Rodan's Embrace

Elsewhere Eyes

There's nothing more to it; just those words, but my heart soars at them, at the not-lost, familiar penmanship.

He exists. He was real. All of it was real.

I read his words so many times without blinking that my eyes burn and water. The moment my cheeks are met with the wet feel of false tears, real ones emerge. They plunge down my face and soak the paper. I quickly fold the note and place it in my bosom before rushing to the closet, because that's where he kept his journals. I scramble through the shelving, the doors, the small drawers at the bottom. Stravos' side of the closet was rather bare, though it did gather a good amount of clothing over the years. Finally, one of the larger drawers hesitates when I pull. The trunk emerges into my line of sight. I cannot lift it out of the drawer, but I can open it. And I do.

His scent wafts through the stale must of the closet, and the tears roll and roll down my face and body as I open and read the first journal. All of his words are lovely. He speaks highly of me, and often of his fear that we'll be separated. At first I do not comprehend why this is, but as I go through five years of such volumes—I understand. I understand everything.

When we look up at the moon and the stars together, all is right in the world. She's Ella, and she's my wife. And I cannot let her go. I swear to all the gods that I will never let her go. Even if I must travel a million miles to bring her home, I'll do so.

-Jonah Williams

I cradle the journals to my chest and rock back and forth. Ella Williams. That's who I am. Jonah. His name is Jonah, and Jonah Williams is the man I married. And he will find me. I believe in him. The impossibility of leaving my position is interrupted when the weighted sound of the non-husband man's boots boom through the hall, up the stairs, and stop at the chamber door.

I wipe at my face and scuttle to hide the five volumes I've just read. My side of the closet is full of gowns that brush against the floor, shoes, disorganized and cast-aside corsets. I hurriedly shove the volumes into the drawer behind my own mess. They are much more secure there. I smooth my housedress and brush my hair, then prepare myself to greet my visitor.

His footsteps are uneven. Sloppy and without rhythm. The small note is still clutched in my hand, so I quickly stuff it into my bosom—planning to find a more secure place later. As the metallic click and pop of the key turning in the lock sounds, my spine warps with chills so that I slouch forward and wrap my arms about myself.

My instinct is to hide. To scurry into the corner as I had that first day. But fighting only makes it worse. So instead, with tense muscles and a broken but lightened heart, I sit on the downy bed, awaiting his advances. But he does not make any. He takes his boots off and sits a respectable distance from me at the foot of the bed.

He looks at me, blue eyes blurred with opium or laudanum. "How are you feeling today?" he asks. He's grown gentler, kinder. He tilts his head toward the window and my gut clenches as I realize that I have forgotten to relatch the drapes. But he doesn't appear angered by this. "Look at them all out there. All having the grandest time of their lives, knowing that they'll always have things. But they don't understand that those things can go away just as fast as they acquired them." He sighs. The happy squeals of children running through the lawn echo and float upward so that we can hear them.

He turns back to me, his face fallen. "I... I'm sorry that nothing turned out how we wanted it to."

Every function in my body freezes.

"But Ella, you have to love me. You will love me. I... I love you. And sometimes we have to do things that are painful to us when we love someone so much. Things that might hurt the person we love."