After Forever Ends - Ramone Melodie (бесплатные книги полный формат TXT) 📗
It was all real. Life, elves, muffins and death…it was all real. And I understood none of it. Not a thing of any of it, but it was still real and it was beautiful and it was savage and I hated what had happened, but I loved my life. I loved my life because of him, because he was in it. I wanted to tell him that I remembered what Headmistress Pennyweather had said and that I still knew what it was I first saw that made me love him. I wanted to tell him that we were going to be all right and that we were going to get through it together, just like always. He didn’t need to worry about me. I wasn’t going anywhere, not today and not tomorrow. I’d never leave him.
It was a long time later, but I finally opened my eyes. Oliver was sitting beside me with his head down and his hand hanging over the rail of my bed. I reached out for him and put my fingers against his.
“Sil?” He practically jumped, “Oh, Love, it’s so good to see those beautiful blue eyes!”
I tried to speak, but I don’t know what I said. I finally just put my hand on the back of his head and I pulled him down. I kissed him for a long time, one kiss without breaking contact with his lips, “I’m not hurt,” I finally tried to say, but my voice was a hoarse whisper, “Or ticked off…I’m Just Silvia and I’m just fine and I love you…”
“Silvia,” His voice was shaky. His beautiful brown eyes were swollen and bloodshot behind tears, “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up! I’m so sorry, Love! I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me…”
“It wasn’t you. It was me. I did something wrong! I put a wrong something in the batter and I spoiled the muffin and it died…” I shook my head tried to pull myself together so I could say what I meant instead of blathering like a fool. “I didn’t know or I wouldn’t have done it!”
“Silvia, they gave you loads of drugs. You’re not making any sense, Love. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, no! Listen to me!” I clung to his hand.
“I’m listening, Sweetheart.”
“I never told you. I never told you how much I wanted a child, but I did. I told the wood and the winds and I told the Lord and Lady. I told them everything, but I didn’t tell you that I wanted to have your baby so badly. I wanted something that was you and me all in one…magic…I wanted to make muffin magic…” I was struggling to speak. I could hear my words slurring. My eyes kept closing. I fought to make any sense at all, “You don’t know how much I love you or how much I need you. I love you, Oliver, and I love our baby, but I didn’t even know she was there and--”
“Shush, Love, shush…I know.”
“Please don’t hate me, because I don’t know what I did wrong! I tried! I tried, but I couldn’t stop Death from taking the baby! Her life had already spilled out with my blood onto the grass!”
“Sweetheart, stop it! Hate you? No, Silvia, no,” He took my hand in both of his and pressed it to his lips, “I’ve been so worried about you! When Alexander found you he said you were asleep. He thought you were having a kip, he said you looked so peaceful in the rain that he almost laughed. And then he went to wake you and he saw all the blood…you gave him a fright, Love. You gave us all such a fright.”
“But we had a baby!”
“I know about the baby. And I’m sorry, but, yes, she’s gone. I got to see her. I got to hold her. She was so beautiful. Tiny. I could hold her in one hand…” He held his hand palm up and stared at it.
“Do you want one? Did you want that one?” My head was lolling from side to side. “I’m so sorry about her…”
“Silvia, don’t be sorry! You’ve done nothing wrong! I want a baby someday. Sure. With you? A little muffin? Oh, yeah. And if I’d had a choice none of this would have happened and we’d be out picking a cradle for the one that’s gone now,” He looked so earnest it was breaking my heart. A tear was clinging to the tip of his nose, “But more than that I want you. Alive and well. Don’t you understand that I can’t live without you? Don’t you know that I couldn’t get through a day knowing that I was going to come home and you wouldn’t be there?” He sniffed and the tear fell, “I can’t even tell you how much I love you because there are no words…and this… this was just a bad something that happened, Love. It’s the worst something that has ever happened to us, but it’s not the worst thing that could have. Alexander might not have had the thought to drop in on you and you could have lay in that garden and bled to death in the rain. I could’ve lost you!”
“Another bad something happened, Sweetheart.”
“What was that?”
“I killed the good chicken with my car on my way to school.”
He laughed. A tear rolled down the back of my hand as he kissed my knuckles, “I don’t care about any chickens! I care about my wife! We can get more chickens if we like!”
“I lost our baby!” I cried out and, dizzy, fell back on to the bed. Oliver helped steady me, “She died! I saw the blood! Loads and loads of blood! Lady Folia said it was too late! Death has no eyes and no ears, but I yelled at him, I did! I told him to piss off, I did! But there was nothing I could do! Not a thing and I could hear a baby howling and I wasn’t for sure it was ours, it could have been the boon, but Lady Folia didn’t want me to have the experience of losing mine, so she asked the winds to make me sleep…”
“Lady Folia?”
“It’s her name. The Lady of the Wood.” I told him, trying to lift my head, “And the Lord, his name is Lord Copse.”
“Oh, OK,” He said this like he already knew.
“Oliver…they’re real. And you were right, they’re very kind. It’s all real, Sweetie. Life, muffins, The Lord and Lady, the Wood, the winds and Death…I heard them all! I saw Death coming and he made everything a beautiful, terrible blue and I didn’t understand a thing! They were all bigger than me, all the bigger and the stronger of me and I couldn’t even move!”
“OK, Sil. OK. Please settle down! It’s done, Love. It’s done and you’re safe now. ”
“I want a dog!” I wailed suddenly, veering completely off the subject. Oliver grinned. “If I can’t have my muffin, I want a dog! Can we get one?”
“Yes, Love. Oh, yes. Two if you like.”
“No, just the one. I want a Scottish Terrier.”
“OK.”
“And if it’s a girl I want to call her Ivy and if it’s a boy I want to call him Duncan.”
“Of course,” He was laughing softly. He kissed me on the lips, “Whatever you like.”
“And someday, Oliver…someday when it’s right and my body says yes again, I want to make a baby with you,” I was falling asleep “A whole bunch, a basket of muffins…chocolate dipped cherry muffins with a surprise inside that makes each one just who they are…very special muffins, each and every one. I love you, Oliver and I want to bake you muffins…”
“Close your eyes, Love, and go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake.”
“OK. Then when I’m awake, go get me a puppy.” I was incredibly tired, “If I can’t have a muffin then I want a dog…a Scottish one…Scottish like me. And he’ll need a leash. I can’t have him dashing off and getting killed liked the chicken,” My head fell to the side and off my pillow. I was almost asleep before I remembered, “Oh! Do me a favour?”
“Yes?”
“Go and get a wee rattle, the nicest you can find, and put it in the circle for me. Tell Lady Folia and Lord Copse it’s to celebrate their boon and to say thank you. They saved my life, Oliver. I think Alfie got them for me. I’m not sure, but Lady Folia took care of me and Lord Copse fetched Alex. Don’t you think that they didn’t.”
“I know they did. I’ll get you anything you want, Silvia. Absolutely anything you want.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
If someone had told me the day I lost our daughter that happy times would ever come again, I’d have called that person a liar. But they wouldn’t have been lying at all. Headmistress Pennyweather had told us that life could be cruel and downright ugly, but if we kept looking for the thing that made us first know we loved the other and kept finding it, there was nothing we could not get through together. Sometimes things happen in a marriage and those things are big enough to either tear a couple apart or make them ten times as strong. Oliver and I kept searching each other’s eyes when things got tough or ugly. Sometimes it took a little effort, but we always found that spark in each other that we could ignite back into our original passion. We took time for each other. We took time to listen, we took time to care and we took time to let the other one know that they were still top in our heart. Because of that we were stronger than anything that could ever come our way.
