Monster

15. Wilted Rose

1832 February 10th

One hour after midnight

Wilted Rose

Elsa sat up and looked around; all that she saw was the familiar closed and locked shutters of the nearby windows, the old cobblestones, a stray cat watching her with wide eyes from the gloom of the nearest alleyway. Elsa sat up and made to stand, but that is when she froze.

Below her, on the ground, was a girl. Her eyes were open, gazing blankly at the stars, her lips and eyes bruised with the numbing cold. Her skin was whiter than the snow that shivered around them in the wind. Her clothes looked too big, slipping from her shoulders, baring her more so to the winter air. Elsa quickly ducked back down to lift the material back onto her shoulder when realization hit her.

This girl could not feel the frigid air, nor was she enjoying the stars, nor was she just anyone.

She was dead, and she was Elsa.

Elsa screamed and fell back, the panic a white inferno in her heart. No, she thought desperately. No, no... that is not me. She merely looks like me, but she is not...

"ELSA!"

Elsa turned, relief enveloping her like a hand-knitted quilt. Ronan ran toward her, his coat hem flapping in his rush to get nearer. "Ronan!" Elsa cried, pushing herself up from the cold, hard ground with renewed hope. But Ronan ran into her shoulder, causing her to gasp and stumble. She looked back and stared. Ronan had kneeled next to the dead Elsa, his arms around her white shoulders, and emanating from him was a sound that Elsa never wanted to hear again; it was the sound of broken glass, thunder over a roaring ocean, fire in the trees, the lost, the forgotten, the dead.

Ronan cried against Elsa's limp body until the lavender clouds drifted before the moon; sobbed until Elsa walked over to kneel next to them; rocked the girl in his arms until Elsa tried to touch his shoulder. But he could not feel it.

Little did Elsa know, he could not feel anything anymore.

And neither could she.

Whatever they were, whatever they could have become, it was a dead rose now.

Unknown time

1832 February 11th

"I am dead."

Elsa stared into a mirror, one that did not reveal her image back to her. Around her people were gathered; the white sheets that had covered her father's furniture were now lifted and folded away; the floors and walls were free of the dust that had collected there for several years, and the rooms smelled of roast and bread, no longer of ghosts and old paper.

But there was one ghost in the room, and it was Elsa. She traipsed around the guests, many of whom she did not even recognize, all except Ronan, who stood before a casket, a notebook in his hands.

His head was down, lips pursed, eyelashes lowered. His shoulders looked too heavy, Elsa thought, and her heart fell right along with them. She allowed herself to dwell in that moment on the life they could have shared; she could no longer anticipate his visits, his gestures, or even a kiss.

She could no longer look forward to a book, write a poem, enjoy tea, crave adventure. She could no longer dream of anything, because her time was over. She saw in Ronan's helpless frame that he, too, had realized all of this.

"Ronan," she whispered, and moved through the guests, one hand out for him, but as it rested on his shoulder, his back, and then his hand, he took no notice. Her eyes fell to the notebook and in that same second he reached out, placing it in the casket where the girl lay, her hair over her shoulders, over the lacy collar of her dress; her neck was bare where her mother's old necklace used to reside. Her pale skin glittered like snow, forever cold. Her eyes and lips were closed, forever silent.