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Will can’t say he’s close to Annabel; in fact, he can’t say they’ve ever had a proper conversation, sat down and talked an’ all that, in all the time they’ve known each other. Will can’t say much at all.
But occasionally, they’ll be walking in a group, him an’ Monty, Annabel and Prospero and Ada, and one of the others will say something to Annabel, sometimes Ada fishing for a shred of a smile or a noncommittal ‘hmm’, sometimes Prospero patiently putting out his snide observations for Annabel’s austere input, sometimes Monty with his provoking drawl and his witty remarks, and they’ll be met with silence. That’s when Will looks up from his scuffed shoes and over at Annabel, fidgeting with her curls or her dress or her petticoat, and her eyes will be glazed over from beneath prim lashes, and he’ll squint to see something small and raw contained within them, and they’ll be looking away from them, fixed on something in the distance.
That’s when Will follows her unseeing gaze to find a tall, brash figure, shod in pitch black uniform, hair wild.
Sometimes Lenore flaunts in the shadows; sometimes, she leans back against the calloused bark of an unforgiving pine, fluently spinning a pen between her fingers. Always, she is with her group. They cluster like ravens, Pluto shielding himself from the sun, Duke draped against his shoulder contentedly, Morella weaving a daisy-less chain. Berenice, braiding Eulalie’s hair.
And that’s when Will frowns, each time, because don’t they hate each other to bits and all? Why would Annabel spend so much darn time looking at Lenore, not a frown in sight?
And then Will turns back to his boots, dented and scraped from another life, and he’ll force himself to ponder furiously on something else, what he should write next in his journal, what mad plan Annabel and Monty’ll come up with next, anything else, anything to stop the something in him that recognises that look in Annabel’s eyes. The something in him that always notices, and somehow knows, and finally understands that small, raw glint in Annabel’s expression when she looks over at Lenore and only Lenore, that no one else notices and no one else knows, and no one else will ever understand.
It’s like how he looks at Montresor.
And it isn’t hatred.
It isn’t close to hatred.