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What remained of Alicia had been rushed to the hospital, what remained of Verso had been carried to the morgue, and what remained of their family hid itself away in an apartment they kept in the city while the carcass of their manor was examined by the police. Not too long after, Verso was buried, and Alicia was brought home to be entombed in her room for in-house care. The walls still smelled of smoke, and a fire still burned in Clea’s heart. Her mother cried tears enough to douse any flame, tragically too late. Her father stayed by his wife’s side. Clea stayed away from her childhood home, in search of vengeance.
She was only drawn back to the source of her broken heart when she learned that no-one stayed by Alicia.
The girl had been tended to by nurses and a doctor, but her condition was so dire they began to doubt her survival. She had often been left alone, unconscious and drunk on ether, swaddled in ointments and bandages and her bedclothes. Renoir had sat by her bedside a couple of nights, reading old fairytales; Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty. But he was always called back to his wife or to continue talks with the Council at Clea’s insistence.
“We don’t think she will last until spring.” The doctor had told them. “And even if she does her life will be short, ugly, and painful.” Renoir had railed against this, insisting that “She must! She must! She must!” But it was all bark with very little bite. Aline said nothing. She was already grieving one child, so she was perfectly primed to grieve another.
Clea’s hand was forced, continue her hunt for the ones who had killed her younger brother and allow her last remaining sibling to die, or...
She found herself thinking of her brother – she always was – but her mind fixated on his past actions that shaped their present more than reminiscing on the faded afterimage of what came before that. She couldn’t fathom running back into a burning building to save anyone. She saw the fire, its heat, its height. There was only death waiting for anyone inside. When they had realized Alicia was not among those that had escaped she was already accepted as lost, and no matter how much their parents had cried out neither of them ran back in either.
Verso had surpassed them all.
Could she do no better?
Clea entered the room where the fading ember of her sister’s life waited. She watched what was left of her sleeping face. The doctor had only left one eye unwrapped, and as Clea leaned over the unlit funeral pyre that was her sister’s bed, that eye opened to reveal its still silvery pearl nestled in bloodshot veins, watching back half conscious; though with still a glimmer of recognition even through the dulling power of the drugs that kept her from crying throughout the night.
Alicia cried then, silent thick hot tears that stained her bandages as she continued to stare up at her older sister. She never broke her gaze. She was still alive.
Clea learned how to apply ointment and wrap gauze, from both observation and whatever books on the matter she could find. She sat by Alicia’s bed every night and sometimes she would read to her, though instead of fairy tales she read from her books on myth; The Poetic Edda, Le Mort d’Arthur, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She started preparing her sister’s food and spoon feeding her when the nurses had decided that the disfigured dying girl wasn’t their problem anymore.
When what was left of Alicia’s hair had grown out, Clea trimmed the burnt ends, and she brushed those short copper waves until they were burnished to a healthy shine, making sure never to pull on her sister’s tender scalp.
Renoir hardly checked in on Alicia so long as he was preoccupied with the Council or Aline or his business dealings. Aline hardly left her room at all, and a maid often brought her dinner and then left with the half empty plates.
Soon Alicia started to make demands. She would grunt in discomfort if Clea was a bit too rough with the sponge baths, would point weakly to the glass of water she wanted a drink from, had mimed for more blueberries in her yogourt.
“Use your words.” Clea had told her.
But they eventually found out that her voice had been fully taken by the fire along with so much else.
Alicia was soon healed enough to not need the bandages. Her right eye was forever lost, and she still needed the ether from time to time.
When the doctor and nurses slunk their way back to the sickroom to see the progress made without their help, they started instructing Alicia and by extension Clea on basic exercises to get her walking on her own feet again. Clea was there as support, and she and Alicia would bicker on whether they were walking too fast or too slow on their daily circuit around the room. It felt so familiar, almost like their past fights, as if death didn’t haunt their every step.
Then Alicia started to sit up and read on her own, and Clea got some of her evenings back.
Her sister had overcome the spring, and her existence pushed through into summer. She basked like a cat in the morning sunlight that streamed through her bedroom window. Clea had not yet seen her smile, but in the times that they would sit together after a check up she felt that Alicia was remembering what it was like to feel content, even if it was still overshadowed by the sorrow that afflicted their whole family.
Renoir was aglow when he saw how much progress his star had made, and he cooed with love and joy. Though she would never look the same, her face bereft of the constellation of freckles he loved to kiss, and one less eye to sparkle prettily when she looked up at him, he still embraced her like she had never changed. He hugged her so tight the poor girl wheezed with discomfort and Clea had to coax him off of her.
“You’ve done so well.” He murmured, not wanting to raise his voice lest his daughters hear it crack from emotion.
It all bode well. Alicia amassed more support from their father as she got stronger, and Clea’s hard work would develop into her freedom to unleash her fury upon the Writers. She would bring up her intentions over dinner – the final hurdle that Clea hoped would bind what remained of the Dessendres in this recovery – once the whole family greeted their wounded fledgling.
But as they entered the dining hall with Alicia among them for the first time, Aline’s reception did not echo her husband’s. She looked up from where she had nestled herself off to the side in an armchair next to the fireplace. Clea had never seen her mother look so tired, but as her eyes alighted on her youngest something other than fatigue settled on her features.
A mounting horror.
Renoir was at his wife’s side immediately, telling her that they would be having dinner together soon.
As Aline stood her stare faltered to the point that she would look anywhere but at her youngest.
“I can’t.” She said, and shook her head, her eyes locked on her husband’s chest as he held her tenderly by the shoulders. “No, I can’t be here.” She said. She pulled away from him, from all of them, and she glided across the floor towards the doorway. “I’ll take my dinner in the bedroom.” She walked even faster as she passed Clea and Alicia, not hearing her eldest daughter calling after her in frustration and confusion.
Renoir shook his head and took off after her at a swift hobble, but he slowed to tell his two daughters to go ahead and get seated without their parents, that they would be down for dinner soon.
They were left at the table for an hour before Renoir returned alone.
“She’s not feeling well.” He told them with a solemn shake of his head. “You both can understand.” Alicia seemed to understand more than even he did. She ate sparingly and then told them, through Clea’s interpretation that she would like to return to her room.
Clea escorted her sister back, but she didn’t linger. Before her father could disappear into the master bedroom she had to grab hold of his ear, talk to him about how they should amass resources and allies on the Painters Council to attack the Writers. She could not do it without him. Aline could have some sway as the head of the Council, but that authority was already being put into question by the other members.
No one could doubt the financial authority of Renoir Dessendre. It was what secured their family firmly with three seats between them.
But he balked.
“We will talk about this later, when your mother is ready to return to the Council.”
“They’ve already killed one of us and disabled another!” Clea snapped at him. “How long should we give them? Until they take me? You? Her??”
“They will take you if you continue to bite at them.” Her father said with a strike of his cane. “I’ve already been over this with the Council. They recommend discourse over combat.”
“When have you done this??” Clea said, taken aback.
“When you were tending to your sister.” Renoir said. Weariness had crept further into his voice and he kept glancing down the hall towards the back of the manor, where his wife waited in their bedroom. “All your attention with her gave us time to broker a deal with the rest of the Council; protection, resources, extra bodies to keep an eye on things.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You were busy with delicate work.” He meant this sincerely, lovingly, complimentary. “Continue this work. It’s better for you.”
She could tell that he wanted to hug her out of thanks, but knew better. Instead he squeezed her shoulder before leaving her behind. All she could do was watch him go in aggravated silence.
Clea let her delicate work fall to the wayside after that, resentful of the role she had been lead into. She turned her attention to gathering information, names. She had already interrogated Alicia in between all her past care, and she would finally corroborate what she was able to delicately extract from those precious scarred fingers.
Then not even a week later Aline went into Verso’s old Canvas, and she didn’t return for a whole day.
Renoir followed her.
Alicia hid herself in her room.
And it was Clea’s turn to be abandoned.
She missed her brother.
She hadn’t a moment to properly mourn him, and what should have been sadness had mutated into a writhing mass of red hot resentment that coiled itself around her heart. With not a moment to breathe she felt like she was the one who had died choking on smoke, except her torture was unending.
She found herself thinking bitterly about his sacrifice.
It was so easy to die.
Even more easy to die heroically.
The final work complete to perfection.
What of the living still scarred within and without?
They had no choice but to continue on.
So Clea continued, ever faced with the imperfection of her life, that gaping hole, that smoking wreckage.
She did what she must.