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What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?
Don’t you remember, she told him then, when you were nothing but shadow and smoke? Darling, he’d said in his soft, rich way, I was the night itself.
I don’t even know the context but alright shakespeare
“The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful. They are fickle, unsteady as moonlight on water, or shadows in a storm. If you insist on calling them, take heed: be careful what you ask for, be willing to pay the price.” She leans over Adeline, casting her in shadow. “And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”
oop
No, Adeline has decided she would rather be a tree, like Estele. If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.
He did not, but that winter he took ill and died, and Adeline felt terrible for her relief, even as she fed more trinkets to the stream.
aksjdjsjdhdjdj
Arnaud’s eyes were pleasant, but he had no chin. Jacques was tall, but dull as dirt. George was strong, but his hands were rough, his moods rougher still. And so she stole the pieces she found pleasant, and assembled someone new. A stranger.
build a man
“A dreamer,” scorns her mother. “A dreamer,” mourns her father. “A dreamer,” warns Estele. Still, it does not seem such a bad word. Until Adeline wakes up.
And this is what she’s settled on: she can go without food (she will not wither). She can go without heat (the cold will not kill her). But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad. What she needs are stories. Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.
Adeline is three and twenty, already too old to wed.
Three and twenty, a third of a life already buried.
woah lets relax…..
“It will be good for you,” says her mother, “to be somebody’s wife.”
gross
“You will come to love your husband,” he says, but the words are clearly more wish than promise. “You will be a good wife,” says her mother, and hers are more command than wish.
oof
The shadow cuts her off, impatient. “What use is it, to tell me what you do not want?” His hand slides through her hair, comes to rest against the back of her neck, drawing her close. “Tell me instead what you want most.”
blink
It is coming together now, words wrapped over melody. It is becoming his. It is like a tree, taking root. He will remember, on his own; not her, of course—not her, but this. Their song.
well that’s sad
But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.
A secret kept. A record made. The first mark she left upon the world, long before she knew the truth, that ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root.
How do you walk to the end of the world? she once asked. And when Addie didn’t know, the old woman smiled that wrinkled grin, and answered. One step at a time.
What a luxury, to tell one’s story. To be read, remembered.
Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered? It’s like that Zen koan, the one about the tree falling in the woods. If no one heard it, did it happen? If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?
Three tries, and two bottles of the precious medicine wasted before she realized she could not drug the drinks herself, could not be the hand that did the harm. But mix it in the bottle of wine, reset the cork, and let them pour their own glass, and the action is no longer hers. See? She is learning. It is a lonely education.
this is crazy
“I am in the business of souls, not mercy.”
OOF
There is a defiance in being a dreamer.
“Don’t be a stranger,” says Sam.
idk if I was addie a comment like this would send me into a spiral
Three words, large enough to tip the world. I remember you.
“One coffee,” he says. “And you’re still banned from the shop.” Addie feels the air rush back into her lungs. “Deal.”
And this time, when he holds out his hand, she knows he’s inviting her to take it.
okay i giggled
Addie sits forward. “You think yourself a cat, playing with its catch. But I am not a mouse, and I will not be a meal.”
“Addie.” She swallows, hard. “My name’s Addie.”
