As I Lay Dying

Thirty two

1918

The war ended for me with Luke's death.

It felt like the culmination of my four years in hell, as if the entire time was leading to that moment. Something snapped inside me, the way I've grown to accept daily battle for survival in the trenches. The depression, mud and blood. Being controlled, having no freedom or free will.

It was the way they thought his life was theirs to end. Undoubtedly, in the eyes of the law he had to be punished for stabbing an officer... But where were the righteous judges when Darlington was tormenting us in the trenches? Where were they when he forced little Tommy over the top to his death after a night on watch?

Darlington could have done anything, anything at all to us and they didn't care. They took Luke's freedom, his youth and finally his life.

And they've done the same to all of us. When I look round the trenches the eyes that meet mine have hollow depths, the imprint of scars that lay so deeply within that a lifetime wouldn't be long enough to heal them. They've ruined us and they don't care. Our lives belong to them.

Lately I've found myself thinking about my life before the war. I've always looked back with sadness but I yearn evermore for those days. I try to imagine how life would have gone, what decisions I would have made in my first tentative steps into the adult world, if it hadn't all been dictated to me. Luke's death has opened my eyes to something, although I can't put my finger on what it is. All I know is that I suddenly have a realisation, I'm young, I haven't even seen my 22nd birthday, yet I've lived through things men 3 times my age haven't. Doing and seeing terrible, horrific things have been all I've known of the adult world, all I've known of life outside the estate. But I'm still young. I still have a chance at life. War has broken me utterly. I have no idea how to live in the world outside here, I just know I want a chance to do it.

I'm not the only one thinking like this. Rumour has is that a treaty will be signed very soon and it really will all be over. We scarcely dare believe it. We don't admit to each other that we do believe it, false hope has been a friend to all of us for far too long. We tell each other that it's another false alarm, that the Germans will come back from this, that it can't possibly be over.

And yet when we run over the top it's with less passion, less energy. The Germans we encounter have no fight in them, if there is a chance many will surrender. Why wouldn't they? What's the point in dying if the men telling you to do it are about to surrender themselves?

Still we refuse to hope.

But Jimmy has begun to talk more and more about his wedding. Ellen's letters are full of plans. He's started thinking about what line of work he could get, if it's true of course. If. If. That's the only word we seem to say these days.

All around me men are making plans, there's an almost jovial mood amongst many of them. Many others are too far gone, lost in their own minds. I try not to dwell on those.

If the war does end soon, I wonder what I'll do with myself? Many men want to return to the cities for work. I can't imagine anything worse. I want the lush English countryside. The grey skies, the ever present rain.

I've considered writing to Lord Ashbury to ask for my old position back but I've been informed by other soldiers that there aren't many stately homes that haven't lost everything, or given themselves up as hospitals for the wounded. Even the wealthy have suffered. I can't help a smile at the thought of Evie's mothers face as soldiers trample in and out of her home.

I have nowhere to go, so my plan is to follow Jimmy to Yorkshire and see what fate awaits me there.

If I survive. I laughed grimly and joked to Jimmy that it would be a terrible misfortune to die now, I've survived the entire war and it's finally, maybe, coming to an end.

Despite everything, despite the fact I can't believe the end is in sight, I feel something for the first time, for the very first time since Evie left the estate all those years ago.

Hope.

****

1912

"Do you believe you can find redemption if you're truly sorry for what you've done?"

"What do you mean?" I open one eye lazily and glance down at Evie. She's laid on her stomach with her chin resting lightly on my chest. Her slim fingers trace an absent minded pattern as she gazes across the grounds thoughtfully.

It's a grey day and the rain patters softly on the leaves of the oak tree, but it shelters us beneath it as it has done for our entire lives.

"I was reading Crime and Punishment-"

"Again?" I laugh and close my eyes again.

"Yes. You should give it another chance, you know."

"Russian literature is too introspective for me." I grin, knowing that I'm about to receive an impassioned argument back.

"You're wrong." She laughs lightly and bats my chest. "I'm not going to argue with you." She pokes my cheek playfully before continuing. "But I always think when I read it that maybe how guilty he felt redeemed him."

"It didn't bring back the woman he murdered-"

"We all make mistakes Harry-"

"Murder isn't a mistake Evie." I laugh.

"True." She nods. "But do you, do you think that guilt can redeem you?"

"I don't know." I say after a moment. "Maybe. Because if you know what you did was wrong, then you can try to change the part of you that allowed you to make the mistake. I suppose you can be redeemed, but only if you truly want to change and learn from your mistakes. People can change, even the worst of people, but only if they learn from what they've done."

I feel Evie nod against me before falling to silence. The rain increases and I listen to the dull patter of it as she hums to herself.

"I couldn't live with myself if I murdered someone." Evie says suddenly. I can't help a snort of laughter at the thought of Evie on a murderous rampage.

"I don't think you'll ever have to worry about feeling guilty for murdering someone." I laugh again and she grins down at me.

"What could you never live with?"

"What?" I raise an eyebrow at the jumbled question.

"I couldn't bear to live if I killed someone. What's the worst thing you could imagine doing? The thing that you'd never be able to redeem or forgive yourself for?"

"Losing you, of course."

****

AN- Dedicated to xloverharryx thank you sooo much for reading and all your comments! ❤️

We're about 7-8 chapters away from the end of this story 😢 I always mourn the end of stories.

I've got another one ready to publish straight after. If you've enjoyed this, please check out my other stories, Ghost and Boy on the Bench. I know a lot of people jump straight to Iridescent as it has a lot of reads but that's the first I ever wrote and it needs editing badly... I prefer the other two personally!

Thanks so much for reading and coming on this little journey with me ❤️