Pomelo #30 + Peppermint #3
I’m in love with her, Felice thinks, and I am so afraid for her.
He had been living with Maribel for three months now, and they were the happiest three months of his life thus far. They’d met at the seaside, where she went every morning to play in the surf, and where he’d ended up sleeping off a hangover. It was chance, but Felice preferred to call it fate. They met again at the bar he frequented, the night after, and they’d developed a fast friendship that the people of Sea Gull Village had watched over with keen eyes.
They didn’t have to, for as much as the young village girl was interested with the flighty traveler, so was the traveler interested in her. They didn’t dare call it love yet, but as time passed, they whispered the word between themselves, and not long after, they felt it right itself, and the word changed into a feeling, and the feeling was shared.
Maribel was lovely, young and bright. All the things Felice had wanted to be, but failed, because he’d pledged himself to the Wyndham’s. But for that entire year he stayed at the small village by the sea, he’d forgotten about the wretched house, his siblings, and the dark steps that led to the basement. For a year, he loved a woman who loved him, and they were happy.
But all happiness is bound to die.
That morning, when Maribel had gone to visit the market, a letter had arrived at their doorstep. Gian, the mailman, had an odd look on his face when he handed it to him. “That letter, is it from your family, Fel?” He’d stared with barely contained surprise at the creamy white envelope that bore that damned last name on the back, and nodded. “Din’t you say you ‘ad none?” He’d told the villagers that he was a runaway, that his family had no idea where he was. Felice nodded again. A bright grin came upon his face.
“Who knows? Maybe they’ve come to tell me of a fortune I’d inherited!” Gian laughed and shook his head at him, and left. Felice stood still in the sunlit doorway for another moment, before he swept inside, locking the door with a snap as he did so.
Wyndham, Wyndham, Why now? Why, at all, even? Wyndham, damn you, Wyndham…
They wanted him to come. A marriage ceremony was being held. He would bear the rings, along with Michel. They wanted him to bring Maribel.
No, no, no.
Felice bowed his head, and clutched at his temples, and he was silent for the longest time, until Maribel returned. He told her it was a terrible headache, and that there was no fortune for them after all. Maribel had given him a quizzical look, and sighed, “Fool, you’ve gone and dipped into Father’s sherry, haven’t you? Come, back to bed with you! Sleep off that foolishness, and then we’ll go for a walk.”
Felice lay on their bed, thinking. He obviously couldn’t outrun them, and the letter had taken on his lie already. And, to add to the madness, there was a thin band around his left ring finger. Why had they come to him now? He and Maribel had barely begun their lives as husband and wife-
The start of a journey should never be mistaken for success.
Wasn’t that what Michel had told him, right before he left him at the first town he’d landed in after leaving Wyndham House? He’d been high off the feeling of freedom-a day spent without seeing any of the other children, or the walls of the cursed house. And then Michel had appeared, finished his slice of apple pie, and told him in all seriousness the words he now remembered. Irony, he thought, or what passed for it in the lives of the children of Wyndham.
Felice groaned as he buried his face into the pillows, cursing Wyndham, Michel, and the damned hawk’s gifts.
He didn’t notice the darkening ring around his finger, not until it was too late.