The Keepers' Evil

Seventeen: One always has a choice

Song- Me and the devil: Soap&skin

"One always has a choice. I'm as guilty as the worst of my family."

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A month ago after Feldcroft:

"Can I-" Madeleine's appearances at my door were too frequent for someone who wasn't utterly terrified of their own company. Madeleine was scared of her shadow strangling her in the night, scared of her pillow suffocating her in the early hours of the morning when the moon still shone and the sun was hidden with clouds as dark as the ones in her mind. Madeleine was petrified of being alone.

"Yes." Every god damn time.

Sebastian hadn't returned to the castle like we had expected him to, and his whereabouts were a constant strain on my once serene mind. Madeleine was scared of being alone, but I wondered if she was constantly more terrified of him being alone than herself. Sebastian held Madeleine in a strange existence that they both found peaceful because they knew no other way of living, they knew no means of real peace.

I didn't need sight to feel her shoulders slump and her eyes droop the second she shuffled beside me, and I didn't need particular intelligence to understand what my heart's drop meant when I smiled at her warmth beside me.

Although she kept her distance, like a perfectly perfected routine, her fingers reached for me, and her eyes wouldn't settle until they found mine. I leant her an arm, as if I were giving her a lifeline, as if it could stop her from floating into dreams she didn't want to be in. And she smiled, of course she did, like another way to solidify the truth that I had put down to illusion.

It was no lie that breathing the same air as Madeleine seemed to leave me in a strange, muddled, state of ease, like just the feeling of her small fingers around my wrist ameliorated every evil and alleviated every fear. Madeleine made me question whether I was terrified of what Sebastian would do with his life, or if I was terrified of what Sebastian would do to her. It was in my nature to take responsibility for Sebastian, but it had always been a sore point and something I had detested, but I found myself longing to take responsibility for her safety, for her happiness.

I pondered too deeply whether I was using Anne as a shield, a distraction, for what I knew to be true, but I was too panicked to admit that Anne's invaluable ardour for us wasn't as precious in my heart as everyone assumed it was, and that was breaking my soul in two.

Madeleine's grip on my wrist slowly abandoned the summery warmth of my arm, the sleep in her eyes and the tiredness in her mind finally linking hands to let her collapse under the weighted blanket of torpidity. Madeleine could never catch up with all the sleep she lost trying to fight her way through the agonising allegories of her past, but knowing someone would still be there in the morning seemed to settle her soul.

The distance was a good thing, because it meant that the connection wasn't formed, we weren't linked, and I couldn't let my mind and heart converse to tell tales of a love I couldn't let myself feel. But the distance chilled her bones, and in her helpless state of sleep, she shivered. Though she didn't wake, the solicitude for her that seemed to leak into my bloodstream from the tiny touch of her fingertips couldn't rest until the simple state of being warm held her close.

"You win, again," I whispered as I threaded my arm over her spine to gently tug her quiescent limbs into mine. I wasn't entirely sure that my mumble was to Madeleine, but maybe rather to my own heart. I could feel the soft smile to my cheeks, I knew it was there, but I could also feel the intense burn to my conscience that told me there was no going back from this.