Page 100 of The Phoenix Bride
“But,” I agree.
I stand from the table. My tea remains mostly untouched; the cup sits on its dish, still full, the liquid reflecting the sky and linden above us in a haze of white and gray.
“Will you come back?” Margaret asks.
“Someday,” I reply. “But—for now—I have somewhere else to be.”
—
Despite the weather, the park is still full of people. Lanterns glimmer, the rhythmic tread of feet against gravel punctuating the whistling of the wind. As I enter, I take a deep breath of the leaf-scented air, smiling. I will never tire of this place. It is London for me now. Untouched by the fire, by sorrow and by loss; I shall never know anywhere else, I think, so persistent and so joyous.
Standing by the canal, I wait for David. Through the gaps between clouds, the sinking sun scatters light across the water. In the distance, someone plays a pavane on a mandolin, and I can hear children laughing. The lamb’s ears rustle in the wind.
Perhaps he will come. I pray that he will. But even if he doesn’t, this will all still be here: the trees and the grass; the city and the sky; my home three streets away; Sam and my harpsichord. I have built myself a new world, pulled from the old one’s ashes—and I think Will would be proud of me. I think he would stand next to me, by the water, and ask:Do you think it is fate, Cecilia, that has led you here?
I don’t know,I’d reply.Perhaps it doesn’t matter if it was. Fate is fickle. It is a coward, and it takes as much as it gives. But I needn’t be the same. I can be different. I can be brave.
I know I can be brave; I have proven that to myself. I have experienced so many deaths and births, so many starts and stops. I am proud to have found a life I feel is worth living.
The wind gusts again. A droplet lands on my head. I pull my shawl tighter around myself.Don’t,I pray,I beg of you, don’t,but the pleas go unanswered. Within moments, the sky has opened, and we are all subject to the rain.
Chaos comes. The children’s laughter turns to shrieks; the music stops; people rush along the canal to find shelter beneath the trees. I spin around, away from the water, thinking to do the same—but then I realize that doing so would make me much harder to find. What if David is here? What if the rain means he won’t see me, and he thinks I haven’t come?
My mind immediately supplies the result of such a disaster: him, crestfallen, returning to his home; burning all my future letters, kept from me by an act of God. It is much more likely, of course, that he hasn’t come at all, but the merest possibility of such a tragedy prevents me from caring about the rain. Instead, Istand by the canal, drenched. I shout, “David!” peering narrow-eyed through the veil of the rain.
I hear no reply except the roar of the canal water meeting its twin; the reflection made uncertain, surreal, a shifting refraction of gray and purple-pink from the patch of sunlight still crawling across the horizon. “David!” I shout again, and then I begin laughing—for what else is there to do? My gold-trimmed sleeves are soaking wet, my beautiful curls weighed flat, raindrops dripping from my chin. There is rain and there is sunshine; I am terrified and I am joyous. It is summer in London, and the fire has passed. David may not be here, but I am. I can shout in a storm if I wish to; I could even dance among the lamb’s ears or plunge myself into the canal. There is no one to see me, no one to stop me. I am free.
I shout David’s name again, laughing still. And I know, no matter what happens—all will always be well.
On a Monday evening in late May, I go to Saint James’s Park to see Cecilia again. Almost a year has passed since we first met. The city was made a phoenix, razed by fire, born from ashes. Despite the fear and the flames, I have loved her, and still love her, as a linden loves the soil.
The sun is setting, but the park is still a riot of noise and light and color. Rarely has a place ever felt so much likeLondonto me as this one does on this day. There are so many people here, so many histories. We are all organs in the great, unknowable body of this city. I walk by the canal, the water threading blue through the gravel like a vein beneath skin. The breeze passes over me, the air smells of dry grass.
Many people would be disgusted by my presence here, my purpose here, but my heart is my own. It beats without country nor religion nor name; it is flesh and blood and the air that I breathe; it is mine, and it is hers, and it will always be so. I am finished with fear, finished with hesitation. The fire has taughtme that much. Losing Cecilia has taught me that much. I can survive, and I can thrive, regardless of the cost.
At the fountain, children splash and laugh in the water. A pamphleteer waves papers at me. “Sir,” he says, “consider the Trinitarians…”
I walk past. The sky has grown gray with clouds. Fissures of dim orange light break through the gaps, the sunset scattering itself like gold leaf. As I reach the edge of the canal, a drop falls on my head, and then soon another. Those promenading hurry to find shelter from the coming deluge. The canal itself, a mirror shattered, begins to shimmer with the force of the rain. The grass stoops and the trees shudder. I am grateful for the meager shelter provided by their boughs, which save me from being soaked through. Soon I must pause to hover by the trunk of an oak, thinking to wait out the downpour.
If I believed in Providence, I might see this weather as an ill omen. But it is such a welcome divergence from summer last, when rain was but a distant memory, and the fire was gorging itself on the dry timber of the city. Back then, we had prayed for storms; now, finally, one has come.
I hear someone shout, “David!”
A distant voice—almost inaudible, over the roaring of the rain—but it is hers. I step forward to peer across the canal, water dripping into my eyes, and I see her on the other side. She is drenched, hair uncurled by the storm, but she is laughing. Her hands are curved around her mouth to amplify her voice. I don’t think she has seen me yet. She is laughing for the joy of the rain, for the pleasure of surrendering to it. She is so beautiful I cannot breathe, cannot smile, cannot speak. I stand silently, a prisoner to my own heart.
“David!” Cecilia shouts again.
She must be going hoarse, screaming that loud, across all this distance. And so confident that I am here, also; so unashamed in her search for me. I want to shout back to her, but I am so overcome I cannot. Instead, I say, “Cecilia,” in a meager whisper, and pray against all odds that she will hear me, too.
Perhaps she does hear; perhaps she doesn’t, and it is fate that turns her head. Either way, she looks in my direction, and our eyes meet.
“David!” she shouts again, this time in delight.
“Cecilia!” I reply, my voice regained, and I walk to the edge of the canal. She runs to the opposite edge—the water between us, her skirts in her hands—and she smiles.
Rain runs in rivulets down my back. In the distance, I can hear shrieking and laughter, someone splashing in a puddle, the trundle of a distant carriage.
“Stay there!” I cry to her, and before she can respond, I am running to the end of the canal, boots plunging into the sodden gravel, half blinded by the rain. My hair escapes its tie, which is lost to the wind. I have my medicine case with me—I was at an appointment this afternoon—and it clatters against my thigh. Irritated, I throw it to the lamb’s ears and keep running, skidding around the bend, turning the loop.
