Grave Lies

Constellation of Shivers

"There is an anger that has nothing to do with malice. It's the roar of someone who is

protecting their own fragilities."

  "'I know it's you...'

Adeline noticed my little hand holding onto her shirt. She turned around and found me there.
'How?' she asked, confused.
'To keep me company. I know it's you down there, holding my hand when she punishes me.'
That touch in the darkness could only be her.
Adeline looked at me for a moment, and then... she understood. Her eyes landed on the end of the hallway, where the cellar door was.
'If she were to see you...' I looked at her, small and worried. 'Aren't you afraid she'll find out?'
She lowered her eyes back to me. She stared at me for a moment, then a sweet smile softened her features.
'She won't find out.'
She took my hand, careful of my broken nails, and I returned the grip with all the affection trembling inside me. I hugged her, burying myself in her soft hair. I cared for her tremendously.
'Thank you,' I whispered, tears in my voice. 'Thank you...'
Adeline.
My heart pounded in my ears.
My mind pulsed with frantic images: Adeline smiling, comforting me, with blue eyes and blond hair like the sun; Adeline secretly crying in the shadow of the ivy, picking up one of the other children, intertwining our fingers."

 Hair in the Grave's garden, as if we could build our own happy ending down there.

Adeline was there.
Adeline was kissing Rigel.
Frozen, I saw push her away abruptly and then give her a glare that made her laugh lightly.
I couldn't breathe. I felt a tightening in my chest when Rigel's eyes suddenly noticed me, urgent. I stared at him with that silent scream trapped inside my chest.
At that moment, Adeline noticed his gaze and turned back with her lips still curved.
Her eyes landed on me... and her smile slipped away.
I saw her eyelids widen slowly, as if struggling to believe it.
'...Nica?' she whispered, incredulous.
The next moment, as if struck by a sudden realization, her gaze shifted to the house behind me.
Then she turned to Rigel. She looked at him in a way I couldn't decipher, but the intimacy of her gaze shook me.
'Oh...' Adeline looked back at me, moved. 'Nica...'
'Nica!'
Anna rushed towards me, alarmed. She wrapped a blanket around me as I continued to stare at Adeline with wide eyes.
'Nica, you have a fever! You can't stay out here like this! The doctor said you need to rest!'
Adeline locked eyes with her as looked up. They stared at each other for a moment, before the woman behind me put an arm around my shoulders.
'Come inside,' she said, trying to guide me, 'you can't catch any more cold...'
I reluctantly followed, wrapped in the blanket.
'Adeline...'
'I'll come by,' she promised, reaching out to me. 'Don't worry, you... rest. I'll come to say hello in the next few days. I promise!'
I could only nod before Anna led me back inside.

 I searched for Rigel's eyes. With a tinge of pain, I saw that they were no longer on me.


 "Oh, Rigel..." she heard murmured. "What have you done?"

Rigel couldn't look at her. He already felt too much shame to bear that resigned tone.
Her eyes were imprinted in his pupils, like a brand that would never stop burning.
"Why are you here?" he spat, frustrated, channeling his frustration towards the girl next to him.
Adeline hesitated before answering.
"Do you think I forgot what day it is the day after tomorrow?" she said almost gently, an attempt to ease the tension that he, however, crushed with a glance.
She lowered her gaze.
"I heard about Peter," she admitted. "A police officer came to question me... He asked about Margaret. He said he was tracking down all the kids who were at the institute before she was discharged. From him, I found out that you were no longer at the Grave. And now I understand why."
A silence fell that tasted of guilt, of mistakes counted on the tips of fingers until losing count, and Rigel felt it as something inevitable.
"Does she know?"
"Know what?" he hissed reluctantly, but that venomous anger collided impotently with a wall: eyes full of a painful truth.
Because Adeline knew. Adeline had always known.
Because Adeline had always looked at him with that interest that he had never returned, condemned to an indestructible and eternal love.
Because she had always followed him with her eyes at the institute, just to see him look at Nica.
"That you let yourself be chosen to stay with her."

 Rigel clenched his teeth with a venomous snap. His body was tense and rigid, and he didn't look at her, but he remained silent because answering would be admitting the only fault he couldn't deny.