I held her as she cried a little longer, tangled together on the bed with June snow falling outside the window.
When she was done I took one of the candles, gathered the used plates and let myself out. ‘I’ll let you sleep.’
‘Mina.’ She said my name softly, like a prayer. Like an incantation. ‘Don’t leave.’ The Witch was sat in the shadows of her bed, white nightdress and black hair pooled around her, eyes bright in the dark. A flare of heat in my gut.
Desire was not something I had an easy relationship with.
Would I be safe, desiring?
I saw then that the real question was: was I safe with the Witch? Did I trust the Witch?
I pressed the door shut with a soft click and joined her on the bed. We were silent, two figures painted in light and dark. What had started months ago when a wild beast had stalked into my home and bound me to it, ended here.
‘I love you.’ I had said it before. I said it because it was true.
I thought she might say it back. There was a moment that hung pregnant between us, her lips parted, my weight poised to move. Then she lifted her nightdress over her head and bared herself to me.
I couldn’t breathe.
She was white like snow, white like death save for the filagree of veins and arteries that ran along her inner arms, the fragile skin of her inner thighs, her breasts. My eyes followed the line of her leg up, the branches and roots of her blood until I saw dark hair and I looked away, blushing.
Then I looked back. She had offered herself to me, after all. She wanted me to look.
She reached across the bed and took my hand and placed it on her breast. It was such a small gesture but so utterly, painfully intimate I almost couldn’t bear it.
When I didn’t do anything, she let my hand drop, softly said, ‘We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I want to.’
Her mouth curled. ‘Oh? Show me.’
So I did.
I had little idea what I was doing but that didn’t seem to matter. I took my clothes off and she helped me, unbuttoning and unhooking and untying, until I was only in my corset. She fit her hands around my waist, tracing the sharp inward curve of the boning, then she kissed the tops of my breasts where they spilled over, kissed up to my throat, the vulnerable point beneath my jaw, kissed my mouth as she unlaced the back so I could slip out, my shift going with it, and then I was full flush against her, body to warm body. The kiss grew fiery, she was soft and sharp, the curve of her breast, the jar of her knee against my hip, my hair tangled in her hand.
We lay down in the candlelight, her skin hot and smooth beneath my hand and I let her show me what she liked. My mouth open on her neck, hand between her legs, the soft, wet slick of my fingers rubbing and sliding. She moaned, nails dug into my back, leg hooking around mine. My Witch. I moved my mouth to the crest of her breast and worked my tongue in mirror of my fingers between her legs and she shivered then locked up stiff, keening into my hair and I moved faster, firmer, chased her as she writhed until it was over, and she lay limp, panting, our hearts racing.
When, after a moment, she lay me on my back my breath caught. When she kissed her way down my chest, my thoughts unravelled. When she parted my thighs and dipped her head between them, my heart stopped.
Desire was falling off a cliff, and trusting you would not die. Desire was walking through fire and being reborn. Desire was an undoing. I was undone.
XXI
Iwoke with the end of the snow.
As quickly as it had come it vanished again, and soon the summer sun would be sending rivers of snowmelt coursing through the forest and the village. I rose softly, the Witch still sleeping beside me naked in a tangle of sheets and sweaty hair stuck to her back. Heat flared in the pit of my stomach again but I pushed it away; there would be time for that later. We had a lifetime left together, I hoped. I stretched, cracking the bones in my neck and back, squatted over the chamber pot then pulled on a discarded black nightgown of the Witch’s and wandered in to the study. I was ravenous for breakfast after the night before. I felt wrung out physically and emotionally. But the Witch and I were together. Whatever was wrong with time, whatever challenge she had to face we would do it side by side and for the first time in months – years – I felt hopeful for the future.
The view from the windows behind the Witch’s desk showed the valley, still limned in snow but with summer green flaring up from all directions. Perhaps I would go walking today. Her desk was as messy as ever, papers and letters and memos tossed around like the sea in a storm. On top was a notebook with its spine snapped, falling open at a half-finished page. I had never seen this on her desk before. I recognised the Witch’s writing, but it was scrawled like someone in a hurry – or someone chasing too-fast thoughts. I saw the wordtimeand the wordbroken. And my name.
Frowning, I sat down, pulling the book towards me to read.
...It’s running out... I have spun thinner and thinner and now there is only a thread as fine as spider’s silk, so fragile and yet so much weight upon it...
...I know what I must do but I cannot I will not I refuse. Please please don’t make me do it I beg you oh god please let me keep Mina...
I skimmed forward until I found my name again.
...Sometimes Mina looks at me and she seems so happy I want to pick up a carving knife and stab her through the heart. How can she be so happy with me? How can she be so happy when I have to choose between her and the world...
