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The blue sky fades out into a rainbow of colours. Most prominently, orange and pink as the sun caught the slowly moving clouds. Holly watches as the inky indigo slowly catches and swallows the other colours. The dark clouds follow behind the indigo as the wind picks up slightly. It blows Holly’s hair in circles around her head. She’s sitting on the ledge of one of Artemis’ windows, watching the leaves be picked up and spun around with the wind. The trees were warm colours of red and yellow, losing their leaves to the stormy gusts of wind. A cool breeze brushes past Holly and she pulls her legs up to her chest and shivers in response. She’s not a fan of the cold but she doesn’t want to get down off the window. A few rooms away, someone, most likely Artemis’ mother is playing the piano. Holly doesn’t recognize the melody, but it’s soft and sweet and makes her feel lonely.
Thunder cracks over the Irish landscape, though there was no lightning forewarning it. The pianist stutters slightly but then resumes playing. Holly flinches but doesn’t move.
A drop of water falls onto the roof slightly below the window. Then another. And another. Holly stays perfectly still as one hits the window sill, centimetres from her feet. She doesn’t flinch as one hits her arm and then her cheek. She dips her head slightly and closes her eyes. The cool wind brushes her face and hands, pushing more raindrops onto the woman and the windowsill. Holly knows she should close the window lest the flooring in Artemis’ room gets wet, but as she listens to the rain and the wind and the piano, she can hardly bring herself to care.
There’s a flash of light that Holly can see through her eyelids and she counts, 1, 2, 3, 4, until the thunder, bone-shaking and deep, roll across the fields and hills. She does not flinch. Neither does the pianist.
Holly opens her eyes and takes another long look at the fields of Fowl manor and the spot in the grass, covered with wild roses that marks his resting place. She had watched the funeral take place from this window sill, several hours ago and the lower half of her body was tight and uncomfortable, but she still didn’t want to move. She hadn’t moved during the funeral, not even to wipe the tears from her face and, maybe, the irrational part of her mind thinks, that if she waits here forever, someday he’ll come back and tell her how nonsensical she’s being. He’ll tell her a fact about the lightning as she stares out at the vast landscape in front of her and she’ll roll her eyes and refuse to admit that she actually did find the fact interesting. Maybe he’ll comment on the music that’s humming in the background, telling her who wrote it and why. She’d listen, even if she didn’t really care or wonder about it, just to hear his voice in her ears again.
The tears that she had refused to cry during the funeral bubbled up and spilled out of her eyes. He’s gone. She can’t roll her eyes at his facts. She can’t listen to him talk about what makes this piano piece so special. She wants to, more than anything right now. The tears from her eyes and the rainwater mingle on her cheek and as they slip down to her lips, she can taste the saltwater diluted by the rain.
Holly sees the lightning this time. Bright white, snaking sharply and jaggedly toward the earth sending shock waves through the air and making it feel charged and full of energy. 1, 2, BOOM. The thunder is louder and the lightning is getting closer. She finally moves. Slipping off the window sill and onto the floor, she closes the window and latches it, but she does not leave the place where she is standing. She’s taller than the ledge, but not much. She watches and listens as the rain hits the window. Another bolt of lightning illuminates the darkened sky and the thunder follows soon after. She does not flinch. The piano keeps singing.
Turning around, Holly can see what little light comes from the entrance and windows of Fowl Manor illuminating the water droplets and patterning them across the bedroom floor. The room glows softly and she is comforted slightly by the warmth that has been restored to her since closing the window. Still, the half of her clothing that was facing the outside is almost soaked. She’s wearing a dress, something she almost never thought she’d do, but she did out of respect for human tradition. It’s black and lacy but covering, falling beneath her knees and having a high neckline. The only people were Foaly, Juliet and Butler, but her regular suit didn’t feel appropriate or sombre enough. Foaly didn’t say anything about it when he saw it, which was unlike him. He had simply hugged her and wished her well. Had it been any other occasion, he might’ve teased her, but he did not.
The wetness of her dress made Holly shiver, so she shuffled slowly to the bathroom and stripped, turning on the water for a bath as had been suggested by her by Juliet after being invited to stay the evening. Juliet had also provided clothing. Some of the twins' clothes that were perhaps a tad small but good enough to sleep in.
While water for the hot water to fill the tub, Holly stared at herself in the slowly fogging up mirror. She’s not sure if she likes what she sees. She’s not sure if it’s important that she likes what she sees. She’s not sure of anything. Turning back to the tub, Holly turns off the tap, turns off the light and steps into the water. The warmth fills her instantly and she sits and listens. The music has since stopped but then resumed again. It’s a new song, played by a slightly more amateurish hand, which led Holly to believe that it was one of the twins playing, but it was no less of a beautiful tune. Despite being in a different room, Holly can still hear the rain crashing against the windows, changing in volume and intensity with the shaky fall wind. The whole world feels calm like Holly is sitting in a bubble. It’s a warm, comforting bubble, but it’s scary and lonely and hopeless. The kind of hopeless she felt when her mother had died. The kind of hopeless she felt when her father had died. The kind of hopeless she had felt on the top of that hill, not too many days ago, when the air was warm and soft and she could not feel it. She could not feel anything. The numbness had consumed her and all she had felt was powerlessness as she cradled her best friend in her arms. As she sobbed and begged for this to not be real life.
But it was real life. It was real and here she was, alone in her bubble, with nowhere to go. The thought of crying over this mudboy would have seemed ridiculous to her not too many years ago, but now it felt as natural as breathing. She felt as though she had lost an extension of herself. That, despite all his faults, the mudboy she had so despised a few years ago was as much a part of her as a leg. She could function without him, certainly, but did she want to? Ask younger her and this would be a victory. Present-day her was not so sure.
The heat and steam from the bath made the air dense and strangely difficult to breathe as Holly gasped through sobs. The desperation and sadness slipped from her mind to her heart and then to her entire body and it felt as though she was truly in pain. She felt on fire and like shivering. She had read stories of people who climbed that loss can hurt like a wound but never had she believed them. Never had she thought they were more than fairy tales meant to ensnare people who believed that life without one person was not worth living. And yet still, her heart and her body were at war for what was in the most pain.
After a while, the piano music once again stopped and Holly took that as her cue to leave the bath at last. Her fingers and palms were wrinkled and punish, but as she dried herself off, she could hardly bring herself to care. The numbness had started to set in once more.
Slipping into the clothes left for her, Holly stepped out into the bedroom and shivered at the coolness. Despite the continued silence from the piano, the rain had not let up. Occasionally, there was a short, quiet burst of sound that was remarkably similar to faraway thunder, but there was no way to know. Instead of going back to her perch at the window, Holly instead crawled onto Artemis’ bed and snuggled deeply into the covers, letting the warmth and the down envelop her. She took a deep breath and was grateful when she could smell the faint scent of Artemis, of citrus shampoo and deodorant, of the times they had hugged and had been nearly hesitant to let go.
Watching the lights cast shadows of raindrops across the bedspread, Holly heard the piano pick up again. This time, she recognized the tune. It had been one of his favourites. She couldn’t remember who had written, but she had remembered it as an ode to a lost lover. At the time, Holly had been surprised at how sentimental he had gotten while talking about it, but it had become her favourite as well, despite not knowing much about the piano. Holly let herself pretend for a moment that it was him who was playing the piano and slowly, enveloped the warmth and the soft rain and the piano music, Holly drifted off into a deep sleep.