Page 81 of As Many Souls as Stars
‘Oh. Well, maybe—’
But Rosamund wasn’t listening. She was already walking across the bar, leaving her behind. It was as if there was a harpoon in her chest, a chain being reeled in. She was powerless, propelled forward by invisible hands, pushing her way between tables, beaded gown dragging at her feet in a constant shower of noise. Behind her, she heard Vivien’s voice call for her again. She ignored it. Instead, she reached forward with both hands to push open a door markedemployees only, evading the notice of the waitstaff. With her arms still outstretched, as if she were navigating blind, she made her way up the steel steps and towards the open air of the promenade.
Even though the weather in London had been unseasonably warm, it was still a winter night on the Atlantic, and the air was shockingly cold. Rosamund was bare-armed, the salty chill of the wind clawing at her elbows like sandpaper. The sea spray had made the floor slick. The area was only barely lit, in reds and dim yellows from the lights peppering the side of the hull. Shuddering, she stumbled across the decking, trying not to slip.
There was no one else on the promenade, and Rosamund sighed. It wouldn’t be the first time she thought she’d seen…something, onlyto later realise it wasn’t there. But at least the night was gorgeous, stars piercing the black in tiny, glowing stitches, hemming sea and sky together. Rosamund went to the railing and leaned over it, the wind whipping her face. The darkness stretched in an endless sphere above her.
She heard footsteps. Someone came to stand beside her.
She knew who it was. Of course she did.
‘Hello, Miriam,’ Rosamund said.
21
One hundred and eighteen years, and Miriam hadn’t given any thought to what she would say when she first saw Harding again.
She could reach forward to lay a hand on her arm—this shimmering creature, familiar and strange, with hair cut short and leaf-shaped eyes and a scattering of freckles on her shoulders—and tell her,I am sorry. But what meaning would there be in such an apology, when Miriam didn’t regret what she’d done? Shewassorry, she supposed, about killing Esther the way she did—in a petty impulse that had denied Miriam her soul for another century. But now that this Harding was here, standing in front of her, Miriam felt little regret. It would be a privilege to watch her die again.
Miriam could gather her into her arms instead, leave a bruise on that lovely throat, and let hands and mouths speak where voices couldn’t. Miriam could say,I love you—words she still wasn’t certain she understood, but she believed they were true, as much as they could be to something like her. Or perhaps she could pass Harding a new knife, let her re-create what had happened all those years ago, their positions reversed. Miriam couldn’t die, but she could make a show of it. She wanted to see violence in those eyes again, just once more. The memory of it could never compare to the reality.
But then Harding smiled and said, ‘I’ve missed you,’ and Miriam found she couldn’t speak, couldn’t smile back, couldn’t do anything at all.
Her eyes were gold, true gold—brighter than they once were, surely? She looked at Miriam, lids half closed, lips quirked, and Miriam wanted to hold those eyes in her hands. She would sink theMonumentaland bury them with it, like coins in a shipwreck. No one else deserved to see those eyes. No one else deserved to be seen by them.
‘You’re not going to say anything?’ Harding asked. ‘Not even a hello?’
Miriam let out a breathless, gasping sort of chuckle, a sound more human than should have been possible. ‘Hello.’
At the sound of her voice, Harding flushed slightly, turning her head away.
‘I’m Rosamund now,’ she said. ‘In case you didn’t know that already.’
‘Rosamund,’ Miriam echoed, considering the taste of the name, the cadence of it.
‘Do you like it? I preferred Esther, I think.’ She rolled her nails against the railing, the hairs on the back of her hands standing on end from the cold. ‘Cybil, too. This name feels too… honest, somehow.Rosa mundi, rose of the world. Quick to bloom, quick to die.’
Miriam was silent. Inside the ship, jazz was playing on a phonograph; the crackling hum of the bass dripped from the portholes like honey.
‘I thought you’d be angry,’ Miriam said.
Rosamund tipped back her head to laugh. The movement bared her throat to the salt wind of the sea, glazing the skin with water. Miriam swallowed.
‘Of course I’m angry,’ Rosamund said, once her laughter had subsided. ‘Youkilledme, Miriam.’
‘Because I—’
‘Oh, Iknowwhy. That doesn’t mean I can’t be angry about it.’
‘I’ve been looking for you for years.’
‘I know.’
‘I couldn’t find you.’
‘I know.’
‘I couldn’t find you, and you’remine,’ Miriam snarled, fury breaking its leash. ‘You are mine, Rosamund, you are here because I made you so, and you kept me away.’
