I took notice of the wafting scent of ink and paper hidden in leather-bound books immediately upon entering the library, where I, much to the chagrin of my indifference, saw my mother, a statue of resolution, looking into the forest of cedars and ashes beyond the sun-streaked panes. I, looking away from my mother, found myself in wonder at the abundance of knowledge and skill held within the beaten bindings as she continued her meditations, focusing only on the world within the boundaries of the window frame.
"Have you come for more than a moment or will you be leaving in time?"
Her voice came out as hardly more than a whisper, barely audible even in the deadened room.
"I came to see you."
When I observed the tepid movement of her shoulders in response to some unknown action in which I had taken part, my throat quivered with the youth and abandon of a boy not more than fourteen, his consciousness just starting to fully form.
"No, I think not. You'll come for what you will and go back along the way you came."
The words punctuated the air with surprising force for their low register, contracting the space to that of the eye of a needle.
I scurried to her side, with the fervor of a mole to its burrow after being hit by the sun, attempting to grab her hand, or the sleeve if she found my hand to be overly familiar. I brushed the silken arm of her gown and she stole it away with a casual flick that, to the outside observer, would seem entirely a trick of the eye. She remained entangled in the trees of which she had become a member, her emerald and lichen-colored robes seeming to join the mossy trunks, while her mind failed to perceive any motion save for the dancing of leaves.
Her glass-white eyes, refusing to land on any object outside that forest, held not a note of contentment or a ray of warmth, as I looked upon them with barely a trace of revulsion in my own self-indulgent mind.
"Trul—"
Her quiet, cool manner cut through my voice with contempt.
"No."
Those pale eyes didn't drift for even a moment as I retracted my pleas, feeling a fool for even attempting to divert her, my ears blushing crimson and burning in that way that they always do, as if I had committed some crime. I brushed the hair from my cheek, savoring the feeling of some skin upon my face. When I looked up at her eyes once more, grown more glassy in only the long moment, they flicked pointedly, wounding me with the sharp indistinction of my person from the surrounding couches. My gaze found the hard brown boards at my feet with ease, where the grains and fine lines became readily apparent.
I attempted to wiggle my toes, my feet not feeling entirely my own, but found them paralyzed in some ethereal grip from which I couldn't seem to free myself. Failing to find release, my eyes were drawn upward into that same dense copse of timber. Her own glass eyes moved not a fraction of the width of a page of even the thinnest book contained within the vastness of her study, none of which she had the presence or mind to provide a cursory glance. Her thin lips softly parted and emitted a whimper of a sound.
"Do you see?"
Calmer than before, she mouthed more words that couldn't hold the air as I, with my limited ability to perceive, strained to hear, finding myself offensively regarded by leaves with their presumptuous rustles. The leaves whispered too, but in my youthful naïveté, I couldn't quite translate their murmurs, so, with frustration and fiery ears, I let my gaze hit the floor once more, welcoming it as my only friend.
"No, how could you."
Her words came out, without any suggestion of question, slapping me across the face and causing a very joyful break from my newly sprung roots. With the same zeal as the mole, I retreated further into my burrow, finding my place near an old rack of novels whose bindings had faded so severely that the titles had long ceased to be more than suggestions. My hands reached for one of my favorites, sitting precariously upon a shelf from which my short arm was only able to gain purchase while on my tiptoes. The novel was caressed as it was pulled from the shelf. The comparatively intact cover, plainly visible through my slender fingers, depicted a man standing with crumbling posture against the long faces of mustachioed villains. The old leather was supple and cool to my touch as I ran my well-practiced fingers along the spine and bindings.
Opening the book to the dog-eared page, at which I had previously ended my journey, I looked upon the tightly packed words punched out in type-set font, where I scanned the text hastily in an attempt to gain an expediant understanding. When my sprint through the pages resulted in naught a single degree of understanding, I resigned myself to dedicate my full imagination to the explorations that could be found within. As my imagination bloomed I came upon one of my oldest friends in the form of a destitute law student living in a garret in St. Petersburg, whom I knew only as Rodya. For a long time Rodya caught me up on the intricacies of his mind and the news of his day but as the hours lengthened a strange chill began to set into our bones. The voice of Rodya's dead woman beckoned to him from the grave and a great chasm opened for each of us, within which I found I could hear the murmuring of leaves forcefully inviting me to enter.
Rodya and I fell together in shared self-consciousness, in the darkness each of us found the belief that our actions had incurred, at the very least, a modicum of blame. This revelation of our mutual guilt caused my internal vision to falter even further as my oldest friend plummeted to his own unique hell while I arrived at my own solo recollection, finding myself wholey alone save for the damp walls of the cave that had become my perception. Rodion's lamentations, of which I had found there to be many ceased to be nothing more than echoes and then nothing more than a deadly quiet wind. The words of which I had been so entranced just minutes prior still moved like ants, continuing their march through the darkness of the tunnels that had become my home. Those ants crawled upon me as I scrounged through the darkness of my own mind; I could feel their legs paving a road for me to follow but for my own life I was unable to see or hear their movements becoming hopelessly lost from even that simple train. I was hopeless to do anything but crawl along in search of the ants while my mind wandered even further afield where I had failed to notice the light brightening only a foot in front of me.
The walls took form and I
The memory took the shape of fresh wet brown and cream sploches upon the Persian rug that had once decorated the oaken floor of our foyer.
I happened upon the action of the heat of the mug causing my hand, barely able to circumnavigate the width of the cup, to smart and release the beverage from a few feet above the ground. I watched in muffled horror as the muddy liquid, tinged with notes of sugar and vanilla, plummeted downward millimeter by millimeter, my mind racing feet in the future. Those single seconds, before gravity took away any attempt at reconciliation, hung with me as I sat blinded by the morning light to which I was unaccustomed. My eyes burned and my whiskers twitched maddeningly in a way to which I, again to my chagrin, had become accustomed. I could see the large pile of blameful pages full of charges that could be continuously laid on a lectern, where a gavel would pound for my silence. The small splash of drink, bitter to my tastes at that age, against the ornate weavings could be heard like a tree falling in the forest, and my mother, so attuned to the trees, was the first observer.
"Why?"
Her voice lanced through the air that the rays of light had just occupied and hit me with the force of that same gavel upon an oaken desk. The white eyes found me for only a second but scorched me in their morning glory, causing my vision to flash so bright not a shape could be discerned.
"I di—"
She cut me off with a single instantaneous blow, without a passing glance.
"I'm tired, too tired to hear your excuses."
My whiskers were severed causing the loss of my only sense through which to perceive the action from which I had derived this entirely justifiable manner. I could only blindly acknowledge my own sin and attempt the retreat into the darkness that I so craved, with only a fleeting glance toward light I had a cursory belief should feel warm. However, I was summarily hoisted fully into the icy light through single words spoken with the temperament of one wholly devoid of compassion toward the creature dwarfed by their stature.
"No."
A single ray.
"You are not."
More light kept my vision opaque and clouded.
"Matilde. Take this away from me."
A firm, unyielding vise closed around my minuscule fading form as I, through many attempts to wiggle myself from the prison, was dragged out of the light and into an iron cage lit by a single sconce mounted on the wall.
"You really should not have done that. You'll have done it for both of us."
Creaked the ancient voice in a tone of judgment honed by ages of condescension toward creatures between the ranks of stature that existed between a giant and a mole.
"She only wants it with enough heat that it will make it hard for me to flip my pages after it's been delivered."
I squealed pleadingly.
"Nonsense! She likes it how she always has, and you will deliver it as such, and you will have or have not your precious fantasies regardless."
The stiff, bony grip dragged me up into the cage toward a heavy metal-bound door at the end of a long corridor where I could see, through the small window on the door, naught but an empty wall marred by only one other window. Thrown into the room, I was able to make out only another wall outside the room and, looking out, holding exuberance for a potential dynamic scene, was disappointed to find only a view of that wall and the stone courtyard below.
A singular wooden bed and straw mattress were situated in the corner, with a small dresser being the only other occupant of the space, and I knew instinctively that it held no object of interest within.
"You'll stay in here until you understand the pain you've caused."
The voice croaked and then faded, the final change to the space being the hinges of the door creaking and the echoing plunk of the key in the lock. Knowing my sentence, I looked through the window and the outside light burned my light one last time, vision fading into a blackness from which I would not soon leave.
The words in my vision appeared again through the darkness, and their march ended, and I realized, again to my chagrin, I had to retrace my path to the fork in the road from which I'd lost my way. I followed Rodion as he rode his way through that forest into which we both had borne ourselves, with little intent other than ignorance, attempting to find our way free.
I found myself upon a leather couch, smelling of hide and coffee, in the oppressive room and, for an eternity, sat with my defiant hero, only stopping to consider the purpose of his original actions and how he had not realized his own blame.
"Matilde, take this away."
Ears burned when the words quietly but forcefully interrupted my travels, and I knew, with a not-so-quiet indifference, that my second home was awaiting my arrival. My older brother was ripped from my hands and thrown into a corner shaded by an unlit, ornately decorated stained-glass lamp, and I, with that same disguised indifference, struggled to hold back a single gasp. The slight gesture could not be totally withheld, however.
"Your fantasies won't excuse your behavior."
That same croaking reverberated through the room, echoing off the faded covers. The hand sprang upon me again and crushed my arm while almost ripping my shoulder away from the rest of my body with such force that I could only resist if I had had a desire to risk my own injury. We together trod a different path out of the room and the views of the timbers toward that same lifeless burrow to which I had been accustomed. I found my bed, dresser, and lastly my single view again, through which the same stone courtyard awaited, where my Rodion did not wait, with only small dead leaves occasionally visiting through whipping currents of air.