A Dance at Midnight
The wind howled viciously that night as the Nightingale family slumbered, piercing through the bones of the house itself. The windows in Ellia’s chambers rattled and creaked, the wood straining against the brass hinges. With each tremulous howl it nudged and shoved, with each thunderous howl the ancient oak beyond scratched its spindly limbs across the window.
Ellia threw back the heavy duvet and swung herself out of the bed, her feet striking the icy ground. Her toes curled as she let out a sharp hiss. After a moment the cold dulled and she stepped clear of the bed, drawing her arms around her waist. A waist not fit for children, her mother chided. What man would want such a spindly thing? A girl who spends far too much time in her head!
She clasped her hand around the brass locket secured around her neck and forced her mother’s scratchy voice away. The world was a cruel, bitter place, full of sorrow – so why not dream? What harm was there in conjured places of dashing princes, powerful queens and grand adventure?
Perhaps tonight I can have my own adventure?
With naught more than her shift she crept from her room, drawn by the creaking breaths of the house as it drew in the moaning air, exhaling out through keyholes and windows and from the chimneys scattered through the house. She wasn’t afraid; not of the raging storm beyond her home, nor the shadows the flittered in the corner of her eye, or how the house seemed to come alive when all had gone to bed. Where dolls moved and clocks chimed at odd times and sometimes locked doors opened.
She passed beyond her sister’s room, Margery, whose soft snore whispered through the wind, dissolving into the house’s shuddering groan. Ellia crept on, running her hands along the polished wood. The smell of old varnish and oiled canvas danced through her. Memories of dancing with her father before he went to war and before he came back, a shadow of himself. The sound of her music box chimed delicately through her mind and she felt herself filled with a place in mind. It swelled in her chest, stretching out through her limbs, curling around her heart.
It sang to her, drawing her down the grand staircase. Her feet beat a muted song against the cold, polished stone, resounding faintly across the gilded walls. That very song that danced the knife’s edge with the raging storm beyond, bearing down without mercy or feeling. A song that wove through the shadows that danced before her, weaving a pattern through the moonlight that cut in from the narrow windows above the main entrance. She raised her hand to it as lightning burst across the foyer, drowning her in bright, blinding white. Her eyes took it all in; the wildness of the storm, the rage of it as it bellowed and snarled against the house. She felt like something was trying to break in, as though she were a bird in a cage, and the storm her hero. The one to unlock her cage.
She stared at the door and felt the rabid impulse to throw the doors open, to run into the storm. Throw her arms wide and embrace the savagery of it all, let it consume her whole. But she was the obedient daughter, the quiet one who did her best to please her spiteful mother or the father who pretended she didn’t exist. After all, Margery was obedient too but far more beautiful.
So, she turned from the door and strode into the ballroom, flinging the doors open. Moonlight washed over her, painting her silver. She lifted her arms, glowing faintly, and lowered them down at her side. Across the room, by the Grand Piano, was large ornate chest. She crossed the space to it and lifted the lid open, plucking from within, a pair of ballet shoes. She slipped them on and fastened them up. As she stood she rose higher until she stood on her toes, stretching her hands high above her head. With a twirl she spun away from the piano, gliding across the polished floor. Were it not for her long shift she would’ve danced freely, pirouetting and leaping and dancing until the world simply fell away. Given what she wore she contented herself as she glided across the room, floating, bound by thin mortal ties.
Straight into a warm embrace. Strong arms curled around her.
“Hello Ellia.”
She broke free with a start and spun around, shock bursting through her. “Patrick?”
Pale blue eyes glittered with joy. His achingly handsome face formed that dizzying smile. She looked down and saw his travelling suit, the same he’d departed in, right before he’d rushed off to sign up for war. It was a little worn and there’s a newly patched pocket on his right breast pocket. She reached out and ran her hand across it. From beneath her dark lashes she peered up.
“You’re here. Truly here. When the telegram came they said you were dead. Killed in action,” she whispered.
“I survived but that’s not important. I got in late, well after you were asleep, but I could not sleep. So, I thought I’d come here to think, then I saw you. I felt as though I was dreaming,” he murmured.
“Dance with me,” she entreated. “Like we used to.”
He drew her close as they swayed and twirled across the floor, two sounds intertwined. They passed across bands of moonlight like creatures of light and magic, and though the storm raged and thundered beyond those seemingly thin glass doors, they appeared untouchable. Ellia could’ve cried with joy. For all her mother’s scathing remarks that she’d never find anyone to love her she had found someone. They swept into another twirl and Ellia broke free; what seemed like magic her shift became a ballerina gown and she rose to her toes, a creature of magic who spun threads of magic in her wake. Patrick joined her and they seemed to fly across the room, rising, their feet scarcely touching the floor. Yet when the magic swelled to its final crescendo they came together in the middle and Patrick drew her close. He buried his head in the crook of her neck.
After a moment she realised his chest was shaking. When she drew back she saw the tears in his eyes and the shattered look in his eyes, as though all light within them, simply ceased to be.
“Patrick?”
He glanced over her shoulder to the clock that chimed tremulously and heavily the tone of midnight; then, with a sorrowful gaze, looked down. “I wish we had more time. I wish I could have a thousand more times like this just to see you, as you always are. Our friend, Peter, is right. This has to end.”
“End?” She murmured in confusion. “You said yourself you just got back. In your letters you said you still loved me. That-“
“And I do!” He proclaimed, grasping her shoulders tightly, seized with emotion. “You are the love of my life but I have to let you go. I cannot be selfish. It’s time you rest, Ellia. Yet, how can I let you go?”
“Rest? What nonsense are you on about?”
“You died, my love. Your parents told me when you thought I had perished in the war you grew ill with fever. The doctor said you simply slipped away. A broken heart, your sister said,” he murmured, ashamed. “It’s all my fault. You died because of me.”
With each word he spoke Ellia’s mind – what fragile world she’d constructed – dissolved like melted snow. The storm outside ceased to rage and an eerie quiet fell upon the house, as though nothing truly lived within. It felt empty, cold. Icier as memories slowly tumbled back into her conscious mind; the letter that tore her heart to pieces; her mother’s pressure to marry; the endless lonely days and nights, full of a future with a loveless marriage and an empty house. The quiet withered away her spirit until scarcely a shell remained. What light had existed in her short life had been extinguished when that damned letter had come.
She looked up. “I am dead and you?”
He shook his head. “I am alive.”
She knew it. In some way she knew all of it. Her mind had simply clung to the dream of his return until it had come true. He had returned to her. For the goodbye denied to them both. For that final dance at midnight.
The ballroom doors to the balcony swung open to the quiet night air, a warm breeze flowing in, beckoning her. She heard laughter, soft and distant, and the sound of life. it sounded peaceful. Whatever it was she knew it was for her. She turned to Patrick and her heart broke all over again.
“I don’t want to go,” she whispered. “And yet…Patrick, how can I leave you?”
He seized her again and kissed her, hard, passionately; their brief love, as fierce as a blazing sun, yet as fleeting as a shooting star, had consumed them both completely. Yet their star had flown on, their day having come to an end. She clung to him, not wishing it to end, yet knowing it had come all the same.
“I can’t say goodbye,” he said hoarsely, drawing his mouth back just enough to speak. “I can’t let you go.”
Ellia looked at him. He was as trapped as she in the cycle of grief and because she loved him, just as he loved her, she had to let him go. Her time had come but his had not.
“You can but only for a little time. We will meet again and I’ll be there, waiting for you,” she said and stepped away from his embrace.
She strode to the balcony, ignoring him as he shouted for her, begging for her to turn around. That she didn’t have to go. She didn’t look back as she passed through and embraced the warmth, feeling free – truly free.
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