Elysium

Chapter 17: Reunion

The third knocker waited for us to open the door. Brynhilde released Max and wiped away her tears, to not be seen by others in such an emotional mood.

It was Ramez, and he was alone. Neither the twins nor the monkey was with him. I heard and sensed rather than saw the presence of the white steed, Senki, in the darkness behind the Knight. Then I also heard a horse neigh. I thought I saw a white shape out there in darkness, and a couple of dark figures with it. Probably the twins.

"They told me everything", said the Knight before any of us could start about the events of the day. There was something solemn and serious in Ramez's eyes. This time, he seemed to be looking mostly at me, while previously Max had taken up most of his attention. It was not that he ignored Max – he still gave him the kinship smile. It was rather that he saw me differently now.

"I knew it, didn't I?" he muttered. "Had this feeling that things were not alright here. Luckily for us, you were here." He turned his eyes on me, and for the first time I thought he was looking at me as an equal. Yes, that was it. An equal. "That man, Nick... I never really knew him so well."

Brynhilde moved towards the doorway. "I need to go", she said. She managed herself well. An outsider would have had it hard to tell she'd been crying.

"Oh, you're here too", said Ramez to her, pretending he hadn't already seen her in our room, and trying to give her a friendly smile, but I knew he knew. Brynhilde hardly greeted him on her way out. I would soon understand why it was better she left us in such a hurry.

Then Ramez took my hand. "I respect you, Mike", he said. So, I, too, had a nickname from him now. "It was something great you did out there today. You should know. The Princess might not come and tell you, but you should know she appreciated it, too."

"She should", said Roland. "Mikael saved her son's life."

Ramez cast an awkward glance at Roland's bandage. The fact he didn't ask what had happened made it clear to me that he already knew exactly what had happened. I wondered whether it had been him or the Princess herself who had sent Constantine to us for an apology.

"You're right", he said to Roland, very quickly, as if it was just a passing remark, before he rushed to continue to me: "Mikael, there's someone here, who wishes to see you."

My heart started beating faster already before Ramez gave a sign to the darkness and one of the twins escorted a woman to the doorway.

She was Mary Darling.

Her blue eyes were fixated on me. They seemed large, slightly scared. She didn't smile. She was holding her breath. Yet I thought I sensed her breathing. How strange.

She was dressed in clothes I hadn't seen before. A rather simple but elegant dress, beige, with a dark green overcoat hanging from her shoulders. The colour pattern was the same Ramez was wearing. Mary's clothes were all clean and looked new – my guess was Ramez had provided her with brand new dress for this moment, and for convincing me that she had been taken good care of.

But all of that was irrelevant now. I only looked at her face. Her beautiful, good, and kind face, soothing with its mere presence. And perhaps the hands, too, which slowly extended to reach mine, and then held my hands as if she didn't quite believe I was real. Had she, too, been occasionally wondering whether everything was some kind of a dream? Whether I did not actually exist?

She still didn't smile. She was too upset. We took time staring at each other and touching only each other's hands. Mary studied my face intensively, her eyes moving from side to side, as if to say the words her mouth refused to utter. She looked worried. I must have looked petrified, unemotional. Closed out. That was what I usually looked like when my emotions were taking over. I guess it was an ancient mechanism of survival – something that developed particularly for my mother's all-pervasive eye seeking to diagnose me, and later for the nuns who tried to spot the signs of sin in me. Mary was looking for none of those – she was looking for a sign that I recognized her. That I still loved her. I felt bad that my face and body did not reveal such emotions at ease, even when they were real.