filling the whole room. ‘Do you not understand? That is precisely the point! The nature of a human, the nature of war remains ever unchanging, what changes however is its character. And that’s what America is doing now with the legacy of antiquity. They take ands modernize it. The concepts – hard and soft power, hegemony, the balance of power – those are terms that had already been existing for thousands of years already and America merely adapted them. That’s why they’re called the Athens of the modern world. Because of their massive potential and the modernization of old laws.’

‘Frankly, I don’t see the correlation. The barbaric state will always be it. Barbaric. Nothing to compare to Athens.’

Her head snapped back at him, finally, fury mixed with utter betrayal, as if they had been talking about it previously, and now, he had behaved in the most disloyal manner possible.

‘Take a book in hand why don’t you, before spewing nonsense like that.’

‘I don’t see why should I. Comparing America to Athens is like comparing, I don’t know… Moscow to Rome. Are you trying to tell me, you see Moscow as the third Rome?’

His eyes shined with unkept triumph, as she finally, in a moment of particular agitation turned to him. I saw a battle won, and not in her favour, she did as well. It was not a battle of wits, nor was it a battle for who had been in the right.

‘I suppose, with a certain influx of money every savage could manage to become, what did you say, a power? Yes, power, to a certain degree. It is the finesse that America lacks in, and what Athens had an abundance of, that makes the two so different, and in turn, incomparable.’

Awful anger flashed in her eyes, when those words had left his lips, but nothing more than that managed to get through her impeccable defences. Something like a cool drizzle sprinkled onto her face when their eyes crossed, and suddenly no battle mattered, she as not interested in prolonging that skirmish.

‘Mayhaps. Pardon me, please.’

She then rose to her feet, hurt and disappointment painted across her stern face, excused herself from the lecture and disappeared from the room, only to return fifteen minutes later, her hands shaky and wet, snow on her collar, pieces of ice, like the broken glass from the night before, in her hair. A chitty, one passed first through Francis, and then through me, laid already on her desk, facing down, so no one but her could read what Henry had scribed on it. To his biggest dismay, she but crumbled the paper and pushed it deep into the pocket of her coat, dismay written all over her face.

The rift between them was palpable, so much so, even Bunny managed to pick up on it. After Julian ended the class, a bit earlier than he usually would, the blond boy run up to her, frisk air in his hair, rosy blush on his cheeks. I walked with her, but he did not seem to notice me, only her.

‘Look at the snow, huh?’

His hands grasped at her elbow, exuding a shiver, almost like a visceral, whole-body reaction from her, that he must’ve taken as a sign of good fortune, for the dumb smile on his lips only widened at that.

He offered to take her to see the sea, in order to relax a bit, because, as he mentioned, she seemed rather tense. He also offered birdwatching and playing in the snow in the least court or alluring way possible, pointing out amongst many things, that white would look marvellous on her face. Henry overheard it, and in two sweeping steps he was next to Bunny, glaring daggers into his skull.

‘May you repeat?’

His pale, cut-up hand dug into Bunny’s duster, wrinkling it beneath its iron hold. The boy hissed through his teeth and jerked his shoulder forth, successfully freeing it. He however did not manage to free himself of Henry, as his massive, lean form came into the other’s space, knocking him further from her.

‘Nothing, really nothing. I was just asking our girlie here to go and see the sea.’

‘Splendid,’ Henry’s pursed lips indicated that this idea was anything but splendid to him. His feet dragged along the frozen ground with a bone-chilling shriek. ‘Shall we all go then?’ While his lips almost brushed the shell of Bunny’s ear, his eyes darted impatiently to her, still standing amongst us with a sour look on her face. Henry’s eyes catching that and challenging for more. ‘I can only suppose the snow has already covered the shore; one would be most unfortunate to miss that view.’

I thought she intended on refusing him, but no, she just nodded her head and with a slight gesture of a hand she summoned Francis to her side.

‘Mon coeur, be a deary and call Charles and Camilla over here. We’re going to the beach.’

And so we went, the six of us by car, she on her collapsible bike.

As I went up to her, leaving Bunny in the dust, alone and clearly disturbed with my response I felt somehow lighter on my feet, more daring, courageous. She and Francis had been quarrelling over something in that slightly joking, bordering on rude manner they both used in each other’s proximity. Francis was now jumping around, with one hand raised to the sky, fist high and whitened from the effort, as his other hand was trying to push down her tightly wrapped arms from around his waist.

‘Heya,’ I’d said, not really bothered by their little spar, as in the case of those two, fooleries like that were commonplace. Francis grinned at me, his eyes winking from behind his spectacles. First one eye, then the other and then both at the same time.

‘Richard! Thank heavens you’re here! Listen I need you to hold on to that…’

He leaned over to me, mocking a gesture that would suggest a handing-over of some sorts, but as soon as she darted towards his soaring hand, it had once again shot up to hights she was not able to reach. With that new imbalance to her posture, he somehow managed to wriggle himself out of her hold and jump onto a nearby bench.

‘Aaah, bad doggy! Richard, hold her!’ and he straightened out a piece of crumbled paper from his fist, unravelling it over his head with a frown of deepest thoughtfulness, as if presenting a sacred script. Green ink shimmered briefly amongst the many creases he was trying to iron between his pressed palms. Without thinking I jumped forward and gathered her into my hold, pressing her hard, slithering body into mine.

‘Richard, you traitor! Et tu Brute contra me?!’ there was no true sense of betrayal in her voice, so I did not loosen my arms, just stumbed backwards a bit from the effort it took me to hold up straight with her kicking at me, even with playful fervour.

‘Good, Richard, good! At lest we know at whose side your loyalties lay!’

The great priest Francis flaunted his hands about in a substantial expression of praise. I scoffed, although laughter climbed upwards my throat right after the snarl.

‘At my own side, that is. Now, read the damned chitty, or I let her loose.’ And as if to confirm my words, I mockingly tossed her to the side, never unwrapping my arms from her midsection, but making it look as if I intended to do so. She giggled uncontrollably, when her feet dangled in the air for a second, and Francis rose his hands in a defensive gesture.

‘Fine, fine. Just don’t let go of her.’

‘Scared, are we?’

‘Most definitely. Now shut up, I’m reading.’ He cleared his throat, straightened his back, and took upon the most serious of expressions, just like she did, when she recited poems. I wonder which one stole this pompous tactic of reciting from whom.

Her efforts to wriggle her way out of my hold subsided. She had not read yet, to my understanding, the note passed onto her from Henry, and now her curiosity took a hold over any other emotion she might’ve felt.

‘My dearest, oh that’s sweet, he calls you dearest… Don’t look at me like that, I’m reading, am I not? Anyways, my dearest, I am not writing this note to remind you of my sentiments, which are still the source of my greatest agony and joy, and which you decided to disregard with as little though as possible, but to offer a truce. Come with me to Largs today, as soon as the class ends, and let us talk, like the two rational, intelligent adults I’m sure we are. Signed – Henry.’

Her palms wrapped around mu forearms, as if looking for some kind of support. I gladly granted it to her by pulling her even closer, letting her back rest against my chest. In my embrace, when her face was hidden from my gaze by the tempest of her frizzed hair, she felt surprisingly small, no matter the bronze weaves of her muscles and the impossible, palpable power that slept in them.

‘Fucker…’ She muttered and Francis snorted, expression of pure amusement written all over his face.

‘Who? Henry? And you make that discovery only now?’

She waved her hand dismissively, completely disregarding what he had said.

‘No, not Henry. Bunny. That fucker must’ve read the chit when you passed it to me. That’s why he asked me to come to the beach.’

I shrugged, still holding her, because she made no effort to loosen my hold.

‘And what of it? It’s not like he had a real chance at succeeding at seducing you either way.’

I could feel her deep sigh right in my chest. When her back expanded and pressed against my sternum, it was as if warm honey dripped right against the bridge of my chest and settled delightfully in my stomach.

‘Oh, Richard… It is not the matter of whether he read it or not, or if he had a chance with me or not. It is the fact that he tried to use something… dear to me and Henry.’

The sweet honey froze into an uncomfortable block of ice in my stomach. I cleared my throat, flabbergasted.

‘The beach is dear… to you and…?’

Francis scoffed again, although now he seemed irritated, more than anything. His long, pale fingers gripped around the chitty, as if it was the source of all evil in this world.

There were some things, the beach, the Athens-America debate, the coffee, the plants. So many things that I noticed but never seemed to grasp at the deeper matter of them. Like the sea, they talked about, it was all murky and dark for me, but no matter how dense and blind I was at that time, I could see that both she and him, Henry, they were woven into the fabric of their lives. Francis knew that as well, and he did not seem to like it, no matter how tragically romantic it had seemed to me.

‘Bullshit!’

‘Fran, dear…’

‘No, mon framboise, I call bullshit. And you wanna know why? Because there is nothing dear, I say nothing, that might be connected to him. That… that reversed Midas… he ruins things. Most importantly, he ruins you.’

Francis tossed his head around in an exhibition of utter frustration and anger. His hair flew around his head in a brilliant, fiery halo and if he did not look the way he looked, angular, gaunt and flamboyant in that pretty, feminine way I would think that Nero himself had come to us with a cithara in his hand to torture us with his singing. She in turn, averted her gaze from that display.

‘You know what? Look, this is how much I care, and by the way, how much you should care about your Artemisium and any other beaches in this world, if the thought of them comes with the thought of him.’

Francis pulled something out of the pocket of his coat, a small package in the shade of bottle green with an indigenous man in full head of plums and a big, red letters right next to his floating head – RED MAN.

‘You lot wanna see a magic trick? I had learned it recently, it is the most entertaining party stunt, or so I hear.’

He gathered some of the brownish shavings from the back and with an expertly trained hand, he sprinkled it onto the paper folded slightly between the index finger and thumb, then rolled it all into a neat tube, pressing some sort of small, white sponge into the folds. Then, the green bag got switched in his hand to a lighter, and before any of us could react in any sort of way, he lit it all. Blaze of fire lit his face and a tall pole of light shot into the air. A strained shriek escaped her mouth, as she jolted forward, straining my arms, not agile enough though to break their hold. I just tilted forwards and staggered ahead a few steps.

‘Now, bear witness, Nero fiddles while Rome burns!’

The flaming roll-up looked like a cigarette, and Francis inhaled it from the other end like a cigarette, but it most certainly did not burn like one. The tall flame fed off the parchment paper, so different from the usual rolling one, rose higher and higher as it run across the length of the provisory cigarette. She fell limp against me, as the flames reached the halfway point of the paper, and the flames kissed softly the twin, red strands of Francis’ hair with an angry hiss.

‘Oh, you are a monster! A monster I tell you! Put it out and give it back to me this instant!’

With a deep inhale he let a puff of dark, fuming smoke out of his nostrils.

‘Quamvis nunc tuum consilium sit et votum celeriter reverti me… yada, yada, yada.’

The blaze of the cigarette reached his knuckles, and he threw the butt to the ground with eager distaste.

Dusted piece of ashy paper, no longer than three millimetres, that’s what was left from the note Henry had sent her. It sizzled miserably on the wet rocks for a bit more, until the last slither of life escaped it and floated up, to dissolve into the mist surrounding us.

‘Some party trick it was, Fran,’ I said, eyebrows raised. ‘You just smoked a fag, that’s all.’

‘And that’s where you are mistaken, Richard Papen dearest, I just made the note disappear. Hence, I really did present you with a trick – a disappearing trick!’

I breathed a laugh, although brief, because in the corner of my eye I saw a dark silhouette moving about, stalking closer to us, as it moved up and down, across the beach. I let go of her. She turned to me, cheeks red, nose almost purple from the cold and tasked me with a questioning look.

‘Well, you do not look much bothered by the arson we just witnessed.’

The mischievous twist of her rosy lips gave me an idea of a playful sprite giggling at me.

‘He’d already read it, so it is no difference to me. Chitty or no chitty, its contents are safely stored here.’

She knocked on her temple. Francis turned on his hills and jumped down to level with us.

‘Ya, run off you mouth all you want Moneta, there’s no way you memorised all that after just one reading.’

‘Oh-hooh, I bet you real life moolah, I did.’

In the corner of my eye, the dark silhouette moved closer, now digging through its pockets, emptying them with a fervour, small, big, shiny and matte rocks falling around his limping feet, until he found a rock that suited his tastes and closed it in the palm of his hand.

To my right, the two of them did not seem to notice. Shaking their heads at each other, widening their eyes with silly smiles plastered on their faces, they mocked each other.

‘Real money, you say. How much?’

‘How much you’ve got on your person, smarty.’

‘Four hundred and fifty. Are you prepared to pay such a salty price?’

‘I won’t need to pay a broken penny, since everything. Is. In. my head. Engraved.’

‘Then cite away, the floor is yours. And my four hundred and fifty pounds. If you’ll manage to prove to me that what you’re saying is actually what has been written on that piece of paper.’

One punch from her sent him few jumps back, grasping at his forearm and wincing in discomfort. Her giggle got swiftly replaced with a deep inhale and the stiff stillness of her body. From the way her eyes twinkled I knew she was readying herself to recite. As Henry got now closer and closer in my field of vision, I clutched her elbow quickly, maybe too swiftly because she scrunched her nose.

‘Better not now.’

She looked at me, incredulously, but then her gaze fell somewhere over my shoulder and her eyes took in a look of cold understanding.

‘Thank you, Richard.’

Her soft hand patted me gently on the shoulder, then drifted down to my hand, her skin very cold and very stiff, like marble, the veins on the back of it strangely similar to the purple and gold streaks in many fancy, stone floors. Francis threw a glance our way, massaged his jaw as if it was sore and kicking a rock, he sulked away, eyes full of mist.

Rocks grated beneath a new set of feet, bare, and I did not have to turn to know, that behind me hoovered the ghostly pale and twisted by torment of Henry Winter. The smell betrayed him. A strong, kind of earthy king of fragrance that made you think of money and men with frozen hearts. My shoulder now took its turn to be held into his grasp, his palm bigger and colder than hers. Shivers run up and down my spine, my stomach turned and swirled, the cold from his body seeping deep into me, into my soul, freezing it worse than the ninth circle of heel could. I felt the air retract from my nape as he took in a dep breath, surely to speak. I acted, before he had the chance to do so, out of fear I must admit it. A fear of being pulled into yet another of their strange, complicated tapestries.

‘Oh, Henry, wonderful to see you. Again. Well, if you excuse me,’ I waved my hands about, slowly stepping away from him, shrugging his hand from my shoulder. ‘I must catch Francis. We have… a big thing… with the, well, Greek. You get it.’

I throttled quickly away, not waiting for him to even respond. I knew I was not the one he came over to talk to. I was not the one he intended to give the small, round and beautifully opal he was turning between his slightly trembling fingers, to. I was not the one he wished to waste his spit on, so I happily spared him the inconvenience.

As I walked away and towards Francis idly, although not very smiley, rolling a cigarette, I took one last look over my shoulder.

Amongst the heavy whitened mists of the beach, two figures stood, once again distant and unsurprisingly divine. Dark and light, inches away with his hand stretched between them, like a dark, shiny with broken glass, woolly bridge, a tiny green stone at the very end of it. His lips moved, although I could not hear nor decipher what he was saying. Her arms were folded over her chest, closed to him, although it was plane and prominent in the slight tilt of her body, she was willing to open. Her eyes begging him for something. His brows feel and then rose multiple times on his forehead, bruising it with deep, long frowns. He spoke slowly, although one could read a strange urgency, from the way his muscles twitched, and his hair swirled about with the sharp moves of his head. He spoke, I could see it even from the distance, with preciseness and devotion I had not seen him throw himself into, even when speaking of Homer. His hand still extended, he continued for quite a long time, with his spectacles sliding off his nose and eyes big like saucers, possessed by an emotion I could not read, but most of all, and most surprisingly, genuine and clearly pure in their intent.

The sea moved in slight, gentle waves behind them, as they lips moved, as their hair swayed in the wind. Camilla and Charles were sitting far behind, but even with those two in the distance, Henry and she seemed strangely isolated. No birds, no sounds, no people, not really in their vicinity, their space. Now it was her turn to speak. From the slight curve of her lips, from the tilt of her head I could tell she was joking, but the joke was soft and sweet, because Henry smiled as well. It wasn’t a thaw that could break the permafrost of Winter, but maybe a small, defrosted creak.

The sound of lighter clicking to life jolted me from my snooping.

‘It’s not nice to spy on others, Richard Papen, is it now?’

Francis’s tone was chirpy and upbeat, his face however remained stone-cold, the laugh in his tone not reaching his eyes at all. I shrugged, ruffled my hair, not quite knowing what to say.

‘A cigarette? I can roll you a real nice one.’

I shook my head, no. In all truth, all I wanted to do was to turn again, to dig my eyes greedily into the two figures, whose proximity I just abandoned. There was a strange, dangerous pull about them. A gravitation that made you sick and disoriented when near, but beaconing you, luring from afar. Like a drug. Francis hummed. From the slight squint of his eyes, I read that he knew, or rather, thought he knew, something that escaped my keen eyes.

‘Well, nonetheless, no snooping around anymore. They’re moving someplace else.’

His lips pursed into a tight, almost apologetic line, as he pointed his cigarette behind me, towards them. And truly, when I turned, I saw them walking away, arm to arm, with a distance between them, that would be considered appropriate, if not the turned head of Henry Winter. Unchangingly enchanted by something in her profile, something I could not see. His nose was sharp in the grey light of the day, his hair shined, not absorbed it, for the first time I saw him, he seemed to be emanating the glow she so often did in his presence.

They stopped at the line where the water met the rocky shore, the waves lazily washing over their feet – his, bare, pale, and hers, clad in some tall, leather shoes. They spoke of something, smiling like good friends… well no. Not friends. They liked each other, but in the grand scheme of things, those two divine creatures, my private little gods, were just… two people in love. Ever since I got to know them, maybe even long before that, and long after. They hid behind their books, their tricks, silly reasons. They thought up those elaborate, frustrating obstacles, and till the end they could not find a way to tear them down. But on that day, on that beach, and for some time after that, till the snow bund the whole of Vermont, and then let it go of its frightful, biting hold, they were happy, and free to love. And they did, they gained some time thanks to that talk they had in Largs, and they clawed at it, tore like a feral cat tears at a curtain, so just to gain a second longer. They had weeks, which is far longer than any other tragic couple from the old texts they both loved so much had. But in my mind, this particular advantage they had, I revel in. Because even with their nonsensical squabbles, and hermetic obsessions, only the other of the two could understand, they were superior to all those whiny aficionados. because they took the step and they talked.

I never got to know what he had told her on that beach. And I never had the pleasure of hearing the joke she told him in response. All I knew and will ever know is that whatever it was, it somehow fitted right in their tapestry, somewhere between the sea, Athens and coffee.

I watched them for the rest of the afternoon with Francis. He smoked a roll-up after roll-up, and I just stood there, my frozen hands deep in my pockets, eyes deep into them. We did not talk much, for we knew why and who we were standing there for.

They had not moved until the sky started to turn from grey to the unpleasant colour of a fresh bruise, and Charles’ whines of cold and discomfort forced us back into the cars, and her, onto her bike. As she waved me off, I saw something glint in her hand. The opal.

#bunny corcoran #charles macaulay #camilla macaulay #francis abernathy #henry winter #henry winter x reader #richard papen #the secret history #afab reader

117 notes · View notes