Page 52 of Adam, Mine

Inside he felt . . .

It was like there was a cavern inside him where there should be warmth. Like there always had been, but he just didn’t know. And Willem had been the first to open Victor’s chest, light a candle, and look around.

It was a terrible thing to be judged and found wanting.

Victor fantasized about an alternate reality in which he’d never let Gregor’s goading get the best of him. Where he kept his head down, graduated, met Fitz at the pub and been connected with Willem that way.

He would have come by train instead of ship and been welcomed into Willem’s home under the recommendation of a respected friend. Could have tended the geese without Willem fearing for their lives. Could have learned to knit, learned about Willem’s currents.

Had long nights beside him in front of the fire, talking and inventing together.

He would feel Willem’s hands on his back or in his hair or at his feet and not worry about whether he deserved it.

He would not be as he is now. Wretched and damaged, cold, and shivering, at the bottom of a boat.

And even in the deepest contemplation of his pain, he could still hear Willem’s words. Flavored with laughter and the air of inevitability: Crying for yourself. Perhaps . . . you will have learned how to cry for Elias, too.

Fade

Victor put himself to rights in England. Cut his hair as short as propriety would allow, traded his waterlogged clothes for English wool suiting. Sent letters to his family with his location, assuring them of his well-being and informing them that future mail for him could be sent to this address.

He picked a hotel with running water, at incredible expense, and stayed for two days, preparing to go back out into the world again. Victor needed to remind himself of who he was.

He drank good wine and ate beef pies, neither as bright and flavorful as Willem’s hearty stew. Took long hours in the bath soaking his skin, healed it with balms. Lying in rapidly cooling water with his eyes closed. Getting used to the steady ache in his chest.

In the daytime, he looked at his body in the mirror. It had been almost a month and he could already see changes. The muscle he’d put on from his crimes in the night had begun to whittle down.

His arms looked soft; his hands were rougher than they’d been when he’d had them immersed in soft water and disinfectants.

He was paler than he should be, weaker than he’d ever been.

Somme

Trains were louder and taller than Elias could ever have dreamed. They reminded him of when he first stood next to a horse as a child, staring up miles of leg into a dark face that snorted at him in pillars of steam.

He had been told when he had to transfer and given the appropriate tickets. He could not sleep the entire time he was riding so he could listen for the shout of the station name. He could not pull information from the signs as they passed by.

Inside the train was like many rich men’s couches all in rows: high-backed booths facing each other, plush red cotton, and gleaming golden wood. Men, women, and children, all strangers to each other, crammed together.

People in cities knew how to avoid each other’s gaze in a way that Elias struggled with. He kept accidentally lingering on faces and receiving either looks of contempt or the confusion of seeking recognition. So Elias sat, with Franz’s bag on his lap, as close as he could to the train doors and kept his eyes closed.

The ride was long. He had time to think.

Elias did not know Victor’s family. How it was shaped. If he had siblings or grandparents. But he felt the loss of his own like a hole torn in his side and knew Victor must be made to match.

Elias would never be able to go home.

He was the man who killed for desire and the man who killed for justice all in one. Exile and life exchange and penance. His hands shook at the thought of righteous blood, and he clenched them tight to stop it.

Even if he turned around now and got on a train back home, bought a horse, and rode it to his village. The people he knew would look on him in recognition and it would damn them.

They lived now soothed with the knowledge that they had driven a dangerous creature from their midst. His return would haunt them with the revelation that they had failed an innocent. Wronged him deeply.

The cycle would begin. He would be owed retribution; people would fear his revenge. Even if he pushed that away and tried to reintegrate, their guilt would shift to resentment and resentment to suspicion and finally to hatred until justice was settled. Or he was removed again completely.

And what justice could he mete out against a whole community to satisfy them? What penance could he accept with grief in his heart at receiving it?

Elias could not bear the thought of the pain his return would bring to his family. Yes, they might cry with joy at his return at first, but the memories of their shouting at him and terror would stalk their nights and days. He could not close his eyes without seeing his sisters shrieking and his mother turning to hide her face in his father’s chest.