Translucent

Chapter 42: The Last Experience

The fire on the hearth started out small, emitting low heat before the heat spread through Cornelius' attic sanctuary, radiating warmth amidst the stormy night. I shuddered, wrapping myself up in a thick fleece blanket as I was seated on the mattress laid on the wooden floor. The gramophone was letting out another old music dating back to the early-twentieth century, this time of a man and a woman exchanging tunes. The sound itself was enough to fill the silence.

Despite Cornelius' initial protest that Mum or Diane could check on me in my room, he agreed that we would get to spend the night on his sanctuary. I wanted to be surrounded with the things that were a part of his life before he was gone for good. Cornelius and I sneaked out of the room after Mum and Nathan were asleep and Diane had left for the day.

"Do you want to know about the progress?" I spoke.

"What progress?" Cornelius' back was facing the hearth across me. He shoved a stick to the flames to draw more heat.

"About your daughter." I gulped.

Cornelius stopped. The flames illuminated half of his face, creating an eerie shadow of his other half. After visiting Ralph, we spent about a good hour or two at a cafe in Aberfeldy perusing webpages. We started off from any stub information Cornelius or the Haywood Estate have got and took off from there. Alas, we found nothing of Fiona. I guess it was hard to just start off with only a name as a hint without anything else–no location, nothing. But despite our search being stuck, Sophie was right: at least that a cup of hot chocolate kind of made up for it.

"Sophie and I haven't found much information but we did at least know her name." At this point, Cornelius leaned closer to listen more attentively. "It's Fiona."

"I see."

"That's all we found so far. We're still working on looking where she lives."

Cornelius hung his head. "Are you really alright with all of this? That I had a family?"

I bit my lip. I was mad at him because he wasn't telling me the truth, but it was my ego that took over. "Of course I do. I..." I trailed off. "...Fiona must be eager to meet her dad."

He remained silent. I wondered if he ever thought of finding his daughter again, or if we did find her, whether he'd be ready.

"You still love her?" I asked him. He looked up from his pondering. "Aileana?"

The name still felt heavy in my tongue.

"S-she was all I thought of, a few short years after she was gone–I was gone. As time flew, her presence no longer mattered. I gathered she might have not thought about me anymore and moved on with her life, and so did I. She was simply a piece of my past I never wanted to revisit." Cornelius explained, his eyes shooting a gloomy look. "Elisabeth, I was never disappointed when you came here. That day, I was simply losing my mind. These years of existence had taken its toll."

"I understand." I gulped.

After checking on the hearth, Cornelius walked over to me past the cloth-covered furniture and patted me over the blanket. Despite the warmth, all I ever wanted to feel was the coldness of his body that I would soon be absent. He then sat next to me and held my hand. I stared at the contrasting complexions we both had. Both pale but in a different way.

"I wish I was born a century early so I could meet you in your lifetime," I mumbled, leaning my head on his shoulder while we both gazed at the hearth.

"Or better yet, I wish I was born a century later, far from being the son of a rich tycoon. Also you blokes are also lucky to live at times with no war." Cornelius muttered. "Thank you for coming into my existence, Elisabeth Finch."