Promises Unkept

Death did them Part.

Eden eyes fluttered open when the racket beyond her sleep became unbearable.

With her body uncomfortably bent, her head on the mattress of Maggie's bed, the first thing she saw was the window across the foot of the bed.

It was raining.

Intense.

Water-droplets were bombarding the glass pane with such loud brutality that she feared the glass would blare up and shatter away.

She got up; the several bones of her neck and back cracking painfully. She had slept on the cold floor all night, which explained why her body had gone numb out of disuse.

Walking to the window, she pulled the curtains on to minimize the din.

Despite this clamor, thankfully, Maggie was sleeping peacefully. The poor girl had been very anxious last night and Eden wanted her to rest anyway.

It had gotten chilly in here, the air. The weather.

Eden walked to the bed and pulled the blanket higher over the sleeping girl. Maggie's hair was a tousled mess.

Eden touched a blond strand of hair from her forehead to push it back but doing so, her fingers brushed across the pale skin of the girl and Eden backed away with a jolt, staring at her fingers.

What even...?

Eden felt like her fingertips had been burnt from the touch.

Was Magpie running fever?

Cautiously, she moved closer to the 'sleeping' figure and touched Maggie's forehead.

She realized then. The unspeakable.

It was not fever. It was something more radical.

The skin was frigid. Frozen.

Eden shook Maggie, summoning her to wake up.

But Maggie was so selfish. Maggie refused to listen. Refused to wake up.

Then other understandings slammed over Eden. Like the lack of rise and fall or any trivial movement on the body. Like the ghastly whiteness of the skin. Like the rolled back eyes. Like the absolute amity of the features.

Like a war had just ended, not in peace but in a lack of sound.

Like a mermaid suddenly forgot how to swim, drowned and settled away in the deep depth of ocean, never to come afloat.

Like an angel, whose wings fell off in the midflight, who fell, and fell and fell so hard, shattered on the rocks, like the drop of water shatters in these rain.

Death came softly. Collected its due, went away softly.

What it left behind, however, was piercingly loud.

It was deafening.

***

It was ten in the morning, raining oceans, and lack of a certain something that got Mrs. Hopkins into wondering of Eden and Maggie's whereabouts.

It was half an hour past ten that Mrs. Hopkins' calm faltered at the prolonged absence of the two.

It was fifteen minutes past that, she asked Carol to go and check for the two.

It was the day of loss.

***

Carol knocked the door of Eden's room, down the servant's quarter but no answer came from within. She fumbled with the doorknob and found it unlocked.