Chapter 37 The Woman Who Smells Like Home

Chapter 37 The Woman Who Smells Like Home


Before I saw her, I knew her.

That was the disturbing part.

There was little noise in the room, a dull crackling of the fire, and the far away noises of the town outside...horses, muffled voices, the clatter of boots on pavement. I had selected this spot since, it was not too near the palace, too close to conspiracies and spy-holes. Safe. Or as secure as a runaway prince would be.

Then the air became different.

It wasn’t sudden. It was barely noticeable, as a change in wind before a storm. I smelled something warm and cosy and weaving between the acrid odour of pinewood and smoke. My heart felt tight, and my mind could not yet interpret it.

Home.

The word came out involuntarily, weighty and irrefutable.

I turned just in time that the door opened.

She went in, as though frightened by the likelihood that the room might burst should she go too briskly. She was wrapped up in black cloth, and had her hood down.

My head immediately ached. Not pain exactly. Pressure. As though there was a sort of door-straining something in me.

She stood still on seeing me.

Her eyes.

I didn’t know her. Of that I was sure. And there was a part of my bones that averted at the lie. She had honey-brown eyes and was tired and something more--lost. They flew across my face like hogs in search of splinterings, signs that I was no longer. me.

She took a step forward.

My mind broke down.

"Don’t," I said, strictly than I meant.

She stopped immediately.

The silence stretched. Thick. Loaded.

I am sorry, said she, and then she went down the stairs. Her voice went under my skin, it was warm and familiar as a song I had known. I did not intend to disturb you.

I gawked at her, all my instincts shouting to me to suck her in, to grab her, to cling to her, to anything to which we were connected by some invisible thread of fibre.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The query struck her as a sword.

I could see her swallow, could see her set herself with a struggle. Olivia, my name is Olivia.

I could feel the vibration of the sound in my head. Pictures came by--moonlight, blood on snow, a woman screaming my name. Her name.

I held my fingers to my head, hissing.

She was by me straight away.

“Ryder—”

I flinched.

She stopped again with a shudder of horror passing across her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

How do you know my name? I demanded.

Her hands shook, before she clasped them together. Because I-- I halted, shook my head. Knowing you.

I laughed, a little, incredulous sound. Many people are familiar with me.

I did not mean that, she whispered.

She must not be this near. I knew that. Nothing in me knew it not. And thought to me--gods, my thought to me was quiet.

The ceaseless humming, the keen lines, the sense that my head was a broken mirror--all grew dim in her presence.

I hated that. I had to comprehend it.

You are not to be here, said I. “It’s dangerous.”

I know, I know, I replied. But you have some danger, too.

I sought to tell whether she was lying or not. Only fear. And so deep a longing pained to see.

Why do you smell like. I stuttered, and tightened my jaw. “…like home?”

Her breath caught.

That is not just, she said to herself.

This is not the case, I said, as I pointed to my head. I do not remember you. I do not remember anything that can be made out. And yet when you entered, I felt as though my head was bleeding.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. I never wanted to be a wound, I said. “Only a place you could rest.”

Nothing struck me more than the words.

I moved away, creating distance between us, lest something go amiss had I not. You gaze at me as though I were dead, said I.

Her breath shuddered.

“Why?” I said, and my voice sank. Why are you staring at me as though you are mourning over someone that is standing right in front of you?

She gazed at me for long, and then crossed the space between us before I could halt her.

Her hands fisted in my shirt.

I lost you, she said, with a broken voice. And you know not even.

There was a snap somewhere inside me.

The room tilted, as she stood on her toes and kissed me.

Her lips fell on mine as she attempted to cram all the unsaid facts into my face in one breath. The fire was in my heart, fiery and intense. My instincts rose, old and enraged, roaring recognition my mind denied.

I ought to have kicked her.

Rather, I kissed her behind.

Her waist was in my hands before I knew it, and I was rooted in the reality of her. The world had come down to the brush against her lips, the slight taste of salt and fire, the manner in which her body was against mine as it always had been.

She drew away, gasping, her forehead to my bosom.

I am sorry, I am sorry, she said. “I couldn’t not.”

I shut my eyes, heart aching. I was again in chaos, but under it--under the fracture--there was something steadfast.

Her.

Looking down on her, I opened my eyes and one thing I knew with a horrifying certainty.

"I have forgotten you," I said slowly. "But however you are to me. it makes a difference. More than anything.:

Her lips shivered in sad beautiful smile. "Enough is enough," she said. “For now.”

In the town beyond, things continued, ignorant that some old thing had just moved.

And somewhere in me, the rope that I could not remember fixed its knot, and bled through the crevices of my fractured mind, and would not be forgotten.