Beckett’s question catches me off guard as he stares up at the sky. The sun’s beginning to rise over Fury Hill, dewy oranges and pinks peeking through the trees, and even though it’s winter, my brother insists on starting his mornings by meditating on the balcony outside my apartment.
In the nude.
My apartment is one of several dozen in the faculty dorm and any of the neighboring theater professors could waltz out and catch a glimpse of the once-great Curator president in his bare glory, but Beckett seems unfazed by the possibility.
Frankly, it’s an improvement from him spending all his time in dirty, sweaty clothing on my couch, so I let him. As long as he doesn’t attempt to leap from the iron railing barricading us in, that is.
Mother would never forgive me.
“Bellamy was their child, so yes, I imagine they miss her a good deal,” I say, turning the page in the spiral-bound play I’m rereading for my course on writing and directing.
Throwing myself into class assignments is all I’ve been focusing on since I nearly gave in to my own depravity in the Apollodorus basement days ago. Elle likely has no idea just how much danger she would’ve been in had I kissed here there—I’m uncertain if I would’ve been able to stop.
It’s ridiculous how easily she pulls me in. From the moment we met, it’s like she’s this flame and I’m a moth, powerless against her warm glow. Even denying her is a weak attempt at ignoring how my brain and heart feel, and the more I interact with her in class, the more I see she’s not some pretty face who couldn’t hack it in LA.
I want to learn everything about her. Listen to her talk for hours. Figure out what makes her tick, what lives beneath the mask she puts on for everyone except me, as if her true feelings—desperation and fear that manifest in snarky remarks and recklessness—are only safe with me.
But I can’t, so I grade and study instead.
“They never talk about her,” Beckett replies. “I mean, I wouldn’t expect Father to, since he didn’t give a shit about either of you growing up anyway, but… Mother acts as if Bell never even existed.”
“Everyone has their own coping mechanisms.”
He’s quiet for a while, just staring up with his head resting on his bag. The balcony is barely large enough for him to stretch out on the floor, so his feet are pressed against the metal bars, and his arms are folded over his chest.
“How do you think she died?” he asks finally.
“Beckett.”
He turns his head. “What?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“No one ever does. Don’t you find that odd? She’d be so pissed if she knew we were just forgetting about her.”
“Just because she isn’t discussed like gossip onThe Delphic Pagesdoesn’t mean she’s not being remembered.”
“Yeah, but… I’m forgetting her.” He sighs. “The other day, I realized I couldn’t even remember what color her eyes were, so I went to her old room at the manor to look for pictures, ’cause you know she loved snapping them any chance she got, but it’d been totally cleared out. Not even her bed is in there anymore. It’s just…empty.”
Something cold settles in my chest, a vicious pang spreading outward.
The situation surrounding our sister’s death never did feel quite fleshed out, although I suppose that is the nature of a mystery. We never got to see a body, so there wasn’t a chance for real closure. Instead, we were expected to accept things as they were and move on.
For a long time, Mother didn’t come out of her bedroom. House staff filtered in and out, tending to the woman as if she were receiving palliative care, while Jean-Louis kept on with business as usual.
A year later, on the anniversary of Bellamy’s death, we got the news that Jean-Louis was sick. Mother rejoined society, as if a fresh breath of life had entered her with the prospect of her husband’s demise.
They’ve always had that sort of relationship, though—something toxic and vile, like two venomous serpents twisting around each other, trying to strangle the other and win the upper hand.
If they weren’t Duponts, I suspect they’d have divorced a long time ago. The founding families frown upon that here, though, so Mother remains stuck in her loveless marriage.
But I didn’t think she’d give in to his pleading to have Bellamy’s old room cleaned out. For years, she kept it as ashrine, mummifying the whimsy that only my twin could create in a house built to entomb the people within it.
“Anyway, I just thought maybe it’d help jog my memory if we talked about her, since you were the closest to her. That’s how you keep a person alive after they’re gone, right? By telling everyone about them like they never left?”
My throat burns as I stare at him, wondering if getting beaten within an inch of his life actually knocked some sense into him. Or if this is some sort of warning sign I should be taking note of before he goes off the deep end and burns Avernia to the ground.
“She had Mother’s eyes,” I say, misery flooding the chambers of my heart when I pinch my own closed, thinking back to the last time I saw them.
