Her Hair Is Fire

The world is wild around her, and her hair is fire. Her voice is the wind screaming through the valley, just as she did as she bled upon the parlour floor.

The world is dark around Lucien, but her hair is fire.

She burns with unnatural fury. The trees glow red with her flames. The grass is scorched where she walks.

He has followed her to this point. She’d been calling him, on the midnight breeze and the rushing of the rivers. He has followed her, and now the journey is done. It is done.

Her hair is fire.

He wants to touch it but is afraid of being burned. His hand hangs beside him. The silver chain of her locket is wound tightly round his fingers.

Her fire dances and grows. Her flames roar against the howl of the wind. The night is singing to her, but she is screaming.

“Mary?”

The name is unfamiliar to him now, his tongue is stiff with years of not saying it. But it is her name.

There is blood on her dress. Bright scarlet spilling down the silk. There was blood on the parlour floor, and it dripped up the stairs as they carried her. He wasn’t allowed to touch her.

“Mary?”

No fire could warm her. Her skin was cold as she shivered in the night. The blood on the stairs, it was too much. Too much lost. Too much.

She is wilder than the forest around her. She is something more now. Something he cannot understand.

Her husband had shed little tears, and those he did were for appearance only. He lies in the cold earth now, buried deep beneath a broken headstone next to his second wife, the woman he married too soon after Mary’s death. He’d deserved every moment of pain.

“Mary, I’m here.”

Lucien had loved her. Loves her.

The son she died for, the son whose wails could not stir her, was his. Is his. With her weak breaths she’d asked Lucien what the wailing boy was called. He’d replied, “Gael.” Gael, named after the wind that carries the calls of the dead.

He touches the fire of her hair. His fingers burn, his skin blisters. He does not care.

She will not face him.

The journey is over, but for what? Why has she brought him here? To the edge of the world.

He takes her bloodied hand. Her skin is cold as clay. So cold.

“Lucien?”

A new voice on the wind. He can name it.

“Why am I here, Mary? What do you want from me?”

The moon cannot compete with the brilliance of her fire.

“Mary, please.”

He had begged her then as well. Kneeling beside her bed, he had begged her not to leave. He had begged her all night. He held her hand, he kissed her forehead, he whispered prayers his grandmother had taught him. He begged the old gods of the fire and smoke, bark and moss, dirt and blood. He felt her life slip through his fingers as the midnight breeze took her voice.

“Lucien!”

The other voice. The other name. He wants to answer, but knows that if he does, he will lose her fire.

“My love, you will drive me mad.”

Her fingers slip from his. Her fire is dimming. Her hair stops dancing. Her voice screams through the valley below them.

“Why are you here, my love? Why?”

She will not answer him. She will not face him. She will not speak to him.

“Lucien!”

He turns towards the other voice, the midnight wind blowing his dark hair across his face.

The figure moves towards him. She glows with the fire she has trapped in a lantern.

“What is his name?”

“Who?”

“Our son. What is his name, my love. What is his name?”

He keeps his gaze on the approaching figure. He can feel her cold eyes on him. She is something he cannot understand now. He doesn’t want to understand her. He cannot look into her eyes. He will not.

Spindly fingers curl round his wrist. There is no flesh. Her jaws cracks as she speaks, her cold clay lips slow to remember how to form words.

“What is his name?”

“Gael. His name is Gael.” Lucien closes his eyes.

“Kiss me.”

He opens his eyes. The figure is closer, their trapped fire glowing brighter. “Why?”

“Kiss me.”

He turns to her.

She takes his hand, lifts it to her sunken cheek.

He’d kissed her one last time before they took her to be buried. One last time whilst her lips were still warm. He remembers that kiss and kisses her now.

She is cold. She tastes of dirt and all the foul things of the earth. Her teeth cut his mouth. Hot blood bubbles onto his tongue. Her cheek sinks further under his touch.

“Lucien.”

He opens his eyes. Before him stretches the darkness of the night. He turns to face the figure, the other voice, the other name. His wife. Delilah.

“You’re bleeding.” She pulls her handkerchief out. Hands it to him.

He takes it but leaves the blood.

“I thought I saw someone with you,” Delilah says.

“There was no one. I was alone.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Listening to the wind.”

He turns back to the valley below him.

Her voice is the wind screaming through the valley, just as she screamed as she bled upon the parlour floor.