Rooke derived some sick, unexplained pleasure from frightening Corabeth. From baring these horrid parts of himself,half-expecting, half-fearing that he will go too far. That one more ugliness, and Corabeth will finally leave. What Rooke kept forgetting, so drowned in his own misery, was that Corabeth had seen her fair share of ugliness.
She did not offer words of sympathy, just as Rooke had not offered them to her. They both knew they made no difference.
“Was she nice?” she asked instead.
“Yes,” Rooke answered, an unexpected warmth spreading through him. He had not thought of his mother like this in so long. There was something in the familiar smell of these rooms that allowed the memories to come easier now.
“What was her name?” Corabeth continued, walking over to the desk. Her fingers ran over its dusty surface, leaving behind streaks.
“Evangeline.”
Corabeth smiled. “A beautiful name.”
Her feet carried her over to the celestial globe that sat before the window, one half of it bleached to the point that the lines were no longer visible.
“Did you travel?” Corabeth asked and spun the globe slowly.
“Yes,” Rooke said as he joined her. He stood so close to her he could feel her warmth reaching out towards him. The smell of her bittersweet bath oils and the tartness of the raspberries almost made him dizzy.
“Where? Show me,” she asked. Corabeth’s fingers walked across the surface of the world, spinning it according to her whims. Rooke could imagine himself succumbing to her wishes just as easily.
Rooke placed his hand on the globe, searching for the places he had traveled to. A semester abroad for college, some errand for his father, later, accompanying his father on his travels in preparation for taking over the estate. But time had erased those parts of the globe.
Rooke’s hand came to a rest atop the smooth surface, Corabeth’s right next to his. So close, their pinky fingers touched, but neither of them moved. They let the touch linger.
“They cannot be seen anymore,” Rooke said, the entirety of his being focused on that single point of contact. His own heart thumped so loudly in his ears that he could not separate it from Corabeth’s.
“A pity,” Corabeth sighed, and shattered the moment by pulling her hand away. She walked backwards towards the door. “Shall we keep going?”
Rooke took her from room to room, giving her little glimpses of himself just like she had asked for. His childhood bedroom with a bed so small it would have left his legs dangling from his knees now. The room on the corner with particularly good lighting where he had painting lessons. The music room downstairs where he learned to play the piano, much to his own dismay, as it wasn’t something he was very gifted at.
“Satisfied?” Rooke asked, walking Corabeth back upstairs.
She hesitated for a moment. “What about after the curse? It’s been so long. What did you do… after?”
Rooke’s features hardened. There were still parts of himself he wished to keep hidden. She did not need to know that at one point, the corpses became so many, he did not know what to do with them. Or that below the manor was a room filled with his failed attempts to take up taxidermy, his experiments at playing God when he stitched up the body parts of different animals to create new creatures. He was sure some of those creatures had human limbs or skin stretched over them.
He had all but forgotten the pleasantness of his life, and yet, there were stretches of time he did not wish to remember that lingered, sticking to him like tar.
They came to a stop on the landing.
“I would prefer,” he said, his hardened gaze glued to the floor, “if you knew the person I was before the curse.”
Corabeth simply nodded, not pressing further. “Thank you for showing me around,” she said.
Rooke watched the sway of her skirts as she retreated to her room. Fingers on the handle, she halted.
“Rooke?” she said, looking back at him.
“Yes?” Rooke asked.
“Just so you know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with who you are now,” Corabeth said. A beat more, and then she was gone.
Seventeen
Corabeth
There was a restlessness growing inside of Corabeth that could only be eased by wandering the decrepit gardens behind the manor. She could imagine how in the spring it all bloomed to life, bringing with it a wild kind of beauty. It was a space once made by humans but now entirely undisturbed by them.
