Work Text:
All Lenore felt was cold.
It wasn’t biting, stinging, not like the way Annabel’s icy fingers had been at the widows watch, the way that despite the blistering cold of her touch, her heart had still beat then. But the only sound Annabel made now was silence. And the only cold Lenore felt was numb.
Her Annie.
Her dear Annie.
She wished her limbs would do something , that the pain of agonizing loss hadn’t turned her to stone. She wished that even if she couldn’t bring Annabel back, she could give her body a better final resting place than this dank cellar. The scent of the tepid water was cloying, dragging her deeper with every breath, and it was all she could do to keep Annabel against her, to keep her face pointed skyward.
Her fingers slipped against the limp locks of Annabel’s hair, god how she had loved her hair, silky locks that sprung away from her touch as she spun them around her finger. Even here, in this dreaded academy, she had idled her hands in the comforting motion, what felt like lifetimes ago in that dusty closet. Now the long strands were bedraggled, sticking to her skin and wrapping around her wrists like a vice, tethering the two of them together, the way they were meant to be.
Why had she ever allowed them to be separated in this dreaded place?
Why had she not stayed by Annabel’s side?
Her wife’s side?
Annabel had been her wife, her dear Annie, her angel from heaven. And yet here she was, every promise Lenore had made broken the same way Annabel was. The thought wrought a gutteral sob out of her.
She was the one who brought me back to life, long before I ever died.
The words rang in her head, a crescendo that left her hollow.. Annabel had been her reason to live, and how had she repaid her? By throwing her to the ground, her last words to her said in anger?
She didn’t deserve to live any longer. Not with how she could treat the only person that would love her unconditionally, with how she could betray the love of her life.
I don’t want a new life if you’re not in it.
In that stupid closet, god Lenore would give anything to go back to that closet, to sneeze as the dust kicked up when Annabel pressed her against the shelves, to embrace Annabel’s warm living body, no to cradle her against her own. To lavish her in affections she deserved more than any other person in the world.
Annabel hadn’t wanted a new life without her, and she didn’t deserve one if even in this purgatory she couldn’t keep the promises she had made.
Water splashed against her back, voices ringing in the cavernous walls, but nothing could pull her from her reveries. From Annabel.
She pulled Annabel’s right hand from the water, the one that she had placed that flower ring upon. Her fingers were stiff, unyielding as Lenore cradled her palm, expecting that familiar glint of silver as she pressed a kiss to her knuckles a final time.
Her hand was bare.
Lenore swore her eyes were deceiving her, brushing her thumb over each finger, slow and reverent.
Her hand was truly bare.
She supposed it was fitting. The proof of her vows to Annabel gone, she’d broken the promise anyway. But still, she felt her heart drop to her toes knowing it was missing. She could hardly envision Annabel without it, it was an extension of her at this point, as emblematic of who she was as the way she did her curls. Though those were gone too.
It was unfair, for Annabel, her Annie, to be robbed of her personhood in death. To no longer retain the traits that made her her as the life bled out of her.
And with a sudden pop, her Annabel was gone. Whatever control she had over her muscles, whatever desire to keep Annabel cradled against her that gave her the strength to keep going, fell away, and she keeled over front first into the water with a deafening splash. Though the water was hardly deep enough to break her fall, her cheek scraping the stone floors beneath and bruising on the impact, the burn of pain the only warmth left in Lenore, and that faded quickly.
The water was murky, stinging her eyes as she rolled to stare up at the ceiling. She wondered if Annabel had gazed up at the ceiling before she took her last breath, not that she could have seen it through the dark. A deep guttural sound dragged out of her with the thought, a sound she didn’t have the energy to even name, echoing in the cavernous depths.
Shadows flickered against the wall, lit by a blinding eerie light, one that rested just within reach of Lenore’s fingers.
Oh .
A shimmering orb, faintly veined with pinks and blues, hovering right there.
Annabel .
A sudden fire surged through Lenore, her nails clawing at the stones beneath her, nails catching and splitting with the effort. Surely Annabel’s ring hadn’t gone far. Surely it was here . Surely she could find it, hold it close to her heart as she let fate take her. Be it Berenice’s knife or the rising water levels drowning her, she would never leave this place. Even if her body did, she’d leave her soul, her will to live, the most innate piece of her behind.
Sharp pain split through her fingers, blood trailing through the murky water as she ran her fingers with ragged abandon across the stones, hoping that the very next divot, the next bump, the next irregularity in the brickwork would be that familiar ring, catching on her fingers and staying there, lodged just above the second knuckle.
Surely she would find it. If anything good was left in this world, she would at least find the damned ring. If she couldn’t have her Annie, if she couldn’t have her love, if she could never feel her warm velvet lips against her own, then she could at least hold onto that ring. The one that witnessed the fire of her love and drowned with the depths of Annabel’s.
Though perhaps without Annabel, there was nothing good left at all.