The Gargoyle

XXXII.

Vast and black, the ocean stretched away from the shore until its horizon disappeared into the night. I spoke with as much gentleness as I could manage. “I know you believe that story is true, Marianne. But it’s not.”

She looked down into the sand. Her breath caught in her throat, then came rushing out in a confession. “Our baby didn’t survive.”

She looked up, out over the ocean, and then back down at the sand again.

“When I woke up the child was…”

She covered her face with her hands; it was clear she could not look at me.

“Just gone,” she said. “As if I had never been pregnant, as if God’s hand had reached into my womb and pulled out my child as punishment.”

“You can’t believe that.”

“I try not to. I try-I want to believe that it was a mercy. That the baby…” Her voice was so soft that I could barely make out the words. “That the baby died because of the freezing water, and God removed the child from me so I wouldn’t have to confront the truth in the living world.”

“If you believe in God,” I said, restraining my natural inclination to add that I didn’t, “you should also believe in His kindness.”

“I’ve always wanted to believe it was a mercy,” she went on, weeping. “If it was a punishment, that would be too much.”

“Marianne, there was no-”

“Our child did not survive,” she insisted. “This is not a thing that one forgets, no matter how old one lives to be.”

I knew better than to keep trying to convince her it was only her imagination. This was another argument that I simply could not win.

It was clear that she was not speaking to me, but for herself, when she added, “It was a mercy, it had to be. It had to be.”

Since I could not persuade her this medieval child had never existed, I decided to concentrate on our current lives.

“You’re not going to die, Marianne. There are no Three Masters.”

“All my hearts are gone.”

“Feel this.” I took her hand in my own, and I pressed it to her chest. “Your heart is still beating.”

“For now. What comes next depends on you.” She looked out over the ocean for a few moments before finally whispering, even though the nearest people were dozens of yards down the beach, “Do you remember what you said when I was leaving Brother Heinrich’s house before the mercenaries arrived? You promised that our love would not end.”

I remained silent, not wanting to encourage her, as she pulled her arrowhead necklace up over her head. “This has always been yours, and someday you’ll know what to do with it.”

“I don’t want it,” I said.

She pressed it into my hand anyway. “I’ve kept it all this time so that I could return it to you. It will protect you.”

I could tell she would not let me refuse it, so I took it. But so she would not think that I was endorsing her story, I said, “Marianne, I don’t believe this was ever blessed by Father Sunder.”

She leaned her head into the crook of my shoulder and said, “You’re a wonderful liar.”

And then she asked a question she had never asked before.

“Do you love me?”

Our bodies were pressed into each other, our chests touching. I’m certain she could feel my heart racing. My birth-scar was against the place where, under her sweater, she had carved my name into her breast.

Do you love me?

I had never admitted aloud to anything more than “caring” for her. I had rationalized that she knew the truth without my speaking it. But really, I was just a coward.

“Yes.”

For so long, I had wanted to confess myself.

“Yes. I love you.”

It was time to stop failing her, so I brushed back the wild cords of her hair and poured out the words that had been in the crucible of my heart, becoming pure, since the first moment I had met her.

“I spent my entire life waiting for you, Marianne, and I didn’t even know it until you arrived. Being burned was the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought you. I wanted to die but you filled me with so much love that it overflowed and I couldn’t help but love you back. It happened before I even knew it and now I can’t imagine not loving you. You have said that it takes so much for me to believe anything, but I do believe. I believe in your love for me. I believe in my love for you. I believe that every remaining beat of my heart belongs to you, and I believe that when I finally leave this world, my last breath will carry your name. I believe that my final word-Marianne-will be all I need to know that my life was good and full and worthy, and I believe that our love will last forever.”

There was a moment in which we just held each other, and then she stood up and began walking towards the ocean. She peeled off her clothing as she went and the moonlight made her skin seem all the whiter. By the time she reached the water she was entirely nude, ghostly in her pale brilliance. There she turned and faced me for a moment, under stars that sparkled like frost through the bitter cold; she stood as if trying to memorize what I looked like, looking back at her.

“See?” Marianne said. “You do have God.”

She turned away from me and waded calmly into the ocean. The water climbed up her legs and back, and soon it shrouded the tattooed wings inked into the alabaster of her skin. She leaned forward and began to stroke out into the vastness of the ocean, her black mess of hair trailing behind.

I didn’t do anything but watch her move away from me until, at last, the waves swallowed the whiteness of her shoulders.

After a quarter hour Bougatsa began to howl terribly and turned in agitated circles, imploring me to do something. But I just sat there. So he ran into the tide, ready to swim, until I called him back. I knew the water was too cold and it was already too late. He trusted me enough to do as I said, but he whimpered as he lay at my feet. Still, his eyes remained hopeful. It was as though he believed that if only he waited long enough, eventually you would come wading back to us, out of the ocean.