"It's okay, it's okay, hush."
The Kelvic's confession about the shipwreck and his ill-gotten possessions ended with tears caught in the lip of his eye and a bizarre, wheezy laugh rattling from his hollow chest. She could feel him pushing against her, but not physically. He was hard and inward facing, blocking out whatever it was that stretched between them. And for a sickening moment she wondered if this was what it looked like from a ghosts perspective when it possessed an unwilling host. Was this her spirit invading a creature that did not want it?
He handed her his pack, then sloughed off his long coat and held it out to her too, and she took both automatically. Without them he looked smaller. There was a wide, smiling mouth sketched in ink across his hollow belly. She thought she heard it growl.
Then Allister seemed wait for something, his head bowed and his expression resigned. And again Madeira was shocked to realize that he was waiting for her. The feeling was intoxicating, this kind of charged anticipation, knowing that it was hinged on her.
She lifted her hand to him and with the pad of her thumb she pressed gently on the purple bruise-like bags under his eyes, releasing the tears caught below the lids. They hit the floor between them with a heavy, wet sound, and soaked into the parched wood.
"If they were dead, then it wasn't theirs anymore, was it?" she said softly. "But if you didn't bury the bodies, if you didn't show them that little bit of human decency, you should be ashamed of yourself." Her thumb trailed down his face and caught the fleshy part of his cheek in a twist between the knuckles of her forefinger and her thumb. Much like what her father would do to the misbehaving six-year-old Madeira.
"Can I tell you a secret, Allister?" her smile simmered down into something impish and coy as her hand dropped to her side. "I'm a Maledictor, or trying to be. I've taken worse things than clothes and jewellery from the dead." It was secret only one other person knew, and it was the woman who taught her. Her family, her ghosts, the world at large, nobody suspected that the good little Craven girl had such a barbaric interest. The fact that she was telling this insane man she just met baffled her, but she continued. "Bones, djed, the soul's imprint left on the body. Once the soul has moved on they don't need these things, and certainly not their possessions, anymore. It's good that the dead give something back to the living. You did nothing wrong."
She held the coat out and stood on her toes in order to reach over his head and wrap it around his shoulders. This brought their bodies close enough for her to feel his stuttering breath on her forehead, and see the muscles jumping erratically along his tight shoulders. If he was a ghost, she would be this 'Madison' he spoke of before and tell him that everything would be ok. Or even the sailors on the beach, so she could absolve his supposed sins with their mouths. But he wasn't a ghost, he was alive and right in front of her and she didn't know how to reach him.
But maybe she could be the ghost.
Her observation from before, how she equated his pushing her away to an unwanted possession, crawled to the forefront of her mind. Maybe she could reach him after all.
Without giving her body permission her forehead tilted forward and rested in the space between his collarbones. Her eyes screwed shut and she concentrated on this strange thing, this connection, that was both there and not. It was not solidified, a mere suggestion of thought. She pushed it hard towards him, looking for a way past his prickly defences, riding on gentle thoughts of worthiness and care. Trying to make him understand without words that she could try to put this broken man back together.
The Kelvic's confession about the shipwreck and his ill-gotten possessions ended with tears caught in the lip of his eye and a bizarre, wheezy laugh rattling from his hollow chest. She could feel him pushing against her, but not physically. He was hard and inward facing, blocking out whatever it was that stretched between them. And for a sickening moment she wondered if this was what it looked like from a ghosts perspective when it possessed an unwilling host. Was this her spirit invading a creature that did not want it?
He handed her his pack, then sloughed off his long coat and held it out to her too, and she took both automatically. Without them he looked smaller. There was a wide, smiling mouth sketched in ink across his hollow belly. She thought she heard it growl.
Then Allister seemed wait for something, his head bowed and his expression resigned. And again Madeira was shocked to realize that he was waiting for her. The feeling was intoxicating, this kind of charged anticipation, knowing that it was hinged on her.
She lifted her hand to him and with the pad of her thumb she pressed gently on the purple bruise-like bags under his eyes, releasing the tears caught below the lids. They hit the floor between them with a heavy, wet sound, and soaked into the parched wood.
"If they were dead, then it wasn't theirs anymore, was it?" she said softly. "But if you didn't bury the bodies, if you didn't show them that little bit of human decency, you should be ashamed of yourself." Her thumb trailed down his face and caught the fleshy part of his cheek in a twist between the knuckles of her forefinger and her thumb. Much like what her father would do to the misbehaving six-year-old Madeira.
"Can I tell you a secret, Allister?" her smile simmered down into something impish and coy as her hand dropped to her side. "I'm a Maledictor, or trying to be. I've taken worse things than clothes and jewellery from the dead." It was secret only one other person knew, and it was the woman who taught her. Her family, her ghosts, the world at large, nobody suspected that the good little Craven girl had such a barbaric interest. The fact that she was telling this insane man she just met baffled her, but she continued. "Bones, djed, the soul's imprint left on the body. Once the soul has moved on they don't need these things, and certainly not their possessions, anymore. It's good that the dead give something back to the living. You did nothing wrong."
She held the coat out and stood on her toes in order to reach over his head and wrap it around his shoulders. This brought their bodies close enough for her to feel his stuttering breath on her forehead, and see the muscles jumping erratically along his tight shoulders. If he was a ghost, she would be this 'Madison' he spoke of before and tell him that everything would be ok. Or even the sailors on the beach, so she could absolve his supposed sins with their mouths. But he wasn't a ghost, he was alive and right in front of her and she didn't know how to reach him.
But maybe she could be the ghost.
Her observation from before, how she equated his pushing her away to an unwanted possession, crawled to the forefront of her mind. Maybe she could reach him after all.
Without giving her body permission her forehead tilted forward and rested in the space between his collarbones. Her eyes screwed shut and she concentrated on this strange thing, this connection, that was both there and not. It was not solidified, a mere suggestion of thought. She pushed it hard towards him, looking for a way past his prickly defences, riding on gentle thoughts of worthiness and care. Trying to make him understand without words that she could try to put this broken man back together.
