He hesitated. His mother had told him that the girls witnessed Loveless dragging Rosalie away, and he regretted not being there to shelter them from it. He was too heartbroken to do anything. Even now, he doubted his own self, his own ability to change anything.
“Yes. Yes, it does,” he finally replied.
“Who was he?”
“He… is someone very close to Rosalie.” He chose not to tell them the whole truth.
How could he tell the girls that the man explained himself to be Rosalie’s husband, the husband she never mentioned to any of them. It all sounded so incredulous, even now. He couldn’t believe it, and yet, she was gone.
“Is it someone she loves?” Cecilia wondered, fixing the hair on her dolly a little.
“Well…” Edmund sighed. “He should be.”
“It didn’t seem that way,” Madeline’s little head always connected the right dots, reaching on her own the conclusions that others tried to keep hidden from her. “I don’t think he is someone she loves. Rosalie would never love a man like that. He seems like a bad man.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Edmund remembered the feeling of dread that washed over him upon meeting Mr. Loveless.
He still couldn’t forget the damned cat-like eyes piercing him from beneath bushy eyebrows, or that horrible figure that waved around with coarse hands as he explained his business.
“Yes, a very bad man,” Cecilia agreed. “Why would anyone want to go with a bad man anywhere?”
Edmund just listened. One of the puppies approached him playfully and licked his hand. He smiled. He petted the puppy’s head softly. A little whining was heard, as the puppy skipped away.
“Why indeed?” Edmund wondered, repeating half of Cecilia’s question.
Rosalie wouldn’t have gone with that man willingly, whether he was her husband or not. The look of dread in her eyes assured him of that.
“Please, talk to her,” Madeline advised him in her most adult voice ever. “Make sure she is all right.”
“Bring her back,” Cecilia whispered.
“Whoever that man is, he is not Rosalie’s friend,” Madeline repeated, her confident little voice echoing all around them. “He is not her family, we are. We love her. He doesn’t. You can’t let her stay with him. She belongs with us.”
Those words reverberated in Edmund’s ears, like a prayer that arrived from the very angels themselves.
“She does,” he whispered so softly that only his lips moved, but no sound left them. “She belongs with us.”
“Bad men lie,” Cecilia told him, as if she was revealing a truth none of them had known before.
Bad men lie.
Edmund’s mind repeated those words, to make sure that he heard them. It was astonishing how grown up these two little girls could sometimes be, forcing him to see something that had been in front of his eyes the whole time. But there was a difference in looking, and actually seeing.
“Bad men lie so they make you believe in things that aren’t true,” Madeline spoke again, her mind intently gazing into the distance, at some invisible point. “If Rosalie ever lied, that was only to protect us. If that man lied, it was to do something bad.”
At that moment, Edmund realized the gravity of the mistake he had made. He felt as if someone had been keeping him in the dark, with a veil covering his eyes. Now, he could finally see again, and he had the girls to thank for that.
He realized that he had taken someone else’s word for granted that Rosalie was someone who had been deceiving him the whole time, instead of allowing her to speak for herself. He let someone else speak for her. And, worse yet, he allowed a bad man to speak for her.
He could see it all clearly. That ghastly shudder in his very soul assured him of the mistake that needed to be rectified. His state of mind was profoundly shaken by this knowledge, and he realized how easy it was to bury such a dark force within one’s most inner self. But, when one withheld such darkness inside, that same darkness kept dragging oneself along a perilous, injurious path. Rosalie had become the sun that illuminated that darkness, and without her, Edmund was once more, within its sinister reach.
Still, in her absence, the girls had somehow become two rays of sunshine, illuminating his path, showing him where he had gone wrong, and also, how he could rectify what he had done.
Suddenly, he jumped up, and kissed both of the girls on the forehead. There was not a single moment to lose. He finally found the right path again, by right inclination, and he needed to pursue it.
“Tell your grandmother that I have gone into town to look for Rosalie!”
The girls’ faces beamed with happiness. Edmund’s own heart was beating wildly. He had no idea where he would even start looking for her, but then he remembered Loveless’ words. They would remain there, in his province for a while. So, someone in town must know where the House of Wonders was situated. He would leave no stone unturned until he found her and had her safely under this roof once more.
