The Matchmaker's Promise {17} Discovery

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I blinked. “Wh-what?”

“He’s gone. His heart failed last week, Anneka,” Isabella whispered.

Spots swam before my eyes. “Wait…you mean that…that…”

“He’s dead, Anneka. Dead of a broken heart, they say, to see his youngest married off to the village freak,” my sister spat bitterly, tears streaming down her face.

I sank to my knees with a cry. Oh God. Oh Lord. How could it be true? My dear father…

Isabella seemed to hesitate before sinking to the floor and tentatively hugging me. No tears would come, not yet. But I was shaking so hard it scared me horrifically.

I couldn’t believe it—how was it possible? How could such a proud, loving father—surely a gift from Providence—be taken away so cruelly and at such a time as this?

“Th-the funeral,” I sobbed, wondering if I dared to look upon my father’s face for the last time, when he would be shut away in a coffin for the rest of eternity. “Issy, the funeral…”

At this, my sister stopped rocking me back and forth and stiffened. “Oh, Anneka, don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about it? How could I not? I have to come, I’ll get permission, I need to—” Trembling, I resolved to somehow persuade Solomon to let me go to the village. Surely he’d let me for such an occasion as this?

“No, Anneka. There is nothing you can do.”

“What are you talking about, Isabella?” My voice reached a frantic pitch as I scrambled to find something that I could do in all this misery and grief. “I’ve got to come home, I’ve got to help you and Mother and Florry—“

Abruptly, Isabella pushed me away and held me out at arm’s length. “Don’t you understand?” she cried bitterly. “The funeral is done! He’s buried! You can’t come home!”

It was like I had been hit by a carriage. I couldn’t breathe. “Wh-what?”

“I told you,” my sister groaned. “It all happened last week.”

“But. . .” Utterly hurt, I pulled out of her embrace. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner, Issy? I could have helped. I could have come to the funeral—I could have at least said goodbye to Father!”

Sobs erupted from Isabella’s mouth and she shook her head. “You couldn’t have. Mother—oh, she couldn’t tell you Anneka. You weren’t to know, because you didn’t live with us anymore. The villagers hate you now, Anneka. There would have been a riot if you’d returned.”

“But…my own father…” Tears streamed down my face as I realized just how separated I was by my family and everything that I had ever known, by a seemingly simple marriage.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Isabella whispered, her liquid eyes overflowing. “But I thought. . .I thought you deserved to at least know.”

I sat back on my heels in miserable shock, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that half of my family was now too ashamed to invite me back home to grieve with them, and that all the people that I had grown up with in the village thought that I was in league with the freak, that I was just like him now.

“I’m sorry,” my sister’s tearful apology echoed in the empty foyer.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Horror upon horrors, I’d never imagined something like this. It was like I had been officially cast out of the world of everything that I had ever known or loved. I was all alone now.

The oncoming, unavoidable tears racked my body and I held my sister close, both of us sobbing into each other. I’d never imagined that one day I would have to live without the comfort of a father—oh, surely I knew that it was inevitable, but I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t have been ready.

And for Isabella to say that the cause for his heartbreak had to do with me made me cry even harder. Maybe if I had fought hard for a divorce—no matter how disgraceful it would be, surely it wouldn’t be more scandalous than marrying the village freak? Surely it wouldn’t have grieved my father as much for me to stay home and care for him and mother and help them run the house.

Oh, it was all my fault! How could I have just blindly wished to be married? I could have waited! A month, a year—as long as it would have taken to find another man that must have been more suitable to society’s needs and wouldn’t have killed my father to watch me be married to.

“It’s my fault,” I whispered numbly into Isabella’s ear, and she shook her head fervently, holding me away from her fiercely.

“Don’t ever say that, Anneka! You couldn’t have prevented this!” her whispers sounded more like hisses.

“I should have…I could have…”

“No, no.” Isabella shook her head again, staring at me determinedly. “Don’t even think that, little sister. It was what God destined for us, and this is how it…this is how it should be.” Her voice faltered as her reassurance only panicked me more.

If this was how God was intending for my life to play out, then surely I must have done something horribly wrong in the past. How else was there a reason to take away my family, my sisters, my home—and give me an exhausting, hostile life with a man that seemed to have the very demeanor of a demon himself?

Anguished, I wasn’t surprised to feel the tears falling faster and harder and I clutched my sister, hoping that somehow I would be allowed to be taken with her, to return home—or at least, to die on that very spot because I couldn’t stand it all anymore.

“Anneka, it’s alright, it’ll be alright,” Isabella said uncertainly, slightly fearful at my reaction. “I know, we’ll all miss Father, but—“

At this, I let out another shrieking cry, and she stopped trying to console me and only held me in her arms like we used to when we had been children. She let me cry for hours on end, until the sun dipped under the dark horizon and the tears came no more because of fatigue.

“I have to go now, Anneka,” she said softly, rising and wrapping her shawl around her thin shoulders. “You know I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Yes,” I said numbly, but still hanging on to her hand, as if it was the last thing that was connecting me to my past life. I couldn’t bring myself to let her go.

“You’re so brave. It will be…okay.” The squeeze of my hand did little to reassure me and reluctantly I uncurled my fingers from hers.

As she straightened up, it was only more obvious how changed she was though, so different from the arrogant, vibrant beauty that I had grown up in the shadow of; rather, she was merely a ghost of the girl she once was, as was I.

“Goodbye, Issy,” I sobbed, enveloping her frame in my arms and burying my face into my older sister one last time, trying to memorize the feel of someone who loved me in my arms.

“Goodbye, Anneka,” she shook her head and gently unpried myself from her. “Take care of yourself, now.”

As I watched her leave by the black carriage that she’d hired to bring her over to the manor, I suddenly hated her parting words and the raw honesty they held.

Take care of yourself, now.

Because, it seemed, no one else would.

~~~~~

“Anneka?” Solomon looked almost alarmed as he strode into the foyer, promptly dropping his stack of books that he’d been carrying. “Anneka—what—“

Even his sudden change in demeanor (for we had been going through the snippy Anneka-does-everything-wrong stage of the cycle) didn’t faze me. I wanted him to leave—I couldn’t stand him now. I was still in the very spot that Isabella had left me—when I’d sunk to the floor, unable to move or to anything but weep for the hateful life that I was living.

His charcoal eyes were grave and he quickly lowered himself to the floor next to me. “Anneka…”

I expected him to say some sort of nasty comment.

I expected him to say what a disgrace I was being, sprawled out on the foyer floor an causing a scene, like the supposed attention-needy person I was (according to him, though Mother would probably agree).

I expected him, because he looked dead serious, to at least ask or wonder aloud what was causing me to be sobbing on the ground—a state he hadn’t seen me in so long, not since the first days of our marriage.

What I didn’t expect was for him to already know the reason.

“Anneka, I’m sorry about your father,” he said quietly, his face drawn and looking tired, like my mourning had invaded his expression, too.

I forgot to cry.

Because I’d never told him about Father. Because I’d been there when Isabella had told me the news, and known for a fact that he had been at work during it. Because I’d seen Isabella leave in the tiny black carriage, and no one else in the manor could have possibly spoken to her, or overheard our conversation.

How did he know?

It was eerily unseating. Because what came to mind suddenly was an unsettling feeling that Solomon could read minds.

“How…how did you…” I stared in fear into his charcoal eyes, which suddenly clouded over. Solomon abruptly stood up, his breath quickening to a frightening shudder.

It was a terrifying moment, the way he seemed to tower over me, his eyes livid and his mouth twisted most angrily, and I thought for sure he was going to strike me.

I closed my eyes and shrunk away from his supposedly oncoming blow. But instead, there was only the thunder of retreating steps and the ominous slam of the door.

Lying on the ground still, and gasping for air, I clutched at my heart to make sure I was still breathing properly. I had never been so frightened in my life.

What had I said, to provoke such fury? What had I done? What had happened?

My breath, heightening to a hysterical rate, seemed to draw out every last ounce of strength that I had. As I swayed dizzily, the ground rose too quickly to meet me.

~~~~~

“A divorce? Solomon, you can’t be serious. It’s been months, what could she have possibly done this time?”:

“She did nothing. I….I let it slip. I forgot myself.” The younger man stormed angrily in front of the fireplace. “She knows. I can tell. It’s too dangerous.”

“But—you can’t just end it now! You can’t do this the coward’s way!” Damascus cried “After all we’ve done? After all your mother—“

“No! No, no, it was all a mistake. It was never going to work, and now it’s the only way.”

“Are you crazy? You can’t!”

“Do you think I want to? Do you think I want to start again, to give everything up? To send her back and have them eat her alive?!?”

“Solomon please—“

“She knows! How could I be such a fool? How could I have forgotten myself so horribly?” Anguished, Solomon buried his face in his hands. “It was never supposed to be like this—it wasn’t supposed to end like this!”

“What did you expect, Solomon? It wouldn’t have worked, not for a million eons the way it was going. You don’t have to run—not this time!”

“Then what on earth do you propose we do?” Solomon roared.

Damascus stared full-on at his friend, his eyes firm. “Tell her.”

“WHAT?!? ARE YOU JOKING, I JUST—“

“Tell her everything.”

“NO!”

“You sad she knows already. Why not end it all? It could work. It will work.”

“No. Anything but that. I couldn’t. I can’t.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“You can’t send her away, Solomon. That would be like adding fuel to your own funeral pyre. You realize that, don’t you?”

“But if she stays—“

“She’ll stay. You’ll be safe. And we’ll...we’ll figure something out,” Damascus said finally.

“I’m trusting you,” Solomon muttered, almost pleading. He closed his eyes with pale eyelids fringed in black lashes.

“That’s good, Solomon. I’m truly honored. But…” his friend paused, as if trying to figure out how to put it delicately. “I’m no the only person you can trust.”

Solomon shook his head, as if to state that the conversation about that was definitely over.

Damascus sighed and seated himself next to his friend. “You’re not ready, I know. I’m just saying…”

The study was silent, save for the crackling fire as the two men sat struggling with their thoughts.

“You must have scared her out of her wits,” Damascus said finally.

Solomon closed his eyes again, groaning. “I didn’t…didn’t mean to—“

“But you did,” his friend affirmed. “You need to make it right with her, or she’ll try to run away again. Or she’ll kill herself. I wouldn’t put it past her, the misery she’s been going through.”

Gently, Damascus clapped his friend’s shoulder. “Come on, Solomon. We can make this work. One step at a time, okay?”

~~~~~

I woke up from a teary dream, hoping that I was all just a nightmare, but the delicious smell of scones filled my nostrils and I sat up. My senses hadn’t been fooling me—a gleaming silver tray laden with the pastries were laid out on Solomon’s side of the bed.

Damascus’s doing, I assumed. Perhaps Solomon had informed him about…Father. My stomach dropped again and my eyes burned. Willing myself not to cry again, I focused on biting and chewing the hot, buttery pastry and forced my eyes closed to prevent the tears from gushing.