Eden eyes fluttered open when the racket beyond her sleep became unbearable.
With her body uncomfortably bent, her head on the mattress of Maggie's bed, the first thing she saw was the window across the foot of the bed.
It was raining.
Intense.
Water-droplets were bombarding the glass pane with such loud brutality that she feared the glass would blare up and shatter away.
She got up; the several bones of her neck and back cracking painfully. She had slept on the cold floor all night, which explained why her body had gone numb out of disuse.
Walking to the window, she pulled the curtains on to minimize the din.
Despite this clamor, thankfully, Maggie was sleeping peacefully. The poor girl had been very anxious last night and Eden wanted her to rest anyway.
It had gotten chilly in here, the air. The weather.
Eden walked to the bed and pulled the blanket higher over the sleeping girl. Maggie's hair was a tousled mess.
Eden touched a blond strand of hair from her forehead to push it back but doing so, her fingers brushed across the pale skin of the girl and Eden backed away with a jolt, staring at her fingers.
What even...?
Eden felt like her fingertips had been burnt from the touch.
Was Magpie running fever?
Cautiously, she moved closer to the 'sleeping' figure and touched Maggie's forehead.
She realized then. The unspeakable.
It was not fever. It was something more radical.
The skin was frigid. Frozen.
Eden shook Maggie, summoning her to wake up.
But Maggie was so selfish. Maggie refused to listen. Refused to wake up.
Then other understandings slammed over Eden. Like the lack of rise and fall or any trivial movement on the body. Like the ghastly whiteness of the skin. Like the rolled back eyes. Like the absolute amity of the features.
Like a war had just ended, not in peace but in a lack of sound.
Like a mermaid suddenly forgot how to swim, drowned and settled away in the deep depth of ocean, never to come afloat.
Like an angel, whose wings fell off in the midflight, who fell, and fell and fell so hard, shattered on the rocks, like the drop of water shatters in these rain.
Death came softly. Collected its due, went away softly.
What it left behind, however, was piercingly loud.
It was deafening.
***
It was ten in the morning, raining oceans, and lack of a certain something that got Mrs. Hopkins into wondering of Eden and Maggie's whereabouts.
It was half an hour past ten that Mrs. Hopkins' calm faltered at the prolonged absence of the two.
It was fifteen minutes past that, she asked Carol to go and check for the two.
It was the day of loss.
***
Carol knocked the door of Eden's room, down the servant's quarter but no answer came from within. She fumbled with the doorknob and found it unlocked.
She entered the room calling for Maggie.
The room was too dark. The candles were none lit. The curtains were all drawn.
She found Maggie lying in bed and Eden sitting by her on the chair, quite blankly, rubbing Margaret's palm with her own hands, staring at the sleeping face unblinkingly.
"Eden?" Carol frowned. "What's wrong? Is Maggie unwell?"
Eden looked up at her and smiled. "She is well."
"Eden. Are you...."
"Hush!" Eden whispered softly, her eyes strangely wide. "It's raining. It's cold. Maggie is cold."
"Maggie is cold? I see." Carol sauntered closer to the bed. "Mrs. Hopkins is calling for you two."
"Can't come." Eden mumbled single-mindedly and restarted rubbing Magpie's hand. "Maggie is cold."
Perhaps it was the abnormal way in which Eden spoke and appeared, or perhaps it was just too uncommon for Maggie to be seen in such still state of rest, Carol felt a dread swirling in her bosom.
"Eden. Is something wrong?" Carol reached for Maggie's forehead. "Is Maggie..."
That was when Carol's finger encountered Maggie's rigid flesh. She felt it, was cut short. But unlike Eden, she didn't back away.
Her hand stilled on that frozen skin until there was no mistaking it.
Carol clapped her hand on her mouth as Eden sat indifferently rubbing hands and staring at Maggie.
The defeat began to play its pitiless game.
Carol ran out of the room.
***
Mrs. Hopkins didn't exactly understand whatever Carol blubbered to her.
But she understood it had something to do with Maggie. It had something ghastly to do with Maggie.
When she barged into the room with Bella and Caro and Devin on the leash, she found Maggie prone on bed, covered in quilt and blankets, head rolled to side, very white and Eden rubbing her hand in sheer concentrated air.
Eden looked up and Mrs. Hopkins eyes met with her vacant ones.
"Maggie is cold." Eden whispered. "Let me warm her."
Carol was instantly around the bed at Eden's side. She freed Maggie's stiff hand from Eden's heated finger and pulled the girl away from the bed.
"What?" Eden inquired absently, looking confused, but Carol had no words to spare. Her throat was clogged out of words. Only tears.
Bella broke crying, Carol, who was holding Eden turned her face away and Mrs. Hopkins mumbled a prayed inaudibly.
"Eden." Mrs. Hopkins voice was trembling. "What had happened?"
"Nothing." Eden spoke, then paused like a chastised child who could lie no more. "Maggie is bleeding."
"Bleeding?"
Devin came forth and removed the quilt off Maggie's body.
And behold lay, a sight so cruel, that eyes could hardly believe what they saw.
Blood.
So much blood.
Whole of Maggie's lower half and the bed mattress dripped red. Dripped blood.
Gore.
Devin whipped around and ran out of the room.
"Holy...!" Mrs. Hopkins gasped, backing away. "What unholy happened Eden?"
"Nothing." Eden mumbled softly. Calmly. "Why do you ask?"
"Are you lost girl?" Mrs. Hopkins growled. "Are you blind? Look at all this! For the sake of Christ...."
"She must be on her courses." Eden spoke as if she was thinking out loud.
"This is not course Eden." Mrs. Hopkins spoke tersely, the backdrop filled with Bella and Carol's sobbing.
"Do not be hard, Mrs. Hopkins." Eden protested softly. "She is with a baby. She is to be married soon."
And Eden smiled pleasantly at the thought.
Mrs. Hopkins didn't go on any further. She got the idea. She understood what it meant.
"Child." She gestured Eden to come closer which the girl did, almost automatically. "I am so sorry. I pity you. I pity your loss. Come now, my dear, let the delusion pass. God bless you. No, don't smile like that Eden, for god sake, Eden. Mercy!"
"I do not even understand what you are talking of." Eden smiled sardonically. "Why would I need your sympathy?"
"She is no more Eden." Mrs. Hopkins mumbled miserably, her eyes wet now. "Let your Maggie go."
Eden said nothing to that.
She walked back to the side of the bed. She replaced herself on the chair. She picked up sleeping Maggie's hand and restarted her rubbing.
It was heartbreaking.
It was a heart. Broken.
It was the trauma that Eden couldn't deal with. It was a loss too big to let go.
That's why Eden held on to this delusion.
***
Mrs. Hopkins sent the fastest rider for Lord Adelwood, no letter but words.
To come soon.
Maggie was gone and Eden was lost.
Come....or we shall fall asunder.
***
Eden helped them clean Maggie's body of all the blood and fluid.
She provided them Maggie's night-gown to dress her up.
She combed Maggie's golden hair herself, smiling fondly at the girl.
While Carol and Bella and rest of the maids sobbed and cried reverently, while the footmen now and then sighed and sat down, exhausted by grief, while Mrs. Hopkins ordered everyone around with wet eyes and weak foundation, Eden was the quietest person one could come across.
But there was something naturally odd in this tranquility of her.
Her quietness was not peace.
A sinister shadow darkened the around of her face. Her eyes were always dilated and open wide. She walked like a machine, as if on the command of some external force.
She was not the same.
"She looks so pretty, doesn't she Bella?" Eden inquired pleasantly and Bella wept harder at her side. Eden frowned, then. "A little pale though..."
"Eden, she is dead!" Bella's voice was hoarse.
Eden shrugged and smiled down at the body lying on her own bed. "Mr. Penfield would be pleased."
Eden kissed Maggie's forehead and the chilled skin scarred her lips forever.
***
That night, Eden persisted on sleeping in her own room, where Magpie's body now lay, on the bed, bound in white sheets, surrounded by sad flowers.
It took Carol and Bella a lot of Effort to convince her otherwise. It even took Mrs. Hopkins help.
On Mrs. Hopkins' commendation, Eden agreed to sleep with Carol and Bella.
But the next morning, when they woke up, Eden wasn't in their room.
Carol ran to Mrs. Hopkins and together, they dared to walk into Maggie's room.
There she was.
On the same bed at which Maggie's remains lay.
Eden was lying on the side of the body, hand around the waist of the dead. She was truly asleep.
She was irreparably broken.
***
Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
And the casket was lowered into the grave, on the hill slope. It was a lot windy up here.
The rain had stopped but it was still cloudy.
And still...Eden had no tears to spare.
She smiled bitterly at these fools who were weeping around the grave.
Only, she was uncertain whether or not it would trouble Maggie to breathe so deep under the ground.
__
This was truly painful.