Caged

Chapter III

“Yes. Don’t you want to?”

He picked her up without warning. Lucia was trying not to laugh as she threw her arms around his shoulders. He went to the window, helping her outside first, then following her behind. "I want to show you something marvelous that I discovered on the way here. I think you'll like it."

He set her down and took her hand. Markus led her into the deep woods. She knew she was in danger being led out into nowhere, and it was what excited her.

"You know how I do cartography?"

Lucia nodded, but he didn't see with his back turned as he led.

"I can draw you a map of any part of the sky and label all the stars. I'll give you your own little part of the sky, and whenever you look at the map, you can know that I'm looking at it, too. If you touch it or point to stars, I'll know, and I'll look there."

When Lucia first met Markus and he said these things, she had thought he was crazy, and just babbled stuff like this all the time, all untruthful, fantastical things. But she learned that everything he said was always true. She smiled, and this time, he looked over his shoulder to see her expression.

"I'm glad you like it. I figured most of your suitors got you diamonds and rubies, but they can't give you stars like I can. Much, much bigger than the diamonds you're getting." He brought her to a field that was flattened by hay cutters. Lucia laid down in the middle of the field. Markus sat down beside her, but it only took him a moment to lean over her, looking down at her face.” I could just do a self portrait. You'd always have a picture of me. Would you like that?"

“No, quit it." She smiled and pushed his face away. "I don't find you attractive whatsoever."

"Oh? Not even my humility? My charming manners?"

"Manners?" she snorted. “I’m just here for the map.” She framed a spot of stars and the moon with her fingers. "I want that."

"Lift up your hands higher." She did, and he stuck his face beneath her hands. He looked up through the little frame she made while he rested his head on her breast. "Hm, not anything I’d pick. But for you..."

She smacked him lightly, but didn’t stop smiling.

"You don't have anything to draw with, do you?"

He pulled out a pastel and a long piece of parchment from thin air, which was very normal for him to do.

Markus looked up at the sky and began to pinpoint the stars onto the map. He layered the sky in different blues of all shades and blended them together with his fingers. She leaned over his shoulders with her arms draped around him and her chin upon his shoulder.

"Why don't you propose?"

He shrugged.

"We don't need each other. We can survive without each other." He continued drawing.

"You don’t really believe that, do you?" she asked.

Markus did not reply.

Lucia didn't move from where she was on him, and suddenly wanted to ask him where he went, and why she couldn't follow him. If he saw other women, if he was already married...who he was. She felt a flash of anger in her, and she wanted to squeeze her arms around him and push all his fantastic breath out of him.

"I don't know who you are at all. You could be outside in the world, far away from me, using girls like me all the time. Drawing them stars, giving them all they want. How can you even think that I don't need you?"

Markus paused. He was thinking.

"Do you know, Lucia, that you are the girl that knows most about me? Not the only girl, but of anyone in this entire world, you know me best, and you know the best side of me.”

The moon was white pastel. It blended back and made blue curves that reflected the sky beyond. He lifted up the map when he was finished.

"Do you see any difference?" He asked.

"No, not at all.” She tilted her head as she looked at the map.

When he handed her the map, he cupped the outside of her hands, watching her face. “I can’t give you everything you want.”

“I’m going to marry someone when you’re gone,” she threatened.

Markus stood up.

“You don’t understand,” she continued. “I’ll marry someone, and you won’t ever be able to come back. I won’t let you.” She got up and followed him when he started walking back towards her house. “I won’t let myself look for you in windows or wait for you to be one of my suitors.” Her fist crushed the map as she tried to keep up with his steps, but it was as though she couldn’t walk fast enough. “I won’t be reduced to that in marriage. And you…come to me on St. Valentine’s, proclaiming some sort of love for me, but you never want to show devotion.”

“I gave you the stars—what more do you want?” Markus said over his shoulder, exasperated.

“The stars mean nothing to me when I mean nothing to you,” she continued. “If you are making a fool of me, what do the stars do for me? If you are always with someone else, what does anything mean to me?” Her voice broke, and she hated how this man had reduced her to this.

“They don’t matter, Lucia. They don’t know me.” He stopped and looked at her. “Does that mean nothing to you? That you know me? That I open myself to you?” Markus’ eyes were fiery and vacant all at once. “I’m not supposed to get married to you. We could have the same life that we both want without marriage, you know.”

Lucia felt her fingers crushing the map in her hand, and she wanted to tear it up.

"Why don't you come with me?" He stared at her. "You could. You could leave your house and your family--you always complain about them, you always hate your life there, but you never want to leave."

Of course, Lucia had thought of it before. She had thought about leaving with Markus and going wherever he went. She returned his stare and swallowed thickly. She wanted to tell him that she could not go on her own. Markus couldn't give her everything.

"I can't be on my own like that. You’d have to take care of me. You’re supposed to ask me to be yours.”

He scoffed, his lip upturned in a sneer.

"You are pathetic sometimes, you know that? I do everything a girl would want. I visit you and give you things you never dreamed of getting before me. And yet you still want more. You want me to kneel at your feet, beg you to be my wife like those other bastards. All of them, those suitors, your parents, they’ll leave you one day because you won’t have a purpose. I love you without purpose."

They stared at each other for a while, and Lucia’s mouth moved as though she was going to speak. But in the end, Lucia shrugged her shoulder and walked past him. When they were back outside of her house, they stood beside each other near the window. The light from inside spilled onto the grass and lit their faces. He suddenly grabbed her wrists and pulled her to him. She said nothing.

"You are the bane of me." He kissed her once.

"You'll come back,” she said.

He brought her back up to her room. He turned his back to the house and stepped up backwards as he held his hands out to her. Lucia took his hands and stepped up to where he stood, following him up the invisible staircase. When they came to her window, he opened it and went into her bedroom, then helped her inside.

"Can you visit again as a gentleman?"

Markus smiled wistfully.

"Perhaps. It will have to be a surprise."

Then they embraced, and Markus the magician left her.